manifesta

Pranksters and hoaxers, is it? Facing charges for defacing public property, eh? Perhaps we should erect a battalion of Fr Pat Noises on Spar shopfronts and see how quickly the DCC acts.

The Irish Times article caught my attention for its claim that Fr Pat Noise arrived in 2004 – a claim that was also put forth in an Irish Independent article from 15 May 2006. But, as befits an urban legend, there appear to be wildly differing reports on when the plaque first arrived. Has it actually been confirmed that the plaque appeared three years ago or is this just what the RTE video footage claimed? After all, can you really trust the testimony of a couple of chisel-wielding pranksters?

Also, you have to love how in every article, the clock is always referred to as ill-fated. Cut and paste journalism? Cryptomnesia? Or just, ahem, linguistic continuity?:

‘The plaque was placed in an indent left when part of the ill-fated Millennium Countdown clock was removed.’ (Irish Times, 22 May 2007)

‘The fake plaque, which was installed in the space vacated by the ill-fated Millennium clock, went unnoticed’ (Irish Independent, 15 May 2006)

‘…meet the same fate as the ill-fated Millennium Clock.’ (Irish Independent, 10 November 1998)

‘workmen putting the ill-fated clock… in the water’ (Irish Independent, 10 December 1996)

Rail hub or no rail hub, it — whatever it may be — can only be an improvement on Broadstone’s current abyssmal state. Notice how elegant it all looks from afar: the monolithic heft of granite, imposing yet lonely there on its hill, inviting you to take a closer look. So you approach, winding your way through the carpark, swerving to avoid bits of broken glass from beneath your bicycle or under your shoes, and take a moment to admire the detailing on the frieze, so far so good, until your admiring eye drifts down to human level. There the proliferation of rubbish, riff raff, bottles of Beck, aluminum cans, cigarette boxes, mangy mattresses, spools of barbed wire, torn clothing, disused and rusted bits of vehicles and chocolate wrappers strewn all about is so appalling that it brings all admiration for its architecture, all debate about what this beautiful building could be to a screeching halt. Gentle reader, a dramatization:

From this:

to this:

After ten minutes, I couldn’t bear to look either.

Some other thoughts on this are over on the Constitution Hill thread (and excellent, less dismal pix and info on Broadstone in Paul Clerkin’s writeup ), but indeed, the entire area surrounding Broadstone is an example of such potential being left to rack and ruin. I’ll sidestep the transport argument for now and stick to the basics. Step 1: pick up rubbish. Step 2: dismantle medieval barbed wire. Step 3 . . .

But I’ve had enough humanity for today.

And then, for those who like to rail against the destruction of our social fabric and the scourge of vandalism (I do like to offer a bit of something for everyone), some more ‘traditional’ (AKA non-commissioned, done on the sly) stencil graffiti. Clearly, the worth of these (is it art or vandalism?) is always up for debate, but I think it’s interesting to note the ways in which artists can use shape, color and image to ignore, complement, or work against the fabric of the built environment.

There’s something ephemeral about these images that endears them to me, whatever their ‘worth’ as design or ornament. Because they are nothing more than a coat of paint, they can easily be glossed over, leaving nothing remaining but their memory. They aren’t selling anything to me. They don’t bully me into a point of view or badger me to buy a product. They aren’t (like the tiny message in the crosswalk in a previous post) endangering my safety. And I know one day they’ll disappear and end up in the great cow parade pasture in the sky. But until then, love them or hate them, they exist. Part of the city that fell through the cracks, transient landmarks.

The camera fella pops up in several locales throughout the city, including a triptych on Pearse Street I have somehow missed in this particular gallery.

Like Banksy, only without the blistering social commentary. Or is there a blistering social commentary shrouded in the Asian-nurse-with-bear that I am somehow missing? Ah, hell. I knew I should have paid more attention in my semiotics class.

And if you don’t like them (or happen to love them), feel free to treat this as an addendum to the ‘How Well do You Know Dublin’ thread. No politics or palaver, just good old fashioned city scavenger hunting. Where have you seen these characters last?

@paul h wrote:

I would love to see this particular area of ballymun develop as some sort of artistic haven
If they could keep this block, i’m picturing it brightly painted, artistic types hanging out, with a real bohemian
feel to it. Like a mini greenwich village(nyc) of the 60s and 70s.

Although it is hard to imagine this in ballymun, for obvious reasons

It’s worth imagining. In this age of the office block, boutique hotel and toytown apartments, redeveloping Ballymun into artists’ housing would be an amazing use of space. Space for artists to live and work (as opposed to some flash-in-the-pan new theatre or whatever) seems completely alien, if not anathema, to the agenda of most urban planning. So it’s refreshing to see this floated about as an idea.

