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On Jul 17, 2006, at 12:40 PM, Josephine Berry Slater wrote: > [Just thought I should post the below again now that my membership's > been updated - I'm really enjoying this debate and am keen to hear the > answers to Murphy's question about artists working with New Urbanism, > which I take as meaning what we Brits call 'urban regeneration'. An > interesting example, tho' disturbingly blank and parodic, of an artist > working in the context of regen is Nils Norman's contribution to > Visionary Thurrock - part of the forthcoming Thames Gateway > nightmarish housing-hutch expansion: > http://www.visionarythurrock.org.uk/docs/artists/nilsnorman/] > Thurrock sounds a bit more like what's happening with the High Line in New York, just a block away from where I'm typing: http://www.thehighline.org/design/prelim_design/index.htm It's being done by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with the landscape architecture firm Field Operations. Creative Time, the art non-profit is involved and it runs through the Chelsea art district and there are some high profile artists working on it. It's an exciting project and one that was instigated by (some) neighborhood residents though I'm not sure how much input the people who live in the many low income housing projects had. It's an old elevated train track that was scheduled to be torn down but will now be an urban park. The fear now is that it will end up being the front yards for a lot of new "luxury condo" buildings being built or converted out of old warehouses the trains used to serve. New Urbanism projects tend to end up being a bit too Disney for many people and is probably mainly an American movement that caters to a sort of small town nostalgia: http://www.newurbanism.org/ Seaside in Florida is probably the most well known example. That's where The Truman Show was filmed. Talk about surveillance art... Robbin