Thursday, September 27, 2007
Decorating the City
Here is a collection of street art from around the world. I have descriptions for each image and its location but I will post that up later.
Someones Junk and Someone elses Treasure
Cute mechanical sculptures made by welding discarded kitchenwares such as spoons, kettles, flasks, can openers and others.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Inside Out Teddies
“Think of your favorite teddy bear. Now imagine it’s been ripped open, gutted, and turned inside-out. That’s what Kent Rogowski’s Bears series has done to the iconic stuffed animals of our childhoods. In his recently published book and show at Foley Gallery, Rogowski mangles our memories and, at the same time, makes them all the more real.”
They actually become quite cute when you look at them for a while. I took on making one myself and am mid way through the process of sowing it back together. I will post some images of mine but for now you can enjoy the real deal.
They actually become quite cute when you look at them for a while. I took on making one myself and am mid way through the process of sowing it back together. I will post some images of mine but for now you can enjoy the real deal.
A City Without Ads
A city stripped of advertising. No Posters. No flyers. No ads on buses. No ads on trains. No Adshels, no 48-sheets, no nothing.
It sounds like an Adbusters editorial: an activist’s dream. But in São Paulo, Brazil, the dream has become a reality.
In September last year, the city’s populist right-wing mayor, Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called Clean City laws. Fed up with the “visual pollution” caused by the city’s 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning all outdoor advertising. The skyscraper-sized hoardings that lined the city’s streets would be wiped away at a stroke. And it was not just billboards that attracted his wrath: all forms of outdoor advertising were to be prohibited, including ads on taxis, on buses—even shopfronts were to be restricted, their signs limited to 1.5 metres for every 10 metres of frontage. “It is hard in a city of 11 million people to find enough equipment and personnel to determine what is and isn’t legal,” reasoned Kassab, “so we have decided to go all the way.”
The law was hailed by writer Roberto Pompeu de Toledo as “a rare victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash… For once, all that is accustomed to coming out on top in Brazil has lost.”
Already the law has led to some strange discoveries. Because the site-ing of billboards was unregulated, many poor people readily accepted cash to have a poster site in their gardens or even in front of their homes. With their removal, a new city is emerging: “Last week, on my way to work, I ‘discovered’ a house,” says Piqueira. “It had been covered by a big billboard for years so I never even knew what it looked like.” The removal of the posters has “revealed an architecture that we must learn to be proud of, instead of hiding,” says de Marco.
It sounds like an Adbusters editorial: an activist’s dream. But in São Paulo, Brazil, the dream has become a reality.
In September last year, the city’s populist right-wing mayor, Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called Clean City laws. Fed up with the “visual pollution” caused by the city’s 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning all outdoor advertising. The skyscraper-sized hoardings that lined the city’s streets would be wiped away at a stroke. And it was not just billboards that attracted his wrath: all forms of outdoor advertising were to be prohibited, including ads on taxis, on buses—even shopfronts were to be restricted, their signs limited to 1.5 metres for every 10 metres of frontage. “It is hard in a city of 11 million people to find enough equipment and personnel to determine what is and isn’t legal,” reasoned Kassab, “so we have decided to go all the way.”
The law was hailed by writer Roberto Pompeu de Toledo as “a rare victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash… For once, all that is accustomed to coming out on top in Brazil has lost.”
Already the law has led to some strange discoveries. Because the site-ing of billboards was unregulated, many poor people readily accepted cash to have a poster site in their gardens or even in front of their homes. With their removal, a new city is emerging: “Last week, on my way to work, I ‘discovered’ a house,” says Piqueira. “It had been covered by a big billboard for years so I never even knew what it looked like.” The removal of the posters has “revealed an architecture that we must learn to be proud of, instead of hiding,” says de Marco.
Tunnel House
Isn’t it great how creativity kicks in when times running out. Take for example this incredible and beautiful installation by artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck a few months before this house was to be demolished…. They saw any opportunity to do something freaking crazy cool to a space that was going to be destroyed and turned this old house into a trippy wooden warp zone!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Figurines being Smashed
These figurines being smashed is the perfect example of destroying things to create art. Unfortunately I forgot where I got these images from so there is no information about them.
Border Wall VollyBall
Taken from Anthem Magazine:
Even from Google Earth you can see it's big, but it's worthless. It's like a Zen koan: What do you call a transnational barrier wall that isn't? I was thinking someone should do something, transform it into something functional. Like a net. Yes, it's not a wall, it's a 3.4 billion dollar net over which we will play the world's first ever game of transnational border volleyball. We will ignore the warnings of friends and family and head to San Diego's notoriously toxic Imperial Beach to play volleyball with our Mexican neighbors. Maybe we can briefly turn a spectacle of segregation and fear into an international symbol of cross-cultural play.
Even from Google Earth you can see it's big, but it's worthless. It's like a Zen koan: What do you call a transnational barrier wall that isn't? I was thinking someone should do something, transform it into something functional. Like a net. Yes, it's not a wall, it's a 3.4 billion dollar net over which we will play the world's first ever game of transnational border volleyball. We will ignore the warnings of friends and family and head to San Diego's notoriously toxic Imperial Beach to play volleyball with our Mexican neighbors. Maybe we can briefly turn a spectacle of segregation and fear into an international symbol of cross-cultural play.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
