Planning Research Conference 2003

Oxford Brookes University 8-10 April

Dr Wael Salah Fahmi

Associate Professor of Urbanism -Helwan University-Cairo-Egypt Honorary Research Fellow -Manchester University- UK Principal- UDERS (Urban Design Experimental Studio) Address: 34 Abdel Hamid Lotfi Street Mohandessein- Giza/Cairo Egypt 12311 E-mail address: wael_fahmy@hotmail.com wael_fahmi2002@hotmail.com Telephone: +202- 3370485 Fax: +202-7619010 This is a draft paper of ongoing research work- (images to be included)No part is to be cited without the prior permission of the author-

Postmodern (Re)presentations:City Narratives and Urban Imageries Abstract

Diagnosis of postmodernity (Harvey 1989) emphasizes the blurring boundaries between reality and virtuality in terms of the production of a new (glocal) urbanity. This indicates a phenomenological experience of the city, whilst re-appropriating the urban in terms of our spatial practices and tactics, and sites of exchanges and encounters (Leach 2002). In addition, the city is semiologically represented as a theatrical space, implying a multiplicity of signs (deferred and never fixed), as signified (context and meaning) and signifiers (forms and urban elements) (Leach 2002), and as imaginary in a deconstructive sense. This challenges the stable institutionalised construction of space, and manipulating our collective memory (Boyer 1994), nothing prevailing but discourses, language games, and flnerie. With the postmodern aesthetic claiming spatio-temporal (extra-territorial) narratives (Soja 1995), the notion of Baudelaires flnerie assumes an urban voyage where the cit(y)(ies) as text can be read through the flneurs lens as syntax and semantics of urban signifiers and imageries (Benjamin 1973). Through (Urban Experimentation), the paper proposes a conflation of urban images remapped and re-presented into fictional terrain (digital images and diagrams). The aim is to grasp the psychogeography of the postmodern metropolis, composed of (re)sorted, (re)assembled cit(y)(ies) fragments and viewed as an arena for (re)(de)constructing urban metaphors (Fahmi 2001). There is the need to suture elements of the splintered urban, whilst producing images of the city as aggregations, accumulations of patchedup, overlapping forms of mediascape (Christensen1993). The experiment intends to unsettle established contextualist spatial orders, whilst taking on a disjunctive lens (Tschumi,1996), thus favouring fragmentation over unity, with these representations being products of (contested) postmodern spatiality (Bergum 1990)

CITY INSIDE OUT(SIDE)

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By splashing virtuality onto the real world, the experiment attempts to capture the urban, into a space of ' total flow' , with the juxtaposition of images, thus shifting between reality and mythical spaces, between the screen, and the imagination, between the virtual urbanity of the information machine and the actual urbanity of the city. Such heterotopias (extra-contextualist places ' outside of all places' ), between being and becoming, moving from the physical to the epistemological and ontological (Auge 1995, Soja 1995), will call into play the possibility of a coterminous and dialectic merging of very real city of bricks and a conceptually experienced ' city of bits ' (Mitchell 1996). Key words: postmodernity- representation- deconstruction- urban images diagramsexperimentation- city narratives- flneurie Re-conceiving the Postmodern Postmodern discourse presents a vision of the city which abandons the stable coordinates of place and which bases itself on fragmentation and decomposition, a collage city or a simulative city. The emerging fascination with borders and edges of cities is a response to the dissolution of traditional markers, with space derived meanings substituting hierarchy and centrality. The postmodern city is hence viewed as sequence of overlapping layers of events, mental mapping and cognitive imaging (Fahmi and Howe 2003), whilst Experimenting with metaphors of space and being as manifest in the rhetoric of virtuality and materialised in real environments (Fahmi 2000, 2001) . Information technology has nevertheless brought various areas into proximity to one another, with spaces constantly juxtaposing themselves one against the other, similar to Lefebvre' s (1991) image of interpenetrating spaces with new for of representation , ms new worlds, new social order , and experience of space, time and the self (King 1996). Therefore with the disintegration of real space in virtuality, contested (postmodern) spaces are transformed by new cultural practices influencing the expression of identity and spatiality and the architectonics of space, with the proliferation of the virtual, transforming the experience of place whilst reconstructing ' habitats of meaning ' (Bourdieu1998). Supermodernity and Place Identity In late/post modern societies local/global (glocal) tensions, with collision of signs and images (Sassen 1991), have created a ' transnational imaginary' (Dovey 1999). The ideal of boundless and undefined spatiality predominated an age of fragmented supermodernity (Ibelings 1998). This has led to a loss of sense of place, with non-places proliferating transit and informational spaces. With increased mobility and telecommunications, with the rise of new media, and with the emergence of cyberspace , the experience of time, space and place identity has changed (Auge 1995). Cultural identity has nevertheless experienced the contradictions between increased placelessness and reflexivity (in cognitive and aesthetic sense) (Lash and Urry 1994); and increased place-bound identities and tribalism as reactions to globalisation (Castells 1989) Accordingly visions and myths of the city (globalisation, homogenisation, (in)authenticity and universalism) have been instructive in terms of ' other cities' (the embodied, the learning, the unjust) , thus 2

