Inert Cities

We usually associate contemporary urban life with movement and speed. But what about those instances when the forms of mobility associated with globalized cities - the flow of capital, people, labour and information - freeze, or decelerate? How can we assess the value of interruption in a city? What does valuing stillness mean in regards to the forward march of globalization? When does inertia presage decay - and when does it promise immanence and rebirth?
Bringing together original contributions by international specialists from the fields of architecture, photography, film, sociology and cultural analysis, this cutting-edge book considers the poetics and politics of inertia in cities ranging from Amsterdam, Berlin, Beirut and Paris, to Beijing, New York, Sydney and Tokyo. Chapters explore what happens when photography, film, mixed media works, architecture and design intervene in public spaces and urban communities to disrupt speed and growth, both intellectually and/or practically; and question the degree to which mobility is aspirational or imaginary, absolute or transient. Together, they encourage a re-assessment of what it means to be urban in an unevenly globalizing world, to live in cities built around mythologies of perpetual progress. These new analyses of visual culture's strategic interruptions in global cities allow a more in-depth understanding of the new forms of space, experience, and community that are emerging in today's rapidly transforming urban environments.

Stephanie Hemelryk Donald is Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Professor of Comparative Film and Cultural Studies at the University of New South Wales. Christoph Lindner is Professor of Media and Culture and Director of Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. He is a founding member of the Amsterdam Centre for Globalization Studies, the Netherlands.

1. Introduction: Globalization and Interruption
Stephanie Hemelryk Donald (UNSW) and Christoph Lindner (University of
Amsterdam)
PART 1 - STILLNESS
2. Urban Photography as Interruption
Shirley Jordan (Queen Mary, University of London)
3. 'At the still point of the turning world': The Paradox of the Urban Portrait
Hugh Campbell (University College Dublin)
4. Parkour and the Stilled Image
Bill Marshall (University of London)
5. Holding Patterns: Affirming Stillness for Commuting Subjects
David Bissell (Australian National University)
PART 2 - DECELERATION
6. Viennese Inertia: Deceleration and Local Identity Construction
Heide Kunzelmann (University of London) and Elisabeth Mayerhofer (Vienna)
7. Decelerating Global Amsterdam: Amnesiac Urbanism and Architectures of Immobility
5
Christoph Lindner (University of Amsterdam)
8. Inertia and the Everyday during the Seige of Beirut
Claire Launchbury (University of Leeds)
PART 3 - SLOW MOTION
9. Children and the Global City: Disguising Decay in Chinese and European Film
Stephanie Hemelryk Donald (University of New South Wales)
10. Intermedia, Scale, and Postmodern Lisbon
Lúcia Nagib (University of Leeds)
11. Slow Motion Pictures: Casting Inertia in Contemporary Berlin Films
Andrew Webber (University of Cambridge)
12. Afterword
Laura Mulvey (Birkbeck, University of London)