meta-roj

monument

this came to my attention quite some time ago, but it must have been when i wasn’t feeling bloggy… so i’m making up for it, late to this party. led throwies rock.

led throwies, from the graffiti research lab

incalculable damages…

Coca-Cola Threatens Top Indian Photographer with Lawsuit [india resource, 2005.07.12]

The Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Limited, a subsidiary of the Atlanta based Coca-Cola company, has threatened Mr. Sharad Haksar, one of India’s celebrated photographers, with a lawsuit.

the work is a commentary on something i’ve been thinking about, off and on, for a while. lack of water.

it sounds like coke has some real trouble out there in the big wide world.

visit the artist (look for coke and nike)

ow available at the internet archive.

but is it art?

from the people that brought you the soda constructor, the moovl java-widget.

play.

i’m not a comic kinda guy, but i am a culture kinda guy. so a comic of a different culture is worth a few words. now that they’ve been around for a little while, i’ll give them a pointer: ak comics.

it’s making the rounds, but i figured i should throw a few words on the pyre myself anyway….

sita sings the blues

the ideal woman, in classic orchestral blues.

University of Georgia to Alter Mural [ap via abcnews, march 29, 2005]

University of Georgia officials said Monday they would alter a wall-sized mural commemorating the school’s integration because of complaints it contained a racial slur.

The mural features a photo of the former Charlayne Hunter, the first black woman admitted to the university, pushing her way through a mob in 1961, along with the highlighted quote of words shouted then: “Make way for the nigger.”

this bothers me for two reasons… one is that it is about the legacy, and it’s a bitter, controversial and emotionally-charged legacy. second is that i’d never have known about this mural if it weren’t for the racial slur it included, so the art worked. once it’s altered and this vanishes into the archives, i’ll forget about it, and that’s not a good thing.

doctor christopher g. hudson has explored the association between poverty and mental illness.

Socioeconomic Status and Mental Illness: Tests of the Social Causation and Selection Hypotheses [pdf – american journal of orthopsychiatry, 2005, v.75, n.1, 3–18]

This study tests several hypotheses about the underlying causal structure of the inverse correlation between socioeconomic status (SES) and mental illness. It does this through the analysis of a longitudinal statewide database on acute psychiatric hospitalization in Massachusetts for the fiscal years 1994–2000 as well as supplemental census data. The modeling strategy used techniques of structural equation modeling and found that SES impacted directly on rates of mental illness as well as indirectly through the impact of economic hardship on low and middle income groups.

i’m going to take it to the next level, with the well-known phenomenon of “starving artists” as a subset of persons with “low socioeconomic status.” now, i don’t want to draw any conclusions about which comes first, but i want to get this out there so someone else can.

a) everyone knows artists are starving
b) starving is evidence of low socioeconomic status
c) socioeconomic status is inversely correlated with mental illness
d) artists are mentally ill.

it’s circular reasoning. all you have to do is figure out where in this vicious cycle you want to jump in…

sometimes it’s hard to quantify the value of art in society. in this case, maybe not so hard.

‘The Gates’ a Boom for New York Economy [ap via abc news, march 3, 2005]

“The Gates” was “a daring labor of love,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg says and the 7,503 pieces of saffron fabric being dismantled this week leave a financial imprint: $254 million spent by visitors to the Central Park installation.

…

The installation featured a series of door frames or “gates,” hung with fabric, spaced along 23 miles of Central Park’s footpaths. It drew an estimated 4 million visitors to the park, including 1.5 million out-of-towners, between Feb. 12-27. The same period in a typical February usually sees 750,000 visitors.

…

The $254 million in economic activity includes spending for hotels, restaurants and concessions and cultural institutions, as well as use of subways, buses and taxis, plus shopping and general entertainment. It does not include revenue from visitors who were here on business and would have spent money anyway.

i’m sure there are thousands of great little anecdotes, but that’s not too shabby for… art.