Metropolitan citizenship, critiques of everyday life and artistic intervention: connecting art and sociology

Abstract

This proposal suggests an interdisciplinary approach encompassing the combination of urban sociological research and artistic intervention in urban settings. We will consider the integration of digital artworks in public spaces, chosen for their ability to generate engaging and innovative experiences as well as extending a virtual layer of meaning over real spaces. It is our premise that the aptitude for critical analysis and research of objects and tendencies within daily experience normally invisible through habitual perceptions that certain artistic interventions carry, might contribute to the development of an enriched relationship between art and the questioning processes typical of sociology, more specifically concerning its objective of deconstructing reality for analytical purposes. We will thus seek to demonstrate that such a critical analysis of daily existence, which can be found both on the artistic and sociological productions, might become a fertile ground for an emerging conscience and reflective appropriation of mundane social contexts (namely in urban settings), as well as give rise to a more engaged civil participation.