I first saw the work of Mark Jenkins on a Discovery channel short feature[1] which shows both his street installations and his nature sculptures. Mark Jenkins is resident in Washington DC who uses clear packing tape[2] to create sculptures that he then installs on city streets or poses in natural settings (notably his hometown of Fairfax Va). He has said that visiting a Juan Muñoz exhibition in 2001 inspired him to start doing street installations using a casting technique that he came upon as a child and later developed while living in Rio de Janeiro.

I was teaching English in Rio de Janeiro and had a lot of downtime between classes. One afternoon I’d made a large tinfoil ball, just to have something to play catch with while lying on the sofa. I decided to make a second one out of tape, but there wasn’t enough left on the roll to do it. The trick I’d figured out as a kid popped back into my head, and I cast the tinfoil ball with the tape. I was impressed with the results and decided to do a coffee pot. A couple months later, I’d gone through several hundred rolls, casting everything in my flat, including myself. The walls were thin in my apartment building, and my neighbors weren’t too thrilled at the sounds of packing tape spinning off the roll all night and day. One annoyed neighbor threw mud at my clothes drying on the window ledge, but I couldn’t be stopped.
themorningnews

Jenkins’s street installations (the series is named Embed) remind me very strongly of Banksy‘s work in that because the pieces are life size figures in everyday situations they are at first invisible to passers-by and only register as art installations when you at the second glance actually see them. The surprise effect of finding an installed/embedded piece of art which appeared over night in your neighbourhood is what makes these installations valuable and fun[3].

I want my work to get urbanites to question the authenticity of their surroundings.

Another series, named the Storker Project, places clear tape babies on streets performing feats that they shouldn’t be able to. The Storker effect is more disturbing than the embedded pieces because the babies are clearly unnatural[4].

Babies are wonderful but also fragile, and installing the kids outdoors to fend for themselves like a fresh crop of cicadas hits an unsettling nerve with some people. [...]. Sometimes I install them in playful positions, while other times they’re scavenging or hanging on for life.
themorningnews

Part of what appeals to me about Jenkins’s work is that the pieces exist, but are not really there. They are either temporary, or partial or fantastic/unnatural or (most appealingly) transparent spectres. And when the sculptures are left transparent they are no longer human or animal, nor are they the cocoons or shells left by humans or animals. They seem to me to rather be nothing more than memories of or ideas about their subjects.

But without doubt it is Jenkins’s nature work that appeals to me most. This consists of two parts, transparent tape sculptures of man made items (and men) in natural settings and transparent animals in urban settings[5]. The sense of displacement that comes from seeing ducks float in curbside ponds is deeply melancholic. And these are the pieces that are the art of not being there[6].

We’ve redesigned our environment to surround ourselves with the artificial and in the process alienated ourselves from the natural environment and our own animal selves. We are more like the tape men then our ape men forefathers.
Belio

Mark Jenkins’s nature sculptures are things that are missing from their surroundings, sometimes their being missing is ok and other times I wish they were really there.

One of the more bizarre[1] things from my last trip to the US was a TV ad offering a complete room for $999. It turns out that the complete room is a hot topic in suburban America. What it is(this complete room concept) is, well, a complete room. You can, from one company, from a catalog select all the decor for a room in your house – all the decor. They will supply the furniture, the accessories, the wall coverings, the carpets, the picture prints – even the delicate fucking fragrance of a soft summer afternoon. Actually, I need to qualify this; the $999 room doesn’t include all of the above, in fact[2] it only includes the core furnishings for a room[3]. But for some hundreds of dollars more they will put together the entire thing for you.
I’ve not been able to find the exact advertisement on the web, but it seems that one of the market leaders is Thomasville. They offer a variety of collections to suit your lifestyle and personality[3]. Here’s a taste at the shit that they have lined up to fill that hole in your waking life.

The Kent Park Collection

Inspired by the glittering English Georgian period, the collection is exquisitely detailed and luxuriously crafted to suit the consumer who recognizes the difference between transcendent style and more fleeting “here today, gone tomorrow” fashion.

