The Dutch edition of the book 'The City as interface' by Martijn de Waal was published on 2 April 2013 with a book launch that day at Pakhuis de Zwijger. The English edition will be ready at the end of May 2013.
Digital and mobile media are changing the way urban life takes shape and how we experience our built environment. This seems a mainly practical matter: thanks to these technologies we can organize our lives more conveniently. But the rise of these ‘urban media’also presents us with an important philosophical issue: What do they mean for how the city functions as a community?
Employing examples of new media uses as well as historical case studies, Martijn de Waal shows how new technologies, on one level, contribute to the further individualization and liberalization of urban society. There is an alternative future scenario, however, in which digital media construct a new definition of the urban public sphere. In the process they also breathe new life into the classical republican ideal of the city as an open, democratic ‘community of strangers’.
The book
The book can be ordered at NAiBooksellers. For more information about the English edition, visit the website for the book.