open space projects

[mary jo]

s\pls see:

http://www.cityrepair.org/wiki.php/about

thanks,

let's talk public space.

MJ

[Timothy Hume]

My first question would be IS there any Public Space that is free space?
All space seems to be controlled by someone or some law.
We can do ART Attacks Perhaps create HeArt Attacks.
Make a point and flee.
Mostly though where are real public spaces? And do we as artist have a right to impose our art into them without concent?

Cheers
Timothy

[Caffyn Kelley]

Yes let's Mary Jo - I think a place where thinking art or "design problems" can help use alter land-use trajectories. I put together a resource list at http://www.islandsinstitute.com/II-601/resources.htm for the Islands Institute introductory course - might be of some interest.

[mary jo]

Well, the reason why I am looking at the Portland project of reclaiming public squares through volunteer projects, that take ten days or more, is because it seems to work. A friend who I will interview tomorrow, who knows the people who organized and started the reclaimings, explained that here in Madison, we could do the same.
Small parks are taken up for permits quickly. That is, a small event becomes big with the plannings and permit paying and it includes.

So moving beyong Heart attacks to love affairs.

thanks for commenting.

mJ

[Timothy Hume]

Ok Mary jo;

Perhaps IM not clear on what you mean by
Reclaiming public squares

Reclaiming indicates that the space has been taken over by something or someone that really has no right to be there.

IM all for love affairs.
Sometimes Art attacks are valid too.

How would you address the concept that the soundscape is public space which has been taken over by industrial noise and needs to be reclaimed by the people?

Acoustic ecology is an emerging field of study that began in Canada in the late 1960s

The field of acoustic ecology is also sometimes called sound ecology, audio ecology, or sonic ecology, and the acoustic ecological equivalent of the landscape is the soundscape.

If I love silence and you music how do we share public space?
Or you wish to hold an event in the square and I just want to sit quiet and feed the pigeons
Are you reclaiming or taking away?

Perhaps IM way of coarse here and not really understanding what it is your trying to accomplish.
Please tell me in more detail what the idea of reclaiming is.

Sincerely
Timothy

[rajni shah]

Hello

I too have become fascinated by the question of public space and where my rights lie as an individual in public. I've been fortunate enough to conduct a series of public interventions as a response to this, exploring ideas around gift and conversation. I'm attaching a PDF which details my very first interventions, which took place in the public areas at arts events. Following these, I made interventions in Lancaster and Colchester town centres in the UK. They were fascinating and opened up many new conversations with strangers, jump-started thought processes and were very inspiring. I'll be writing more about those later this year, but for now thought I'd share this first document as a way of thinking about different ways in which we can reclaim public spaces and how we, as artists, might go about that.

rajni

[Caffyn Kelley]

Dear Rajni - thanks for this wonderful gift! I was very interested in your findings that:

"other people became a part of the space I had created, so the very act of giving and taking meant that they and I were creating a space together. My presence felt more like a catalyst, a license for others
to create their own space, leave their own trace, their thoughts and objects."

You articulate just exactly the work I am interested in doing.

I see from your website that you have also investigated the whole rich issue of how public space and "the body" are experienced through identity and difference. I have done some work on this in my queermap.com project. It seems to me that "being" queer is characterized by acts of placemaking. We build temporary, provisional and transgressive space in which homosexuality is possible - continually, self-consciously make space in which to exist. Queer space is no sooner built than it disappears: folded up and put away; ghettoized; annihilated by violence; absorbed by the vast and overwhelming silence of heteronormative thinking. Being queer is thus continually engaged in this act or attitude of building a place for the self and the beloved community.

[theron schmidt]

On a theoretical level, I've taken a lot of inspiration on this subject from the work of political geographer Doreen Massey. I'm not sure if her work is widely known. (See For Space, SAGE, London: 2005.)

She argues for a relational understanding of space, which emphasises 'coevalness', 'thrown-togetherness', and negotiation. She writes, 'A relational politics of place, then, involves both the inevitable negotiations presented by throwntogetherness and a politics of the terms of openness and closure.' She's particularly interesting in discussions of global v. local, where she points out that global is not always bad, and local not always good. (An example she gives is the redevelopment of the Docklands in East London. Local communities organised to protest against it being taken over by large corporate projects > good. Same local communities organised to protest against government incentives for ethnic minorities to live there > still good? how is it different?) Nor indeed are they separable -- the local is always entangled in the global, and disentangling has real consequences for those who depend on globalised agriculture, for example.