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' Begin to provide a sense of a city that is constantly changing, that does not necessarily hold together' , and the city is regarded as ' a partially connected multiplicity which we can only ever know partially and from multiple places' . (Thrift 1996, 2000) Postmodern Metaphors: Text and Collage Postmodernism revealed that the predominant metaphors for the city and culture have become the text and the collage, representing meanings rather than functions. Accordingly Harvey (1989) viewed collage/montage as the primary form of post modern discourse on spatiality, with the notion of the city as assemblage, bricolage, or pastiche, largely replacing that of the functional city of modernism (Rowe and Koetter, 1978). In addition to the collage city advocated by Rowe and Koetter (1978), Postmodern discourse (Harvey 1989) regarded the city representation in terms of narratives, and collective memory (Boyer 1994 ; Barthes 1976) .

With ethical aspects of experiencing cities referring to questions of difference and other in urban environment, the argument was to abandon the city as a neutral space following its textual signification (Kymalainen 2000). Boyer (1994) attempted to read the city as a "text", following Barthes' (1976 citedn Harvey 1989) earlier proposition that ' the city is a i discourse and this discourse is truly a language' , and that ' architecture of signifiers with no signifieds, is considered a pure play of language' . This implies a double reading of the city as a "text" and ' discourse' whilst -interpreting the meaning of culture (Derrida 1976; re Geertz 1964, 1980) In the postmodern information age boundaries are blurring between reality and virtuality, with urban environments growing hyper-real with prevalent discourses, texts, language games, images. This transforms urban design task to collecting and assembling elements in Foucault' s museum of knowledge create legible cities and a sense of to place (Eillin 1996). For Foucault (1986), contemporary spatial patterns differ from both medieval hierarchical space and capitalist extensive space of exchange. Contemporary space is characterised by what he calls site (also as sight. -What we see). "Our epoch," he says, "is one in which space takes for us the form of relations among sites" (Foucault 1986: 23). Or our epoch is one in which space takes for us the form of relations among sights. Foucault's Discourse as a System of Representation Foucault (1986) has studied discourse , and not language, as a system of representation. According to Foucault, we see that ' discourse' (a group of statements) is a way of representing the knowledge about a particular topic at a particular historical moment. Discourse constructs the topic it defines and produces the objects of our knowledge, influencing how ideas are put into practice and are used to regulate interaction with others. So meaning is constructed through discourse, nothing has any meaning outside of discourse.

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The main point here is the way discourse, representation, knowledge and ' truth' are historicised by Foucault, in contrast to the ahistorical tendency in semiotics (study of signs). He thought that in each period, discourse produced forms of knowledge, objects, subjects and practices of knowledge which differed from period to period, with no necessary continuity between them. Therefore a postmodern urbanism is conscious of the power of discoursive production of urban representational spaces where people not only live their space "through its associated images and symbols" (Lefebvre 1991:39), they actively construct its meaning through cognitive and hermeneutical processes. Discourses express human thought, fantasy, and desire" and thereby represents human ontology' s ("beliefs, fantasies, values, and desires about how the world is") and epistemologies ("how better understandings of the world might be achieved")(Harvey 1996:79-80). And therefore the meanings of representational spaces or discourses are never absolute, but always subject to translation and interpretation. Reading discourses at play is therefore a contextual and social matter.

Postmodern Representation: Signs and Images Lefebvres (1994) trialectics of perceived, conceived and lived spaces indicated the city as a commodity with its representational form being restyled, reformed, re-mapped and re-presented. With narrative forms (myths and rituals) influencing the architectonics of (postmodern) spatiality, postmodern representation, as being transformed by changing cultural practices, regards the urban as a theatre of memory (Ellin 1996) for the production of signs (semiotics) and images. Urban Semiotics (signs) semiotics was revealed in his Barthes' s (1976) contribution from linguistics to Mythologies which is constructed by a double theoretical framework. On the one hand, a critique on the language of mass culture; and on the other a semiological analysis of the mechanics of this language. Firstly, Barthes saw the language of mass culture (myth) as a collective representations of sign-systems, a second-order semiological system which is constructed by signifier (urban elements), signified (spatiality) and sign (the language of urbanism). Through the analysis of myth, Barthes treats myth (books and paintings, and popular rituals) as a text to read and tries to demystify the ideology that mass culture has been an universal nature. Barthes semiotic approach is concerned with the how of representation, with how language produces meaning- poetics of space in terms of a system of signs These Systems of signification (semiotics) encompass denotative signs and metalinguistic systems in relation to culturally specific systems of connotative codes. Such universe of signs includes: the non-physiological part of perception; conception; scientific modes of discourse; and the value systems, or the socially constituted world views of 4

