Autoterrorist

November 18, 2006

Kate Bush

How did I not know how fantastic Kate Bush is? I’d heard the name and the music before, but only now have I realized the absolute genius that is Kate Bush. At work I kept noticing this song that would play every once in a while on the Muzak and today I finally found out that this haunting tune was Kate Bush.. Now I’ve just been exploring through You Tube for videos. She is quite a theatrical personality! (I think I might have to visit Amoeba tomorrow…)

This video is amazing!!Â The story is so twisted!

WPvideo 1.10

Kate Bush The Wedding List

Cat:

music

| Time: 6:56 am Comments (4)

November 13, 2006

We own the street

IMG_0084

Originally uploaded by jakedobkin.

Street art found in New York by Jake Dobkin of Streetsy.

Cat:

Uncategorized

| Time: 5:03 am Comments (0)

November 9, 2006

Labyrinths

Madrid street artists El Tono and Nuria recently built a labyrinthine installation for Artitu.de over two floors in a former government building in Berlin to represent a favela. Check out a video on Wooster, a Flickr photo set, and a series of photos showing the process.

Reminds me in certain ways of an installation that was planned for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam by the Situationist International in 1959 which sought to construct a psychogeographic drift not only within a museum space but which led directly out into the city where spectators would continue the drift. The installation was never built due to ideological differences, but had it been it might have looked similar to what el Tono and Nuria built in Berlin.

I wonder if Constant had ever experienced a favela… The construction is remarkably like what he proposed for New Babylon.. except without individual dwelling places..

Favelas from Santa TerezaOriginally uploaded by Dust Mason. Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

part of a model of New Babylon.

Cat:

| Time: 4:23 am Comments (0)

November 7, 2006

Anti-graffiti resources

Found myself browsing these anti-graffiti websites with loads of statistics:

The National Council to Prevent Delinquency which is dedicated to stop the misuse and abuse of consumer products in general and spray paint in particular.

Robert Hills, the Executive Director, makes the valid point that

most graffiti vandals subscribe to a value system so divergent from that of the society in general that they require substantial reorientation and redirection to avoid recidivism.

Graffiti Hurts suggests for graffiti writers to enroll in an expensive art school and/or leave the country (“train overseas”) or when that tagging compulsion starts to take over go plant a tree, play sports or volunteer. See the “Do You Write?” page..

Check out their teacher’s tools: one of the more interesting activities is to have the students anthropomorphize a defaced wall and have it confront its perpetrators.

The Baltimore Mural Program is provided as an example of a program that “discourages tagging in favor of public displays of positive community images.” (Looking through the images, I wonder if these murals actually represent a master narrative of community connectedness and harmony when the graffiti artist is representing a different reality..)

Tony Parkes conducted a survey in the UK, The Use of Community Art Projects and Murals as a Means of Controlling Graffiti, and the conclusions he draws are quite progressive, proposing the creation of “graffiti galleries”—free spaces for graffiti writers to create pieces. After all, graffiti writers are community members, too.

Differing Realities:

This legally executed mural was protested by the local community who found its content “aggressive.”

Cat:

graffiti

| Time: 7:06 am Comments (0)

Buff Monster on Archinect

This interview with the Buff Monster by Marlin Watson on Archinect is really worth reading, maybe even printing out and highlighting in my case. My attention was drawn to it via Wooster Collective, via someone named Emily who basically rephrased my thesis:

“I think there could be an interesting dialogue about the dependence/defiance of street art on the buildings and infrastructure of the urban context that gives life and canvas to street art. speaking as an architect, the spaces and surfaces that are attractive to and even generative for artists are fascinating to me. and i guess the alternate perspective of the artist in the city is what your site seeks to give voice to. and of course there is the third party/omni-party viewer relationship to consider. i feel there is alot for me to learn from this conversation”

Absolutely. The introduction to the interview is a fascinating overview of graffiti, street art and supergraphics. And I love that there are references to Takashi Murakami and “flatness,” and Robert Venturi’s theories of architecture as a sign. So much to mull over… I’ll eat it up just like ice cream and cherries…....

Cat:

| Time: 3:39 am Comments (0)

November 18, 2006

Kate Bush

November 13, 2006

We own the street

November 9, 2006

Labyrinths

November 7, 2006

Anti-graffiti resources

Buff Monster on Archinect

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