I spoke on a panel after a screening of the film, Copyright Criminals, at the Aero Theater last night. Earlier in the panel I had touched upon the difficulty of determining and locating copyright holders, and my belief that current attribution information tied to digital material (as well as a national registry) might ease that monetizing process. During the question segment of the program a gentleman expressed his lack of faith in digital voting systems. While not necessarily germane to the conversation, it did strike me that digital information leaves many in the public, without the tools needed to judge context or veracity, very distrustful. The speed and openness of information in the digital age seems an unquestionable gift to the growth of human culture, however, given the cynicism of our social institutions, perhaps we should be more mindful of Lawrence Lessig's caution and plea for a systematic understanding and approach for change.
The Agenda - Broadcast - Lawrence Lessig | Digital Activism
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Friday, October 16, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Whitewashing the L.A. River
On September 1, 2009 federal stimulus money was used by the Army Corps of Engineers to buff the Los Angeles River of graffiti. In doing so, they white washed an important part of L.A.’s artistic history. Key among the pieces that were destroyed was a work by the artist SABER; artwork recognized by many worldwide as the largest graffiti masterpiece. Created in 1997 on the slopping concrete banks off the 5 freeway, the piece measured 250’ x 55’ – nearly the size of an NFL football field – and took 97 gallons of paint. Most large-scale graffiti in the L.A. River, such as the MTA roller (also recently buffed) are straightforward two color blocks. What made Saber’s piece world famous (beyond it’s impressive scale and staying power) was that it was a complex full color piece. Few beyond the graffiti scene truly appreciate the dangerous logistics of getting the artist and his supplies to that site, much less the technical and artistic skill required to create such a large piece on an angled surface. This historic artwork has become such a landmark on the LA River that SABER has been featured in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s exhibition “L.A.: light / motion / dreams” in 2004-2005 and KCET’s Departures series about the river this past July.
We in Los Angeles are no strangers to having our art history destroyed, from the whitewashing of David Alfaro Siqueiros’s Olvera Street mural “La América Tropical” in 1932-33 to Kent Twitchell's mural “Ed Ruscha Monument,” painted over in June 2006. Of course, the big difference here is the Getty Conservation Institute is unlikely to fund a multi-million dollar restoration (as in the case of the Siqueiros mural); nor is SABER likely to win a $1.1 million dollar settlement under the Federal Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) or the California Art Preservation Act (CAPA) as Twitchell did in 2008. You might think that is because the piece by SABER was illegal, but recent history suggests otherwise.
In 2007, the graffiti gallery Crewest, along with help from the activist group Friends of the L.A. River (FoLAR) organized “Meeting of Styles: LA.” The event brought together over 100 graffiti artists to spray paint a 10,000 square foot section of the L.A. River at the Arroyo Seco Confluence in Highland Park. Despite the fact that the organizers secured all necessary permits for the mural project, and that the event was fully licensed by the county; supervisor Gloria Molina objected to the work after the fact and introduced an emergency measure to the County Board of Supervisors that forced the mural to be whitewashed from the flood walls. A spokeswoman for Molina called the legal graffiti murals a “public nuisance and a potential safety hazard,” and justified Molina's decision to introduce the mural's removal by saying the county was “trying to save lives.” That is because unlike any other form of public art, people believe that graffiti art is dangerous, that is ruins neighborhoods and turns juvenile delinquents into criminals. At no point does anyone stop to think that they are looking at a generation of artists who have grown up within a public school system stripped of arts education, and in a physical environment that seems to have no problem with the proliferation of illegal advertising billboards and super-graphics. Graffiti artists and supporters have pushed hard to create legal public spaces for people to paint, but one by one places like the Venice Walls and Belmont Yard have been destroyed, as charges for vandalism went from misdemeanors to felonies. Yet those corporate interests have no problem stealing the intellectual property of those artists in order to market to the youth.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) included $6.5 million to ensure structural integrity, remove graffiti and manage vegetation along the Los Angeles River. Graffti abatement is a popular ploy for politicians, able to point to the stark visual change it produces and claim that real improvment is being made. However, they don't seem to understand that providing a newly buffed surface is only an invitation to graffiti writers who know that the politicains will inevitably turn their backs on the river once again. While buffing the river may create a few immediate jobs, I fail to see how this money works toward the Los Angeles River Revitalization Plan's worthy goal of transforming a more than 30-mile stretch of the L.A. River into a greenbelt linking communities. I hope one day that the powers that be recognize that graffiti art, such as Saber's historic river piece, are as important to linking communities and the health of the L.A. River as the meaning of "traditionally navigable waters" is.
