Catherine Zuromskis Our theoretical understanding of public is much changed since Jurgen Habermas first put forth his notion of the bourgeois public sphere in 1962.1 While Habermas’ ideal of a democratic, dialogic community external to both the private sphere and the state is still valuable today, the more recent critical work of Bruce Robbins, Nancy Fraser, Rosalyn Deutsche, and Michael Warner (to name only a few)2 point less to a definable, singular public sphere and more to an often-indistinct and fragmentary interplay of multiple publics and counterpublics. These new critical understandings of public raise questions about who is included and who is excluded in the formation of certain publics, and problematize overly simplistic binary distinctions between inside and outside, public and private. As such, it has become more difficult than ever to define a public (or publics) concretely, as either theoretical or practical cultural entities. This issue of Invisible Culture is a modest attempt to explore some of the many issues raised by the growing field of public sphere theory. Taking a cue from Michael Warner, the articles presented …

Jessica Robey Beginning in the early seventies, the artists and architects of SITE, Inc. staged a series of interventions into the everyday American practice of shopping that confronted some of the most crucial issues of public art. An increasingly contentious discourse in the late sixties and early seventies on the nature and role of public art, was triggered, in part, by various government initiatives to promote and fund public art projects, and focused on the gap between a consumption-driven mass culture and a modernist avant-garde defined in opposition to it. Central to the problem of defining an authentic form of public art was the question of what constituted authenticity in the face of commercialization and mass media. What aspects of contemporary culture were generated by the people, and what were merely debased forms of propaganda imposed by the culture industry? What was the relationship between the two? Did they operate purely in opposition to one another, or was it possible to imagine a more symbiotic negotiation at play, each appropriating, transforming, and providing new material …

Simon Cowell On the front cover of issue 702 of Entertainment Weekly, eclipsing the coverlines “James Gandolfini Speaks” and “Hollywood’s Weirdest Star,” are the images of eight (mostly) young, (mostly) smiling people.1 The composition of each picture is the same – a close crop of the subject’s face against a light-blue background. The photographs are configured in a square, which, together with the contrived poses of the individuals, effects a visual conceit, whereby each person, in an inter-imaginary moment, gazes beyond the limits of her or his photographic frame at another party. These figures, in their, albeit fictional, scopic agency, trouble their position as photographic subjects to be looked at as they themselves look beyond the limits of their own representation. In looking (and, of course, smiling) at each other, they suggest a participation in a kind of community. In case our knowledge of popular (televisual) culture isn’t sufficient enough for us to get the reference here, the headline resolves any ambiguity: “The American Idol Bunch.” The montage parodies the title-sequence graphics of the 1970s sitcom The Brady …

Lisa Uddin To be a good dog citizen, Beans should behave the way you like your friends’ dogs to behave when you visit them. Naturally, you don’t like a dog who barks, snaps, or bites; who destroys property; who jumps up on people or furniture. So naturally you won’t want Beans to have such bad habits. Correcting these faults is the first step in teaching Beans decent dog behavior. By this time, Beans will know his name. He will understand what “No” means, and the difference between “Good dog” and “Bad dog.” He will probably be housebroken. So you have already made a very good start with the ABC’s of good citizenship. Jane Sherman, The Real Book about Dogs, 1951. Something strange has happened to citizenship. Lauren Berlant, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City, 1997. This essay is a speculative inquiry into the possibilities and problems of canine citizenship. Informed by a cross section of contemporary images of and relations to dogs in the United States, it asks to what extent, and to what …

Sunil Manghani The long and often fraught process of re-establishing Berlin as both the capital of a reunified Germany and the seat of its government took place over a period of a decade, beginning in 1991. Incredibly, this would mean Berlin would be host to a fifth distinctive political regime within just one century. Following the unification of Germany in 1871 and the establishment of an imperial power that continued until the disarray at the end of the First World War, the city of Berlin was to witness the inauguration of the Weimar Republic, the fascist totalitarian state of Nazi Germany and communist rule of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), before embodying the democratic federalism of today’s “United Germany.” With fits of political domination and new beginnings, the changing face of Berlin’s “public sphere” has undoubtedly carried with it changing fortunes, and given rise to a panoply of myths, symbols, and images. I intend here to turn, specifically, to aspects of Berlin’s rich visual culture in an attempt to understand the role played by “images” in thinking …

Shannon Mattern The redevelopment of Lower Manhattan has shown that urban design—as well as the economics, politics, and drama that surround and inform it—can capture wide public attention. Several trade journals have proclaimed that the World Trade Center design competition has placed architecture and planning on the popular cultural radar screen. The World Trade Center project has become the public’s project.1 Local, regional, national, and international publics have realized that this small corner of New York City will be called upon to represent not only the city’s identity, but also the nation’s and the globe’s. The new World Trade Center will have to reflect the ethos and ideologies of a newly awakened world. Global publics follow the design process and form opinions, however uninformed, on the proposals. Design journal editors have also challenged design professionals to ask themselves whether they want such public attention to be measured as public opinion (as nothing more than a popularity contest: a charmed public voting for the design team with the best public relations campaign) or whether they want to transform …