Yule Heibel's Library tagged public_art →  View Popular, Search in Google

Brilliant! :-)
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...the urban emoticon accurately communicates its host city’s gefühlszustand according to “mood data” obtained using integrated software which analyzes photos of the faces of passing pedestrians and processes emotions out of them. Mechanical armatures modulate the face’s expression in real-time, making it appear by turns happy, sad, or apathetic with corresponding gestures (smiley, frown, and blank).
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happiness cities atlantic_cities emoticon art public_art

Strange idea (given historical notions of patronage), but interesting: selling public art that's no longer wanted to private buyers.
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This is an idea that’s taken hold in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, where large-scale sculptures are installed for temporary display in a local park. Known as Patricia’s Green, the park plays host to a variety of art pieces, most of them brought about through the support of the Black Rocks Art Foundation, a group run by the organizers of the Burning Man festival. In coordination with the Hayes Valley Art Coalition, the group arranges for sculptures built for the Burning Man event to take on temporary residence in the park. Ranging from a few months to a few years, these residences end and new sculptures are installed.
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art public_art patronage atlantic_cities

Portal page for the UK's Public Art Online site: useful resource for public art news, case studies, research, planning, etc.

public_art reference

Great idea:
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Have you ever wondered what happens behind closed doors in an executive boardroom? How about that dark street corner after 2:00am?

Using these questions as starting points, theater director Melanie St. Ours – who is also an actress and a teacher – is cooking up a long-term theater project to be housed in one of the empty storefronts of the Storefronts Seattle project.

“One Forbidden Thing,” as Melanie’s project is titled, will use community dialogues, story circles, and theater workshops to name places in Pioneer Square that feel unsafe, restricted, or forbidden. Through the process of creating original theater, participants will explore the ways that those forbidden places are tied to the community’s health, identity and future.
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seattle public_art storefronts

Great piece by 4culture about storefrontseattle.com putting artists and art into (currently empty) storefronts downtown. Times are tough and the retail landscape looks sh*tty, but that's no reason to give in to looking crappy all around. Also, a strong argument here for keeping arts funding where it belongs (with the arts) versus giving everything over to social problems:
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...given the current levels of state, city and county spending on the arts, even if every culture dollar was reallocated for housing, we would not end homelessness. One should not be pitted against the other. A civil society is characterized by its ability to adopt policies and make investments that alleviate suffering, while at the same time encouraging activity that breeds increased creativity and economic growth.

The arts have long claimed to be an economic engine. There is ample evidence that the arts, heritage and culture spur increased economic activity. Economic impact studies conducted in our region over the past fifteen years quantify the jobs created and spending that results from attendance at festivals and theater, music and dance events, not to mention the inherent personal benefits to be gained by gathering with your friends and neighbors for a shared cultural experience.
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art public_art retail storefronts 4culture seattle

Major earthwork public art project in Seattle and its exposure to (among other things) vandalism...
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The vandalism is occurring because we live in difficult times and because, for the very reasons the project was built, the neighborhood has been hit hard by the times. So we take a few steps back, paint out the graffiti, replace the handrails more securely, reconnect the lights. We work with law enforcement and enlist the power of the community through neighborhood watch programming to decrease opportunity for damage. Over the coming months and years Andy Cao’s earthwork landscape will fill out; the thyme will blossom, and a method will emerge that will allow the site to be respected and celebrated. Hopefully, Pillow Field’s abundance will be reflected in the community that surrounds it.
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seattle 4culture public_art andy_cao vandalism

Interesting semi-permanent art project, by Miranda July (who's primarily a novelist):
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...a new public art installation, the comparatively terse “Eleven Heavy Things,” organized by Deitch Projects, which opened late last week in New York’s Union Square Park. (The installation will remain in the park through October 3rd.) The sculptures, many of which revolve around a line of text written in July’s own hand, prod the viewer into audience interaction. “What I look like when I’m lying,” reads one, a white tablet through which the viewer can stick his head. A trio of pedestals — labeled 'The Guilty One,' 'The Guiltier One,’ and ‘The Guiltiest One’ — asks participants to gauge (and flaunt) their general culpability. Three of the sculptures are wordless “headdresses,” decorative sculptures that July compares to the dialogue-free stretches of a movie: “The shapes are those parts of this piece.”
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art sculpture public_art miranda_july installations nyc

Interesting strategy: artists using billboards to counteract billboards and direct attention in other ways...

art public_art billboards los_angeles

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"chashama supports thriving cultural communities by transforming temporarily vacant properties into spaces where art can flourish. By recycling and repurposing buildings in transition, we invest in neighborhoods, foster local artists, and sustain a vast range of creativity and culture. "
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Really love this concept: work with property owners to let artists use currently empty/ unleased space as galleries.

chashama arts public_art retail real_estate

"Urban designer and artist collaborations: what value do they bring?"
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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.
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public_art artists urban_design collaboration public_space rudi

Great website showcasing Ned Kahn's (typically public) art projects.

ned_kahn art public_art art_projects land_art environmental_art design

Street lights that look like plant leaves...

inhabitat public_art infrastructure street_lights

File this under "life imitates art"? There's a fascinating battle happening in LA over whether or not Sonny Astani, businessman and developer, should be permitted to install a new kind of LED-generated image, 12 stories above the street and 14 stories tall, on the side of his 33-story condo building currently under construction in downtown LA.

The inspiration? Opening scenes in Blade Runner of downtown LA, showing "a skyscraper-sized advertisement portraying a Japanese woman smiling before popping a snack into her mouth. Astani says an image, such as that of a flying sea gull, could now even travel from one building to the next."

I have to admit this sounds really cool, but I can see why many factions in LA would oppose this, too. We're all familiar with the really bright illuminated advertisements -- even Victoria has a small version of one, installed outside the arena on Blanshard at Caledonia. It's bright, too bright. But Astani proposes a much more modulated, artistic, and dimmed level of lighting. If the images could look as subtle -- yet powerful -- as Blade Runner's, it could work, but there's no garantee, that if permitted, subsequent developers would follow in that "artistic" style.

Another aspect is this: the proposal, if it's art, also calls into question just how intrusive public art should be in public space. Does it have a right to be so intrusive as to be impossible to ignore? Can I, as a citizen, be obliged to register public art -- and admittedly, it would be impossible not to register this project?

Is part of what captures my attention/ imagination regarding this project its uncanny fusion of subtlety and assault, packaged as visual stimulus?

Another question: is this an art form that expresses a corporate and anti-pedestrian city ("...neighborhood anchored by Staples Center and L.A. Live, the hotel and entertainment complex that includes the recently opened Nokia Theatre"), fitting for LA where people don't walk anyway (but just wait: it'll show up soon enough on the very v

astani advertising billboards outdoor_installations public_art public_space los_angeles

Wouldn't it be great to have something like this (based on a virus invading the artist's computer) be digital/ computer-generated, instead of in the same old technique of ...?screen-printed banners? C'mon, so it's a nice pattern -- but if it derived from "a virus that invaded [artist Bratsa] Bonifacho's computer," why not make it viral in form?

vancouver bratsa_bonifacho art art_projects public_art

Downtown Vancouver's corporate buildings will be "grafitti-ed" with laser art, as part of Cultural Olympiad. See http://2007.newformsfestival.com/neograf for more info.

Wish we had something comparable in Victoria (hint, hint!)...

downtown grafitti light_art neograf neografik_project nomlg public_art vancouver