-- Post From PS: the Public Square.
We in Los Angeles are no strangers to having our art history destroyed, from the whitewashing of David Alfaro Siqueiros’s Olvera Street mural “La América Tropical” in 1932-33 to Kent Twitchell's mural “Ed Ruscha Monument,” painted over in June 2006. Of course, the big difference here is the Getty Conservation Institute is unlikely to fund a multi-million dollar restoration (as in the case of the Siqueiros mural); nor is SABER likely to win a $1.1 million dollar settlement under the Federal Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) or the California Art Preservation Act (CAPA) as Twitchell did in 2008. You might think that is because the piece by SABER was illegal, but recent history suggests otherwise.
In 2007, the graffiti gallery Crewest, along with help from the activist group Friends of the L.A. River (FoLAR) organized “Meeting of Styles: LA.” The event brought together over 100 graffiti artists to spray paint a 10,000 square foot section of the L.A. River at the Arroyo Seco Confluence in Highland Park. Despite the fact that the organizers secured all necessary permits for the mural project, and that the event was fully licensed by the county; supervisor Gloria Molina objected to the work after the fact and introduced an emergency measure to the County Board of Supervisors that forced the mural to be whitewashed from the flood walls. A spokeswoman for Molina called the legal graffiti murals a “public nuisance and a potential safety hazard,” and justified Molina's decision to introduce the mural's removal by saying the county was “trying to save lives.” That is because unlike any other form of public art, people believe that graffiti art is dangerous, that is ruins neighborhoods and turns juvenile delinquents into criminals. At no point does anyone stop to think that they are looking at a generation of artists who have grown up within a public school system stripped of arts education, and in a physical environment that seems to have no problem with the proliferation of illegal advertising billboards and super-graphics. Graffiti artists and supporters have pushed hard to create legal public spaces for people to paint, but one by one places like the Venice Walls and Belmont Yard have been destroyed, as charges for vandalism went from misdemeanors to felonies. Yet those corporate interests have no problem stealing the intellectual property of those artists in order to market to the youth.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) included $6.5 million to ensure structural integrity, remove graffiti and manage vegetation along the Los Angeles River. Graffti abatement is a popular ploy for politicians, able to point to the stark visual change it produces and claim that real improvment is being made. However, they don't seem to understand that providing a newly buffed surface is only an invitation to graffiti writers who know that the politicains will inevitably turn their backs on the river once again. While buffing the river may create a few immediate jobs, I fail to see how this money works toward the Los Angeles River Revitalization Plan's worthy goal of transforming a more than 30-mile stretch of the L.A. River into a greenbelt linking communities. I hope one day that the powers that be recognize that graffiti art, such as Saber's historic river piece, are as important to linking communities and the health of the L.A. River as the meaning of "traditionally navigable waters" is.
-- Post From PS: the Public Square.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Graffiti & the Great Recession
I was browsing through the Huffington Post's "capture the recession" photo feature, where they have asked the public to post images in it's flickr pool. While many evocative images have been submitted, I am most struck by the pervasive sense of absence in so many of them; empty wheelchairs, empty shopping cart, and row upon row of empty homes and boarded up businesses. Loss can be found everywhere, but it seems like this Great Recession has stripped the streets of people.
It's common to see graffiti used as shorthand for "economically depressed," so I wasn't surprised to find the two photos below. In fact, both ranked in the top five when I found them earlier today. What is unusual is seeing graffiti used as the visual voice of Main Street.
Corner of Canal And Greenwich , NYC NY (Flickr/Mark Smith)
The stencil in the image above makes the tagger step into action for all Americans. And with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. posting record earnings today and reaching all-time highs less than a year after the firm took $10 billion in U.S. rescue funds, that tagger is asking a question we would all like to know.
-- Post From PWS, the Public Square.
It's common to see graffiti used as shorthand for "economically depressed," so I wasn't surprised to find the two photos below. In fact, both ranked in the top five when I found them earlier today. What is unusual is seeing graffiti used as the visual voice of Main Street.
Taken near the intersection of Bell, Eagle and Dallas Dr. in Denton, TX.
(Flickr/Rich Anderson)
These scrawled messages seem to be coming directly from the American people. The word "recession" is meaningless for the unemployed, uninsured people of this country; it doesn't begin to describe the street level challenges they face every day.
