Street Art, The Law, Advertising, The City

I finally had the chance to read Alison Young's Street Art, Public City: Law Crime and the Urban Imagination. Its a wonderfully researched investigation into the legal barriers broken by situational art in public space and how those transgression can envision an alternative city or way of being. For me it pins a lot of the same tactics discussed in Property Outlaws: How Squatters, Pirates, and Protesters Improve the Law of Ownership by Sonia Katyal, on street and graffiti writers, which I have always felt appropriate. For anyone interested in street art and its politics beyond the image, this book is a must read.

Upon speaking to a PhD Student in London, I also found my way to a very interesting paper by Anne M. Cronin entitled "Advertising and the metabolism of the city: urban space, commodity rhythms". This paper is the first I have come across that looks beyond a textual critique of advertising in outdoor space and instead looks at the ways in which it shapes the city and its inhabitants by co-opting the rhythms of public movement. I can't recommend this short paper enough to anyone who is interested in understanding how the very presence of commercial media in public space regardless of the specific messages, can cause a change in our social behavior and link us closer to the cycles of commodity consumption. Download [HERE]