Public Green
Public green space is an important factor in urban life- it is a respite from the concrete and asphalt environment of the city, and functions as a place to gather, relax, play, and experience a bit of nature. The Public Green project creates new meaning for these spaces, illustrating the complex and symbiotic relationship between the development of parkland and the growth of the city.
This mapping of publicly accessible green space in the city and environs is distributed throughout the public transit system, inside city buses and in transit shelters. Cartographic and textual information shows the distribution of green space across LA, locating public parks and giving the viewer an understanding of historical and current practices of acquisition, creation and maintenance of public green space in regards to Los Angeles economics, real estate practices, and history.
Public Green poses questions about ownership of land, and suggests the transfer of property from private to public use. Viewers are asked to rethink their local landscape, and to physically transform their environment. Through tactics of information distribution along existing transportation networks, the viewer becomes an agent of mobility and change. The information in the Public Green posters can be used geographically, to find parks locally or near daily commutes; or as a basis for community advocacy. Maps can be used for wayfinding or political means - this project suggests both functions.
Selected Projects | 1998-2004
"Panama-Pacific"
neuroTransmitter
Founded in 2001, nT is a radio collaborative utilizing analog communication technologies. Working specifically with radio machinations, neuroTransmitter propels signals through urban membranes and cellular formations.
To complement their fixed and mobile frequency performances, nT creates radio sonic installations, produces music, and converts utilitarian objects into radio transmission and receiving devices. neuroTransmitter has created visual works, performed, and broadcasted live on local bandwiths in public spaces and galleries throughout New York City; Columbus, Ohio; Helsinki, Finland; Aarhus, Denmark; Madrid, Spain; and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Public Park: Personal Planning Kit
The Personal Planning Kit for a Public Park provides basic necessities for turning private property into public space. The kit, encased in a handmade oak box, contains signage that can be personalized; and an instruction booklet that describes how easy it is to turn any size piece of land-- from a front lawn to a parking space-- into a public park. The kit is meant to function with the economy of art objects; in that art collectors, who have disposable income to purchase works of art most likely own excess property as well that can become public space. For the gardenlab presentation, an example of the PPK will be on display. I will also make available "Public Park" signage for distribution which visitors to the exhibition can personalize and and use to claim any green spaces across Los Angeles as public parks- traffic medians, vacant lots, or other interstitial or underused green spaces in the city.
Recent Sightings:
Center for Land Use Interpretation
Center for Urban Pedagogy
Journal of Aesthetics and Protest
October Surprise
multi-disciplinary focus discussion
Fieldworks - Art & Geography
Genius Loci Symposium
Critical Cartography and Anarchist Geography
