ART511 - Locative Studio Spring 2008

So on Thursday, I finally made my way to the old Art School that was one of the locations on one of the Scavenger Hunts.  I must say that if anyone out there hasn’t been there yet, you must go.  It is the best place ever.

There need to be more urban environments like this.  But I think the fact that there aren’t–or where they are is socially considered to be ‘off limits’–raises some interesting questions about our society and human domestication.  This was touched on in other posts, but I wish to expand on it…  What exactly are the reasons why places like this don’t occur more frequently?  I suspect that they are primarily accessability and surveillance.

Rampantly overgrown plants obviously make access difficult, which is part of the fun (that first tree really held me back both going in and comming out).  For those of us who have additional needs in term of movement–such as canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and enough space to maintain ballance–it would be problematic and somewhat unfair to have to squeeze through overgrown paths and we may even end up excluded.  But surely this urban wilderness can coexist with established mobility concerns.  For example, once you get past that first tree, the area opens up into a courtyard which is as navigatable as anywhere.  I suspect it doesn’t even need a protective tree to create that sense of beauty and mystique.  So surely even though this specific site was a challenge, accessability shouldn’t prevent it from occuring.

But perhaps the seclusion factor creates problems for surveillance.  One could conceivably do many bad things under the cover of the foliage.  This must be why plants do not seem to exist within urban environments, who knows what those birds are doing in their trees.  When I was there, there was a bird chirping from some unseen vantage point; I looked but never found it.  There was another bird that was sitting in a tree overhead… how weird is that?  A bird in a tree?  Haven’t seen that happen in a long time.  So I figured, if some police officer were to come and try to fish me out of there, surveillance would probably be his reason for doing so.  And as we all know, us humans must be constantly watched and always be under the cycloptic eye of surveillance.  Always.

Of course, maybe this kind of environment can safely be out in the open.  What are the art school’s main distinctions from other urban environments?  There are leaves on the ground and walls of plants.  There are trees and vines dangling from the roofs.  It isn’t merely a blend of humanity and nature, it is humanity as nature.  Isn’t it conceiveable that such an environment should be able to be recreated elsewhere?  We could put planters on walls, grow vines on the roofs of buildings, and… I guess we have trees, but we could have more plants surrounding them.  They wouldn’t be a problem to accessability if they’re all associated with the existing walls of buildings, nor would surveillance be a problem.  Just think of the wonderful textures and colors of plants instead of the flat drab walls of buildings.

Many things ran through my head while experiencing these hunts and observing other people take our hunt on, much of which is echoed in Phyllis’ post.  Another take-home lesson I learned from the whole experience was that everyone in the whole class has their strengths.  I’m very interested to see a whole class project come together in the future.  Each one of us has a strength or skill set that they are proficient at, and in a team effort, I think could be fully realized.

I also realized while on these hunts how unadventurous we can be.  Are we really that domesticated so as to completely avoid having to trespass, and clamor through an overgrown pathway, or to even fathom that yes, you might have to duck under those bushes in order to get where you’re going?  I reflect on this often living in the city, how fearsome I’ve become of what I step on, lean against, or what my long skirts are dragging through on the sidewalk.  People, I used to walk BAREFOOT in the forest all summer long, the soles of my feet thick with protective callouses and stickled with pitch and leaves.  I’m reminded of the summer I spent in Oakland attending classes at CCoA (formerly CCAC).  I remember walking a block and a half down the street from my apartment to Safeway with my RA Gauri.  We needed fresh ginger for the chai she was making for all of us girls at the apartment.  I went with her, barefoot, all the way down the street, into the store, and right as we were about to leave, the security man came up to me and reprimanded me for going barefoot in the store, spouting lawyer rhetoric about people suing stores they get hurt in.  I told him that the store should keep their floors swept and clean so that it wouldn’t be a problem.  “You might slip on the floor without shoes on,” he said.  I remember telling him, “I might slip with them on.” and scooting out of the store left perplexed at how domesticated we have become.

Now I can’t even imagine walking on the cleanest flattest concrete in my new environment.  I need my callouses back!  This was a big point in two of the scavenger hunts for me: the domestication of mankind, how far removed and sometimes fearful we are of nature and natural things.  Overall things could have improved with the waypoints, devices, and satellite drift issues, but that’s what the future is for.  I think everyone made a great effort in their own ways.

PS - Arosh, is the remix ready?