Experience Urban Realms in a Eye-opening New Way
Out of the Picture – A Surveillance-free City Tour
Odd figures will soon be making their way around town. Some, garbed in camouflage suits, will be attempting to evade public surveillance and avoid detection by the many cameras installed throughout the inner city. Others will be more concerned with greening public spaces; they’ll be taking matters into their own hands and doing some “vigilante planting.”
Social Impact is the name of this association that specializes in staging high-profile encounters with sociopolitical issues, and takes an almost playful approach to increasing public awareness of urban problems. The members of Social Impact come from many different artistic and scientific fields, which enables them to develop innovative ways of imparting knowledge and mediating public encounters with content. You can take part in two of their linz09-projects in may:„Hide“ is the motto of seven very special city tours. Group members in camouflage attire move through Linz while attempting to escape the attention of the surveillance cameras monitoring the city’s public sphere. Each group will go through a basic training program of creeping and crawling, disguising and deceiving before heading out to do a little inner city sightseeing.
WHAT // Hide
WHEN // May 10-16, 2009
WHERE // Downtown Linz
HOW // Pre-register online at www.ausblenden.net
Guerrila Gardening, on the other hand, is a matter of beautifying the cityscape and making green things grow wherever possible. Fallow parcels in the midst of downtown, unplanted strips between parked cars—anyplace can be made to bloom! 1,000 so-called Seedbombs are being crafted for this very purpose, and vendors of Linz’s Kupfermuckn street newspaper will be giving them away. These small clay spheres contain seeds that can grow into verdant eye-catchers at any conceivable location. Englishman Richard Reynolds, the inventor of this green “weapon” designed to wipe out urban gray, will be on hand at the Subversive Fair, where he’ll have much to tell about this very special variety of gardening.
WHAT // Subversive Fair
WHEN // May 14-17, 2009
WHERE // Hafenhalle09
www.subversivmesse.net
