On my way to run some errands the other day I drove down a road that had obviously been driven on while the striping had still been fresh because the white on one side suddenly started weaving all over the road. It was interesting because one, I continuously like to think about tracing pathways and two, it fascinated me to think of who it was that drove over the fresh paint and why they couldn’t seem to keep a straight line. A getaway vehical perhaps?
It reminded me of a recent post earlier this month from Abitare regarding some bikers who decided to throw a several gallons of colorful paint at the entrances to the intersection at the busy Rosenthaler Platz in Berlin. The cars then would drive through these massive puddles of color and make lines with their tires through the intersection that would trace their movement as they went on their way. While this doesn’t trace the total movement of cars, it makes for a pretty intersection piece at least that helps to gain a feel for the specific traffic intersections and flow.
This reminds me of a previous post on active paths and desire lines which referenced a little invention for the bicycle called the Contrail. The idea behind this invention is to have a device that stays with the bike to map out it’s path in real time versus being place specific and requiring the user to pass through. Instead the Contrail helps to map the path instead of the space.
What I think would be really interesting is to map out vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian in a manner like the Contrail in a way that could be stored as data but seen visually, even if only online, to help understand how the different modes interact, where problem areas are and where it looks and feels as though the three work together harmoniously. That and it would be really nifty to look at.
Luzinterruptus, a Spanish guerrilla-style art collective based in Madrid who’s work I adore, is at it again but this time they’ve set their aim at the vegetated and the vertical. Their humorous criticism here is two-fold. One, the lack of green in urban spaces and two, the vertical gardens that are becoming so popular in many countries that the group feels lacks a certain level of accessibility in addition to the cost. They’ve chosen to make their statement in a traditional Luzinterruptus way, an at-first beautiful installation with light using materials chosen to deliver a message, installed by black-clothed messengers at night.
In addition to their message about urban green space as well as the criticism on vertical walls, the installation made me think about the food that we see in grocery stores today. Food now is packaged, preserved and made to look beautiful as it sits on shelves year round, completely disconnected from seasons and geography. It looks good but it is essentially artificial in nature. Perhaps the discussion of packaged beauty reaches far and wide, beyond urban greenery. And while I’d argue that vertical greenery is beneficial in many ways, there is a bit of a fad that has developed where blankets of green are appearing in various shapes and configurations in some design drawings and even the occasional built project that seem to have lost touch with the real purpose and are reaching more into the category of adornment. Here’s what the artists have to say about their installation,
With the installation Packaged vertical garden, we wanted to promote the preservation of urban greenery, because if we continue to eradicate it from public spaces or reducing it to inaccessible vertical faces, the only form of contact with nature will be in supermarket refrigerators, packaged with expiry dates.
In general, it is more comfortable for city planners to build inhospitable cement spaces, where there is no need for special care, than to design green spaces where the citizens can spend their time and enjoy public places.
In addition, we have noticed the increasing proliferation of vertical gardens, which are interesting decoratively speaking, but expensive to maintain and with which the citizens cannot interact or put to real use, being a minimal attempt at providing greenery, but in an inaccessible and artificial way…
For this installation we used 110 transparent food packaging containers, inside which we put leaves and branches found in the trees in the area and lights of course. Afterwards, we placed them on a wall in an ugly square in the center of Madrid and there we left our form of fashionable vertical garden.
Previous posts on the work of Luz Interruptus have been written about their recent and first ever public participation project called Caged Memories, their installation for Madrid’s White Night festival, an installation titled “Green Light Grafts” and also their piece titled “A Cloud of Bags Visit the Prado” where 80 recycled and lit bags were brought to the steps of the Prado Museum in Madrid with the overarching message to recycle. Also check out more of their work on their website.
Sometimes human behavior will provide hints on what people want or need. Other times people make downright obvious, like painting on their own sidewalk in an area where pedestrians feel unsafe with the current situation. This may be the work of someone who has had a few too many drinks thus prohibiting their ability to make a straight line but nonetheless, they were well intentioned. One thing to note is that this spot in Portland at the intersection of East Burnside and Northeast 8th Street is already slated to receive a stop light in the near future.
Improv Everywhere, the NYC-based improv group devoted to causing joy and chaos among the public streets, has been at it again. This time, they set 2,000 people loose in Brooklyn with invisible dogs on a Sunday afternoon for about an hour long walk. Participants spread out and acted as they normally would with a real dog, stopping at hydrants, picking up poo, chasing other dogs and even other people. Apparently the whole gag got started by a phone call from someone who happened to have taken over an abandoned factory to convert into an art space and the factory had 2,000 invisible dog leashes gathering dust. Well surely you can’t let those go to waste! Oh how I love urban gags. Check out the video above to watch people walking their dogs.