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social subjects, . . . " According to Gottdiener and Lagopoulos (1986) urban space is not a text but a "pseudo-text," because it is produced by non-semiotic processes as well as semiotic and socio-semiotic ones. Urban Imagery The postmodern phrase ' The presence of the past' (T.S. Eliot, in Venturi 1977: 13), "...tends instead to draw our attention to the contextual and linear relations of new architectural forms as they relate to past urban images, rather than stressing the differences, the rupture between then and now, here and there, and the memory of things and events that have never and can reoccur in the present" (Boyer 1994: 374 ) Urban Images (or architecture of images, Bermudez 1995), with hybrid interface between electronic and built media (Pile 1996).,is considered the natural extension of mediatecture (Riewoldt 1997, Mitchell 1996) and mediascape (Christensen 1993) offering (un)built forms with virtual layers, challenging concepts of presence, distance, and time. Media culture has nevertheless put people into a space of ' total flow' , with the juxtapositioning of their mental images calling to attention a line of conflict (Jameson 1991). This is concerned with the nature of those other (unconscious) spaces, which have become invisible, with the virtual city being a transmutation of the known, being interwoven into real urban life.

"Here we are in Robert Venturi' s [post]modern city, not just Las Vegs but any a [post]modern city, a mediascape of office buildings and stores transformed by their corporate identities into the new language of consciousness: the sign molded in glass and light, splashed over with the insignia or characters of logos. Buildings are no longer mass and weight, stone and iron, but an array of sentences spelling out the consciousness of a city, what a city means when we enter it and use its services, consume its goods. The city' s language of buildings and streets, of glass and ligh is a t, declaration of ideals . . .which the city achieves by transforming things into words, objects into signs, the dark of nature into neon abstraction and codes. . . the mediascape devours the literal materiality around it." (Christensen 1993, p.9-10) The past returns to urban space in its fragmented and imaginary form and creates the city of deconstructed spaces and images which fractures our sense of urban totality. The new features of postmodern urbanism exposes the city of deconstruction full of inconsistencies, fractures, voids, homogenised historic zones protected for their architectural and scenic values. Baudrillard (1993) claims: "There is no real and no imaginary, except at a certain distance. Because ' reality' or the world now seems to be cybernetically organised continuum of kinetic images, information, and technological artefacts, it appears that value and meaning also have been lost in the transformation" (in Boyer 1994: 492).

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Furthermore Urban Semiotics compress space and time under late capitalism (Harvey 1989), as representation of urban experience to produce multifunctional hybrid spaces (Jameson 1991). This has called for a new aesthetic of cognitive mapping of a city with multiple meanings and images (Lynch 1960 and Geertz 1973). Cognitive mapping approaches arrive at the signification of the city through the perception of its inhabitants rather than their conception with the urban environment being reduced to a perceptual knowledge of physical form. Whilst perception is conceived as passive or receptive, Urban Imagery, being stimulated by urban structure, generates representational methods and narrative systems (Calvino 1979). People perform various roles to (re)construct their urban imageries as conjuring up of various impressions in the mind, which may be visual, as well as auditory, olfactory, verbal, textual, or of a notational, or symbolic score (Liddament, 2000) . that this latest mutation in space postmodern hyperspace has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the human body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually, and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external world" (Jameson 1988). Heterotopia, Chora and Spatial Experience Heterotopias could nonetheless lead to a more fruitful unpacking of the epistemological and logical factors relating to imagery and semiotics. Heterotopias are found in all cultures, within every human group, although they take varied forms with no single one being ever universal. Two categories however are identified by Soja (1995); sacred or forbidden spaces and modern heterotopias of deviation which can change in function and meaning over time. Gennochio' s (1995) interpretation revealed two different kinds of heterotopias: one is the absolutely Other, ' external' spaces and ' heterogeneous site' capable of juxtaposing in a single real place ( with several spaces that are in themselves incompatible)- extra-discursive; and the other is the coexistence in an ' impossible spae' c of a large number of fragmentary, possible, though incommensurable orders or worlds. discursive This could be noted in Los Angeles regarded as the future postmodern city, a heteropolis, and being an interminable urbanised area with no coherent form, no hierarchical structure, no centre and no unity;, where architecture seems to be characterized by an absence of distinguishing signs, by neutrality, particularly in relation to its context (Ibelings 1998). Soja (1989) created a re-balanced ' spatio -temporal narrative' on Los Angeles, where the heterotopias of Paris and Los Angeles (1789/1989) have been displayed/constructed as artworks. He used Foucault' s concept of heterotopia (places ' outside of all places' ), collapsing modern history into post moder n geography (Soja 1995). This is closely related to Boyer' s (1990) concept of ' Work here, play there, and live elsewhere' , which has given way to a ' work -play, live-work and playlive' heterotopic urban fabric. Similarly Grosz (1995) identified Heterotopia with Plato' s Chora; (space between being and becoming, or ' space in which place is made possible' , whilst constantly moving from the architectural and physical to the epistemological and ontological), thus suggesting ways in which people occupy space, denoting the relationship between the determinate and indeterminate (Lechte 1995). Chora is clearly illustrated with reference to La Grande 6

