Playing the City. The Heidelberg Project in Detroit
Playing the City. The Heidelberg Project in Detroit
Abstract
This article reads the Heidelberg Project, an outdoor art installation created from found objects, abandoned houses, and empty lots in a primarily African American neighborhood in Detroit that was started by artist Tyree Guyton in 1986, as a prominent example of playing in and with the city: as an attempt to transform a bleak environment into a creative space that challenges dominant conceptions of urban decay and disillusion. The article uses various approaches from play theory – drawn, among others, from Huizinga's Homo Ludens, von Neumann and Morgenstern's Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, and Sutton-Smith's Ambiguity of Play – to suggest that the project's playful transformation of castoff everyday items into culturally meaningful artifacts aims to redefine popular discourses about the failing American postindustrial city.
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as:
Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Generic
Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Generic
Keywords:
DetroitSpielStadtStadtentwicklung