(Flickr/Rich Anderson)
These scrawled messages seem to be coming directly from the American people. The word "recession" is meaningless for the unemployed, uninsured people of this country; it doesn't begin to describe the street level challenges they face every day.
Corner of Canal And Greenwich , NYC NY (Flickr/Mark Smith)
The stencil in the image above makes the tagger step into action for all Americans. And with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. posting record earnings today and reaching all-time highs less than a year after the firm took $10 billion in U.S. rescue funds, that tagger is asking a question we would all like to know.
-- Post From PWS, the Public Square.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Fireworks: Global Celebration
Most entertainment technologies invented over the past 800 years have failed to stand the test of time. We may be momentarily charmed by a clockwork or shadow play, but they pale quickly against rapid-fire visual stimulation we consume daily in the 21st century. Fireworks, however, remain as arresting and thrilling as they were when the Chinese invented them in 12th century. Tonight the American people will stare up into skies bursting into color in celebration of our Independence. Part of me will be thinking about a much longer tradition, one in which people around the world over the last 800 years ooohh and aaahh over the beauty and magic of fireworks.
Nightime festivities with fireworks attending the rise of the Nile
Published in Sandy's "Relation of a Journey begun An Dom. 1610..."
second edition, 1621. Copper engraved print
Celebrating with Fireworks
Hashim II (Mughal, Delhi)
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, ca. 1635
6 3/32 in. x 8 13/16 in. (15.5 cm x 22.4 cm)
San Diego Museum of Art Edwin Binney 3d Collection
Fireworks Display in London as the Nation Rejoices in 1763
Chez Mondhare, Paris: c. 1763
Hand-colored engraving, 9.25 x 15.25 inches, image
'Boating and Fireworks on the Sumida River', 1770s
Utagawa Toyoharu (1735-1814)
Uki-e ('floating picture' or 'perspective print'), nishiki-e (brocade print)
Signature: Utagawa Toyoharu ga, Publisher: Nishimuraya Yohachi
V&A, Museum no. E.652-1901
'Projet du feu d'artifice tiré à Versailles en présence de sa majesté Louis XV, le 15 mai 1771, à l'occasion du mariage de Monseigneur le comte de Provence et de Marie-Joséphine de Savoie' (or: Fireworks Display at the Palace of Versailles), 1771
Centre de recherche du château de Versailles
'Plan du feu d'artifice projeté à l'occasion du passage de Napoléon
Bonaparte à Marseillle en l'an 13. Trouvé en 1M528 du Cabinet du Préfet'
Archives Départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône
UPDATE:
I spent the evening of this 4th of July on a hilltop in Echo Park. While it has a perfect view of fireworks shot off from Dodger Stadium, no large coordinated display seemed to be going on there this year. Instead we were treated to a cacaphony of independence, surrounded by small bands of people shooting off contraband fireworks.They came from all directions, much larger and elaborate then I would have expected. A few red flares went up as well, beautiful in their slow descent from the sky. At some point the police helipcopters arrived using both megaphone and spotlight to say "no fireworks." But their independence of spirit would not be tamed.
Nightime festivities with fireworks attending the rise of the Nile
Published in Sandy's "Relation of a Journey begun An Dom. 1610..."
second edition, 1621. Copper engraved print
Celebrating with Fireworks
Hashim II (Mughal, Delhi)
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, ca. 1635
6 3/32 in. x 8 13/16 in. (15.5 cm x 22.4 cm)
San Diego Museum of Art Edwin Binney 3d Collection
Fireworks Display in London as the Nation Rejoices in 1763
Chez Mondhare, Paris: c. 1763
Hand-colored engraving, 9.25 x 15.25 inches, image
'Boating and Fireworks on the Sumida River', 1770s
Utagawa Toyoharu (1735-1814)
Uki-e ('floating picture' or 'perspective print'), nishiki-e (brocade print)
Signature: Utagawa Toyoharu ga, Publisher: Nishimuraya Yohachi
V&A, Museum no. E.652-1901
'Projet du feu d'artifice tiré à Versailles en présence de sa majesté Louis XV, le 15 mai 1771, à l'occasion du mariage de Monseigneur le comte de Provence et de Marie-Joséphine de Savoie' (or: Fireworks Display at the Palace of Versailles), 1771
Centre de recherche du château de Versailles
'Plan du feu d'artifice projeté à l'occasion du passage de Napoléon
Bonaparte à Marseillle en l'an 13. Trouvé en 1M528 du Cabinet du Préfet'
Archives Départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône
UPDATE:
I spent the evening of this 4th of July on a hilltop in Echo Park. While it has a perfect view of fireworks shot off from Dodger Stadium, no large coordinated display seemed to be going on there this year. Instead we were treated to a cacaphony of independence, surrounded by small bands of people shooting off contraband fireworks.They came from all directions, much larger and elaborate then I would have expected. A few red flares went up as well, beautiful in their slow descent from the sky. At some point the police helipcopters arrived using both megaphone and spotlight to say "no fireworks." But their independence of spirit would not be tamed.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Planting Things That Grow
The girl scout in me could not help but respond to Obama's call to Renew America Together on the MLK holiday. I signed up early to help renew a 60's built library in the Valley. We arrived at ten this morning with tools and plants in hand. The library was closed and we all milled around the sign in table out front. I successfully avoided the box of donuts. The grass out front was buried beneath dead leaves, fallen acorns and random litter. Despite evidence of a sprinkler system, the garden box that hugged the side of the library was as hard, dry and cracked.
