Of Time and the City

‘…is both a love song and a eulogy to Liverpool. It is also a response to memory, reflection and the experience of losing a sense of place as the skyline changes and time takes it toll’.

Of Time and the City, the latest film from director Terence Davies has opened up to a number of positive reviews, and forms part of the BFI 'Film on the Square' listings.

The film collates a collection of old clips of Liverpool with a sensual narration that presents a subjective view of a city which feels complete in the past – lost, forgotten… held onto in memory. There are some issues with repeated themes – in a manner that seemed like a spluttering of thought rather than constructed narration…

But you have to view this film as what it is: an autobiographical documentary – wherein subjective narration lies upon ultimately objective images of a city. It presents a space which in real life is both so simultaneously subjectively experienced and objectively viewed by the masses in a unique and thoughtful way that is refreshingly straight-forward. This is not a Hollywood vision of a future city… its far more personal.

All-in-all Davies presents a Liverpool that has been plucked from the past by a very unique guide. Specifically, his subjective view of a childhood pasted together with documentative scenes of places long gone, as a way of conveying an urban landscape subjectively on screen, in memory, it is very successful. Liverpool comes alive in a way that is masterfully personal but that also stikes a cord with anyone who has ever lived in a city, or for that matter, heard of one.

Of Time and the City is reviewed by The Guardian and The Times.

Breaking the surface‏

Slightly leading on from my last post I’ve encountered the work of Michael Pinsky - whom ‘takes the combined roles of urban planner, activist, researcher, resident and artist’. Within his catalogue of creations, for me, one piece in particular highlights sculpture that reflects fantastic spatial artistry, and the other flat, bland and unsuccessful unimaginativeness.

‘Breaking the surface’ (2002) was an external ‘installation’ set in Somerset, UK at the Bridgewater Docks in May of it’s year. Pinksky salvaged discarded objects from the water and brought them to the surface… thoughtfully lit to a soundtrack of clanging sounds from the objects themselves – the sounds coming from local residents apartments, cars and such. As Stephanie Delcroix writes, ‘Pinsky revived the artefacts to confront the audience. Reactions have been divided: some recognise objects once thrown into the water and saw only dredged refuse; others were seduced by the aesthetic of decay’.

The piece fantastically draws from the site itself – the forgotten human element of the space – and using theatrically animating devices thrusts a thought provoking ambience into the eyes, ears and minds of the audience. A sense of nostalgia, disgust, intrigue, remembrance and a reflection on the passing of time convert the space into a reflective and ultimately positive place. You are almost taken on a journey through an urban landscape which is both new and remembered.

On the other hand ‘Lost O’ (2007) which was set in Ashford, UK from July to October 2007 - was a piece which also used objects of the space it was set in – but without any form of contrasting means. The piece took together signs from the old Ashford ring-road to create a form of memorial to the lost urban space: ‘As the project progressively thins out the signage, street and traffic lights around Ashford, they will find a new home as a sculptural form. The sculpture will not be defined through construction, but through displacement’.

The way in which the signs were quite simply only displaced, for me, failed to fully relay the emotion behind the piece. Yes there was a conveyance of the ‘tragicness’ of this lost space... However, I can’t help but think that, firstly, this is the sort of place that was better forgotten, and secondly, that the ‘tragedy’ I felt was only in the overwhelming disappointment in the lack of imagination that went into the pieces execution.

Some may argue that the method reflects the place it represents - something bland, forgetful, lost. For me though - these feelings for the 'long lost ringroad' are clouded by a simple notion of ‘missed opportunity’ for the artist. The ends and means don't fully match - there's something lacking in a way that isn't connected to the connotations of meaning intended by the artist in the method he's used. It doesn't offer enough.

Maybe it's not supposed to? But to my mind unlike 'Breaking the surafce', 'Lost O' simply falls flat.

Measure for Measure‏

‘Anyone who's interested in contemporary theatre knows that theatre isn't a building’ says Maxie Szalwinska in her blog entry ‘Site-specific work is not just about location, location, location’.

And so I start thinking about how site-specific theatre works – and how the artistry of performance set (both narratively and literally) in built environments has similarities with good urban design and architecture.

Maxie continues:
‘These days, audiences expect more from site-specific theatre: the execution has to be as strong as the idea. While some performances can seem like mere pretexts for the setting, there are other pitfalls inherent in devising work for non-theatre spaces. Logistics are crucial to how well such shows come off. Productions give off different vibrations depending on how many people are there watching, and theatre magic can vanish if companies don't get decisions like how to move the audience around right’.