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Arche at La Defense and (Tschumi' s) follies in the Parc de la Villette, committed intervention into established systems of knowledge and use of writing as an enabling and indeterminate act . Imaginary Cities Patton (1995) draws attention to the ways in which imaginary cities are written with respect to ' reality' . For some writers real conditions of urban existence u nderlie the signs they describe, for others there is no distinction between the imaginary and the real (Burgin 1996). What is of concern is the possibility that a reading of cities (the production of further signs, or urban imaginaries), rather than the excavation of a foundational real city (the decoding of the urban imaginary), might enhance our capacity to live in urban relations which are unoppressive. The experiment of reading and decoding Postmodern Cities is based on a number of actual cities, with differing enabling effects and representational methods Moreover images of the city play a crucial role in accounts of the postmodern condition and in the description of the experience of contemporary urban life (Patton 1995). We propose that we are dealing with imaginary cities; not simply the products of memory or desire, but rather complex objects which include both realities and their description: cities confused with the words used to describe them (Calvino 1979: 51). Whilst a city cannot be created out of nothing. Elements of this city-imaginary have in turn affected the development of real cities However many writers have taken over real cities and transformed them into literary objects and have thus created imaginary cities with lives of their own. They have reconstructed urban settings from scattered fragments of memory, and have brought fame to cities that were previously unknown. A stroll through the urban landscapes of literature reveals a variety of creations: cities depicted with a high degree of realism, cities in the abstract, cities which merely provide background atmosphere, and cities which are themselves protagonists in works of fiction.

Kafakas city (Grau 1999) is seen as if in a dream or through the mists of memory, in black and white, with the contrasts of light and shadow that appear in Expressionist films. The impression of being in a dream is reinforced by topological distortions and by changes of scale which make space seem to expand or contract, depending on the authors state of mind. The vision of reality is phantasmagoric. Calvino (1979) adopts a different approach to the city, which becomes the protagonist of his story. The exoticism of the narrative can be felt in the very names of the cities- whilst disorientating the reader who has the impression that this is a travel book rather than a work of fiction. In this way the reader is gradually made to understand that these are actually the cities of our everyday lives. According to Grau (1999) Joyces Dublin, Prousts Paris, Kafkas Prague, and the Buenos Aires of Borges are realistically depicted cities which help to shape the course of

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the fictional events which take place in them. The ostensibly imaginary cities of literature are actually an amalgam of fragments of cities which the writer has known CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Urban Disjunction Eisenman (1999), and Tschumi (1988) both dismantle the conventions of architecture by using concepts derived from cinema, literary criticism, philosophy and psychoanalysis (Fahmi 2001). In Cinegramme Folie at the Parc de La Villette, Tschumi (1988) dislocates, de-regulates the idea of meaning as emerging from built form, as constantly deferred, differed, rendered irresolute , displaced by superimposition and transformations. Presence is postponed and closure deferred as each permutation or combination form shifts the image one step ahead. (Tschumi 1988) Such Architecture Of Disjunction (Tschumi 1988) rejects the notion of synthesis in favour of juxtaposition of contradictory forces, thus producing dissociation which Derrida (1982) would call differrance in space and time, with architectural elements only functioning by colliding with programmatic elements. A Deconstructive procedure further re-engages analytically in city imaging and new urban installations in public spaces. Lebbeus Woods' visionary work (Figure ) considered with analogous comparison of virtual space and , ' produces daring visual effects, suggests enigmatic purposes, and evokes a new sense of time space,' and suggests that people can create their own world with reference to their collective memory, with the ability to draw upon their own experiences (Noever 1991). In conclusion therefore Deconstruction of Architecture or Architecture of Deconstruction emancipates architectural thinking from the hegemony of functionality, from its traditional elements such as harmony, unity, symmetry..), and reinscribes these motifs within new spaces, new forms, to shape new way of building. Deconstructivism overcomes aesthetic borderlines and familiar structural principles, a change in visual habits, creation of a new aesthetic, experimentation, link between visionary architecture and electronic media of the real and virtual space (Cooke 1989).