More people arrived; people from the neighborhood, families with little kids, teenagers, an elderly couple with advanced gardening (they came with all sorts of tools, potting soil, garbage bags...all I had was a trowel). We stood in a ragged circle for the pledge of allegiance. That said, we were told where the sun hit the building and to arrange our plants were they would best thrive. I entrusted the perennials I had brought to an alert little boy to plant. The garden box was full of people trying to dig dead roots out of the baked dry earth. I looked up from my rake when I heard the garden box cheer; a neighbor had brought a water hose from across the street. The afternoon hummed along interrupted by occasional honks of encouragement and support from the passing motorists. I got a blister on my hand and raked up great piles of leaves.
The kids I was working with spent part of the time jumping into the piles and the other part gathering the leaves into trash bags. As we worked told me how Obama was going to be president tomorrow. When I left, the library had been transformed. It was now tidy, and cheerful. Bright flowers dotted the deep brown of the tilled garden box soil.
I hope we planted more than just flowers today; I hope we planted the seed of public service in the hearts and minds of all of those kids.
UPDATE 02.01.09
A special thanks to Councilmember Weiss, who has secured water for the Sherman Oaks Library garden!
More people arrived; people from the neighborhood, families with little kids, teenagers, an elderly couple with advanced gardening (they came with all sorts of tools, potting soil, garbage bags...all I had was a trowel). We stood in a ragged circle for the pledge of allegiance. That said, we were told where the sun hit the building and to arrange our plants were they would best thrive. I entrusted the perennials I had brought to an alert little boy to plant. The garden box was full of people trying to dig dead roots out of the baked dry earth. I looked up from my rake when I heard the garden box cheer; a neighbor had brought a water hose from across the street. The afternoon hummed along interrupted by occasional honks of encouragement and support from the passing motorists. I got a blister on my hand and raked up great piles of leaves.
The kids I was working with spent part of the time jumping into the piles and the other part gathering the leaves into trash bags. As we worked told me how Obama was going to be president tomorrow. When I left, the library had been transformed. It was now tidy, and cheerful. Bright flowers dotted the deep brown of the tilled garden box soil.
I hope we planted more than just flowers today; I hope we planted the seed of public service in the hearts and minds of all of those kids.
UPDATE 02.01.09
A special thanks to Councilmember Weiss, who has secured water for the Sherman Oaks Library garden!
The Public Square was a Derelict Place
Well, here I am at the beginning of a new year, facing many of the same systemic challenges as I was last year. In many ways I feel like a reflection of the nation, 30 years of deferred maintenance. If something is built quickly and on the cheap, the whole structure may collapse. That sort of building process is not sustainable, but then, I have never known anything different.
The public square of civil society was a derelict place when I came of age. The civility having been drained from the very concrete. I have grown up entirely post-Watergate; old enough to witness the end of the cold war, but far too young to have experienced the hope of Kennedy, or MLK. Too young even for Regan, really. I am part of a generation that has never known a segregated classroom and grew up watching
Tomorrow will witness the swearing in of Barak Obama. I know that this is a momentous occasion for millions of people across the globe. A wealth of layered meaning has been composed for the inauguration. I will try to take in the whole of its parts soon. But tonight, I am thinking about the strains that resonate with my own better angels: the focus and the discipline to change.
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