"Temporary cities and the wisdom of the festival curator"
Keywords: time, urbanism, collage, photography
In recent years, the artwork and architecture enjoyed at festivals and other temporary places have come to be seen as the perfect testbed for experimental interactive urban development. The quality of such works, designed specifically to "intervene" or "pop up", is of particular interest to planners who are looking to 8ind ways to make their cities more vibrant and playful. They are increasingly looking for not just the latest music acts, but also for professional planning partners who want to explore the use of temporary architecture, design and art installations as catalysts for urban development.
But is it possible to transfer methodology from the temporary festival city to the "real" urban context?
Temporary art has instead come from performative movements such as the Situationists, a movement which staged urban interventions combining politics and art to disrupt the on - going spectacle of society. Disruption and intervention in real time were used as mouthpieces, to juxtapose reality with an alternative: a critique of the existing society, conducted through experimentation and playfulness.
They are all are ephemeral, spatial, performative, participatory and engaging. These are the qualities which challenge and attract people to temporary festival city - and which today’s urban planners are looking to replicate.
I would like to acknowledge and express my gratitude to Joe Culpepper, the artist who supplied me with the photographs of his work “Fascination” and allowed me to use them as part of this project.