Urban Fragments and Virtual Layers The proposed framework conceptualises different layers of events which constitute the citys spatial configuration, reading and interpreting spatial and historical transformations, unraveling images , spatial perceptions, experiences and interpretations of everyday life. The combination of material and perceptual (de)constructive images of the city , displacement of existing established structures and orders suggests multiple imaging of public spaces for (de)construction of identities, relying on dense clustering and overlapping layers of spatial networks (Fahmi and Howe 2003) The postmodern Urban Experience is thus being represented as consisting of series of superimposed layers of programmes (functions, geometries, infrastructures, buildings) 8

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(Tschumi 1988a, b), influencing, modifying, changing city' s structural concept whilst producing fragmentary urban patterns, with historical and topographical factors generating contradictions and tensions (Fahmi 2000). Therefore the current work considers proliferation and fragmentation of production and consumption of post modern urban spaces (Ungers and Veiths, 1997), whilst viewing the city in a polymorphous way, piecing it together, never losing sight of the ' magical' human practices, dancing and flickering over real and virtual space. An experiment is further proposed which is mainly concerned with visualisation of design discourse as representing a set of forces against the stable institutionalised construction of space through: invigorating urban imaging whilst exploring people' s cognitive mechanisms within urban spaces (metaphors of urban semiotics: installations and narrative Imageries (inserting and (re)constructing); proposing new spatial representations and diagrammatic techniques(superimpositionlayering-fragmentation); and deconstructing the notion of design programming with more experimentation (architecture of Disjunction: collages and fragments of contested urban landscape (deconstructing- juxtapositioning-assembling)

The current experiment (s) suggests tangible forms for understanding spaces inbetween, mediating overlapping images, fields, networks (where built and unbuilt environments are revealed). With the need to suture elements of the splintered postmodern urban, the experiment acknowledges the conflict between imagination and reality as a driving force for creating and structuring virtual spatial orders, producing images of the city as collections, aggregations, accumulations of patched-up, extendable, overlapping and developing forms. Urban Experimentation, by means of texts, photos, and visual signs and images, creates symbolic representations, and fantasies to signify an identifiable or/and imaginary (sense of) place identity, whilst emphasising the use of spatio-temporal mapping, narratives, and people' s cognitive mechanisms within urban spaces

Representation of Postmodern Spaces Pile and Thrift (2000) reviewed representational techniques such as diagrams (Eisenman 1999, and Castells 1989); montage (Benjamin 1979, 1985); screens (Deleuze 1997, Lefebvre, 1991) and clues (Bourdieu 1998). In addition, through the Flaneuries Narratives, cities are understood as a collection of urban fragments being (re)sorted, (re)assembled and (re)connected. continually unsettling and disturbing established spatial orders, whilst implying superimposition and interchange. 9

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Flaneuries Narratives of the Generic City Narratives , or stories , have formulated architectural fiction, and on several occasions have been instrumental to the construction of architectural theory. The term to narrate means the binding together of stories, myths, and fantasies through plot formation and characterisation within fictional landscapes that reflect a knowledge of the culture producing them. Narratives are formed by both expository statements and responses that combine to make fluid interchanges between fiction and, potential architectural production. Narrative inquiry uses stories to describe how people construct the meanings of their lives (Bruner 1986; Polkinghorne 1995) lead storied lives and tell stories of their lives, whereas narrative researchers describe such lives, collect and tell stories of them and write narratives of experience (Connelly and Clandinin 1990, pp2-3) Furthermore the flaneur, though grounded in everyday life, is an analytic form, a narrative device, an attitude towards knowledge and its social context. The flaneur is an alternative ' vision' , with its sedentary mannerism: the ' retracing' ; the ' rubbernecking' ; and the ' taking a turtle for a walk' ; being essentially critical rebuffs to the late -modern politics of speed . It is an image of movement through the social space of (post)modernity. The flaneur is a multilayered palimpsest that enables us to move from real products of (post)modernity, like commodification and leisured patriarchy, (through the practical organization of space and its negotiation by inhabitants of a city), to a critical appreciation of the state of modernity and its erosion into the post-, and to a reflexive understanding of the function, and purpose, of realist as opposed to hermeneutic epistemologies According to Benjamin (1973), the Baudelairean flneur is a figure that embodies ambivalence: one who always borders on leisure and turmoil, joy and melancholy, alienation and familiarity. The melancholy of the flneur results from the fragmentary nature of city life. The sensual pleasure the flneur derives from the phantasmagoria, the dazzling urban spectacle, is both fleeting and tantalizing (Huang) . He can look but not touch, and what he sees is montage, one snap shot after another. The dream world of urban spectacle offers the flneur no complete narrative; he has to make sense of the fragments by himself. To be precise, the flneur is an urban native, whose discernment of the subtle pleasures of urban life and detection of the truth of the street indicate a form of pedestrian connoisseurship and consumption of the urban environment (Shields 1994: 61).

