(small) creative initiatives that challenge (big) traditional ideas
• ( egoistic ) • activistic • architectural • audible • cinematic • conceptual • graphic • strategic • surface • urban • wireless
Posted by Sebastian on Jan 13, 2010
City Eyes is a project from 2008 by DUS Architects that addresses the border between the private and public domain.
Through a series of events in Amsterdam, the architects played with the characteristics of the window as a screen between interior and exterior.
See for instance the performative project "breakfast" (image) which connects a living room with the street outside.
Copenhagen Podride is a series of podcasts created for passengers on the Copenhagen subway, the S-Trains.
The podcasts contain stories about the urban and sociological development along the S-train lines. Stories are divided into chapters that match the S-stations, thus making it possible for passengers to get a location-specific story as they ride by.
The podcasts are only available in Danish but hopefully they will be produced in English as well as the content seem well suited for tourists and other visitors interested in alternatives to the traditional city tours.
Copenhagen Podride is provided by DSB: S-Train and Copenhagen X. The service is free of charge and available for download on the web, or on your mobile phone via SMS.
A blue line painted on the ground currently runs through Copenhagen's city center.
The line represents the capital's new waterfront if all the inland ice of Greenland were to melt, prompting water levels to rise by seven meters.
The line is a part of an art project called 'Water Knows No Walls' by the artists Haubitz + Zoche. The project takes part in the exhibition Rethink: Contemporary Art & Climate Change, which is one of many events taking place in Copenhagen these days as the city gets ready to host the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference.
If you want to know the potential consequences of rising sea levels in other parts of the world, you can use a map provided by Geology.com.
Selfpromotion: Here follows a description of a project I recently designed for a cultural festival in Spain.
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Urban Cursor is a GPS enabled object designed to facilitate social interaction and play in public space.
The object, which is shaped as an oversized 3-dimensional computer cursor (pointer), was placed on a square in Figueres, Catalunya during the cultural festival Ingràvid.
Here, people could touch it, move it around and sit on it as an alternative to the benches.
Despite being removed from its normal screen based environment, the cursor was still in touch with the digital world. Via an embedded GPS device, the cursor transmitted its geographic coordinates to a website. At the website, the coordinates were mapped in Google Maps thereby documenting the cursor's movements in the physical world and making it possible for participants to see how they collectively helped move the object around.
The Knitted Mile is an outdoor installation by the artist Robyn Love created for a mile of roadway in Dallas, US.
Ninety knitters from around North America helped create this long pieces of knitting, which was made to look like a yellow road stripe. Photographs of each knitter working on their section were included as part of the piece when it was removed from the road and later installed in a gallery.
Posted by Sebastian on Nov 22, 2009
Private Moon is a travelling light sculpture by the Russian artist Leonid Tishkov.
Earlier this year, the sculpture was on display at different rooftops in Linz, the European capital of culture 2009.
During the exhibition, the public could either take a look at the moon from a distance - or they could borrow it for a while and install it at their own homes.
Posted by Sebastian on Aug 22, 2009
The Other Tour is an alternative boat-tour through the harbor of Copenhagen.
The tour takes place in a traditional tour boat, on a traditional tour-route and with a traditional tour-guide, but rather than pointing out the usual highlights, The Other Tour focus on less known and less promoted stories of Copenhagen.
The guide tells stories about minorities as well as great and small chapters in the fight for human rights and equal opportunities. For instance, tour participants will get the story about Christine (Georg) Jørgensen who underwent the world's first male-to-female transgender operation in 1952. Participants will also get the less than glamorous story about Flotel Europa, which was an old ship the Danish government used to house thousands of refugees from x-Yugoslavia in 1992-94.
The Other Tour takes part in the exhibition Works at Work at Kunsthal Charlottenborg. It is organized and scripted by the artists Nynne Haugaard og Lisa Strömbeck aka 'Women down the Pub" (Kvinder på Værtshus).
If you are in Copenhagen, don't miss this informative and surreal experience!
The exhibition continues till the end of August. Boats sail everyday at 14:45.
• www.kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk
TRASH: anycoloryoulike is a remarkable art intervention for urban beautification and environmental awareness.
The project is developed by the New York based artist Adrian Kondratowicz who created colorful trash-bags and distributed them to members of his local community.
By using the new bags instead of the traditional ones, the standard piles of trash on the streets were transformed into vivid sculptures of color.
The project has been a massive success and the community around it seems to be growing and spreading to other cities.
And naturally, the bags are 100% biodegradable.
Oeps Crew are two anonymous girls (supposedly) from Copenhagen who create small graffiti-inspired motifs using plastic beads
Their work can be found in galleries as well as urban spaces around the world. However, their unique urban tags are never up for long as they are quickly removed - or 'stolen' - by fans.
Check the Oeps Crew website for documentation as well as gallery updates.
The Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal is currently running the excellent looking exhibition Actions: What You Can Do With the City.
The exhibition documents and presents 99 actions - or 'urban interventions' - that instigate positive change in contemporary cities around the world.
Common activities such as walking, playing, recycling, and gardening are pushed beyond their usual definition by international architects, artists, and collectives featured in the exhibition.
Two of my favorite actions included in the exhibition are (P)LOT by Michael Rakowitz and Football Field by Maider López (see images). The exhibition also includes the brilliant Camera Surveillance Players and the excellent PARK(ing) project by Rebar.
If you can't make it to Montreal, you can view the 99 actions on the exhibition website. The site also contains a user-generated section which makes it possible for anyone to submit their own actions. The most popular ones will be featured in the physical exhibition later on.
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Contact: Sebastian Campion