Article:

„The analytical brain of urban life.“ Zur Kulturgeschichte der Straßenlaterne im 21. Jahrhundert

Street lighting forms the densest existing urban infrastructure, which is why it is considered a core element of future smart cities. Against this background, the article discusses the ‘becoming media’ of the streetlamp that today illuminates urban flows of all sorts. Based on a historical overview, I argue that street lighting facilitated the circulation of goods, people, and money in the modern city by becoming static infrastructure. In the physical asset of the streetlamp, urban infrastructures of traffic management, communication, market and governance overlap. However, its constitutive contribution to these processes is rendered anesthetic by its primary function of providing light. Previous cultural studies research has thus often treated the streetlight as an ensemble consisting only of visible lamp and invisible gas or electricity network. The lampposts connecting these two elements and their specific affordances were largely ignored. However, for the urban internet of things, the lighting function plays only a subordinate role compared to the numerous sensors, antennas and other devices mounted on these masts. The article closes with a small case study on the planned introduction of smart lamps in Miami, discussing possible consequences of this ‘becoming media’ of street lighting and the resulting new business models.