City Sets – Narrating Visual Urban Identities

City Sets - Visual Urban Identities was a workshop and a seminar arranged for post-graduate students in graphic design, new media, photography and architecture in November 2010. The aim was to research and discuss designs, artifacts and visual narratives embedded in an urban environment. Photo-observation, video recording and interviews were used to collect pictorial material and to investigate modes of visualizing information, identities, promotion and narratives in cities. City Sets is a metaphor that refers to cities as stages where passers-by are seen as actors. Architecture in an urban environment tells history and frames places, which can be seen as stages for various scenes and encounters to come about. Advertising and signage as city sets influence the appearance of a place, although their functions are information and promotion. Arts on streets have developed new modes for participation questioning the restrictions and rights to use public space. Anthropologists have used photography and filming for documentation since 1800s and photo-observation is associated with ethnography. For artists and designers it is a method to explore and observe the world and collect material to create new artworks. In City Sets project these two aspects were combined. In collaborative fieldwork the students documented urban scenes and collected material, which they developed further and created multi-linear visual narratives. The material was arranged and presented online by the City Sets Multilinear media player application designed for the project. The paper presents the workshop model as a visual method applicable for research and for media design.