ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces urban screen studies. It argues that the term “urban screens” is both insufficiently broad and problematically too narrow, but nevertheless emerges out of particular cultural anxieties with the wide range and uses of screen technologies in public places. In tracing the uses of the phrase “urban screens”, this chapter points to the historical, cultural, industrial, and social values that are being attributed to screens and urbanism in public spaces. Rather than defining urban screen media through medium specific qualities, urban screens are best described as being found in the intersections between cinema, television, video, computation, architecture, spatial design, advertising, and public street art.
