ABSTRACT
This visual essay explores urban surfaces through 34 photographic instances, commenting on the communicative and political potential of this spatial typology. The essay presents a series of arguments about urban surfaces and inscriptions, by tracing their material, semiotic and legal parameters and examining them in annotated photographs. Using theoretical frameworks such as urban semiotics and legal geography, the essay provides a situated reading of inscriptions such as graffiti and street art, in order to reveal their role in activating urban surfaces and transforming them into sites of political contention. The underlying argument is that urban surfaces are locations for claiming rights to visibility, appropriation and spatial production; in other words, surfaces are locations for claiming the right to the city.
