Posted: August 18th, 2009 | Author: Scott | Filed under: Art, Design, Environment, Politics | 1 Comment »
Art and the City - COFA Talks
Tonight I hung around at uni for a few extra hours to attend this weeks COFA Talk: Art and the City. I’m quite interested in how government attempts to reconcile art within public spaces and was particularly keen to hear what Sydney Lord Mayor, Clover Moore had to say on the topic. I was severely disappointed.
The speeches themselves were the predictable round of backslapping and slideshows of middle-of-the-road public art installation. However, it was when the floor was opened up to the large crowd that I was most surprised. Obviously, questions quickly moved in the direction of street art (tellingly responded to by Moore as “graffiti” and bundled with activities like skateboarding) and it wasn’t long before the respondents (and host) visibly tired of this line of questioning – it appeared they were passing it over as just the realm of trouble-making kids.
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Posted: February 22nd, 2009 | Author: Scott | Filed under: Design, Environment | No Comments »
A constant desire to update and change my blog layout has resulted in a shift to this new subdomain. I decided that, like Eli’s blog, I should create a sort of break between my personal work and my professional work. So here it is. Welcome.
Although, whilst visiting Design Observer, I came across a fantastic article that focuses on the battle between our now ubiquitous desire for more environmentally friendly design and the result of that battle becoming comercialised. So often, what begins with the best of intentions, starts to lose sight of why it was started in the first place. Perhaps my shift to a new blog isn’t the answer to a lagging post-rate. Maybe I should have worked more with what was already there.
It’s easy to be quite cynical about things like good design vs production for production’s sake, but I think it’s also important to be realistic. Yes, great design can be a wonderful thing and in some circumstances, has the power to inspire social change. But maybe it’s time for a sort of Design Police. Someone to look over your shoulder and ask: “do we really need that”?
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