Shifting attention to 'politics of openness and closure' -- who has the power, basically -- is an insightful way of addressing these problems. We should be arguing for 'open' space rather than space which fixes certain values, even if they're values we agree with. So when Timothy writes about noise v. music, I guess I would value a park because it's a place I can go for quiet and a place I can go and be surprised by music, but I have to give up my own attachment to it always being one or the other -- otherwise I'm missing what's uniquely valuable about 'space' itself. And I'm intrigued too by Caffyn's suggestion, if I understand it, that 'queer' might mean this 'openness' more than it means a particular position.

[rajni shah]

I'm working through something here so excuse the jumbled nature of the following para...

Yes, I suppose what's interesting to me lies within this idea of fluidity as a constant, or perhaps 'openness' as Theron puts it. In my work with the body I talk a lot about internal geographies, and the layering of geographies/histories that take place within the spaces I create in my work; what I aim for are spaces where rather than redrawing lines, there's a constant layering of lines, questioning without the absolute necessity of closure or permanence. So, also, back to the idea of conversations, many conversations taking place in one space. So I think what we're getting at is that one of our aims through this kind of work is to create those spaces where 'shifting' can occur without prescribing where those shifts might take us, being open to the new (and changing) configurations that occur from that movement.

Caffyn, in case it is of interest, I'm uploading a short presentation I made about my work last year (the 'final interview' is a sound piece which I will try and upload via my page). This piece draws on the borders of cultural identity and I'd be interested to know what parallels or questions it might raise for you and your work with 'queermap.com'.

rajni.x.

[Karin Bergdolt]

i came across the city repair site.
i'd like to share a project, that took place in munich 2001/2002. an open playhouse-institution in the city center of munich, and me, an artist - went through the summer months may through october to five different public spaces, in a certain schedule. we started from the playhouse with bikes, the adults, the children with their own bikes, if they didn't have one, they got one from the playhouse. some of the bikes we changed into animals - so they looked very interesting to the children as well as to all the people we passed. tow bikes were there for the transportation of all things we needed. we made the bike-animals together with the children. at the places - not necessarily playgrounds, but kind of a place where it is possible to play, we inhabited the place for the afternoon with bringing all the necessary things with us with the bikes. so no cars at all where involved. we used the things we could find there and invented plays and things to do in an easy way: so the kids and also the parents/ passing people could see, that you do not need much to create a creative way of playing. when the afternoon passed, we cycled back to the playhouse toghether.
the whole idea is, to bring the children and people to more flexibility and self-sufficent mobility - and giving them an idea, how to use open public space - not depending on modern playgrounds or whatever.
after each summer, we had an exhibition with some of the things, the children made, photographs, some writing. we tried to involve all sort of people, dealing with the munich city - and dealing with an child-friendly environment.
both years the project has been very successful. due to the lack of money, and political changes we couldn't set it up again in the next years. but, there is a catalogue about the project (in german), if somebody is interested in it, i can send it to you. sorry, there is no website.

karin

[Caffyn Kelley]

Hi Karin - nice project! I really like the aim of bringing children into the whole effort to create or claim a public space. Here in North America at least it seems we are making space without children who are increasingly;y segregated, warehoused in c]schools, guarded,, preserved from contact with strangers, and kept close inside the confines of the nuclear family – where they are so much more likely to be abused than anywhere else.

[Karin Bergdolt]

hi caffyn - thank you.
learning about public space, especially regarding the point of view of children, and also from the point of view as being an adult on children aspects, is very much, too much, institutionalist.
its hard to learn then, that the very own behaviour and dealing with our cityscape, landscape, environment is bound to the very own responsibilty. at least to some point. and learning should be an exciting, involving thing, with own, real experiences and also the experience, that the own decisions - and children are old enough for a lot of decisions i think - will have consequences.
we tried to set up the project in munich regarding these aspects. and somehow, people felt, that they are differently, more emotionally involved - that was good.