School of Architecture and Urbanism of University of São Paulo
Advisor: Dra. Giselle Beiguelman

Introduction

​This research in the field of theory and history of art and architecture is a reflection on the unfolding of the city in the contemporary context, from the artistic and collecting manifestations in urban space through digital media. It is a research that intersects architecture, art and technology to think about the new layers of urban experiences, the forms of appropriation of the public space, and the construction of value through the collective construction and exposition of collections through the city, becoming a interactive, artistic, expository and historical interface.

Throughout this thesis, the objective is to discuss public and private space, and capitalization of the city's memories by technology companies, culminating in the discussion of artistic resistance to the breaking of the cycle of control through digital surveillance. I highlight the debate about the control and displacement of powers in the context of art and culture, related to interactions with the public space, proposing to think the pepel of mediators and moderators that change as the city becomes a trigger for various types of database, information control and interface of experiences / memories / value construction. The tension between resistance and capitalization of the urban space as interface reveals the disappearance of the system of traditional curatorial powers and the emergence of new systems of value judgment, in a spontaneous and collective curatorial scenario, whose criteria are ephemeral and volatile.

These values, individually produced and collectively validated, establish an interactive interface role for the city, through locative media. More and more services are created based on the displacement of its users, tagging places, validating spaces, disseminating the urban culture. In order to broaden the discussion, I dedicate my first chapter to understanding the concept of Heritage, since I consider that the topic of value construction tied to collections of images and objects, especially in urban space, is related to the term heritage and possibly its revision in the digital context. The modes of sharing and validation are transformed and I propose a historical analysis of heritage and public art in the city of São Paulo - especially in the last two decades - to the questions of digital culture and the ambivalences between the field of art and culture and technology . The subchapters focuses on understanding the origin of the term heritage and its understanding at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first century, the works and interventions in the city and its consolidation as an artistic practice in the capital, and the most recent terms for public and urban art actions .