Negotiating the Image of the City: A Discussion of Skilled Perception and the Role of Artists in the Redevelopment of Bjørvika

摘要

In the master plan of the redevelopment of the former industrial harbor Bjørvika, funding forart is stipulated along with access to the site during the construction phase. This article looks at anintervention, from 2005, of the artist Marianne Heier, in relation to the strategic use of imagery in placebranding and the use of images to structure change. The epistemological dimension of images will beargued to have ontological implications on how we perceive the world and consequently act upon it.This article suggests the need for a critical approach to mediated images in the context of urbandevelopment. By discussing the relationships between Lorraine Daston’s use of the notion of ‘skilledperception’ and Jaques Rancière’s concept of the ‘distribution of the sensible’, I attempt to drawattention to how our perception is skilled and thus affects what we hold in common. Ultimately, theformation of public spaces is the subject of the article and by pointing to the role that images play, asthe way we see the city is shaped, this paper argue the need for images that unveil otherwiseunrepresented potentials and interests. The notion of skilled perception is presented as a tool forinvestigating how mediated images in Bjørvika form the basis of perceptual habits, and are suggestedto be of use in grasping the “politics” of artistic interventions within the larger constructed image ofBjørvika.