Abstract
In the present ultra-numeric era, urban heritage faces a threat of losing local identity in some places around the globe. This fact creates a perplexity in how any local community perceives and uses information communication technologies (ICTs) in historical sites. However, several historic city centres are still giving their visitors a charming ‘experience of place'. Combining the tangible urban heritage with ephemeral urban digital art and original visual experiences creates a novice way of expressing public spaces. The argument here confirms the importance of the acceptance of democratic values during times of democratic transition. The way that the areas of cultural heritage are characterised in the current digitised world presents ephemeral nightlife experiences, an ensemble of the expressionist simulacrum. A brief overview of the relation between urban heritage and ephemeral urban art events is reflected through the lens of digital urban art. Given the results from the case of the Medina of Tunis, the festival's lighting in the historic city centre can provide a charming atmosphere.
TopIntroduction
Heritage is not simply the past, but the modern-day use of elements of the past. (Timothy & Boyd, 2003, p.4; Zahra H, Hosseini, et al. 2019)
Having access to information communication technologies (ICT)s in historic city centers for aspects like creating novice ways to experience the city, is a manner to highlight the extraordinary in the ordinary; a way to experience the past with modern ways. According to the Local Government Association in the UK (LGA), culture has the gage to stimulate the said: “modern-day use of elements of the past” since it provides people with ways to explore and create shared experiences (LGA, 2017).
Currently, cities have limited choices in face of the ultra-numeric world’s onslaught; either they follow modernity flows, or they resist the impulse of changing. However, the violence of the globalized world is demanding effective reactions in the face of identity destruction (Tira, Y. 2018, p. 17). Thus, some cities are focusing on their innate resources like histories and urban spaces, to be able to survive. This fact has been described by Greg Richard, as being an ‘eventful city’ (Richards, G. and Palmier, R. 2013). Therefore, the correlation between art events and urban space in general and between digital urban art and urban heritage sites, in particular, is becoming an economy booster and an expression tool of the community’s will. This idea had been evoked by Margareth Worth who believes that “Art and design create a mean for telling the stories that remind societies of their foundations. Public places’ art is more than the provision of out-doors art galleries. It is also making the public place an artwork in itself” (Worth, M. 2003, p.50).
One of the prominent ICTs uses in urban heritage sites, is urban digital art; light festivals in particular. In fact, the digital technologies that have dazed many aspects of people’s daily lives – how they communicate with each other and experience the world - have begun to also have a profound impact on the cultural sector in general and in urban art in particular. Street art in many parts of the world is enlisting digital technologies to transmit messages. Urban art is not only graffiti on walls of different streets; it is also a panoply of ephemeral light art performances and an ability to make the publicly shared space a hybrid space of expression.
In countries that experienced major changes vis-à-vis the Arab Spring, the role of urban art reaffirmed its significance due to its relation with public expression of relief and festivity in light of the democratic transition. In some cases, light art festivals in heritage sites became the medium to express a will to a democratic transition. Thus, this study comments on if and how light festivals, as part of a strategic transformation process, can contribute to democratic change.
However, currently, the literature is very uncertain about digital Art events' contribution to effectively express democracy in urban heritage spaces. There has been a lot of hype about the theoretically catalytic influence that Art events can have in terms of attracting visitors, reclaiming public time, and space for celebrations (Quinn, B, 2005, p. 6).
The Medina of Tunis, Tunisia is one such historic city center that saw its core hosting several night-time art events. They are nurturing an eagerness for identity preservation and stimulating access to ICTs to publicly express democracy. Situated right at the center of Tunisia’s capital, the Medina of Tunis takes place behind the remaining spiritual city-walls and is extending over 296.41 hectares. It comprises all the features of an Arab-Muslim city. It is composed of the central medina (8th century) and suburbs to the North and South (13th century). It hosts around 700 historic monuments, distributed in 7 areas (UNESCO), among which the most remarkable is the Zitouna Mosque, situated right at its heart.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Meta-Perception: In general, it means how a person perceives others perceptions’ of themselves. In the context of the current digitized world, meta-perception is a term used in the perception of actual/virtual superposition. To say it clearly it is the perception of the hybrid world.
Simulacra: Exact copies of the originals that no longer exist or perhaps never really existed in the first place. They represent the contemporary elaborations upon the simultaneously, real-and imagined, world.
Hybrid Space: Hybrid space is the space of combination between physical objects and digital information-communication networks; a combination between virtual and actual space, between physical concrete space and digital ephemeral space.
Light Festivals: light festival is among the annual events organized in different part of the world and in different cultures. Generally, it is organized to celebrate the end of the winter and the beginning of the light seasons with art workshops, light designs, live music and street food. However, it is context can change from one culture to another.
HyperReality: In the technological advanced modern society, hyperreality represents the inability to distinguish the reality from the simulation of reality or to say it clearly, inability to distinguish the actual world from the virtual world. Due to this phenomenon, some scholars like Paul Virilio (1996) are thinking that virtual spaces can transcend the real spaces and deteriorate them. This leads to a risk of liquidation of the real through the virtual.
Eventful Cities: the active presence of cities in the dynamics of global governance and implies that their cultural planning policy emphasises creativity. It does also mean the fact of being a ‘creative city’ which is the current urban imaging cliché. Many international and European organizations like the Council of Europe and UNESCO are fostering the use if culture in strategies to revive cities and urban economies and to brand places as ‘different’. Eventful city making focuses in practices of art and creative production and consumption. This implies the high frequency of festivals, urban art events.
Interference: Interference is a light festival organized bi-annually in Tunisia. It started to be organized in September 2016 and it is still continuing. It mainly aims to express public voice and gives citizens free access to art and participation. Through an original going back to the future, this light festival is always taking place in the labyrinthine old streets of the World Heritage centre, the Medina of Tunis.
Creative Place-Making: Creative place-making (CP) is a mode of urban intervention picturing many tools, traditions, scales and methods. It is multivalent, multidisciplinary and adaptive, consisting of a variable elements of heritage conservation, ecological restoration, artistic production and cultural programming, all shaped by broad participation and collaboration.