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Shadowplay: liberation and exhilaration in cities at night

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSNChapter

Published
Publication date26/01/2017
Host publicationSensory arts and design
EditorsIan Heywood
Place of PublicationLondon
PublisherBloomsbury Academic
Pages31-48
Number of pages18
ISBN (print)9781474280198
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Publication series

NameSensory Studies Series
PublisherBloomsbury

Abstract

Architecture is often understood to be the concrete facts of the urban landscape, however, this essay suggests that darkness recasts our built environment and senses away from the visual. During nocturnal hours transition and time in our cities becomes elastic and foggy, distinct in many ways from the space and place of everyday life. To go out into the night is a decisive act since it reaffirms our multi-sensory relationships with our immediate environment. Walking is therefore positioned as an inscriptive practice, being not only a primary measure of space but also reawakening the palimpsest of the urban landscape. This essay draws upon ideas concerning spatial practices and extensive personal experience in order to contribute to the understanding of the anthropology of the nocturnal city. It will seek to elucidate on the on-going entanglement that occurs at the boundaries of body and urban landscape; day and night; space and materiality.