New York, you’re perfect, oh please don’t change a thing!

you let the people see just who you want to be,
and every night you shine just like a superstar

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On 14 december, 2009, on Stout Street, between Lambton Quay and Ballance Street, in the center of Wellington, New Zealand, there was a pile of rubbish blockading the entire road and making the street impassable for cars, pedestrians and cyclists. This impromptu blockade was a “One Day Sculpture” called Journee des Barricades by British artists, Heather and Ivan Morison. According to the artists’ statement:

Car wrecks, discarded furniture and other urban detritus barricaded a central city street in Wellington, New Zealand on Sunday 14th December 2008.
The temporary public artwork entitled Journée des barricades acts as a rupture in the everyday comings and goings of the city. In its barricade form, the sculpture might suggest associations with the history of political actions and social unrest, but as a collection of discarded consumer products it may also bring to mind questions about our environmental and economic future.

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This street art in Wellington looks eerily like the streets of Naples looked last year (though probably not as smelly, and certainly not for the sake of art).

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This artists’ collection of urban detritus also reminds me of the work of Walter Benjamin, especially the Arcades Project. (more…)

colorsnyc

Colors of New York :: Part I is a video made by Stadtblind, a Berlin-based collective “dedicated to transforming the perception of urban experience.” The video takes pictures of New York City street scenes and sets them against a background of corresponding swatches of color. To see this video, click here.

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The Colors of New York builds upon Stadtblind’s earlier photo project, The Colors of Berlin, a color-coded “guide book,” which indexes the city by color, and is made to look like a designer’s swatch book.

Election night 2008 was an explosion of raw emotion in parts of New York City. Harlem was overflowing with affective experience. Listen to the sounds build into a joyful roar.