Student Voices

The Ordinary vs. The Spectacular

In this essay, Maggie Farwig, a student at Indiana University, considers the ways in which screens manifest in the practices of everyday life in both ordinary and spectacular ways, creating both connections and disconnections and blurring relations between public and private.

The Screen City and the Absence of Choice

In this essay, Calvin Badger, a student at Indiana University, analyzes the extent to which individuals can express agency vis a vis public screens in Shanghai and Hong Kong, considering the ways in which those screens are bound up with relations of power in the city.

The Use of Enchantment in Shanghai and Hong Kong

In this essay, Naomi Farahan, a student at Indiana University, analyzes ways in which public screens in Shanghai and Hong Kong work as forms of enchantment, questioning precisely for whom this enchantment is intended.

Light Wins: Commercial Placemaking and Public Screens

In this essay, Kyle Winkel, a student at Indiana University, considers the ways in which advertisers utilize light art and technology as a way to captivate increasingly desensitized passerby in public screen spectacles in urban Hong Kong.

Shiny Diversions

In this essay, Myalisa Miroballi, a student at Indiana University, discusses the ways in which screen culture pervades the streets of Hong Kong and Shanghai in ways that constitute the cities as aspirational global consumer hubs.

Public Screen Culture in Modern Hong Kong

In this essay, Cara Singell, a student at Indiana University, discusses the varying degrees of "publicness" of contemporary public screens in Hong Kong, suggesting that screens vary from "partially-obsolete publicness," "semi-publicness," to "true/pure publicness."

The Spectacle of Screen Environments

In this essay, Kyle McClarney, a student at Indiana University, explores the ways in which public screens become "integrated spectacles" in their environments in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Ruins, Representation, and the Right to the City

In “Ruins, Representation and the Right to the City,” Spencer Cunningham provides a deft summary of the ongoing discussion surrounding the redevelopment of the City of Detroit, exploring the aesthetics (or, rather, the aestheticization) of the city’s urban ruins, and the contradictory forces of gentrification that continue into the present day.