storytelling

Heterogeneity – the quality or state of being Diverse in character or content

“the city is a place where difference lives…different people with different projects must necessarily struggle with one another over the shape of the city, the terms of access to the public realm, and even the rights of citizenship. Out of this struggle, the city as a work – as an Ouvre, as a collective if not singular projectemerges, and new modes of living, new modes of inhabiting, are invented.” (Mitchell, D. p18. 2014)

Figure 8 Rachael Whiteread, House 1993 (Alamy)

Storytelling is innate to the psyche of human beings; from the Neolithic Lascaux cave paintings of their day to day activities (namely the hunting of bulls to survive), stone cairns along a path in order to direct you home; graffiti about the sexual prowess of Maximus inscribed on the walls of the Pompinian Popina, to patterans in the literature of Swallows and Amazons. Culminating in artists creating a deliberation or intervention such as the Situationalists marches in Paris in 1968 (Extraj.livejournal.com, 2016) to Rachael Whiteread’s “House” in 1993. A monument of such a huge scale to the stories of our lives, yet the most striking and poignant elements are the miniature details of the inverted 1950s light switch or the inverse wearings of the fireplace. A smooth wall is a canvas waiting to be painted and a story yet to be told. An entire subject inspired because ‘they’ were going to knock down a street of houses, evicting Sydney Gale from his family home, whereupon Whiteread filled his memories with concrete (East London Advertiser, Thursday 4th Nov, 1993. Whiteread, Lingwood and Bird, 1995). A controversial subject, prior this research I had admired the work of ‘House’, however after seeing Whitereads’ disregard of the human cost of her work a more in depth view is required. As the work inspired a greater level of acclaim that was previously expected. ‘House’ brought into question the state of the East Ends housing crisis with the ‘new’ topic of gentrification and its issues in that part of the city. It also became a centre of community involvement, with the graffiti of “wot for?” being inscribed upon its surface “Why N:)t?” was the reply of another. One member of the community even brought a ‘for sale’ sign forth and propped it at its door. Bringing humour to an otherwise dark situation (Whiteread, Lingwood and Bird, 1995). It is these sort of interactions we should be encouraging from the users of the sites we create. It shows an active and vested interest in

their ‘home’ area as well as showing a dissatisfaction with the (at the time) current political and socio-economic issues.

The issue with designing a specific place for the public to inscribe upon is that it eliminates spur of the moment action, something guides the person to inscribe on that specific spot, what is it? Why. Perhaps the wall has the perfect texture to write upon, or it is at an easier spot to reach and yet be unreachable to the authorities. Perhaps only a directive needs to be given to guide people to use the space, yet not explicitly tell them to do or not to anything. Free will is a vital guide to the positive vibe of a space and it should be respected as all in this world have an equal right to the streets they walk on (at least they should do). 26

This form of interaction is a sign of people taking action and engaging in their society. In this current technological world attentions spans are becoming shorter due to the availability of instant information, and as such a sense of apathy is encroaching on the people of (at least) this country, partially because they feel like what they do will not make a difference the politicians will just continue to ‘go back on’ their promises and ‘no matter what we do we cannot make change’ (Personal communications, 2016). The people who actively went out and made their mark on this structure are people who are actively partaking in their society. They believe that their actions here will make a difference. And it will, had they not taken an action I would not be writing about those unknown people today, and even though they are unknown, their work ties hand in hand with the photographs of Whiteread’s work.

Minute change. Minute action. Long lasting effects.

To this day their etchings make us question the sculpture and think on their words.

A part of this is enabling the populace to believe that what they do will actually make a difference.

Weston Super-Mare, UK July 2016

The undertaking of art projects has changed the way in which we see the world and our home lives, whether or not we feel it relevant, something has caused that work to be made, and we as designers, city planners and managers should harness this innate sense of being and encourage community feeling and interruption within our sites. We must take part and allow ourselves to be stopped, at least once in a while.

Figure 9 (opposite) Luizinterruptus’ ‘Nuit Blanche’ in toronto 2016. Entitled “Literature vs Traffic”. A silent protest against the effects of traffic on urban living. Citing the message “ We want literature to take over the streets and conquer public spaces, freely offering those passersby a traffic-free place which, for some hours, will succumb to the humble power of the written word”.