Diagrams between Reality and Virtuality Drawing upon Eisenmans Romeo and Juliet project for Venice Biennale (1985), methods of diagrammatical layering, scaling, superimposition, is being employed in the experiment, producing a fractal representation of the built environment, with literary narratives being used to dramatize the meeting of the fictional and the real.

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Such Image diagrammatic technique lies between spatial and structural analysis and assumes a language founded on the articulation and contradiction of dialectics (centreperiphery, vertical-horizontal, inside-outside, solid-void, point-plane). Such technique detaches form from its programmatic concerns, and displaces it from its relationship to function, meaning and aesthetics whilst being subjected to functions of (trans)forming, (in)forming and (per)forming (Eisenman 1999). Diagrams offer experimental interfaces for intervening in complex urban processes within emerging networked environment, not only to develop advanced tools for the design of (un)built environments, but to refresh ' ways of seeing' through the design (creation) of imaginative (virtual) environments involving metaphorical (re) (de) construction of space, cognitive codes, and visual elements within urban systems. Collages and Fragments of Urban Images A (de)(re)constructive reading is proposed of hypothological (generic) urban images conceptualised as intermediary (in-between) spaces, similar to Tschumi' s event city (1994) and Coates' ecstacity (2000), a conflation of existing cities, with urban spaces being mapped into fictional terrain of perceptive imagery and virtual reality. Such process pulls together a spatial narrative evoking journeys to the other cities, in accordance with Benjamin' s (1985) disconnected travel tales. By placing these urban fragments from ' another place' side by side, the experiment is also alluding to, or digging into, the nature of postmodernity and spatiality. These juxtapositions are a montage of urban images, meant to be read simultaneously, revealing the discontinuous nature of space, with its souvenirs and its myriad connections to other places. The experiment aims at placing these images together, at making the connection between them, and at establishing a new relationship which changes their meanings. The experiment attempts to set in motion a chain of thoughts that would recuperate the ruins and fragments of postmodernity, building up from the fragments, a different picture of the city , through the flow and distribution of images as being reassembled into reality (Benjamin 1985) This is similar to Tschumi' s follies at Parc de La Villette, where cinematography was exploited to offer new perspective on the city, by bringing many images into sharp juxtaposition, by being able to establish connections between apparently disconnected elements, and by using multi-media to capture the urban experience (Benjamin,1985) .

Urban (Imaginary) Screen Installations within Public Spaces Installations within urban spaces are introduced, including (un)built environment and image diagrams as inserted within or superimposed on the fabric of the hypothological city (Figure). These installations or urban interfaces then cast the experiential tools to explore the city as an individual construct (flaneur), considering the complex centripetalcentrifugal space which everybody experiences physically and perceptually. One looks at space of the flaneur, as being subjected to contrasts of experience and scale, with these installations regarded as urban icons. They respond to events and initiatives to formulate

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hyper-spatial conditions which are multi-dimensional , multi-physical, flipping and compressing both virtual and real experiences in the city.(Baudrillard, 1993). Urban installations explore new possibilities of urban life and human experience, weaving into existing fabric of the city and becoming a hidden city of entirely unknown purpose or meaning. Uncertainty prevails as new post modern spatiality emerges using a series of collage- images and screen installations. Collage-images investigate the freespace construction of the newly hidden city through the meeting of both virtual and real worlds (Figure). Screen installations are seen as indices of possibility, with their proliferation enriching our imaginative experience of the city, by producing psychic echoes and reverberations that enliven the senses. Deleuze' s (1997) screens become a means of expressing affects of the city by placing images together, mirroring the way in which the city juxtaposes many different possibilities, emotions, sensations, and perceptions. They make these qualities into dialectical forces which are actualised in determinate spacetimes, geographical and historical milieus, and individual people' s lives (Smith, 1992). CONCLUSION Experimentation with deconstructive urbanism has provided potentials for flexibility and imageability to generate new dynamic forms of spaces, with urban fabric being opened up,morphology being changed, meanings being developed, and environment being redefined, (re)(de)construction of urban spaces, disrupting its meaning, whilst identifying the relationship between cognitive imaging and virtual forms. Deconstructive procedure created (Fahmi and Howe 2003) transparent, changing and virtual forms; continuous tension within urban fabric; disruptive and indeterminate spatial patterns; and superimposed layers of history on the contrary to urban design discourse which addresses built forms as fixed and static; defined boundaries and streets; and a contextual fit between urban fabric and built environment The use of image diagrams, collage sketches and screen installations led to ' de solidifying' things and dissolving spatial distinctions, to (de)constructing perceptual shifting between figure and ground, near and far, inside and outside, with these evocative diagrams intensifying the cognitive process. The experiment therefore intended to unsettle memory and context by rejecting both contextualist and continualist approaches, and favouring conflict over synthesis, fragmentation over unity, madness and play over careful management, indicating the change in the notion of collage images by the multiplication of screen installations, with these representations being products of particular notions of spatiality.

