Territorios urbanos a partir de las imágenes mediáticas: Desfiles, carnavales, manifestaciones y revueltas en Bogotá

Abstract

In the contemporary world, the issue of forming territory is decisively marked by two aspects: the urban environment and the use of new media and communications technologies. In the city of Bogotá, in its most significant public space, the one with the most relevant historic and cultural significance -the Avenue 7th or Carrera Séptima and the Plaza de Bolivar-, we can identify public events such as processions, parades, carnivals, demonstrations and riots as different ways of forming territory. For nearly a century a good portion of these events have been recorded in images ranging from silent movies to online videos; they serve as documentation as well as propellers for such events. The ways in which people congregate in public space and participate of these events allow for modes of appropriation of the public in order to form urban territories: modes that are spectacular, carnivalesque or rioting. Film as documentary, fiction or online video, could promote hegemonic discourse or other forms of cultural expression in the city, as well as the constitution of different subjects: subjects as people, crowds or mass participating in forming territories.