This visually stunning, conceptually rich and imaginative book investigates the cultural connection between new media and architectural imaging. Through a range of material, from theoretical texts to experimental design projects, Tierney explores notions of what the architectural image means today.

Within the book's visually imaginative design framework, Abstract Space engages discourses from architecture, visual and cultural studies to computer science and communications technology to present an in-depth multi-media case study. Tracing a provisional history of the topic, the book also lends a provocative and multivalent understanding to the complex relations affecting the architectural image today.

Social media is restructuring urban practices-through ad-hoc experimentation, commercial software development, and communities of participation. This book is the first to consider how practices contained within social media are situated within a larger genealogy of public space, including theories of communal identity, civitas and democracy, the fete, and self-expression. Through empirical research, the actual social practices of participants of networked publics are described and analyzed. Documenting how online counterpublics use the Internet to transmit classified photos, mobilize activists, and challenge the status quo, Tierney argues that online activities do not stop in online conversations; they are physically grounded through mobile GPS coordinates which are then transformed into activities in physical space-the street, the plaza, the places where people have traditionally gathered to demonstrate and express their opinions publicly.

Social media is restructuring urban practices-through ad-hoc experimentation, commercial software development, and communities of participation. This book is the first to consider how practices contained within social media are situated within a larger genealogy of public space, including theories of communal identity, civitas and democracy, the fete, and self-expression. Through empirical research, the actual social practices of participants of networked publics are described and analyzed. Documenting how online counterpublics use the Internet to transmit classified photos, mobilize activists, and challenge the status quo, Tierney argues that online activities do not stop in online conversations; they are physically grounded through mobile GPS coordinates which are then transformed into activities in physical space-the street, the plaza, the places where people have traditionally gathered to demonstrate and express their opinions publicly.