Response #8

1. Anti Homeless Spikes

“You were allowed to take your poverty on tour. But engineering work put a stop to that.”

This quote pretty much sums up the article for me basically saying it used to be okay to be homeless out in the open but modern times has forced you to hide. I don’t think he means on tour in the “visit every city in America” sense but more that before this defensive architecture it was okay to rest at a bus stop bench or on a building ledge. Now when you wait for a bus the bench is clearly designated for three people, a silver bar separates the space accordingly, it also prevents anyone from stretching out across it. Similarly like Andreou says about his bench under the brush that was removed and replaced with a hard unwelcoming bench. In its entirety the piece makes you look at the little things, the things we don’t notice or take for granted because not having a ledge to lean on temporarily is no loss to those of us who have a bed to come home to. It is however a loss to someone who calls the city itself home, who’s “bed” are those ledges and benches, whose resting place, quite place are those common places around the city. Its almost as if the city is saying you can live here but don’t live here. That its okay to be homeless but do it in the shadows, behind the scenes where you can’t interrupt the Utopian backdrop the city wants to portray. Andreou also gives the impression that these anti homeless spikes dehumanize the homeless, and by default dehumanize our view on the people who call those benches, ledges and doorways home.

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(Located off the corner of Johnson and Adams street, Brooklyn NY)

I took quite a few pictures for this part of the response but this one to me was the strongest. Like my other picture this one reflects the desire to keep people out or away from something. The ledge without the bars would be a place to sit or perhaps escape the rain for a homeless person. By putting the bars there they prohibit anyone from sitting there, its uninviting. It relates to the piece over all because he talks about design that’s hostile, and whats more hostile than thick iron bars.

2. Dada Manifesto

“Art afflicts no one and those who manage to take an interest in it will harvest caresses and a fine opportunity to populate the country with their conversation.”

Dada hops from one concept to another and pulls your mind in so many different directions but the one thing that came to mind several times while reading this was Banksy (the popular street artist known for his controversial pieces). Banksy has dozens of pieces all over the world but the two that i’ve come across that fit in the Dada mold are

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Though I did not take these a friend of mine has seen them in person. The first one is calling attention to corporate greed, waste and overall tyranny over us as a society this picture is calling that out. The second is a little less obvious but it will come to you if you stare at it. When I look at the robot and the barcode the first thing that pops into my head is A. mass production and B. someone owns you. In this picture its almost like the pot calling the kettle black because we as a society are often called “robots” insensitive and disconnected from the world yet we strive so hard to be independent and “not owned” by anyone or anything. So having the robot trying to cover the barcode is ironic and also calls out this practice in society. Similarly Dada is sort of saying common sense isn’t common, that its sort of sold and packaged to us by these mass corporations and what you see depends on what you buy in stark contrast of what you see is what you get.

3. How Computers change the way we think

Turkle’s piece is almost totally summed up in the first thirteen words “The tools we use to think change the ways in which we think”. This idea is almost obvious but so profound. She focuses on college students in a lot of the piece both in teaching them and observing her colleagues interaction with them. She mentions one experience of her own where a student compares the human mind to a computer which in the 70s and 80s was a weird and outlandish idea but today think about all the ways we compare our minds to a computer. When we’re tired or overworked we’ll say i need to “reboot” or “recharge” two phrases we use to refer to our devices with similar issues. We don’t realize how much of a product of our environment we really become.

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2 Responses to Response #8

  1. Rownak says:

    I think your comment was extremely thoughtful.
    The picture which you have regarding hostile architecture is on point. That type of infrastructure is something we would normally walk past without glancing at a second time. It really makes you wonder about what other hidden hostile architectures really exist within our city

  2. Really nice bit on the Dada. Thanks, Sam!

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