Modulating mythology in a post-traumatic era: Murals and re-imaging in Northern Ireland.

Arguably the most ancient of the social media, wall paintings have been a persistent vehicle of cultural meaning management. The dynamics of myth markets are reflected in the sectarian murals of Northern Ireland. In this paper, we draw from consumer research literature on mythology and street art to explore the continuous revision of these wallscapes that seeks to address the enduring contradictions of civic ideology in contested political space. In particular, we focus on the use of classical, historical and pop-cultural mythologies to transform private space into public place. We examine the decommissioning of murals occurring in the wake of the Peace Accords, and speculate on the implications of the creation of a shared mythology for the future of mural painting and the state.

Ser jove als marges de la cultura: com es relacionen els joves amb l’entorn social i cultural a través d’expressions plàstiques d’art al carrer

En el procés de ser jove hi ha implícites dinàmiques de socialització i de relació. Tot i ser un procés habitual, no deixa de sorprendre la incorporació, a través de l’acció dels joves, de nous valors i nous referents en els constructes culturals ja establerts, que, en termes molt generals, identifiquen fins aquest moment els que en podríem dir la massa adulta. L’article es basa en un treball empíric fet a la ciutat de Tarragona, combinant les opinions directes de 21 joves creadors, l’observació dels carrers (especialment dels graffitis i instal•lacions plàstiques que hi podem trobar) i l’anàlisi de fonts bibliogràfiques i documentals amb les que es planteja els referents teòrics i contextuals

Alterations

Alterations
A project conceived by Paul Carter, Professor of Design / Urbanism, Architecture & Design, that explores the theme of 'Alterations' in clothes, identities and spaces. The project is inspired by Dandenong's rapidly mutating public and commercial spaces and the multicultural communities that animate them. The project features a multi-monitor video work Loops, textile-based installation, documentary photography, and poster manifestos. Artists featured include Dirk de Bruyn, Ed Carter, Paul Carter and Soo Yeun You.

Lacan Palestine : presentation and film screening

As part of the monthly 'Outside the Outside' series of presentation / screenings curated by Dirk de Bruyn and Glenn D'Cruz in response to the changing landscape of Dandenong's inner city rejuvenation, deBruyn will present Mike Hoolboom's recent 'Lacan Palestine'. The film will be preceded by a 20-minute multimedia presentation contextualizing Hoolboom's practice.

Conversations through colour

The video exhibition and (performative lecture) shows and tell the story of the ways in which the changes in our shifting lives are sewn together by subtle yet persistent patterns such as our attraction to and preference for particular colours and colour combinations. The aim of the colour conversations is to focus on the sensory experience of color and elicit responses that might not emerge if an interview were to begin with the discussion of ideas or issues. In this way conversations take place in an expansive, shared field of experience from which personal and/or interpersonal observations can be made.

Finding the edge : online persona creation by fringe artists

Self-presentation through the creation of profiles and pages on digitally networked spaces is becoming ever more ubiquitous. In order to develop greater depth of understanding of the place of social media in our self-identification practice, my dissertation investigates the experiences of online persona creation by eight artists. Drawing on sociological and cultural studies approaches to understanding identity as performance, I tie current artists’ presentational and representational practices to historically grounded, socio-culturally constructed discourses of ‘artistness’. Through this connection, I argue that the creation of online persona has not radically changed notions of what it means to be an artist, or how artistness is represented and understood by audiences of fans or followers, but rather that digital technology has allowed for renegotiation of the boundaries of artistness that still draws from historical understandings of the role and persona of the artist. This shifting of boundaries, allowing for more inclusivity within the art world, is demonstrated by my focus on ‘fringe’ artists: those whose creative practice places them outside of the traditional art world and its existing structures of representation, distribution and consumption. The eight fringe artists who participated in this study are drawn from street art, performance poetry, craftivism and tattoo.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis drives the methodological focus on the experiences of the artists. Rather than a consideration of behaviour and habit, or what the artists do, this phenomenological approach allowed me to instead focus on what it is like for the artists to create persona, what drives particular types of representational practices. Using unstructured interviews, and online listening as an extension of participant observation, the artists’ narratives of experience are expressed through transcript extracts and screenshots: both are necessary to fully explore the nature of online persona creation.

