Manifesto

There are thousands of empty lots in Philadelphia, and in the neighborhoods surrounding Lancaster Avenue up to 42nd Street, specifically Mantua and Belmont, they are especially prevalent. I don't like anything to go to waste, and I feel that an unused empty lot is a waste of space. A common problem in cities is a lack of space, where people have small back yards or none at all and there is few unpaved areas.  It makes little sense for lots to just sit there and fill up with trash. Using empty lots as a resource, they can help to improve the area, instead of being an eye sore. As a part of Neighborhood Narratives I wanted to do something about it.
Initially I approached this idea for a project in a purely aesthetical and naturalistic way. This both lacked any community engagement and seemed like it was potentially invasive and just didn't accomplish anything. I wanted to keep the naturalistic elements by essentially using only what I found on site to support the idea of reuse instead of bringing in something new, because this is key to sustainability in all uses of the word. I thought something functional that was also aestheticly pleasing, naturalistic, and simplistic would be the best thing we could do, so we subsequently decided to build a fire pit. This also seemed like the perfect project because of the connections fires and barbeques have with community and storytelling. Having heard that the neighborhood has lost a lot of the sense of community it once had, it is fitting that we created a place where different members of the community can come together. Two of our goals were to have engagement during our creation process, and after we had left. I would not say everything went as smoothly as possible, but we did achieve these goals. Neighborhood kids helped us with the site, and someone made a fire there later on. Ultimately this individual project will not make any grand changes, but the idea is that it is the first step. Things can change if more and more people do this sort of thing, and the projects get larger in scale as they develop.

Final Project

For my final project I made a fire pit with George at 38th and Wallace in Mantua. Overall the communities response was positive, although we did receive some trouble for taking pictures of this group of kids who helped us carry fire wood another guy had dropped off for us. A group of people came to yell at us for it, but it was really only one guy who seemed livid. The people who lived on either side of the lot thought what we were doing was great, and that they would definitely use it themselves. Many people who just walked by asked us what we wer doing and seemed pleased by it. Since building this I have been back with class and one other time. The structures were still standing a week after we built it, and the pit had been used at least once. We heard from two of the children that the angry man from earlier in the day had said he was going to destroy everything. Maybe when he saw what we did he decided not to or maybe someone convinced him not to possibly the people who live next door. Or maybe he was just to lazy. I don't think we'll ever know, but I'm just glad it has survived this long, because the longer something lives the longer its ultimate lifetime will be.

Kwon Chapter 4

In this reading Kwon talks about how a site based artwork to be site specific has to not just incorporate its surroundings but also to "foster social assimilation" with the people and community who see it. If it does not it can be considered what is known as "plop art." With the two put something here assignments I wondered how to avoid this and thinking about my final project I struggle with it even more. I wanted to create something meaningful but found that the simpler the idea the better, because I didn't want to try to say too much with whatever I made. However I'd like my final to be more involved. I don;t know how to balance saying too much and too little. By this I mean whatever social message I'll have.

Mobile Interface Theory

Introduction: The Pathways of Locative Media:    One of the ideas I found most interesting is mp3 players being one of the strongest "distancing through proximic" mobile media devices. This is exactly why I almost never use my ipod in public. I don't like to be disconnected from the world around me, and this is exactly what many people use them for.

Chapter 2:  I think have our virtual location in our hands it all times is both good and bad, depending on the person and how they use it. Having such easy access to a map that places you where you are and tells you where to go eliminates the need for more natural navigation skills causing people to be less self sufficient. Though one can also use it to have a greater connection to their surroundings. I like looking at maps so I can connect where I am and what I see around me to the larger surrounding area. I am much more geographically aware because of this technology.

Creating Democracy response

One of the struggles Wodiczko mentions is how to make an audience hear something. It is not enough to speak through a megaphone to get people to listen. The difficulty is in figuring out the conditions that are needed for people to care. This is where location based art comes in. The reason some pieces are effective is because of where they are.
The concept I found to be the most important is that of public memory and how it is usually told by the victor and not the vanquished. This directly relates to the Lancaster neighborhood and other areas of the city.  The goal of the street should not include a victor or a vanquished. It shouldn't become a classic case of gentrification, where the original residents become resentful "vanquished" and the "victors" are students, yuppies, white people, rich people, or whatever... I don't think the existing community would be very satisfied if Lancaster turned into the next Northern Liberties.  Yes the neighborhood could use money, but what it really needs is people. Diversity can greatly improve a neighborhood. I don't think it would ruin what is there now, it would just add to it and improve what is wrong. If people of all races, backgrounds, and socioeconomic statuses, and levels of education moved in, the area would improve. It could be more like the Baltimore Ave. area, diverse and interesting, but not too built up. The idea of public memory is why I believe we do need input from the people who live there and have for a long time, because if the neighborhood does change beyond recognition, and they become the vanquished, at least there is a record of how it once was somewhere, and we had a part of it.

Wodiczko Reading

This appears to have been published in 1997, and it's very surprising to me that at that time immigration was the highest since the 18th century immigration influx. I wonder what specifically changed from that time until now to prevent cities from having more foreign born residents than Americans as he wrote would happen by 2010 (with no evidence or references). I didn't really understand what he was talking about with the stranger object. I mostly understood the concept of it, but what kind of object is this? I wasn't sure if this was a proposal or a theoretical concept idea. The diagram of it that was included made it look pretty preposterous. He didn't really seem to consider the practical use of it. From what I got it was a very creative idea though.

Stranger Following

I followed two people. The first was from a little off Lancaster at 39th-ish through West Powelton to 40th and Market where she entered a store and stayed there for longer than I wanted to wait.

 I also saw this one.

 The second person I followed was from about 38th and a few blocks north into Mantua until he crossed Lancaster at 36th St.

I wish I could've done this for longer, but other tasks beckoned me.