Site specific theatre that extends beyond what Andy Field ('Site-specific theatre'? Please be more specific’) coins ‘site-generic’ execution is really the most exciting way in which spaces can be experimented with and used to form imaginary places that engage and invigorate. I find that there can be a successful stark realism of setting, for example a modern drama set in a shopping centre performed in a shopping centre. But it’s hard work to get beyond a performance that ends up using a real place as mere surrogate for an imaginative set.

If you consider spaces that really work… that really become places… their character extends far beyond walls and glass and engages the imagination. In the world of urban design and architecture great places are fundamentally linked in the physicality of the world around them - and good function - but it is the way in which these locations offer something beyond the blandness of utility that really create energies that form a sense of place.

In the same way any spatial art – and within that site specific theatre that attempts to engage the built environment landscape – needs to ensure it goes beyond the simple normal use of space in testing our perceptions of the world around us: stark realism of setting needs the contrast of well-thought-out lighting, sound or movement to highlight meaning. Conversely, when these atmospheric elements are lacking, not possible or withdrawn to focus on performers, it is the non-conventional use of space that really awakens an audience… when steps become the edge of a mountain, or a tree a couch and and so on until a space may perhaps become a totally alien and abstract domain.

Even when stark-realism is the artistic ends – the means are very rarely simply having the characters play out within a ‘real’ set under natural conditions. Just in the way in which successful spatial art plays with and connects with space – so does successful urban design. Function and efficient form might be an urban designers ends – but the means needn’t be those that create a bland cityscape.

Site specific theatre, and to the greater extent spatial art in general, has the capacity to awaken and re-legitimise nondescript spaces whilst enchanting and spatially challenging places are perfect for stimulating artistic output.

Without any necessarily weighty financial input the theatrical arts and urban environments potentially possess extraordinary mutual benefits that deserve to be exploited far more often.

3 for the price of 2

My posts are like the proverbial London buses today… you wait ages for one, then three come at once! I’ve stumbled across another blog, and quite an interesting one at that, called: Space & Culture.

‘Space and Culture’s unique focus is on social spaces… [bringing] together dynamic, critical interdisciplinary research in cultural geography, sociology, cultural studies, architectural theory, ethnography, communications, urban studies, environmental studies and discourse analysis’.

Recent interesting posts have been:

• A book review of ‘Empire Islands: Castaways, Cannibals, and Fantasies of Conquest.’
  


• Noting ‘Border-Crossing: Passage Oublié’ – an interactive artwork at Pearson Airport, Toronto.
  


• Highlighting ‘Aerographies’, a session to be held at the 2009 meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) in Las Vegas: ‘In particular, we are interested to engage air as an evocative “object” for thinking relational and experiential [about] space… Can air be an evocative object for extending geographical engagements with relational materiality and space’?

The final post made by Space & Culture further makes the case in my books to head on over to Nevada! It’s a shame I doubt I’ll be there in March 2009…

Not a Trip Hazard

Time to simply gawp at some great spatial urban artistry methinks – in the form of street furniture by Thomas Heatherwick. ‘The Blue Carpet’ (article here) can be found in Newcastle, England:

Meanwhile Heatherwick’s been up to some other interesting stuff too:

- Rolling Bridge

- Bleigiessen

Good bad urban design?

Today I’ve started wondering if there as any such thing as good bad urban design. Obviously not everywhere can be some sort of urban paradise of aesthetic beauty, physical functionality and social conviviality – does bad urban design play its part in making good urban design stand out, be appreciated more and have a more powerful positive impact by way of comparison as a result?

Further – it’s popped up here and there over the past week or so (in conversation will colleagues, general reading etc) that there is a need to cater for the fringes of society. If we make every street corner crisp and clean, where there are not dodgy shadowy areas, no homeless people or litter – are we in danger of not building up awareness of what is bad? The best way to explain this is the example of the over-protective parent that doesn’t expose their child to danger – as a result, the child might not develop properly from a lack of being exposed to both good and bad.

In the race to push for great urban design – are we forgetting that there might well be a place for badly designed spaces?… and that just like well design spaces – if they are accompanied by the right social message they could be places of positive impact?
I’m starting to really engage with the idea that the success of urban environments beyond the basics of ‘practical’ and ‘safe’ urban design may well be much more to do with issues of society and perception than bricks and mortar…

I’m off to read this now: ‘What are we scared of? The value of risk in designing public space’... and keep this quote from Jane Jacobs in mind:

‘Architecture and urban design may not determine human behaviour, but bad design can numb the human spirit’

(Jane Jacobs quoted by David Lammy, ‘The cost of bad design’)

___________________________

After-thought:
Good Urban Design = Good Space + Potential for Good Place.
Bad Urban Design = Bad Space + Potential for Good Place.

Space being that which is physically tangible about a defined location.
Place being that which is socially ethereal about a defined location.