With navigation into a trans-architecture in terms of turning-inside-out of cyberspace, these experimental diagrams promise to occupy the coterminous territories of the real and the virtual. Zelner (1999) illustrated that in (re)(de) construction of the virtual and the real, everyday experience is mirrored in another reality, between the virtual urbanity of the information machine and the actual urbanity of the city, calling into play the 12

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possibility of a coterminous and dialectic merging of very real city of bricks and a conceptually experienced ' city of bits ' (Mitchell 1996). Accordingly this invites a refocusing of spatial design, bringing together the material and the informational, the tectonic and the abstract, the real and the virtual. In addition there is a need to revisit the post modern subject, where corporeality and environment has been literally infiltrated by cyberspace, which is repositioned as the locus of technoinstitutional forces, pushing and pulling to achieve maximal efficiencies Virtuality, with its emphasis on the future re-enacting the nihilistic logic of early futurism, can only displace but not replace reality, whilst seeking to reaffirm the true meaning of being embodied. As based on appeals to ontology rather than epistemology, to authentic being rather than mediated seeing, virtuality rhetorically expands ever outwards, encompassing an infinity of spaces, times, mythologies, and modes of transcendence, whilst closing in on the individually appropriating inner space. Virtuality is considered a psychological mechanism and cognitive adaptation in a less ' user -friendly' living environment, with imaginative space being used as a medium for ' bringing forth' or manifesting abstract ideas into the realm of virtual place (Heidegger 1977).

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Burgin, V. (1996) In/Different Spaces: Place and Memory in Visual Culture, Berkeley: University of California Press Calvino, 1. 1979: Invisible Cities, London: Pan Books Castells, M. (1989) The Rise of the Network Society. Volume 1: The Information Age; Economy, Society and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell. Christensen, E. (1993). Mediation and Return: Ambigous Identity of the City' s Edgein ; M.Quantrill and B.Webb (eds.): Urban Forms, Suburban Dreams,.College Station: Texas A&M University Press, pp.9-14 Coates, Nigel (2000), Ecstacity,London: RIBA Publication Connelly, F.M and Clandinin, D.J (1990) Stories Of Experience And Narrative Inquiry, Educational Researcher ,19(5), 2-14 Deleuze, G (1997), Essays: Critical and Clinical, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Derrida, Jacques (1976), Of Grammatology, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore Dovey, Kim (1999), Framing Place. Mediating Power In Built Form, Routledge: London Eisenman, Peter. (1999) Diagram Diaries, Thames and Hudson, London. Ellin, Nan (1996), Post Modern Urbanism, Princeton Architectural Press, New York. Fahmi, Wael (2001) ' Reading of Post Modern Public Spaces As Layers Of Virtual Images and Real Events ', published on CD-Rom ISoCaRP 2001- ISBN 90-755 24-290-x, also presented at the 37th International Planning Congress, "Honey, I Shrunk The Space" Planning in the Information Age, Utrecht, The Netherlands - 16th -20th September 2001 Fahmi, Wael and Howe, Joe (2003) 'Deconstructing the Built Environment: Design Experimentation within Public Spaces ' , in Andy Thornley and Yvonne Rydin (London School of Economics (LSE) (eds), Planning in a Global Era, Ashgate: London, ISBN: 0-7546-1943-5, January 2003 (Chapter Eight, Section Two The contribution of planning theory and the role of the planning profession) Fahmi, Wael (2000), Deconstructivism Of The Postmodern City: Architectural Experimentation Within Public Spaces , in proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Quality of Life in Cities, Volume 2, pp 107-136, School of Building and Real Estate , National University of Singapore ISBN : 981-04-2363-2, also presented at the 2nd International Conference on Quality of Life in Cities, Singapore 8th -10th March 2000 Foucault, Michel. (1986) Of Other Spaces. Diacritics (1986): 22-27 Geertz, Clifford (1964), Ideology as a Cultural System. Reprinted . The Interpretation of Culture, 1973, 193-233 Geertz, Clifford (1980), Blurred Genres: The Refiguration of Social Thought. The American Scholar, 49 (2): 165-79

