Art Tactics Transforming Public Spaces in Commercial Environments: A Comparative Study in China and Denmark

The impetus for this study arose from self-reflection on a growing demand for architectural designs that provide novel and appealing experiences in Chinese cities. This demand represents the recent clients’ expectations, social needs, and the inner aspiration of architects, which has been included in an strategic perspective in the contemporary urban development. Moving beyond traditional architectural boundaries, this study reconsiders the roles of art in the transformation of aestheticized public spaces, a perspective cannot be fully explained by an overarching strategic approach. This study investigates how art transforms urban public space by deconstructing the normalized relationship between architectural function and aesthetic form created in the everyday life. It becomes evident that art’s effects cannot be comprehensively discovered by observing it operating independently in architectural design and everyday life. In this study, the role of art is not only the subject of research but also serves as an intermediary, facilitating discussions on the relationship between public space and everyday life beyond dualistic perspectives. Public space is not mechanistically organized by its aesthetic functions, symbolizing urban lifestyles, but undergoes continual transformation through the emerging aesthetic forms in everyday life. This does not mean the aesthetic forms of public space are determined by everyday life, as it is affected by the ever-changing environments. Therefore, discussing the art’s effects on public space calls for the establishment of a new philosophical foundation to transcend the traditional dualism between the public space and everyday life.

Deleuze’s assemblage thinking offers a potent tool for this study. First, it expands the Foucauldian mechanism of governmentality through the folding of time represented in the living, activating the transformative potential of space. Second, it synthesizes Foucault and Certeau’s distinct approaches to inquiry into the resistance of the mechanism of space, implying the resistance of subject – the urban life – relies on integrating itself into the mechanism. Lastly, the assemblage thinking itself contributes to synthesizing the transcendental emphasized in Deleuze’s philosophy and Certeau’s practical theory, introducing a research methodology that transcends empirical work. Through using assemblage thinking to synthesize the three thinkers’ universal points at stake and their different approaches, a toolbox for analyzing assemblages in the case study was framed.

This framework contributes to comparing aesthetic forms of public space across time periods and cultural settings, where multiple power relations emerged. The comparative case study focuses on how the transformative potentials of art in everyday life in Danish and Chinese societies can open and transform the territory in which aesthetic function operates as a mechanism of political and capital power. Despite significant differences in political-economic relations between Chinese and Danish social contexts, both integrated into the universal global order in each era and emerged as local force relations in the multiple synthesis and divisions from the global order. This study examines the cases in the three eras: 1960s-1970s, dominated by socialism-capitalism tension; 1980s-2000s, characterized by neoliberal political-economic relations driven by market demands; and 2000s to the present, marked by cooperative political-economic relations in the experience economy. The comparative case study offer insights into the diverse conditions of environments where art plays a tactical role in forming and transforming the aesthetic forms of everyday life in Chinese and Danish social contexts. Moreover, it manifests the indivisibility of analyzing the cases in the two different cultural settings, as art tactics have expressive effects within global relationships. Finally, despite the exploration of differentiations in the comparative study, this study identifies a significant similarity in the conditions fostering the expressiveness of art tactics. The similarity is seen in the different social consensus of recognizing the diversity and multiplicity of public space, which partly depends on how we engage in redefining these concepts for a future public space in our lives.