My analysis of the artists experiences has demonstrated that there are three somewhat distinct registers of performance with which an artist’s persona can engage: the professional register, where one demonstrates ones proficiency, experience, popularity, and professionalism; the personal register, where one connects with
wider social and political interests and activities; and the intimate register, where one allows the audience in to one’s private world. These three registers occupy the same performance space, but are implicitly or explicitly for different segments of the digitally networked audience of fans, followers, friends and family. The complexity of the performance and reception of these registers is influenced by the shared nature of the performance space – where previously different roles would be performed for different audiences without reference to one another, the networked nature of online social media influences decisions of how much, and when, to share with whom.

Interpreted here using themes of strategy|happenstance, specialisation|diversification, visibility|self-protection,
self|others and work|play, the professional, personal and intimate registers of performance enable us to see the consideration and care with which each participant creates their artists persona. The experiences of performing the self in these three registers, as presented here, provides an insight into the complexities involved in creating online persona, while also demonstrating that this type of presentation of self is, in itself, no different from the types of role play and performance of self that has arguably always occurred in our physical world. Despite focusing on the role and performance of artistness, this dissertation speaks to the creation and performance of online persona more broadly. 

Sticker: colando idéias

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Palimpsestos urbanos: uma reflexão sobre arte na rua

Pós-graduação em Artes - IA

"Framing Counterspaces: Forms and Meanings of Graffiti in Berlin's Linguistic Landscape"

Street art and graffiti are integral parts of Berlin’s urban space, which has undergone dramatic transformations in the past two decades. Graffiti texts constitute a critical comment on these urban transformations. This talk analyzes the connection between the phenomenon of street art and trajectories in urban planning in post-wall Berlin. My current research explores the meaning of various forms of street art (such as graffiti, posters, sticker art, stencils) as texts in Berlin’s linguistic landscape. Linguistic Landscape research pays critical attention to language, words, and images displayed and exposed in public spaces. The field of Linguistic Landscapes has only recently begun to include graffiti texts in analyses of text and space to fully comprehend the semiotics of the street. In the case of Germany’s capital, graffiti writing enters into a critical dialogue with the environment and provides a readable text to understand the city.

Arte urbano en el espacio expositivo : siglo XXI a través del análisis de seis modelos singulares

En la actualidad, museos y galerías de todo el mundo realizan exposiciones de un arte que tiene sus orígenes en el espacio urbano. El presente estudio muestra las estrategias posibles que tanto los artistas como las instituciones museológicas y comisarios han adoptado para mostrar el arte urbano en el espacio expositivo. Los objetivos son analizar a través de seis exposiciones llevadas a cabo en Europa, en el transcurso del siglo XXI, las características conceptuales, técnicas y formales para realizar una exposición de arte urbano, buscando la interconexión existente entre el lenguaje artístico propio de este arte y el lenguaje expositivo. Para ello se muestra un contexto histórico en el que se abordan los principales casos desarrollados a lo largo de la historia, orientado a crear una base a un movimiento que actualmente está en pleno auge. Se analiza también el papel adyacente del graffiti con el arte urbano, encontrando tanto grandes similitudes como diferencias, que han coexistido a lo largo de los años complementándose unas con otras, sea entre los artistas, en el espacio urbano y en el espacio expositivo. Bajo la emergencia de muestras de arte urbano en la actualidad, este estudio selecciona seis exposiciones que tuvieron lugar en instituciones europeas desde el 2008. La variedad entre ellas permite realizar un análisis rico en posibilidades, como en Street Art en la Tate Modern, una institución de gran relevancia a nivel internacional y con artistas referentes dentro del movimiento; en Banksy versus Bristol Museum, en la que el mediático y anónimo Banksy crea una muestra heterogénea; con Os Gêmeos en el Museu Berardo en Lisboa se presenta una exposición de uno de los grandes referentes del arte urbano en el mundo, o el Palais de Tokyo que presenta unos espacios propicios para la muestra de este tipo de arte bajo una serie de eventos desarrollados en una amplia línea temporal con una gran variedad de artistas; Lisboa, ciudad distinguida por su implicación con el arte urbano, presenta dos muestras importantes, una en la Fundação EDP-Museu da Electricidade con la figura emergente de Alexandre Farto, y otra en el MUDE con el significativo André Saraiva. Bajo la premisa de que todos estos artistas han desenvuelto o desenvuelven su trabajo en la calle, se estudia su relación con el lenguaje adaptado para el espacio expositivo. El objetivo desarrollado es la búsqueda de una esencia que permita sentir y apreciar el arte urbano en todos sus contenidos, sea formal, técnica o conceptualmente, reflexionando acerca de la naturaleza del mismo para así realizar la complicada descontextualización de presentar un arte en un espacio ajeno a sus raíces. Tras el análisis de las exposiciones, se observan varias formas de abordar la inclusión en el museo, categorizándolas en exposiciones individuales, colectivas, históricas y temáticas, creando cuatro líneas curatoriales. Desde la perspectiva de las estrategias creativas analizadas en las exposiciones, se observan diferentes recursos tanto por parte de los artistas como de las instituciones para introducir el arte urbano en el contexto museológico, encontrando aspectos que coexisten dentro y fuera del espacio expositivo. Además, el estudio examina cómo a lo largo de la historia hubo un intento de aproximación e inclusión del arte popular al espacio expositivo, lo cual desenvolvió un camino para la institución museológica actual, que debe defender un servicio y un compromiso con la sociedad bajo la actual demanda de un público interesado en el arte urbano

