Chapter 3 The Productive Gaze. Florence as Archetype of the Cinematic City

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is a discussion of the post-modern shift towards symbolic economies as a substantial factor of transformation of urban public space. It argues that the shift towards a cinematic mode of production, in which production, distribution and consumption of images assume a dominant role in the social organisation, calls for a related cinematic urbanism analysing the prime role of cities as factories in the global system of symbolic production. The city of Florence is assumed as an exemplar case study, examining the way the symbolic productive chain develops towards the real and virtual domains. I argue that Florence represents an archetype of the cinematic city, anticipating since the renaissance the tendency towards global symbolic production as a dominant sector of its urban economy.

Citation

Tripodi, L. (2011), "Chapter 3 The Productive Gaze. Florence as Archetype of the Cinematic City", Perrone, C., Manella, G. and Tripodi, L. (Ed.) Everyday Life in the Segmented City (Research in Urban Sociology, Vol. 11), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 41-64. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1047-0042(2011)0000011006