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Title: | “The real modernity that is here”: understanding the role of digital visualisations in the production of a new urban imaginary at Msheireb Downtown, Doha |
Authors: | Melhuish, C Degen, MM Rose, G |
Keywords: | Urban development;Digital visualisation;Doha;Postcolonial studies |
Issue Date: | 2016 |
Publisher: | American Anthropological Association |
Citation: | City and Society, 28(2): pp. 222–245, (2016) |
Abstract: | This paper explores how Computer Generated Images have enabled the visualisation and negotiation of a new urban imaginary, in the production of a large-scale urban development project in Doha, Qatar. CGIs were central not only to the marketing but also the design of Msheireb Downtown. Our study of their production and circulation across a transnational architectural and construction team reveals how their digital characteristics allowed for the development of a negotiated, hybrid urban imaginary, within the context of a re-imaging and re-positioning of cities in a shifting global order. We suggest that CGIs enabled the co-production of a postcolonial urban aesthetic, disrupting the historical orientalist gaze on the Gulf region, in three ways. Firstly, they circulate through a global network of actors negotiating diverse forms of knowledge from different contexts; secondly, they are composed from a mix of inter-referenced cultural sources and indicators visualising hybrid identities; and thirdly, they evoke a particular urban atmosphere which is both place- and culture-specific, and cosmopolitan. The study emphasises the importance of research into the technical and aesthetic production processes which generate new urban spaces in the context of global market-led growth; and, by considering the circulation of CGIs between sites, contributes to the development of ‘a more properly postcolonial studies’ (Robinson 2011: 17). |
URI: | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1548-744X http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/12759 |
DOI: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ciso.12080 |
ISSN: | 1548-744X |
Appears in Collections: | Dept of Social and Political Sciences Research Papers |
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