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• 08 May 09
  

  Yule Heibel

  "Urban designer and artist collaborations: what value do they bring?"
  QUOTE
  The event did not focus on ‘how to do’ public art, but rather aimed to stimulate debate and throw up challenges to what some are coming to regard as a too-often standardised way of creating public spaces.
  UNQUOTE

  public_art artists urban_design collaboration public_space rudi

  • throw up challenges to what some are coming to regard as a too-often standardised way of creating public spaces
  • failed to evolve

    • 

      Yule Heibel on 2009-05-08

      - then why should it be a solution to turn B. into a fantasy land instead? ...Not sure I understand why this should work.
  • 5 more annotations...

  • • The Presence of Absence: Where are the people in public space?

      
      

      • What is the role of new technology?

      
      

      • Are we being isolated by the iPod culture?

      
      

      • Is it possible to plan in spontaneity?

      
      

      • If an art object is chosen for a place, who does it represent?

      
      

      Diarmaid Lawlor, associate director of Urban Initiatives, says that places should be ‘centres of collective meaning'.

    • ‘I think one of the fundamental issues is that there is a rift between the concept of ‘professional' and that of ‘artist'. Not in the usual terms - artists can be professionals and behave accordingly but they are in particular professionally individual (maybe even professionally difficult).

      
      

      This has to accepted as a manageable risk, which perhaps could be dealt with by raising the game of the people who brief and commission the artist - to find a better fit,' she says.

      • 

        Yule Heibel on 2009-05-08

        - look to 4culture.org in Seattle; they've found ways to do this
    • where public behaviour comes under strict scrutiny

      • 

        Yule Heibel on 2009-05-08

        - while I agree with the critique of the "malling" of public spaces (privatizing what were public spaces), I'm very very tired of the suggestion, hinted at in the highlighted phrase, that public behavior should be exempt from scrutiny or controls of any kind. If you think about it, the move to privatization could be seen as a *failure* of public will to regulate behavior in public spaces (examples: social disorder, public drunkenness & urination, hooliganism, vagrancy, aggressive panhandling, and so on). Too often (esp'y if you're living in a place that has a British flavor - either UK or Canada, eg.), there's a tendency to not be judgmental about social disorder, to be forever tolerant, to not complain, and so on. But people still react (are reactionary), so eventually they allow privatization as a way of "sterilizing" what they don't like about the public space. It's almost certainly dishonest - it would be better to have frank (even "judgmental") discussions about our urban public spaces instead. But that's where we chicken out, because no one wants to be seen as some kind of "oppressor" of "freedom." whether of individual righs (even if they're infringing on others' rights) or expression, and no one wants to be identified as intolerant of the "hard to house" or poor.
    • ‘This is not a development that will allow the area's own character to evolve over time. Its character has been predetermined by architects, marketing specialists and planners. No room is left for responsiveness to people and locality.'

      • 

        Yule Heibel on 2009-05-08

        - from my own p.o.v., this is the most valid critique of privatized formerly public spaces. But it applies to overplanning in general, too.

    • Some of the key issues raised included:

      
      
      • The profession has overdone planning for all – we have lost the ability to say no, do little, allow people to make places work. Should urban designers say no to briefs they don’t think will work?
      • Artists get selected too often for the way their work looks rather than the way they think – this can lead to clashes of ideology and aspirations. Too often the creative input of artists is not taken seriously by others – there is a ‘throw away mentality’ - how do we rectify this?
      • The debate surrounding objects being placed in our cities and towns is obscuring the need for thoughtful places, which encourage real interaction. How can the two professions unite to encourage more creative clients?

Public Stiky Notes

• 
  Yule Heibel on 2009-05-08
  - then why should it be a solution to turn B. into a fantasy land instead? ...Not sure I understand why this should work.
• 
  Yule Heibel on 2009-05-08
  - look to 4culture.org in Seattle; they've found ways to do this
• 
  Yule Heibel on 2009-05-08
  - while I agree with the critique of the "malling" of public spaces (privatizing what were public spaces), I'm very very tired of the suggestion, hinted at in the highlighted phrase, that public behavior should be exempt from scrutiny or controls of any kind. If you think about it, the move to privatization could be seen as a *failure* of public will to regulate behavior in public spaces (examples: social disorder, public drunkenness & urination, hooliganism, vagrancy, aggressive panhandling, and so on). Too often (esp'y if you're living in a place that has a British flavor - either UK or Canada, eg.), there's a tendency to not be judgmental about social disorder, to be forever tolerant, to not complain, and so on. But people still react (are reactionary), so eventually they allow privatization as a way of "sterilizing" what they don't like about the public space. It's almost certainly dishonest - it would be better to have frank (even "judgmental") discussions about our urban public spaces instead. But that's where we chicken out, because no one wants to be seen as some kind of "oppressor" of "freedom." whether of individual righs (even if they're infringing on others' rights) or expression, and no one wants to be identified as intolerant of the "hard to house" or poor.
• 
  Yule Heibel on 2009-05-08
  - from my own p.o.v., this is the most valid critique of privatized formerly public spaces. But it applies to overplanning in general, too.

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