“Missing Syringe artwork”
George Tugwell | 03.11.2005 22:01 | Social Struggles | Oxford
This evening the Syringe Art work had gone and the hole had been neatly filled in, is it Censorship?
The walk to work has been an ever-increasing puzzle, over the past few weeks what look like Bronze medallions or coin like disks have been appearing in the pavement of Cowley road, East Oxford. Impressions of spark plugs, a footprint, and most curiously of all a syringe have lead to the discovery of the “Streetscape project”, a local public art initiative. This afternoon the syringe medallion had gone. What happened to it? Has it been censored?
Controversial works of art are on display across the land and play a very important function in provoking debate, are we being deprived a chance to debate a very important issue?
This is an extract from Fusion’s website the art agency commissioning this work.
“Based on these exchanges with the community, a proposal for 'Pavement Jewellery' was put forward as an appropriate public art design for the Streetscape. The idea was to create a series of textured bronze ingots to be inlaid in the pavement. Each of these ingots would feature imagery reflecting some aspect of the Cowley Road's character and history. They would also form a permanent puzzle to unravel through dialogue with and between the local populations. A team of local artists were appointed to work with Liam and further engage the local community in the creation of their designs.
The local artist team includes: Katy Beinart, Jane Walton, Gerard Hanson, Emily Fuller, Helen MacKeith, and Emma Reynard. Each artist has individually and collectively researched and consulted with the community in the creation of their images for the ingots. The ingots will be installed later in 2005 as the Road Safety Improvements led by Oxfordshire County Council are put into place. Watch this space for further details regarding progress and launch.”
http://www.fusion-arts.org/projects.php?id=11
Controversial works of art are on display across the land and play a very important function in provoking debate, are we being deprived a chance to debate a very important issue?
This is an extract from Fusion’s website the art agency commissioning this work.
“Based on these exchanges with the community, a proposal for 'Pavement Jewellery' was put forward as an appropriate public art design for the Streetscape. The idea was to create a series of textured bronze ingots to be inlaid in the pavement. Each of these ingots would feature imagery reflecting some aspect of the Cowley Road's character and history. They would also form a permanent puzzle to unravel through dialogue with and between the local populations. A team of local artists were appointed to work with Liam and further engage the local community in the creation of their designs.
The local artist team includes: Katy Beinart, Jane Walton, Gerard Hanson, Emily Fuller, Helen MacKeith, and Emma Reynard. Each artist has individually and collectively researched and consulted with the community in the creation of their images for the ingots. The ingots will be installed later in 2005 as the Road Safety Improvements led by Oxfordshire County Council are put into place. Watch this space for further details regarding progress and launch.”
http://www.fusion-arts.org/projects.php?id=11
George Tugwell
e-mail:
georgetugwell@yahoo.co.uk
Comments
Hide the following 9 comments
cowley rd
03.11.2005 22:23
very well [1995]
are there still loads squatting at the tophigh rise flats???
good memories
as i see it
'art' 'revenge' 'statements' are a challenge
it an act of war sometines 'as they see it'
censorship as they see it
is
'cleaning up'
but also
the act of burning away brilliance
allows people who remember
that certain gifted artifact
and enables those who noticed
to acknowledge the gap left by fascism
so what i say is
make it to be destroyed
give it love
but hold it in memory
and hope others do too
you are the gaps in the matrix
[see the black cat twice?]
cw
somone probably stole it
03.11.2005 22:46
.
Outrageous
03.11.2005 22:55
John
spotted
04.11.2005 01:02
Cllr Lovejoy
Who dug it up?
05.11.2005 00:27
And now there is censorship of art which suggests that there is a reality in Cowley Road other than the corporate dream-world.....
If I am wrong to suggest that this comes from the council, please tell me.
richarddirecttv
urrrm
07.11.2005 16:33
the act of burning away brilliance
allows people who remember
that certain gifted artifact
and enables those who noticed
to acknowledge the gap left by fascism
wtf? i never heard such a load of tosh. you really are right up your own *ss aren't you.
You wouldn't know brilliance if it hit you in the face I fear.
Nice-ism n. tendency, more or less socially codified, to approach reality in terms of whether others behave cordially; tyranny of decorum which disallows thinking or actingfor oneself; mode of interaction based upon the above absence of critical judgement or autonomy.
All of us prefer what is friendly, sincere, pleasant-nice. But in an immiserated world of pervasive and real crisis, which should be causing all of us to radically reassess everything, the nice can be the false.
The face of domination is often a smiling one, a cultured one. Auschwitz comes to mind, with its managers who enjoyed their Goethe and Mozart. Similarly, it was not evil-looking monsters who built the A-bomb but nice liberal intellectuals. Ditto regarding those who are computerizing life and those who in other ways are the mainstays of participation in this rotting order, just as it is the nice businessperson (self-managed or otherwise) who is the backbone of a cruel work-and-shop existence by concealing it's real horrors.
Cases of niceism include the peaceniks, whose ethic of niceness puts them-again and again and again-in stupid ritualized, no-win situations, those Earth First!ers who refuse to confront the thorouhly reprehensible ideology at the top of "their" organization, and Fifth Estate, whose highly important contributions now seem to be in danger of an eclipse by liberalism. All the single-issue causes, from ecologism to feminism, and all the militancy in their service, are only ways of evading the necessity of a qualitative break with more than just the excesses of the system.
The nice as the perfect enemy of tactical or analytical thinking: Be agreeable; don't let having radical ideas make waves in your personal behavior. Accept the pre-packaged methods and limits of the daily strangulation. Ingrained deference, the conditioned response to "play by the rules"-authority's rules-this is the real Fifth Column, the one within us.
In the context of a mauled social life that demands the drastic as a minimum response toward health, niceism becomes more and more infantile, conformist and dangerous. It cannot grant joy, only more routine and isolation. The pleasure of authenticity exists only against the grain of society. Niceism keeps us all in our places, confusedly reproducing all that we supposedly abhor. Let's stop being nice to this nightmare and all who would keep us in it.
jools
Erm - excuse me?!?!
08.11.2005 12:03
As for the rest of your comment, what's all that got to do with this posting? On second thoughts, please don't answer that.
richarddirecttv
puzzled?
12.11.2005 00:34
Taz
It was the Tories!
12.11.2005 11:37
The County is responsible for highways etc and didn't ask Fusion Arts, residents, shopkeepers, local Councillors or City officers how they felt about the syringe. Perhaps they were afraid that everyone would say they liked it!
There are no Tory Councillors in Oxford, but since they took control of the County in May, they have treated Oxford as their play thing to use and abuse - this now apparently includes censorship!
When the Cowley Road scheme is finished (iminent) the Tory responsible for transport (Cllr David Robertson) will no doubt turn up for press photos.... perhaps we should ask him why the syringe was removed (before he gets in his Jag and drives home to Witney).
Annoyed Resident