deconcrete

It is always inspiring to discuss daily news with fellows. Chinese communism-inherited neighbourhoods know it because of imposed collective street newspapers. No waste of paper for individually read issues.

In a current era of progressive disappearance of printed press, some projects arise more powerfully, to give new accessibility to another kind of information. The Kreuzberg Boulevard in Berlin is an informal recent poster-based publication about mysterious fiction narratives for pedestrians. NewYork has also started last week with its own:

“The New City Reader is a performance-based editorial residency conceived to take place in the context of The Last Newspaper, an exhibition at the New Museum in New York in fall-winter 2010. It proposes to temporarily transform a portion of the museum’s galleries into an active editorial office combined with forum for discussion. In this space, an editorial team will execute — for the duration of the exhibition and in full view of the public — the entire process of conception, design, and production of a weekly newspaper. This newspaper’s content will derive from a series of discussions, debates, interviews, and research into the spatial implications of epochal shifts presently occurring in the information industry. [...] The New City Reader adopts the traditional format of the weekly newspaper, but only in part. Taking inspiration from a custom of hanging entire newspapers on boards in the streets or pasting them on walls in public places so they can be read collectively, this newspaper will be affixed in a multitude of locations around Lower Manhattan.“

[image1> Kreuzberg Boulevard in Berlin by deconcrete2010] [source & image2> the New City Reader]

I’m scared. I hadn’t notice how many advertising surfaces surround us, until Berlin advertising company itself reminded me yesterday by means of a billboard. On it, one can see all the possibilities that the underground or above ground public space has; every yellow area is subject to be hired at the rates they show.

Maybe the company needs to remember how easy and cheap might be invading the city with whatever. Even a baby’s diapers or the book that a woman is reading are represented in yellow; which can be understood as if I could practically hire my neighbour’s front cover of his novel for my own desires!

I’m terrified that one step can be hired for only 0,50 euros/day, that a poster in the street can cost less than 1 euro a day… maybe i should just try to rent every single available space of one corner of the city for one whole day, and leave them just blank (or yellow). It would be such a relief!

(image> advertising available areas in Berlin by deconcrete2010)

Poetically, Lord Byron suggested that the bridge where prisoners should take their last glance at the outside world before execution could be renamed as the Bridge of Sighs. However, its dense stone-lattices in its two windows almost prevented them from seeing anything, just exactly as the huge billboards that Venice resigned herself to install last year in every restorating façade.

The marketing-city par excellence has already closed 10 out of her 100 churches, since public budget does not meet the vast amount of renovation needs. As a result, hordes of visitors are also resigned to experience the decaying monuments as former victims from Inquisition walking through the Bridge of Sighs used to; through the most rancid way of attracting investment.

No matter if the city sinks or not. We won’t notice. Floating billboards can remain over the water surface.

[image1> view from the Bridge of Sighs by phileusfogg] [images 2-4> Venice advertising via unbound edition] [image5> Venice billboard by sarasculli]

In Ancient China, Shanzhai was a term designating warlord holdouts that were outside government control. But today shanzhai refers to any knock-off product outside government regulations, something hilariously unprofessional, home-made, on the fringe of intellectual property rights. This is generating a parallel copy-paste city of virtual optic effects, where one needs to be cautious all around in case a sudden trompe-l’oeil (one of my favourite Spanish words: trampantojo) appears:

Kentucky Fried ChickenVs. KFG, female KFC, MFC, FBC, CKF;

McDonald’s vs. oMcDnoald’s; Google.com vs. Goojje.com; SONY vs. SQNY; NIKE vs. IVIKE; iPhone vs. HiPhone…

[image sources> shanzhai phenomena via chinasmack, chinadaily, chinahush and chinahush]

After reading in Pruned about Ikea’s labyrinth condition and its visualization of pedestrian models, the company’s eagerness to Conquering becomes clearer. Buyers’ minds are intentionally remote-controlled to certain corners of the shopping-space.

The Swedish giant already governs the field of cheap design worldwide, erasing any trace of local tastes. As Theo Deutinger states, New Year’s Day is now globally shifted to 1st August, when Ikea releases its new catalogue, the only printed medium with larger circulation than the Bible.

Consequently, the Blue-and-Yellow Empire has somehow captured every home mattress, worktop or threshold. In an older entry in this blog, it was shown the role of IKEA in unwillingly providing a public consumption-park in Shanghainese everyday entertainment. In New York is providing free public transport, by means of a rapid ferry connecting two sides of the city, either for clients or not. And in Badalona (Spain) it has appropriated of the aerial view of the city from above, with its large-scale sign painted all over the roof.

