so my spring semester has been a bit heavy on the city side. but in a really good way. reading things from barthe's semiotics and the city in a sculpture studio context, reading lefebvre and thinking about
studio baltimore, i'm starting to see it branch out and begin to apply to anything and everything. the "architecture, art, and the open city" class i'm taking is a pretty good extention of urbanism from last fall. (same teacher... dan d'oca.) and from the start it was advertised as a class that would produce some sort of exhibition at the end. (relating to the
architecture biennale in rotterdam that dan's studio, interboro, is co-curating.) with april around the corner, and the shock of counting up the weeks left of school in everyone's system, this class is beginning to switch from a reading heavy start to really looking at what kind of exhibition we will create.
it's almost strange how naturally i think it will all kind of come together. (which theoretically should not be the case with 25+ strong artistic personalities and a few weeks to make it happen. i guess having the city as our common denominator helps...) and our assignments so far (
a paper on a tool from the "arsenal of exclusion" and finding
an open city space) lend themselves directly to exhibition content. some kids in the class set up a wiki to act as a brain dump for everything. i don't think we are quite using it to our advantage yet, but last night i figured out how to add my exhibition idea. (diagram above)
it's not anything too crazy, just taking all of the material we've generated so far for our "tools" and having each person make a handout for a tool using some sort of quick and easy template. the idea then is to reproduce them cheaply on different colored copy paper and put them in plastic display holders on a wall for people to pick and choose from. in class we also talked about having some sort of publication/compilation to mail out, so i thought these sheets could easily be belly banded together to make a "complete set" for distribution. it could also work in tandem some of the map/tour ideas we’ve talked about.
there were a lot of other ideas kicked around. and many larger decisions to hash out. things like: how to visually represent lots of reseach, site as destination or coincidence, making it editable/open source, connecting it to technology/the wiki, creating resources to equip visitors for "action", making it moble, and last but not least, having a party.
on a side note, a kid in class already had posters screenprinted to protest a new
"live entertainment" bill that baltimore is trying to pass. i just found out about it on monday. it's pretty ridiculous. and seems so counterintuitive, especially to things like bopa. but, if put into effect, it would put countless of quote-unquote illegal music venues in baltimore. the very ones that got us in
rolling stone last year. any venue for live art or enternainment that can't pay $1600 some dollars a year will be fined and shut down. so every grassroots small venue that makes use of otherwise unusuble buildings and spaces is screwed. if you live in baltimore, there are community meetings happening in the next week or so... and you can always go right to the source and email city council president stephanie rawlings-blake herself. (CouncilPresident@baltimorecity.gov)
and on another sad budget cut note, stephanie came home today to say that they're trying to close the
pal (police athletic league) center. because doing something proactive in neighborhoods isn't part of the reactive purpose of policing. anyway, she was really upset. but i think she'll figure something out for this one.
maybe i have civic humanism on the mind, the class with the paper that is due tomorrow that i am actively avoiding writing right now), maybe it's my recent acceptance of cynicism, maybe it's the economy, maybe the people in charge in baltimore just have a stick up their butt. but i keep coming back to the parallel of rome. and in the big scheme of things, the best thing someone like cicero could do was watch it go to hell and attempt to document it all.