The Costa Blanca Collection

A glittering sea reflects the Mediterranean’s multi-hued past as a crossroads of trade and meeting place of culture, ideas – and style. From Gibrahar to the Italian Riviera, an imaginative mélange of color and pattern defines a look that says “relaxed living.” European-inspired Costa Blanca™ furnishings for bedroom, dining room, and living room are both fashionable and inviting. Expert Thomasville® craftsmanship blends natural materials with oak veneers wrapped in a mellow, sun-washed finish. Just add your own light-infused vista, gentle breeze and cooling, zesty drink.

The Wanderlust Collection

A little bit rustic. A little bit daring. And an adventurous spirit that doesn’t get lost in translation. That’s Wanderlust – Asian and Arts & Crafts minimalism spiced with exotic Moroccan patterns, tactile materials, and rich, eclectic finishes. At once coordinated and a mélange of experience. Add organizational features that make the most of your space, plus a few captivating details, for the flavor of a memorable vacation – without leaving home. Need a category for this well-traveled look? How about Post Modern Global Craftsman? Sounds cool. Looks smashing.

And my personal favourite

The Ernest Hemingway Collection

Inspired by its namesake, The Ernest Hemingway® Collection from Thomasville® marries romantic notions, simple forms, and exotic details in an expansive home furnishings collection that honors the many faces of the Nobel Prize-winning author’s legendary life. Bold.

Even Cindy Crawford is getting in on the action.

I’m not fussed by the astounding ugliness or nouveau fakiness of the rooms on sale. Nor am I concerned about the way that American consumer culture seems to be geared almost exclusively to instant gratification. But how could anyone be willing to pick an entire room(even their entire house) from a catalog?!? Ooh! The Hemingway just really gets me, y’know – it encapsulates what I want from life. Adventure, heritage, living life to the fullest. Why not pick yourself from a catalog? Your room assembles from a single kit with easy to follow instructions!.
Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky.
Now all you need is a complete house in which to put your complete room!

[1] And each trip reveals a whole new world of bizarre things about the US
[2] Read: the small print
[3] In that order

I’m in Atlanta for the coming week but flew in a on Friday[1] and so am spending the w/end in the city. I’ve been here previously for 3 days, but that didn’t count since on that trip I didn’t see anything other than the office and the hotel.
This time around I’ve had two days to see a bit of Atlanta. My co-workers were eager to make suggestions for what I should see in my two days at leisure; the Coca Cola museum, the CNN experience and Stone Mountain. wtf. Touring large brands or visiting a family-themed pseudo-outdoor park? I don’t think so.
So instead I’ve decided to spend the two days essentially doing nothing; hanging around in the downtown area, perhaps going for a bit of a walk in some of the parks, look for some doo-dads to take home. When visiting a city for the first time I really only want to get a feeling for what it is like to live in it and there’s no more direct an experience of anywhere than to be a little bit lazy and a little bit bored on a Sunday morning.

On Saturday I went out to the midtown/downtown area around Piedmont Park and then to the bohemian not-a-tourist-trap neighbourhood of Little 5 Points[2]. Both a fantastic, old neighbourhoods with great Southern-style homes set back under towering trees in the sticky hot morning air. Atlanta is very much like Austin – downtown area is great; friendly, slightly scruffy, bikable and green; the suburbs[3] are horrors; vast, sterile and accesible only by car.

Little 5 Points

However, the real knockout of Atlanta[4] is the music/theatre/entertainment that is both generated within the city and that comes through town in a stead procession of world-class acts. I nearly puked when ticketmaster made it very clear that the Dave Chapelle show on Saturday nite was totally and violently sold out. If a website could tut-tut it would have. ‘You expect to get a seat to see Dave Chapelle perform in the home of Southern black emancipation[5]? Bwhahahahaha, uhm, sorry – no’.
What I did get a ticket for is the Black Crowes at Chastain Park Amphitheatre on Sunday nite. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain[6].

