Seeing the self in the world Attending to banal globalism in urban visual cultures

Urban visual cultures are permeated by images of the global earth. From environmentalist posters presenting fragile whole earths, to logos that brand international corporations, these visual figures have dissolved into the scarcely scrutinized backdrop of everyday practice. This short article underlines the significance of this ‘banal globalism’ as the condition in which global discourses shape identities and frame experience in ways that elude conscious disputation. It indicates two complexities surrounding banal globalism. First I stress how the inconspicuousness and seeming triviality of banal global images exceed critical approaches based on the concentrated reading of visual objects. Then I indicate how such focused analysis can uncover rich and strange global visions that might otherwise be overlooked as part of the quotidian urban backdrop.