Reflection on Informal Urban Practices
meg mcmillan
What are ‘informal urban practices’? grafitti
pranks guerrilla gardening
modifying/customizing homelessness
reclaiming the streets
loitering skateboarding
street artist practices
games
street vending
social entrepreneurship
random acts of kindness/destruction testing reactions
community interactions
social networking
busking
vagrancy
cult rituals protests + rallies
begging
Exploration : Intervention : Occupation how do people respond to a lost phone
invading personal space
reactions to red string
exploration of informal urban practices in boxhill
Market Trading: Exchanging Interests + Ideas
appropriation
urban fashion commentary in north melbourne
flash mobs social revolution
Habitallery:structure as urban creature
meg mcmillan
Interests core.form-ula.com
images.publicradio.org
dtti.wordpress.com
designonthemove.com
boingboing.net
soulquest-lifestyle.com
Methods and Approaches key elements:
development:
investigate:
outcomes:
-create a sustainable structure -use of cardboard and reused materials -the structure itself will become the artwork -invitations will be used to finish structure -involves community in the making -self-constructing -time lapse photography -show how structure evolves throughout project -create a ‘growing urban creature’ -interactive/collaborative -transient experience/constantly moving -areas of concentration
-work as individual + with others in group to develop overall design and shape of structure -decide on materials; find sustainable options -possibility to test various smaller scale structures along the way at various urban locations -tests would look at how others interact with structure, how it changes, and how various locations change reactions -possibility to use digital fabrication and other technologies -practices with time lapse photography and how it can impact overall project -design how structure will move according to the number of visitors and items that are added to structure; how it will be self-constructing
-the project will aim to investigate how a skeletal structure can tranform based on interactions and additions from a wider audience -it will investigate various methods of getting involvement from the community -how does time lapse photography impact a project of this scale -it will investigate the idea of how a structure can be self-constructing -the project will create various scaled spaces that look at how different individual interact and react with in it
-full scale structure that acts as artwork and as a means of providing various spaces -invitations to event that are used to create the ‘urban creature’ -time lapse photography of event that shows how the structure grows, changes, and moves -a mapping of how the structure moves -how much the structure moves and the areas of concentration will act as a gauge of the number of visitors and interactions -movement will be a measurement of success