TheVocalVengeance: Big Ideas: Urban Play

I had an interesting discussion with a few loyal Torontonians last night. They explained that above all, "you gotta rep your city". Apparently, your heart should lie in the city you were born in, and that my unwillingness to admit that Toronto rocked my world was unacceptable. To them, Toronto represented everything about who they were and who they'd become. They carried this identity like a boy scout badge of honour - willing to engage in a war of words until they defeated every urban locale in their way.

I think of it differently.
Cities are like people.
They have a personality.
A style.
They have values and dreams.
They affect you.
They leave their mark.
But just like people, they change...and so do you. Moving to a new one isn't like cheating, it's like moving on.

All this got me thinking. If Toronto is my home, that place I know blindfolded, where I can be comforted by familiarity, Montreal represents the chaos in novelty. Its the new boy at school. He's not the hottest, the funniest or the best, but he's new. He's undiscovered.
If they can affect us like a bad breakup or the first time he said "I love you",

What is our relationship with our city?

Our city shapes us. It expects that we conform to its infrastructure. Our modes of transportation limit access to some areas while creating high traffic areas with larger populations, more money, better schools and so on. The city divides economic classes and ethnicities into easily definable structures, with the richer areas having privacy and access, the poorer areas designed to facilitate violence and crime. Malls are built without clocks so you don't know how long you've been there and thus, spend more time and money. Some buildings have one exit, others have many. We are restricted to where and when we can park our car. Where we live (or can afford to live) decides where we go to school, who our friends are, what activities are open to us.
Indeed, in many ways we reflect our city. Our values, our mannerisms, or interests, are all affected by the wealth, development and design of our city.

But...

Don't be afraid. I'm not talking about this big powerful Big Brother machine that controls us. I'm not trying to perpetuate fear. I am issuing a challenge, a piece of inspiration, to:

Re-invent
Re-create
Re-possess

your city

public art

graffiti
installations
projections
fantastical additions

even parkour subverts the traditional uses of infrastructure
and turns the city into a playground.
Check out this insanity
The Infamous David Belle
Russian Ninjas - check it out at 3min
Extreme Tag
ON A BIKE!

Scott Burnham is an amazing supported of what he calls

Urban Play

He has participated in a number of Biennials - city wide art exhibitions - that celebrate creativity within city structures.

Burnham came to talk to my class about the possibilities of looking at your city as a canvas. Taking back ownership and decided how you want to use it.

Scott Burnham's Flickr provides amazing inspiration

This
is
what
I'm
talking about:

banksy
who i hope you all know and love

mark jenkins
creates surreal street installations. some involve these mischievous little guys, or manniquins that make you double-take:

cutup collective
who peel down advertisement, cut them into perfect squares and arrange them into amazing art right back on the billboard.

moving forest
a collection of 100 trees in shopping carts that were left to be adopted, moved, shaped. soon these trees were showing up everywhere. in parking lots, in people's backyards, all over the city....