Unfortunately I missed this weeks lecture, making it in time only for the final tutorial group, however the topic of the lecture intrigues me and I'd like to talk about what I believe cities and signs might mean.
The urban environment would be bland and confusing without the aid of signs, whether they are simple traffic lights or billboards their relevance is both equally important. Traffic lights and road directions both assist people in travelling the city, they might give directions to locations of interest for tourists, prevent accidents from occurring and assist in helping you reach your destination as easily as possible. Billboards and advertisements are just as important, they promote products and services and even shape the way buildings are designed in order to promote these products or services. Look at the images below by Gregor Graf, they have been altered in such a way as to remove all forms of signs leaving a bland, colourless cityscape behind.
The urban environment would be bland and confusing without the aid of signs, whether they are simple traffic lights or billboards their relevance is both equally important. Traffic lights and road directions both assist people in travelling the city, they might give directions to locations of interest for tourists, prevent accidents from occurring and assist in helping you reach your destination as easily as possible. Billboards and advertisements are just as important, they promote products and services and even shape the way buildings are designed in order to promote these products or services. Look at the images below by Gregor Graf, they have been altered in such a way as to remove all forms of signs leaving a bland, colourless cityscape behind.
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| Hidden towns by Gregor Graf with signs and details digitally removed |
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These places look deserted and would fall into crime such as vandalism, it is also hard to tell the buildings apart and know what they are used for. It is clear just from looking at these images that a city needs signs to identify itself and provide an informative lifestyle for its community. Below is a video clip of Skymovies idea of a world without Billboards, rather interesting video clip:
Project #3
One week left until this blog and my assignment #3 are due for submission and I still have a lot of work ahead of me. As the week started I still haven't had my model of St Johns Cathedral 3D printed, as Simon had to prioritise other students work and I happily accepted being done afterwards. The creative essay was well and truly on its way to being completed, with the rough draft done by mid week and the CRA sheet adjusted accordingly.
As the days passed I completed the creative essay and finalised the CRA sheet with a smile on my face.
On Friday I was hoping to pick up my cathedral model, BUT another problem has occurred and now the workshop has run out of the bonding agent they need to seal the model and make it solid. TIME TO START STRESSING! I'll have to get into J Block workshops first thing Monday morning and pray to god they had a delivery of the bonding agent so that I can atleast start painting it before COB on Monday.
On Friday I was hoping to pick up my cathedral model, BUT another problem has occurred and now the workshop has run out of the bonding agent they need to seal the model and make it solid. TIME TO START STRESSING! I'll have to get into J Block workshops first thing Monday morning and pray to god they had a delivery of the bonding agent so that I can atleast start painting it before COB on Monday.
Reflections
Even though i missed out on the lecture, my brief research into topics on the urban city and signs has been very interesting and somewhat exciting! To be given a topic and the will to research it alone has opened my eyes to new meanings and images that I don't think I would have seen otherwise. In this case I followed a blog about cities and signs which can be found at Kosmograd: City of Signs that discusses a world without billboards, images or basically any evidence of human contact. Some people replied to this blog saying that the images were much cleaner and visually pleasing, I however have my doubts that such a bland cityscape could hold a community effectively. How would we know what shops to go to? or that its even a shop in the first place without some kind of signage? How would we learn about various products and services if billboards weren't there to encourage us? We would be stuck in a world were everything remained the same unless you read about it or seen it on TV, I personally think that is a very boring concept.
