Please check out and participate in this festival I have produced as a part of a larger study of my thesis project…
Relocating Burning Man
“Burning Man is an annual art event and temporary community based on radical self expression and self-reliance in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.” Between August 28th – September 5th, roughly 50,000 participants spend 8 days transforming the barren playa outside of the Gerlach Empire into a temporal metropolis. Governed by 10 Principles the festival has grown into a counter-cultural event in opposition to the existing capitalist-driven milieu.
“Ten Principles
Radical Inclusion
Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.Gifting
Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.Decommodification
In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.Radical Self-reliance
Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.Radical Self-expression
Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.Communal Effort
Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.Civic Responsibility
We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.Leaving No Trace
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.Participation
Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.Immediacy
Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.”
As existing, Burning Man is removed from society and exists as a space to create art, a city, and a community upon a “blank canvas”. It exists in opposition to the normal, the everyday. But what if Burning Man was stripped of its “black canvas” and forced to exist within the spaces of our everyday lives? What can art/architecture become without starting with a “blank canvas” but rather an underlay? Re-locating the festival in Lower Manhattan will impose on the event an existing set of conditions, infrastructures, and systems in which it must simultaneously respond to, engage with, disengage from, paint over, or leave untouched. This absurd juxtaposition will reconstruct the ideals of the festival to produce change in our existing environments.
A New Edge Condition for Manhattan
The questions I am currently dissecting are:
How will Burning Man be transformed to exist within Lower Manhattan?
How will Lower Manhattan react to and be transformed by this temporal festival?
Final Thesis Prep Book
Seen here is the current status of my thesis book which will be revised and edited throughout the coming semester.
Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities are Changing the World by Jeb Brugmann
This document was created for Crisis City’s Pecha-Kucha event where we presented and discussed books relating to crisis and/or cities.
“The evolution of individual cities into a city system, which [Jeb Brugmann] calls the City, has radically changed the relationship between local and global affairs. Through the City, local conditions and events…are amplified into global events and accelerated into global trends…” (5).
It provides an overview of understanding cities and systems while looking at examples of how to develop the increasingly urbanized world. The Crisis City manifesto aligns well with Brugmann’s ideas of bottom-up activism, the increasing value of urban environments, the need to design for and with local environments, and architecture relating to (not dismissing) social, political, and environmental conditions.
PARK(ing) Day Spot
Poster for The Front at PARK(ing) DAY
Please come and visit us Friday September 17th @ 320 S. Clinton Street!!
View the map below for more details!
Read more…
From Concept to Construction
In collaboration with COLAB The Front has designed and constructed a park which will replace one of Syracuse’s parking spots this Friday September 17th for National PARK(ing) Day.
T-Shirt Design by Maki Kawaguchi
Still-Life A40/B1 Project
A street festival, an international picnic, “…a place to walk, bike, play, paint, have lunch or perform.” On July 18th, 2010 the A40, the Ruhr Metropolis’ main connection artery, was transformed from an automotive to a pedestrian-friendly environment. A highway, a public road especially a major road connecting two or more destinations, metamorphosed into a space of activity and excitement.
RUHR.2010 hosted the Still-Life A40/B1 Project as a Festival of Cultures to help strengthen the Ruhr Metropolis’ identity as the 2010 European Capital of Culture. The concept was,
“..to create a meeting place for different cultures, generations and nations.”
This example of a street festival demonstrates the interconnectivity of our world’s culture. While certain events are programmed for specific cities, transforming a highway into an urban public park drew crowds (of about 3 million people) both nationally and internationally. Did the participants even feel as though they where in Germany? Or perhaps the A40 become a transnational space where cultures from around the globe became blurred.
What made this event so popular was the chance it gave to the public to partake in an event never before done and completely out of the ordinary. Who wouldn’t want to participate? It shows that people are drawn to the idea of challenging preconceived notions of space, whether consciously or subconsciously.
Thesis Proposals
Festival de Cannes (The Cannes Film Festival)
Arguably the most prestigious film festival in the world occurs annually in the city of Cannes, France. Attended by international directors, actors, critics and of course photographers and the press the small resort town in the south of France is consumed and morphed into a city of film for 12 days. This private event is attended to gain fame and glory, to learn and/or to critic new films. Currently most of the screenings occur indoors and it is my belief that the city is engrossed in film resulting from the buzzing of new ideas in the film industry. But how can the architecture/infrastructure of the city be developed to enhance the viewing of films, the communication of ideas and the idea that a city can be transformed, almost as if a set, to showcase new advancements in cinematography? Is Cannes transformed for only 12 days a year? Do the events and effects of the festival leave a mark in the city after the festival and for the rest of the year? Does the event remain a private festival? Or does it become open to the public (or is the public only allowed access to the impressions left behind?)
Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica (The Venice Film Festival)
Basically the same idea of Cannes, rather dealing with a difference contextual situation. The Lido Island of Venice, Italy is home to the oldest film festival in the world. The film festival occurs in conjunction with the Venice Biennale (a festival and exhibition of contemporary film, art, dance, architecture, music and theatre). Again the festival is contained into the Palazzo del Cinema but how can film, the screening and the ideas spill out to the public space of the streets, the facades and the water of the Lido?
The Festival City
What if one city became the backdrop for all festivals? As a man-made city, and one of the most beautiful, Venice is arguably in a constant state of festive. (Festivals including: Carnevale, Vogalonga, Serenissima, Venezia Biennale, Festa del Rendentore, Opera Festival, Shakespeare Festival, local village festivals…). With the chance of sinking and a decreasing population could Venice transform itself from a city of living into a city of festive where temporary groups inhabit the city for a brief period of time. Can an existing city reconfigure itself to be a city of temporary architectures? Could the existing architecture be mutated to become the home of festival? Rather than traveling to Venice as a tourist destination do people gather for temporary religious, cultural or educational events?
Festival Architecture 