Westbeth in Greenwich Village is the perfect model of this. This site, the former Bell Labs, was converted in the ’60s into artists’ housing, which includes a gallery, studio, and performance space. Photographer Diane Arbus, as well as Merce Cunningham and countless other artists, lived and worked out of Westbeth. It remains functioning as such to this day. Demand for the housing, which allows artists to pay rent based on a sliding scale according to income, was so great that they finally closed the waiting list this month– last I heard, the wait list for interested parties was twenty years long. 😮

http://www.westbeth.org/wb-about-pg.html

There’s some history of the building here, as well as some nice shots of the space dating from the ’30s (when the old high line railroad, now long defunct, ran right through the building) up to the present day. It’s such a shame there aren’t more spaces like this. As the cost of living in cities continues to escalate– in Dublin as elsewhere– there’s simply no other option for artists and writers and other starving artists other than scuttle off to the outskirts. Now if you’ll kindly excuse me. . .

: manifesta, tormented by visions of utopian urban planning, scuttles off to the outskirts :

Oh, I see I’ve created unneccesary panic again. Don’t listen to me, I’m just a classic example of what happens when modifiers mix and a glass-half-empty mind takes over. I read hutton’s post:

@hutton wrote:

permission has already been granted (on the 8th) to whack the house.

and saw this: (on the 8th) = whack the house
instead of this: permission has already been granted = (on the 8th)

The record will likely show that planning permission to knock the site was granted on the 8th of Feb, not that (as I assumed) the site is going to be demolished on the 8th of March. If someone passes by the throng of weeping Sheridan acolytes/protesters on their way home from work, please tell them I’m sorry. They can unchain themselves from the building for now.

Hoardings along the roadside, apart from being dangerous to motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians (as if we could ever hope that reasoned argument will prevail on this front), are quite possibly the most asinine form of advertising known to mankind.

It was a novelty in America during the Great Depression when Burma Shave set up roadsigns along a rural highway in Minnesota. These billboards, usually five or six to a crop, spelled out jingles that took the average driver about 18 seconds to read and usually had some amusing pun or rhyme. This eventually spread throughout most of the 50 states and generally cheered people up from the fact that they had no job, no means of supporting their families, and were lucky to be scrapping round in a vehicle that doubled as a home. Surely not the preferred method for grabbing peoples’ attention in this time of the Celtic Tiger!

They started to dig these things up in the 50’s when someone decided it wasn’t worth it to pay farmers for land rental. Cigaratte giants Phillip Morris bought out Burma Shave in 1963 and sensibly set about a more lucrative form of advertising that spoke to the changing times: subliminal advertising and lacing their products with fiberglass and cocaine, I mean, nicotine. Come on, JC Decaux and M6 Media. No one wants to see more of this crap by the side of the road. This is the 21st century. Can’t you control people’s thoughts through mobile phones by now?

Something for nostalgia’s sake– to be inserted inside the new hoardings we’ll soon be seeing by the roadside:

IF YOU WANT

FREE JACKS AND BIKES

YOU”LL HAVE TO PUT UP

WITH OUR SHITE

JC DECAUX

Memo from JCDecaux:

Substitute ‘free bikes’ for ‘Trojan horse.’ Watch what happens.

A look at the corrugated, er, improvements on the Sheridan building. Who is responsible?

Back to the news coverage:

@hutton wrote:

Developer makes play for Sheridan’s birthplace

From The Irish Independent Sat, Feb 10 07

A DEVELOPER plans to demolish the birthplace of 18th century playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan and replace it with an apartment block.

Planning permission has been sought from Dublin City Council by Shane Murphy, with an address at Malahide in Dublin, to demolish the playwright and Whig MP’s former home at 12 Upper Dorset Street. Mr Murphy wants to build nine apartments, including a luxury penthouse suite.

A listed building, the house is currently in a dilapidated condition and two of the upper floors have been demolished. A conservation report attached to the planning application calls it an “eyesore”.

I’m disturbed by the suggestion in the article that it’s okay to demolish a building because, after all, a conservation report dubbed it an ‘eyesore’. I’m sure the conservation report had more to say on the subject, and perhaps it even bothered to list some of the architectural merits of the building… not the least of which is that this is on the Record of Protected Structures. But alas, such limited space in the Irish Times!

You have to wonder if such ‘improvements’ as the corrugated steel were made to make this building even more of an eyesore. Because apparently, it’s an appropriate conservation practice to just tear something down the worse it looks.

@StephenC wrote:

What a bizzare reason for not going ahead though…no granite! Do you think a member of the public could get access to the Marrowbone Lane Works depot where all the old paving is rumoured to lie…gathering moss as it were.

They have to be hoarding it somewhere!

You know, in more uncivilized times medical students used to hop into Glasnevin to rob bodies for anatomy research (hence the cemetery’s watchtowers, in case ya didn’t already know). So in that spirit, if it’s time for a bit of granite resurrectionist activity, I’m in. I’ve got my pith helmet around here somewhere…