Architectural Fictions

I first encountered the images in my neighborhood in North Brooklyn, on billboards posted next to construction sites or in the windows of pop-up realty storefronts. This imagery is ubiquitous in “up-and-coming” urban neighborhoods. Empty lots are digitally metamorphosed into gleaming glass condos a...

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Main Author: Amy Herzog
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago 2013-04-01
Series:Semiotic Review
Subjects:
Online Access:https://semioticreview.com/sr/index.php/srindex/article/view/26
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author Amy Herzog
author_facet Amy Herzog
author_sort Amy Herzog
collection DOAJ
description I first encountered the images in my neighborhood in North Brooklyn, on billboards posted next to construction sites or in the windows of pop-up realty storefronts. This imagery is ubiquitous in “up-and-coming” urban neighborhoods. Empty lots are digitally metamorphosed into gleaming glass condos and retail arcades. These virtual constructs are often populated by uncanny figures, pixelated people engaged in a range of activities (talking on cell phones, carting small children or armloads of shopping bags). The pictured environments are eerily sterile, presenting a stark model of the future “developed” city, and of its inhabitants.   I’ve found myself haunted by these visualizations, in particular by their deployment of these tiny “cut out people.” What follows is my attempt to think through the embodied implications of this disembodied aesthetic, one that has connections to digital cinema and video game technology, but that extends this imagery into often under-theorized realms.
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spelling doaj-art-b7282f91b1e94b3aaec41d20d2e37afd2025-08-20T02:46:06ZengDepartment of Anthropology, University of ChicagoSemiotic Review3066-81072013-04-01110.71743/frjsqj42Architectural FictionsAmy Herzog I first encountered the images in my neighborhood in North Brooklyn, on billboards posted next to construction sites or in the windows of pop-up realty storefronts. This imagery is ubiquitous in “up-and-coming” urban neighborhoods. Empty lots are digitally metamorphosed into gleaming glass condos and retail arcades. These virtual constructs are often populated by uncanny figures, pixelated people engaged in a range of activities (talking on cell phones, carting small children or armloads of shopping bags). The pictured environments are eerily sterile, presenting a stark model of the future “developed” city, and of its inhabitants.   I’ve found myself haunted by these visualizations, in particular by their deployment of these tiny “cut out people.” What follows is my attempt to think through the embodied implications of this disembodied aesthetic, one that has connections to digital cinema and video game technology, but that extends this imagery into often under-theorized realms. https://semioticreview.com/sr/index.php/srindex/article/view/26architectureratsBrooklynurban developmentrendering
spellingShingle Amy Herzog
Architectural Fictions
Semiotic Review
architecture
rats
Brooklyn
urban development
rendering
title Architectural Fictions
title_full Architectural Fictions
title_fullStr Architectural Fictions
title_full_unstemmed Architectural Fictions
title_short Architectural Fictions
title_sort architectural fictions
topic architecture
rats
Brooklyn
urban development
rendering
url https://semioticreview.com/sr/index.php/srindex/article/view/26
work_keys_str_mv AT amyherzog architecturalfictions