“In cities, we live with preconditions on our travel. For instance, in New York, we say we’ll get there on time if the trains are running perfectly, and in Los Angeles, we say we’ll get there on time if there’s no traffic. Despite this, we’re expected to arrive on time, i.e., we’re expected to account for the fact that trains can be delayed, and that traffic can come to a standstill.
“In the country, there’s very little chance that external factors will affect travel. And yet, when I’ve spent time in rural regions, I’ve found there are very few expectations on your time. The difference between 5 minutes and 30 minutes is massive in New York, but it means very little in, say, rural Pangasinan.” - An Xiao
Richard Mosse’s Planes on Fire. Gallery and fascinating interview in TMN. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say that there is beauty in destruction. These are very different things. But sometimes they overlap, and when they do an opportunity arises with which it is possible to confront the viewer with an ethical dilemma, forcing the viewer to see how he perceives disaster, how disaster is consumed. And what is consumed must also be produced,” he says. See also MotoArt’s furniture made of aviation parts. “The perfect extra touch for the Ballardian bachelor pad.”
Taro Okamoto’s Asu no Shinwa (”Myth of Tomorrow”) depicting the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, finally has a permanent home near the Keio Inokashira line in the Shibuya station. The painting, compared to Picasso’s Guernica, was originally commissioned by a Mexico City luxury hotel in late sixties. “Taro wanted the Japanese to surmount the misery of the past rather than to retract inwardly — to blossom outward and look ahead. That was a radical concept in 1967. He was probably the only Japanese person who even considered that,” says the developer Manuel Suarez. Asu no Shinwa was missing for decades, “until it was found in 2003 by Okamoto’s wife in a yard for building materials in Mexico City.”
All aboard the Baghdad Commuter Rail, “Fares are 80 cents and some lucky riders get the chance to travel in Saddam’s old personal train — complete with chandeliers and Italian-made curtains.”
Wired on Boston’s shorter red light initiative. “The results, released last week, show that shorter red lights will help Boston’s drivers regain 135,000 hours each year that would normally be wasted waiting for a light to turn. Traffic delays during the 60-intersection trial decreased 29 percent, while vehicle emissions decreased almost ten percent.”
“[The] road embodies the ideology of American Freedom. Never mind that the road is the most highly regulated of all public spaces.” - Daniel Albert, N+1
Sam Zell wants to sell the Chicago Tribune tower — my former place of employment — and turn it into condos. The paper has tried a number of bottom-up cost cutting measures (requesting we bring our own coffee filters and paper towels to work and other Office Space-like oddities.) Sale of the tower always seemed inevitable, seeing as there is a larger office far from the pricey Miracle Mile. Says the Sun-Times, “Such an owner could use it as a Gothic ornament for new construction on the parking lot.” The building just neighboring the Tribune Tower, Marina City really is a glorified parking lot. The entire lower half of the apartment complex is an exposed spiral parking ramp. I remember eating my lunch outside thinking that these few hundred cars had a better view of the city than most Chicago office workers, myself included. Simon Henley made the same observation in the very wonderful book, “The Architecture of Parking.”
Graffiti in the Wilderness: Rock Climbing in a Granite Museum
Yesterday afternoon, my father took my sister and me out rock climbing in the Quincy Quarries. He has climbed nearly every weekend for the past seven years. My sister never had, and I’d only climbed indoors and that was a few years ago.
The rocks in this suburban Boston climbing park are completely covered in graffiti, unfortunate as it makes the surface slippery and more difficult to grip. Visually though, it is interesting.
We think of graffiti as an urban thing. And nature as something separate. But the nature that exists not too far from the city is usually a pale substitute. Graffiti is always found in transportation centers — subways, trains, bus stations — the stations, the bathrooms, or the cars themselves. Marking a place you’ve been and don’t intend to return for a sense of permanence.
But we also unintentionally leave traces of ourselves in the near wilderness. Maybe JG Ballard’s themes are the concerns of children. As a child in suburbia, the same woods that seemed so expansive, contained random traces of civilizations like long abandoned rusty tricycles with the tires removed and moss growing over the handles. Trash and shattered glass, a bobby pin, a sock, a condom wrapper — the outside world is rarely experienced as something pristine — people always leave something behind. This may be why the longer you live in the city, the more likely you are to shun nature entirely. It is never as pure as you imagine it to be.
Rock climbers become obsessed with the surface textures, not unlike how in bicycling you are much more aware of little bumps or pieces of gravel in the road. It is similarly an individual’s journey and an intellectual sport. Just like you dodge the cars on your bike, you need to think about where to position yourself and how to grip. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were to become a fad the way biking is now.
Plus, it’s emotional. It’s fear rather that physical exhaustion that prevents me from ascending any higher than 20 feet. When we visited my grandmother a half-hour later for blueberry pie and ice cream, I was still feeling the rush. My hand was shaking as I lifted my fork like I had too much coffee.
In May, I read the quarries were cleaned of graffiti in order to film a Tina Fey movie. Can they really clean the paint off? Or do you paint the rocks granite grey?
Anyway, they didn’t do much of a job. I can’t imagine this much graffiti only collected in the two months since. But I’m not complaining. If only it were less haphazard — really beautiful work that respects it’s surrounding, and is mindful of those good nooks climbers need to get their feet in. Like, what I wrote about tagging houses, if only it were work as good as Swoon, Imminent Disaster, Conor Harrington, Armsrock… If the rocks will be covered with paint, why not graffiti that’s really great? The state could turn it into a legal graffiti park and maybe attract real talent. Think of it as an induced-Stendhal Syndrome.
Quincy quarries images by The Urban Pantheist, art by Swoon
Previously:
Urban Safaris: Graffiti Sites Considered for Heritage Protection
With Speed Graphic Cameras, Art is a Crime [Scene]
Related links:
- Quincy Quarry Panorama
- The Battle Over Central Park, New York magazine.
Very nice post from Life Without Buildings connecting Sarah Oppenheimer’s 610-3356 at Pittsburgh’s Mattress Factory (described in a recent Tyler Green post,) with Artichoke’s The Telectroscope. It reminded me of BLDGBLOG’s old post on the portable entryways Martin Kippenberger proposed for the world. Here’s the map. I once sent a photograph of the Kassel entryway to someone who was then very special to me and very far away. (Scroll down to see a 2002 New Yorker cover also on the theme.)
Deus Ex Machina, design student Jake Loniak’s Yamaha exo-skeleton. Almost terrifying and reminiscent of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We.” (via.)
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