This book maps the presence of moving images within the field of public art through encounters with passersby. It argues that far from mere distraction or spectacle, moving images can produce moments of enchantment that can renew, intensify, or challenge our everyday engagement with public space and each other. These artworks also offer frameworks for understanding how moving images operate in public space-how they move viewers and reconfigure the site of the screen. Each chapter explores a mode of address that examines how artists and curators leverage the moving image's attentional power to engage audiences, create spaces, make place, and challenge assumptions. This book also examines the difficulties and compromises that arise when using urban screens for public art.
"This book provides an elaborate analysis ... . Dell'Aria's book offers an important insight into the production, preservation, and reception of moving images as public art. The study is rich and well-documented, examining significant artworks and provides an important contribution to a topic ... . This book is important both for scholars working in film and media studies and those in contemporary art, and would be of great use to any reader curious about moving images in public spaces." (Natasha Nedelkova, The Garage Journal, November 30, 2021)