Illustrated catalogue of the exhibition of portraits on loan in the new galleries of art, Corporation buildings, Sauchiehall Street.

Exhibition of portraits from Scotland and England "of deceased persons, especially of those who have been connected with Glasgow...." -- P. [iii].

Exhibition of early Italian art from 1300 to 1550 [at] the New gallery, Regent street, 1893-4.

Includes index.

Notes by Mr. Ruskin on Samuel Prout and William Hunt : illustrated by a loan collection of drawings exhibited at The Fine Art Society's Galleries, 148 New Bond Street, 1879-80.

Mode of access: Internet.

Shade-trees in towns and cities; their selection, planting, and care as applied to the art of street decoration; their diseases and remedies; their municipal control and supervision,

Mode of access: Internet.

Public space for street-scape theatrics : guerrilla spatial tactics and methods of urban hacking in Brisbane, Australia

It could be argued that architecture has an inherent social responsibility to enrich the urban and spatial environments for the city’s occupants. However how we define quality, and how ‘places’ can be designed to be fair and equitable, catering for individuals on a humanistic and psychological level, is often not clearly addressed. Lefebvre discusses the idea of the ‘right to the city’; the belief that public space design should facilitate freedom of expression and incite a sense of spatial ownership for its occupants in public/commercial precincts. Lefebvre also points out the importance of sensory experience in the urban environment. “Street-scape theatrics” are performative activities that summarise these two concepts, advocating the ‘right to the city’ by way of art as well as providing sensual engagement for city users. Literature discusses the importance of Street-scape Theatrics however few sources attempt to discuss this topic in terms of how to design these spaces/places to enhance the city on both a sensory and political level. This research, grounded in political theory, investigates the case of street music, in particular busking, in the city of Brisbane, Australia. Street culture is a notion that already exists in Brisbane, but it is heavily controlled especially in central locations. The study discusses how sensory experience of the urban environment in Brisbane can be enriched through the design for busking; multiple case studies, interviews, observations and thematic mappings provide data to gather an understanding of how street performers see and understand the built form. Results are sometime surprisingly incongruous with general assumptions in regards to street artist as well as the established political and ideological framework, supporting the idea that the best and most effective way of urban hacking is working within the system. Ultimately, it was found that the Central Business District in Brisbane, Australia, could adopt certain political and design tactics which attempt to reconcile systematic quality control with freedom of expression into the public/commercial sphere, realism upheld. This can bridge the gap between the micro scale of the body and the macro of the political economy through freedom of expression, thus celebrating the idiosyncratic nature of the city.