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Public Sphere_sSteve Dietz
Various ideas of ‹the public› have been theorized at least since the Greeks, but whether it is Socrates confronting Callicles about mob rule in Plato's Gorgias or Jürgen Habermas' «public sphere,» Walter Lippmann's «big picture» or Mouffe's agonistics, this public has almost always been intimately connected with a parallel notion of public space. From the agora to the piazza to the commons to the park, in some sense robust public discourse can only flourish in public space. In part this is an issue of audience. What makes discourse public is having an audience. With the rise of the printed press, radio, television, and now Internet-enabled communications, the potential public expands beyond physical space into the virtual spaces of communications systems. [more]
Introduction
Notions of Public
Plato to Mouffe
Notions of Art
From the Open Work to the Open Platform
Notions of Public Art
Community Art
Art in Public Cyberspaces
Space As Public Art
The New Public Plaza
The Liminal Lobby
The Electronic Café
Reactive Architecture
The City As Interface
Communications Systems
Billboards
Telematic Media
Code Is Law
The Legal Bug
The Digital Commons
Resistance and Engagement
Making Things Public