Control devices and interaction devices in public art

Abstract

This article deals with the manifestations or artistic dynamics that are developed in regulated and controlled public spaces; spaces that by this condition are scenarios of friction, conflicts and tensions between different social actors; phenomena that are part of what happens in the day to day of modern cities, which are discussed by different artists and collectives. These manifestations, for this particular article are addressed from the subject of the body, and from the conception of dispositif (also known as device) raised by Michel Foucault and amplified by other authors. Dispositif is first proposed as a network of spaces and institutional norms that regulate the behavior of individuals in the city: urbanism, surveillance and disciplinary control that regulate public spaces, where are repressed and controlled not only actions linked to art but also the everyday subject, such as the pedestrian. Secondly, dispositif is proposed as a resource used by the artist to generate what Foucault calls heterotopias or “other spaces”; which could be understood as ordinations of space through artifacts or instruments that seek new social and spatial interactions.