atlas(t)

urban flora

the description on youtube says:

Urban Flora is a project that aims to alter city dwellers' experience of their environment through a series of stickers that identify objects in the urban environment. These "urban flora", such as mailboxes, lamp posts, and fire hydrants, are presented in a traditional taxonomy such as one would see in an arboretum or botanical garden. By defining these man-made artifacts in the context of the botanical world, the project draws attention to the presence or absence of nature in the urban space.

but it's really just a time-spender for urban artsies with too much time on their hands.

Either that, or these people are "artists" who need some "projects" under their belts. That would be indicated by the earnestness of the text. I'd actually prefer the former. My friends and I used to sit around and drink beer and come up with ideas galore for projects. Sometimes we'd even do them, but we mostly just sat around and talked. Doing the projects was problematic because it always required some work, and the projects were always one liners, like this one, so it never felt quite sane to spend 200 hours--or 20 or even two--making something that people would look at for a second, say "huh" about, and then walk away.

But I realize that these sorts of one-off projects are how artists cut their teeth so I'm trying not to be too much of a bitch. And it's a neat idea, for about a second. Then it's just precious. My main issue is art that purports to invite random mans on da streets to "think about" something. Unless the artist is very careful, and very thoughtful, these invitations are more along the lines of demands. Condescending demands that offer an ill-defined idea in the confidence that viewers have never thought of such things before.

Such projects also do all the thinking necessary for engaging with the piece, so that when your two seconds of engagement are up, so is all the thinking around the piece.

The problem here specifically is that this idea requires a great deal more thought and discussion to really give anything new to the random viewer. Pretty much every city dweller has thought, at some point or another, about the lack of vegetation, or wished for more trees or green or just plain shade. Pointing out that we've "replaced" trees and shrubs with hydrants and streetlamps doesn't really cut it--for anyone.

The fire hydrant sticker was starting to get somewhere interesting with its line about hydrants now serving multiple purposes. But the format of the stickers was too brief to allow thought to go anywhere. This could have been solved in a number of ways:

1. making the stickers a little bigger and giving oneself a little more leeway to spin out fantasies
2. making a lot more stickers about a lot more objects, and shaping a discussion by sheer accumulation
3. adding a url to a website that included longer (and maybe not so earnest) discussions about the taxonomy of street furniture, or a map of said street furniture, or a taxonomic table or family tree, or maybe simply an interactive component where viewers could suggest other objects to taxonomize

I hate to see a good idea go to waste.

taxonomy of popular techology

what wired geeks do when they're bored.

taxonomy song

wow. Taxonomy sorts out all life on Earth, in the present day, in the future, and all through the past. ... Classes will take us up one further rung. Mammals for example, all suckle their young ... except when they use formula ...

It's a great idea, but maybe a songwriter should have written it.

blogaversary

it's been a year since I started atlas(t) blog and I haven't regretted it for a second. The only thing I regret is how much I've been neglecting it in the past few months.

But the reasons for the neglect---a new job and an ongoing attempt to do my own fiction writing around the demands of the job---haven't gone away. My personal blog, SeeLight, has suffered as well, though not as much.

I'm definitely going to be posting with less frequency in the future, and with less substance, I'm afraid :P. On the upside, there will be that much less outrage in the blogosphere. And I have some unfinished blogjects to get done so maybe I will focus on those. Or maybe I'll be random. In any case, Happy Birthday, atlas(t)!

garmin vs. maposaurus

"you just can't beat a good old fashioned map sometimes." Indeed.

aram bartholl

amazing how much time and footage some "artists" will spend on a one-liner.

steven johnson on the ghost map

a book I really need to read:

"... and he evenutally created this map, which is where the title of the book comes from, that showed, in a sense, all the deaths in this neighborhood radiating out from this single point on the map ... and so at this moment of great terror and death and destruction, a new clarity emerges ..."