Title: Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade as near-Utopia

Authors: Brian Granger

Addresses: Theatre Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93016 7060, USA

Abstract: In a time of shrinking public resources and a growing, competitive arts community, the need is urgent for cities to examine the relationship between the performer and the urban public space. In this paper I argue that, among large cities, the city of Santa Monica, California is working to find and maintain a balance between the various factors that make public performance in a U.S. city a challenging dialectic. Key to this relationship is the presence of technology, which enhances the inherent advantages and deepens the disadvantages of urban space for the performing body. Consideration of how performers interact through basic infrastructure technology with the City – using Santa Monica|s open-air shopping and pedestrian corridor, Third Street Promenade, as one successful model – suggests how cities may still pursue a utopian notion of public performance in this ever-changing and technological time.

Keywords: public performance; infrastructure technology; art; urban space; Santa Monica; live performance; public space; USA; United States; technological interaction.

DOI: 10.1504/IJART.2009.028926

International Journal of Arts and Technology, 2009 Vol.2 No.3, pp.218 - 234

Published online: 12 Oct 2009 *

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