Introduction

Welcome to the universe of surface studies, a way of seeing and knowing urban life through examining public walls and surfaces. This introduction lays out the potential of surfaces as capacities of publicness in cities and begins with a few guiding questions: What makes a surface attract or reject specific types of signage? How can surfaces and inscriptions be transformative agents in struggles for spatial justice? And who should decide what cities look like? The introduction sets out to demonstrate that a history of contemporary urban cultures can be written through the surfaces of the city and opens up the journey towards writing this history.