[1] in part due to flight availability, but also because I don’t fuck around with jet lag
[2] which, despite its genuine best efforts, is a bit tourist-trappy. It reminded me somewhat of Queen street in Toronto – just a little more kitsch. Yes, it seems that urban Canadians do have a more refined asthetic.
[3] where I stay(ed) and worked in both cases
[4] as should be expected of a world city
[5] being the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr.
[6] One of the nicest things the last few days has been the powerful evening thunderstorms and showers.

One of the nice things about riding a bicycle in Cape Town is that there are lots of long downhill stretches that along quiet suburban streets that are great for downhill freeing[1].

Bishopscourt, in particular, has some great rides that follow the contour of the hill down from Kirstenbosch’s top gate towards Claremont.

Here are three videos[2] of some of these rides along Bishopscourt Road, Canterbury Drive and a shorter one along Hiddingh Avenue in Newlands.

Bishopscourt Rd – 2:05	Hiddingh Ave – 1:43	Canterbury Dr – 3:16

The map below shows the routes

As you can see the Bishopscourt and Canterbury routes share the last half of the ride down towards the M3. And as a matter of fact, if you were to hit two traffic lights green (Edinburgh/M3 and Newlands Rd) you could follow them along the orange dotted route all the way down to Main Road Claremont, nearly doubling the downhill distance.

Cape Town is full of cool downhills; of course you have to climb the fuckers before you can freewheel down them, but that’s gravity – no such thing as a free lunch.

[1] One of my favourite after-work pastimes.
[2] They all start out quite shaky, but once you get going it smoothes out. So much for one-handed cellie cam-work

I loved New York[1]. It took a little time to sink in, but by the time we were in the cab on the way to JFK airport looking back over the East river at night I knew that I would always want to go back.
One of the reasons I loved the city so much[2] is due to its massive size. The sheer mass and density of its population necessarily means that residential, industrial and commercial spaces have always been intertwined and interleaved. Apartment buildings jostle warehouses and office complexes for space as each strains to grow to its requirements.
The city and its people have embraced this inescapable reality by continuously integrating districts and its features.

One such feature which is now going through a re-invention is the High Line, a disused elevated railway constructed of steel during the 1930′s. It stretches just over 2 kilometres along the lower west side from 34th Street to Gansevoort Street.

High Line from street level

On the High Line

The High Line was built as a freight line into the city and its structure supports two lines. It was actively used until the 1980s since when its structure has been left derelict.
In 2002 two residents founded a non-profit organisation, Friends of the High Line, with the aim of removing the tracks from the structure and turning it into an elevated urban park.

High Line construction

On the High Line

The High Line runs through three famous Manhattan neighbourhoods, Hell’s Kitchen, West Chelsea and the Meatpacking District.
These have in recent years all seen major investment and redevelopment and the High Line project aims to link these neighbourhoods in a pedestrian-only park.

District Map

Work on the park has officially started and the aim is to have it open to the public in 2008.

Design Plan

I’m under no illusion as to some of the realities of the new park – it’ll be a mixture of park and high-end real-estate and leisure(bars and coffee shops). While it will be open to the public it probably will attract middle class types; these are realities.
But these realities do not detract from the massively positive influence of a project like this.
I am often frustrated by the South African approach to cities – if an area falls into disrepair it is either abandoned or rased and re-built in glowing neo-fucked-up columns.
The fact that the High Line park retains the existing structure and street-level face is, to me, a great example of how real urban communities can continue to interweave new uses of their limited space with the existing and historic function and shape of their cities.
The High Line project continues the approach to inner-city development that has made Manhattan one of my favourite cities – all chaos and noise, but still distinctly unified and of itself.

[1] And by New York I here mean Manhattan – we were there a total of ~6 days and didn’t go beyond the island.
[2] Apart from the food, the sounds and the architecture – the things that make it so unique
[3] Think of the