Texture and Fixture: Understanding Urban Communication Geographies

The paper discusses the ambiguous character of spaces in-between the panoramic “concept city ” and the immersive “thick city”. It is argued, firstly, that the theoretical understanding of such intermediary urban spaces in general, and intermediary communication geographies in particular, has been underdeveloped in media studies. These spaces are crucial if we are to grasp the reproduction and change of cities – notably the interaction between images, representations and social practice. Secondly, it is argued that the concepts of texture and fixture are appropriate for a re-thinking of intermediary communication geographies. Texture refers to the communicative fabric of space – shaped as networks of/for circulation – symbolic as well as material in kind. Fixtures are the strong points in textural webs. They contribute to the reproduction of textures, while at the same time working as nodes of circulation. They appear as both hermeneutic loci (festivals, rituals, cultural scenes, etc) and more material infrastructural nodes (web servers, media buildings, outlets, etc), with no clear boundaries in-between them