Tag Archives: streets

the city yet to come

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In general, I try to distinguish between what one calls the future and “l’avenir.” The future is that which–tomorrow, later, next century–will be. There is a future which is predictable, programmed, scheduled, foreseeable. But there is a future, l’avenir (to come) which refers to someone who comes whose arrival is totally unexpected.

For me that is the real future: that which is totally unpredictable. The Other who comes without my being able to anticipate their arrival. So if there is a real future beyond this other known future, it is “l’avenir” in that it’s the coming of the Other, when I am completely unable to foresee their arrival.

–Jacques Derrida, “derrida” (2002)

If l’avenir is always the meeting of the Other, the unknown, the unpredictable future, then we meet this Other, we lock eyes with this unforseeable future, almost every day in a chance encounter on the city’s streets.

Trashing the city

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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. Continue reading →

In Living Color

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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.