DescentBB

http://www.robinhowie.co.uk/html/dialog ... gston.html

click the other numbers to see more.


it's about public space.

what do you think? do you agree something is wrong?

Right...

I really have no idea what you're bawwing about this time.

Yea, humanity is wrong.

Yeah, what's wrong is that they fail to make their point clear, instead their point is shrouded in comments and questions phrased to encourage the reader/viewer to \"think\" and possibly consider the kinds of city/non-city public/private 'space' ... all positioned in a publication designed to highlight a style of compositing the material.

Great stuff for art/publication classes where the instructor is attempting to encourage the students to \"think\" and design their project to encourage/direct the reader/viewer's attention.

Personally, I think the point they are making (about how we percieve \"space\" in urban communities) ... is a bit 'lame' and really serves no purpose because there isn't anything that can be changed in that perception... because it only draws out the perception. Otherwise known as \"stating the obvious\" but confusing the point along the way.

Oy.

Does have some nice pictures.

Okay.....

I mabey barking completely up the wrong tree in the wrong forest here, but the impression i got from this was that the artist was driving towards how crowded it feels in inner cities. I mean a lot of the time you walk or drive around in the cities, you face is filled with a billboard, or a guy throwing a big arrow around, or a huge lcd screen flashing at you... I mean, sometimes it feels like, theres no room to breathe without something catching your attention in the corner of your eye.... Where has the room gone to breath freely...?

to me, it was talking more about public space and how they are no longer guaranteed.

Almost everywhere you go in a city, some security guard can legitimately come upto you and boss you around. You are almost always on private property - this means whereever you are, you are always there on someone else's terms. there is very little true public space.
And what is public space, what can and can't we do on it?

I think of public space like... space. just space, room, the area inbetween things of importance. where you can walk around, do whatever you want, ride a bike, roll in the grass, read a book, play football, fly a kite, talk to people, practice your handstands, dance.
Being an aussie, any segment of beach is a typical public space in my mind.



I remember something here:
http://www.huongngo.com/newnew/?q=event

Without a studio space, I was feeling cramped and claustrophobic in my tiny 400 sq. ft. Manhattan apartment, so late one night in October of 2006, I emailed Josh Greene of the wonderful one-man grant operation called \"Service-Works\" to ask if he might help me on a project called the Pop-Up Studio. I wanted to construct an inflated space that I could set up in the area, and invite artists to come share it with me. Initially, I had asked Josh to provide funds for any fines or citations that I might receive for setting up without a permit in New York City.

tl;dr this girl decided to deploy a small inflated \"room\" in public space and do art inside of it (see link above for pics) - i guess it's kinda a public performance art, but it is functional and she is getting practical use outof it.

note the bit i bolded. She was expecting fines and citations for inflating her small room somewhere without a permit in new york city. That strikes me as wrong.

If she was doing this just somewhere in the countryside, no-one would care. Because we all have a mental image of open spaces - freedom. In Citys, are we aware of this lack of freedom? I wonder if a lot of people are not aware of this, i do see some free spirited relaxed people nothing gets them down and they generally do what they want, without regard for convention. You know... free people. I think these happy people simply refuse to acknowledge lacks of freedoms in their lives and environments - they have a sense of community, a sense of free space. They will rollerblade down the road and dance on the street, and why not?

Compared to the countryside, with it's mental image of open space and the freedom that inspires. Do we accept that we can't have this in our citys? Is this a valid thing, should we accept this, is this ok?

In dense cities, space is highly sought, and therefore expensive. This means every last bit of it will be rigidly controlled -- you want a 4' x 6' square to sell hotdogs? You're going to have to pay some sort of rent, either to the city itself or to a property owner.

I support the intentional creation of public spaces (parks and the like) within cities, where people can do things like ride bikes, read a book, dance, and so on. I think it's *extremely* necessary to have permits and fines in that case. You can't play football or fly a kite if some guy is set up in the middle of the grass selling espressos. You need permits, fines, security guards, etc. to preserve public space as truly public; without such things, you quickly find sidewalks and parks become unusable due to a few individuals hogging it. (While I don't agree with every solution described in Garrett Hardin's famous essay, the section titled \"Tragedy of Freedom in a Commons\" at least gives a clear statement of the general problem.)

There should be a more liquid arrangement. For instance, there is no need to tell someone to move on - unless they are actaully getting in the way, and there is no way to re-route traffic around them. Otherwise why not just accept the new inflated room as part of the landscape? What is the purpose of asking them to move? They seem to be asking them to move simply because they want to exert their control over the area - but for no useful purpose!


Why not have a more fluid system, where someone should move only if they need to move. Not just because - \"i can tell you to do whatever i want, and i want things to look the way they did yesterday - get that room outof here\". What is the point in that authority? Especially in a society that should be encouraging community spirit.*

if we have to live side by side with one another, we should have more shared space, and there should be less restrictions. Otherwise as you get closer and closer to other people and property (especially corporate - as unfeeling \"capital\" is the most resistant to the community's influence - \"we hire PR people to deal with you so we don't have to\") you will feel more and more in a prison as there is no-where else to go cept for your ever shrinking personal space - or escape outside the city itself.

Private property can be clashing with needed room to live. If you live in cramped quarters (like a city) and need your neighbours' driveway space to play tennis, you get involved with them. Since you live so closely, and you have to use their space so much, and them yours, your personal private spaces will eventually become so intermingled that you will consider it \"shared space\" - add enough people into this arrengement and you have a community, and that shared space is now \"public space\" - as in it is shared by the community, who is the public.
How do you do that with corporate property? Who do you talk to? And as a private citizen, what could you possibly have to offer a corporate entity that they would even bother to get involved with you. It's a different league. Corporations are not people, they are rarely involved with their communitys, they do not \"share\" as we do.

When is it morally ok to fine your neighbour for being on your property? If you lived in such close quarters - isn't it more advantageous to share and share alike? People can work these things out, there are some awesome communitys around - I GREW UP WITH SESAME STREET GODDDAMNIT



* to use your example of an expresso/hotdog vendor and football/kite interfeering with one another - yeah that's an interfeerance and something coudl be done about it. But if it's JUST a hotdog vendor, or JUST a football player - why does anything need to be done? It's only a problem when there are 2 entitys competing for the same area. A more fluid system would handle this better - and only get involved when it needs to. It seems stupid to tell people to move on for petty \"what if\" reasons - why not wait until that \"what if\" actually occurs before telling them to move on?



thx for the essay, i have no idea of this stuff. tell me more!