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The material geographies of advertising: Concrete objects, affective affordance and urban space

The material geographies of advertising: Concrete objects, affective affordance and urban space
The material geographies of advertising: Concrete objects, affective affordance and urban space

This paper contributes to an expanding concern with the urban geographies of advertising. The paper outlines the need to investigate the difference the material logics of advertising technology (hardware, software and code) make to the bodies and spaces of urban life. Through an intensified capacity to selectively open up to and interact with urban space, I argue, technological advancements in outdoor advertising launch the advertising object into a more compatible relation with urban space. I exemplify this by pulling out and detailing the recent development of image-recognition technology, anti-hacking features and thermal management systems, each of which are becoming central to the contemporary material conditions of outdoor advertising. Through the lens of Gilbert Simondon's notion of ‘concretisation', these technological advancements are conceptualised as resolving particular commercial incompatibilities in the relation between advertising object and excessive environments. Taken together, they leverage the outdoor advertising object’s control over its capacities to affect and be affected, that is, over its affective affordance. I suggest this has significant implications for how we engage and intervene into the politics of advertising geographies.

Affect, digital geographies, geographies of advertising, Gilbert Simondon, outdoor advertising
0308-518X
Dekeyser, Thomas
1d9c6f52-4273-45f6-850c-187f6a7447c9
Dekeyser, Thomas
1d9c6f52-4273-45f6-850c-187f6a7447c9

Dekeyser, Thomas (2018) The material geographies of advertising: Concrete objects, affective affordance and urban space. Environment and Planning A. (doi:10.1177/0308518X18780374).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper contributes to an expanding concern with the urban geographies of advertising. The paper outlines the need to investigate the difference the material logics of advertising technology (hardware, software and code) make to the bodies and spaces of urban life. Through an intensified capacity to selectively open up to and interact with urban space, I argue, technological advancements in outdoor advertising launch the advertising object into a more compatible relation with urban space. I exemplify this by pulling out and detailing the recent development of image-recognition technology, anti-hacking features and thermal management systems, each of which are becoming central to the contemporary material conditions of outdoor advertising. Through the lens of Gilbert Simondon's notion of ‘concretisation', these technological advancements are conceptualised as resolving particular commercial incompatibilities in the relation between advertising object and excessive environments. Taken together, they leverage the outdoor advertising object’s control over its capacities to affect and be affected, that is, over its affective affordance. I suggest this has significant implications for how we engage and intervene into the politics of advertising geographies.

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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 13 June 2018
Keywords: Affect, digital geographies, geographies of advertising, Gilbert Simondon, outdoor advertising

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 424817
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/424817
ISSN: 0308-518X
PURE UUID: df0b6498-9b72-4bc1-b748-c85af7ffb7d2
ORCID for Thomas Dekeyser: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3809-313X

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Date deposited: 05 Oct 2018 11:48
Last modified: 05 Oct 2024 02:19

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Author: Thomas Dekeyser ORCID iD

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