Like in the Spanish, British, Dutch, Austro-Hungarian or French Empires, its soft-colonialist strategy is constantly playing Risk, assuming rulers’ roles. Aiming higher sales, it is already improving open spaces and mobility in cities. Will Ikea also be another Sun-Emperor providing urban facilities, such as social housing with standard dimensions, fitting its own products?

[image 1>pedestrian modelling of ikea agent trails by ucl bartlett] [image 2> colonial expansion of ikea by td] [image 3> ikea new york ferry via newyork seriouseats] [image 4> aerial view of ikea badalona from googleearth]

The Reservoir Area of the Three Gorges in deep China historically used to have mobility helpers for their barges and lighters.

Since its landscape is folded, winding  and complicated, helping shipping upstream from the river banks was not easy, even for beasts. Traditionally, Baoding County, a mountaineous area of gorges and narrow passes, used to contemplate nude boat trackers pulling boats. The ancestral reason not to wear clothes was that they walk within the river all day long, their clothes would be torn down by the rope and the wet fibre would stick and rip open their skin easily; plus there are few people along the riverside, so trackers decide not to wear anything for the convenience of work. [Annie Lee, china hush]

After starting to fade with the nearby megalomaniac construction of the biggest dam in the world, there was no longer this need for such a denigrating job. However, local authorities decided to relaunch this practice last month, so that it would attract a boom of tourists, anxious to be moved upstream by sweating nude bodies.

restitution of cultural tradition or introduction of sex tourism?

[image 1> boattrackers in Three Gorges via cqhostel] [images 2,3&4> chinese nude boat trackers by people.com.cn via chinahush]

After reading about Walleyball in boiteaoutils, and the volleyball game over the US/Mexican border wall, i come up with the results of the popular tournament Placa-Placa in the Spanish news.

Under this onomatopoeic  jeu de mots, there has been a call-for-signs from October 2009 to February 2010. Participants should simply remove and gather any fascist sign, name or shield still remaining in the streets since Franco Dictatorship’s era (1939-1975). A national law for Historic Memory was passed last year in Spain, but still some towns cling to their traditional street names. Organised by antifascist collectives, such as Yesca, this successful first edition has erased 216 symbolic signs, which had been forgotten by authorities.

In the same line of dissolving political meanings of democratic public space, artist kamila szejnoch did an installation in Warsaw, Poland in 2008. Just by hanging a swing from the iron arm of a communist sculpture, the whole memorial site acquired then a new ludic character; losing or loosening its symbolic burden.

[Image above> Placa-placa results via Yesca] [Image below> swing communism installation by kamila szejnoch]

Once upon a time, Buda and Pest decided to melt together over the Danube river and MexiCali and CaleXico were founded at both sides of the Californian-Mexican border.

With a current eager for neighbourhood identity, citizens start to shape their mega-cities of residence by renaming some areas in a more familiar sense. NewYorkers invented Soho*, Noho*, Sobro*, Tribeca*, Nolita*, Dumbo*,… and Berliners have already danced many nights at Berghain* and are now rediscovering Kreuzkölln*. As a result of gentrification, these areas acquire a new character and also provide some dose of Locality to cure the increasing sense of loss in a global world ASAP.

From another perspective, cities themselves blur former neighbourhood borders as they grow.

“Although Saskia Sassen observed that extended metropolitan regions are usually nameless entities, the rapid expansion of Jakarta beyond municipal and even provincial jurisdictional boundaries since the 1980s has seen the city acquire a new name locally: JaBoTaBek, which is an acronym derived from the pre-existing municipalities of Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang, and Bekasi. This local renaming was then adjusted to Jabodetabek, in order to include the area of Depok. And, more recently still, as Jakarta’s urban and quasi-urban development absorb the hill towns of Puncak and Cinanjur to the Southeast, it has adjusted its name to JaBoDeTaBekPunJur.” [S. Cairns & D. Suryawinata in Reciprocity - IABR 2010]

[Image> Mexicali-Calexico border by ContralasFronteras via muyinteresante]

*So.Ho.> South of Houston Street *No.Ho.> North of Houston Street *So.Bro.> South Bronx *Tri.Be.Ca.> Triangle Below Canal Street *No.Li.Ta.> North of Little Italy *D.U.M.B.O.> Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass *BergHain> Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain *KreuzKölln> Kreuzberg-Neukölln

political propaganda samples of Vietnamese streets.

with a naif and charming style graphics, the Government keeps on trying to transmit ideas for a collective identity. would it mean a progressive loss of a socialist concept of a nation nowadays, that needs to be expressed anyhow to the people? hard times for it, above all, when US$ notes are too common on everyday pockets…