Helen Liggett
Professor
Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs
Cleveland State University
Abstract
The “excess of fact” describes the complexity and crowded nature of un-staged photography, where many factors aside from the single subject interact to create meaning. This essay examines the ways in which three modes of “excess of fact” in urban life—echoes, encounters and exchange—create an urban aesthetics. Taking back the right to the city and dialogic occasions are explored in this discussion of the construction of meaningful urban existence.
