Abstract
This paper takes point of departure in ongoing research into exclusionary design. Through design interventions such as leaning benches, steel spikes, water sprinklers, and barbed wire socially vulnerable and homeless people are kept from occupying and staying in public spaces in the cities around the world. Such exclusion by design contributes to “atmospheres of rejection” and affords new patterns of human mobility in the city. As the leaning (or otherwise modified) bench is one of the most predominant dark design interventions, this paper will single out the bench as one exemplary artefact to be explored. The bench carries both symbolic meaning, as well as it is a material artefact affording rest and occupancy. The design of benches and the positioning (or removal) of them are micro-installations that together with other urban furniture, makes-up the urban spaces as sites of congregation, exchange, and experience. The paper explores the bench on a background of three key terms: affordance, atmosphere, and material interpellation. The paper then turns to art practices in public spaces and illustrate how the socio-cultural significance of benches has been made visible by art interventions such as the “socially modified” benches by the artist Jeppe Hein. In the conclusion the paper draws out lines of enquiry for further research.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Tidsskrift | Applied Mobilities |
| ISSN | 2380-0127 |
| DOI | |
| Status | E-pub ahead of print - 10 jul. 2023 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:This research is part of the research project Dark Design – social eksklusion i byens rum [Dark Design – social exclusion in urban space] funded by the Velux Foundation under the HUMAN Praxis call (project no. 35572). The project runs from January 2021 and 4 years ahead. Furthermore, the author wants to acknowledge the many constructive comments when presenting the initial version of this paper at the Conference Immobile lives in turbulent times: Methods and Practices of Mobilities Research, July 8-9, 2021, Northumbria University, UK. Monika Büscher should be thanked for drawing attention to the notion of ‘affirmative critique’ and pointing to the work of Rosi Braidotti. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing to the phenomenology of Bernhard Waldenfels as an additional relevant input for material interpellation. And finally, thanks to Jeppe Hein for allowing us to use his socially modified bench image in this paper.
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