The dramatisation of photography as urban cartography in Smoke

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.62161/sauc.v12.6302

Keywords:

Smoke, Urban cartography, Documentary photography, Film, Discourse Analysis, Public Space

Abstract

A sequence from Smoke (Wayne Wang and Paul Auster, 1995) explores the unique urban cartography created by an amateur photographer using four thousand photographs of the corner of his street, taken from the same spot at the same time. Through filmic and photographic analysis, the mechanisms that structure the narrative are examined, and it is concluded that still images—along with framing, editing and sound—help to generate empathy in the viewer by combining photography as a belated discovery (Campany) and evidence of documentary reality (Barthes).

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Author Biographies

Javier Figuero Espadas, Universidad San Pablo CEU

He holds a PhD in Audiovisual Communication and is a senior lecturer at San Pablo-CEU University, where he teaches Screenwriting, Film Production and Video Editing. Director of the Bachelor’s Degree in Audiovisual Communication (2015–2021). Film critic for Pantalla 90. Independent filmmaker, with several international awards for short films such as Milagros (2006), Tablas (2009), The Most Beautiful Thing (2015) and The Monster (2019). He has worked as a screenwriter and script coordinator on television series such as Médico de Familia (Telecinco), Menudo es mi padre (Antena 3) and Esquimales en el Caribe (TVE)… Author of the monograph Los inadaptados de Tim Burton (Ediciones Encuentro, 2012) and of articles on cinema and screenwriting published in academic journals such as Communication & Society, Fotocinema, Observatorio (OBS) and Comunicación y Hombre, amongst others.

Miguel Ángel de Santiago Mateos, Universidad San Pablo CEU

Miguel Ángel de Santiago Mateos holds a Bachelor’s degree and a PhD in Journalism from CEU San Pablo University in Madrid (CEU Universities), where he is currently a senior lecturer in the Fundamentals of Photography and Aesthetics and head of the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising. As a member of the established research group “Hypermedia Micro-stories and Other Literary Micro-forms. Aesthetic Paradigm of Text-Visual Culture on the Web (MiRed)”, and head of the Research Support Service at the Audiovisual Centre (SAI-CA) of CEU-USP, his research focuses on the study of photography in the field of communication and, in particular, on visual narratives.

References

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Published

2026-09-03

How to Cite

Figuero Espadas, J., & de Santiago Mateos, M. . Ángel. (2026). The dramatisation of photography as urban cartography in Smoke. Street Art & Urban Creativity, 12(5), 271–283. https://doi.org/10.62161/sauc.v12.6302

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 5 (2026)

Section

Research articles

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