Dark matters : a manifesto for the nocturnal city
- Submitting institution
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The University of Lancaster
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 233406714
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
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- Publisher
- Zero Books
- ISBN
- 9781782797487
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- November
- Year of publication
- 2016
- URL
-
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- This single-authored book is the first to question the long-held negative associations of darkness through which cities at night are typically perceived in the West. It was developed alongside several hundred nightwalks conducted by the author from January 2014 to January 2016. Applying a unique combination of autoethnography, spatial practices and critical theory it presents an original framing for the urban night, it provides a new research agenda, connecting across architecture, art, geography, literature and philosophy. The scale and scope of this endeavour has led it to being a reference work for scholars working on nocturnal cities and related topics.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This monograph examines the significance of nocturnal urban environments in the face of late capitalism. The research takes an interdisciplinary mixed methods approach, integrating autoethnography, spatial practices and critical theory to investigate three key themes: walking as a cultural practice; the politics of space; and the right to the city. A major intellectual contribution of the work is in setting out an emerging research agenda, connecting across architecture, art, geography, literature and philosophy. It contributes to profound debate about how cities at night are designed in the future, challenging prevailing concepts of the urban night as an extension of the daytime city to be managed and controlled.
This novel research provides a new reading of the nocturnal city as a time and place for creativity to flourish. Reconsidering work by key theorists and philosophers, it presents an original framing for the urban night as a place of temporary sanctuary from ongoing processes of commoditisation by late capitalism. By offering new perspectives via creative encounters, experiences of the urban night are demonstrated to question the long-held negative associations of darkness through which cities at night are largely perceived in the West. In this way, the research provides a new understanding of the urban night that has led to it becoming a reference work for scholars working on nocturnal cities and related topics. Fieldwork from over 200 nightwalks for the research was exhibited in Loitering With Intent: The Art & Politics of Walking, People’s History Museum, Manchester, July – October 2016. Dissemination of the research has included invited talks at both the Cheltenham Science Festival and Cheltenham Literature Festival, a commissioned nightwalk at Not Quite Light Festival, a plenary talk at Unfinished Systems of Non-Knowledge symposium in Amsterdam, and leading public nightwalks in Amsterdam, Glasgow, London, Manchester, New Orleans and Utrecht.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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