Creative Grafiti

Recently I saw Morgan Spurlock's new documentary on advertisement in film.

One point made in the film is that cities like San Paolo have removed all forms of advertisement on city façades and that this resulted in a closer connection between citizen and city. The dilapidation of certain parts of the city was more obvious without massive Coca Cola advertisements blocking them up, while its natural beauty shone forth without illuminating neon signs.

Closer to home, this weekend I visited a city in my country that seems to encourage creative graffiti. Ugly scaffolding has been covered in colourful art work and buildings along the docks have murals painted with a running theme throughout. I am unsure as to the origin of this art and how 'authentic' it is as graffiti but it is certainly a pleasant change from what I would be used to in our capital.

This situations are different yet related. San Paolo ditched advertisement and adornment in order to highlight the true nature of the city. My recent visit was to a city that encouraged adornment in order to connect the citizens more closely with their city. In both cases, the people of the city have taken control of their environment and in different ways fostered a unique identity.

Our capital in particular could learn from these projects.

-The English Student

Sport Saves

New Zealand won the rugby world cup today.

When you consider that rugby is, for all intents and purposes, the only thing that New Zealanders passionately, nationally care about this achievement is a big deal. It is even bigger since their last win of the cup was in 1987 and since then, they have been known as the best team in the world in all except title.

But surely the most heart-warming aspect of this result is the transformative power that sport has for a nation that has had a harrowing year. The earthquake in Christchurch devastated lives while the recent oil spill has done untold environmental damage. A win like this, watched by most of the world will give them back some national pride and allow them to truly celebrate.

The stakes for this match were clearly high. All sports fans experience the massive highs and lows of following a team and understand that we place a lot of importance on events that are out of our control. But the events of the earthquake and oil spill were out of the control of the average New Zealander.

Clearly, they were owed this.

-The English Student

Occupy Earth

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement spread this weekend.

Throughout the world various groups of people flocked to the main streets of capital cities and occupied them in protest against corrupt capitalist agendas. Most of them branded slogans like "We are the 99%", implying that the rich few that benefit from neo-capitalism are by far the minority and therefore should be powerless in the face of activism.

The rhetoric of 'occupation' rather than 'protest' is what particularly interests me. This rhetoric implies a somewhat passive position for these groups. An occupier will primarily take up space. While many have clearly lead to violence and protest, their primary occupation simple is occupation.

Perhaps this is a stance that should strike more fear into the political masters that the vitriol is directed towards. These people are not threatening to smash down the doors of government or businesses and instead will simply take up space. Violence against such a group is unacceptable and a policy of ignoring the occupations is emerging.

These occupations therefore invade the infrastructure of their cities and activate a discontent built into its very foundations.

-The English Student

Rolling Walk

I went for a walk earlier to clear my head.

Of the many boring things I observed, most notable was the different types of transport that I saw. I saw kids on roller blades, skate boards, those little scooters, the ski-things with wheels, bicycles and small cars. I remembered the way we used to play as kids and how a lot of the time it involved wheels of different varieties.

This is obviously in contrast to my choice to take a walk. It reminds me of the days when even going to a destination was an activity. We would never get bored when we were kids because we could always walk to the shop or over to the next neighbourhood.

Perhaps remembering this was a factor in my decision to take a walk. As things get more and more hectic and I increasingly struggle to control my world it feels important to remember the simplicity of walking.

If I can walk I can walk back in time.

-The English Student

I am in a rush.

I am in a rush.

I'm about to leave the house that I've been living in for a year.

I don't want to go.

But I have to.

I think.

-The English Student