ABSTRACT
Competing theories of social interaction have privileged either its textual aspects or its nature as practice (recent theories of “media events” being a hybrid case). But how do we understand what happens when multiple textual and other practices confront each other in a public space that is also a site in media narratives? What gives rise, suddenly, to the “sense of an event”? When media space and public space overlap, the answers must lie beyond media-centred theories – but where? These questions, not readily answered yet, are fundamental to an account of the media’s role in society. Recent practice in public art offers an important and insufficiently studied means of approaching these questions. This chapter seeks to open up this territory by examining the controversy that raged around House, a public sculpture displayed in London’s East End, late in 1993.