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Genocchio, Benjamin (1995) Discourse, Discontinuity, Difference in , in Watson, Sophie and Gibson, Katherine (eds), Postmodern Cities and Spaces, Oxford: Blackwell: 35-46. Gottdiener, M. & A. Ph. Lagopoulos (eds) (1986) The City and the sign. NY: Columbia UP, 1986 Graham, Stephen and Marvin, Simon (1996), Telecommunications and the City : Electronic Spaces and Urban Places, Routledge: London and New York Grau, Cristina (1991), Imaginary Cities, UNESCO Courier Feb 1991 P44(3) Grozs, Elizabeth (1995), Women, Chora , Dwelling, in Watson, Sophie and Gibson, Katherine (eds), Postmodern Cities and Spaces, Oxford: Blackwell pp47-58 Harvey, David (1989), The Condition of Postmodernity, Blackwell, Oxford. Heidegger,Martin (1977), The Question Concerning Technology, trans. William Lovitt (New York: Harper Torch-books, p4 Huang, Tsung-yi (2000) Hong Kong Blue: Flneurie with the Cameras Eye in a Phantasmagoric Global City, Journal of Narrative Theory 30.3 (Fall 2000): 385402. Ibelings, Hans (1998), Supermodernism: Architecture in the Age of Globalization, NAJ Publishers, Rotterdam ), Jameson, F. (1988), Cognitive Mapping' , in C. Neland L. Grossberg (eds Marxism and Interpretation of Culture,London:Macmillan Education. Jameson,F (1991), Postmodernism, or the Cultural of Late Capitalism, Durham: Duke University Press. King, R (1996), Emancipating Space, New York: Guilford Kymalainen, Paivi (2000), Spacing Difference: Questions of Urban Experience, paper presented at the 9th International Conference of Planning History in Helsinki, Espo- Finland from 20th-23rd August, abstract published in book of Abstracts, Centre-Periphery-Globalization: Past and Present, Helsinki University of Technology, p 199 Lash, S and Urry, J (1994), Economies of Signs and Space , Sage , London. Leach, Neil (2002) Introduction in Neil Leach (ed), The Hieroglyphics of Space: Reading and experiencing the modern metropolis, Routledge: London and New York, pp1-11 Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space , Blackwell, Oxford. Liddament, Terry (2000) The myths of imagery Design Studies 21 (2000) 589606 Lynch, Kevin (1960), The Image of The City, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mitchell, William (1996), City of Bits: Space, Place and Infobahn, The MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts Noever, Peter (1991, 1997), (ed), Architecture In Transition -Between Deconstruction And New Modernism , Prestel -Verlag, Munich

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Patton , Paul (1995) Imaginary Cities: Images of Postmodernity in Watson, Sophie and Gibson, Katherine (eds), Postmodern Cities and Spaces, Oxford: Blackwell pp112-121 Pile, Steve and Thrift, Nigel (2000)-The City A-Z , Routledge: London Pile, S. (1996) The Body and The City, London: Routledge. Polkinghorne, D.E (1995), Narrative Configuration In Qualitative Analysis in J.A Hatch and R Wiseniewski (Eds), Life History and Narrative, Washington DC, The Falmer Press Raban, J. 1974: Soft City, London: Hamish Hamilton Riewoldt, Otto (1997), Intelligent Spaces : Architecture for the Information Age, London : Calmann and King Limited Rowe, Collin and Koetter, Fred (1978), The Collage City, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts. Shields, Rob (1994) Fancy Footwork: Walter Benjamins Notes on Flnerie. in Keith Tester (ed) The Flneur, Routledge: New York, pp 6180. Smith, M.P. (1992), Postmodernism, Urban Ethnograophy, and the New Social Space of Ethnic Identity", Theory, Culture and Society, 21, 4. Soja, Edward (1995) Heterotopologies: A Remembrance of Other Spaces in the Citadel LA' - in Watson, Sophie and Gibson, Katherine (eds), Postmodern Cities and Spaces, Oxford: Blackwell pp 13-34 also published in. 1990: in Strategies: A Journal of Theory, Culture and Politics, 3: 6 39 Thomsen, Christian W (1994), Visionary Architecture: From Babylon to Virtual Reality, Munich/New York: Prestel-Verlag Thrift, Nigel (2000) Not A Straight Line But A Curve' , Or Cities Are Not Mirrors Of Modernityin , David Bell and Azzedine Haddour (eds) City Visions, Pearson Education United Essex, pp233263 Tschumi, Bernard (1988a), Notes Towards a Theory of Architectural Disjunction in Architecture and Urbanism no.216 ,September pp13-15 Tschumi, Bernard (1988b), Parc de la Villette, Paris in Architectural Design , vol 58, 3/4 Tschumi, Bernard (1996), Architecture & Disjunction, Cambridge : M I T Press Wigley, Mark (1995), The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derridas Haunt, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts Ungers O M and Vieths , S (1997) The Dialectic City , Skira editore, Milan pp 18-23. Zelner, Peter (1999), Hybrid Spaces : Effect Of Digitalisation And Virtuality On Spatiality And Architectural Representation in Peter Ze(ed), Hybrid Spaces. New Forms in Digital Architecture, Thomas and Hudson Ltd., London)

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