Wednesday September 02nd 2009, 11:24 pm
Filed under: Art, Guerilla
Kim Brusselmans, a native of Belgium currently living Barcelona and owner of both a publicity and a t-shirt company, has been exploring an interesting style of street art through his guerilla-style street art, he attempts to bring a little love to the street in a somewhat subtle and surprising way. He even has a book called Love Injections that captures the whole lot. It’s an interesting thought in that it can be ways of expressing your feelings for the one you love, the one you want or just spreading a little love to those in the near vicinity. Either way, it’s highly entertaining and smile-inducing.
Brusselman’s street art project simply goes by Brusse and has three different projects thus far: Streetlove, Heart Attacks and Love Injections.
Heart Attacks focuses on oversized heart-shaped locks with messages located within, on or around specific objects or scenery.
Love Injections…
And last but certainly not lease is my favorite of the bunch, the Streetlove project that explores the act of love as represented through various objects and setup situations within the urban street environment.
Sunday July 26th 2009, 7:56 am
Filed under: Guerilla, Planter
Toronto’s at it again. I’ve written previously about the city’s guerilla gardening here and here. This time, the target is unused advertising posters that have already been torn up and neglected. The project is called “Poster Pocket Plants” and they even have a blog.
It also looks like they are claiming the previously anonymous project that I posted about just recently. And if you want to reproduce this sort of thing in your city, they have a template and directions on their website.
Thursday July 09th 2009, 8:32 am
Filed under: Guerilla, Planter
Last time I wrote about guerilla gardening in terms of re-purposing things like old, unused newspaper and flyer bins as well as old election posters for use as planters. This time, it’s back in Toronto for the re-posting of flyer ads as cone planters.
The reason that I love this type of guerilla gardening is that it isn’t hurting anything while getting a bit of a message across and almost takes on an aura of public art in that it heightens pedestrian’s curiousity, causing them to break their daily habits and pause, examine and smile. It’s a day brightener for many.
And then while Spacing Magazine doesn’t say what or if anything happened to these throughout the day, I think it would be cool if after awhile people starting taking them down and giving them to people, furthering the act of brightening someone’s day. It would’ve been fun actually if notes had been attached to the plants directing this type of behavior because afterall they can’t survive in those little cones forever. Then the plants could be planted by the receiver, thus furthering the spread of plants throughout the city.
Guerilla gardening can span a wide range of things from tossing some seed bombs over a fence to creating things that border on art installations. Whatever the choice may be, the goal is to beautify and vegify.
People not only make use of scrappy pieces of land in need of some love but also things found in the environment that are no longer being used, like these empty flyer bins:
According to bladediary: “I’ve always been amazed by the state of most flyerboxes. More often that not, they are empty. Some haven’t been filled in years. Yet, there they are: everywhere in the city- at every intersection. Taking up valuable sidewalk space. For whatever reason, a great many of them offer nothing but an empty box. But that offers a great opportunity for some people!”
These empty boxes which often end up finding use as a waste bin or yet another space for tagging, are looked at in another way.
“I tried to think of better ways than “Garbage Can” to reimagine the interior spaces of these flyerboxes- better ways to make use of the whole box- not just the exterior walls. The boxes makes a perfect platform for planters- and with them you can guerrilla garden almost anywhere in the inhospitable concrete city! Best of all, it leaves the sides open for writers and artists.”
In South Dublin, Mick Veale has come up with a fabulous idea to make use of all those horrible election posters plaguing lawns and other such empty spaces. With candidates taking things like Twitter and Facebook by storm, who needs election posters anymore anyway?
Till then, how about turning those pesky posters into some artsy flower boxes. First, grab some election posters and measure them up:
After measuring some straight lines, fold up the sides. Make some small holes in the corners with a screwdriver and then use some cable ties to hold it together.
After 10 minutes, you’ve got yourself a planter box ready for some soil and flowers.
Then, find some window sills or any other place that is in need of some serious cheering up. Place, plant and water.
Friday May 29th 2009, 1:53 pm
Filed under: Art, Guerilla
Anna Garforth is an artist in London who has been working on a project which was inspired by guerilla gardening groups who aim to enrich dilapidated public spaces along with fellow British artist Andy Goldsworthy. Poet and friend of Garforth, Eleanor Stevens, wrote a poem which Garforth has decided to display one verse of in different parts of the city and at different times. And she has chosen to display them in moss.
The first verse reads “In this spore borne air,” This living, breathing graffiti acts as a healthy alternative to spray paints. Instead the moss is attached using organic materials and the hope is that the moss would eventually colonize and take over the whole wall.
According to the artist “spore borne air represents the winds of change, feeling of movement, setting seeds, moss spores in the air, moisture, potential”. The word borne is larger than the rest of the word, putting emphasis on that feeling of change and movement, both in awareness of environmental issues and in the shift in perspective given to the “transitional” area of east London where the art was placed.
The second line says “watch your skin peel” which is not at all intended to sound morbid but rather as metamorphosis It is a “metaphor for consious change, the human body being in a constant state of flux, the casting aside of dead matter, and regeneration.”
“The quote can be seen as an invitation to watch your skin peel and consider our connection to the earth, how you can shape it, and also, how it shapes you.”
