Grad Proposal
THESIS
Vancouver is currently undergoing a lot of change in preparation for hosting the 2010 Olympics. For two weeks in 2010 Vancouver will have the chance to shine in front of world business partners, tourists and the media. Geographically located between the ocean and the mountains, its no wonder that Vancouver is one of the most desirable cities in the world to live in. At the opening ceremonies at the 2008 summer Olympics in China, Beijing was criticized for using digitally enhanced fireworks and a beautiful young girl who lip synced the national anthem. This brings me to question how Vancouver will represent itself and be perceived by the rest of the world. To me this city is not about the construction of the Canada Line, the Olympic clock or the highway to Whistler. It is about the unique findings hidden in the cracks of the city that we experience from living and traveling through the city on a daily basis. This is what the world should see.
GOAL
The goal of this project is to document my macro findings of Vancouver to give an alternative and unique perspective of the city millions will get a small taste of in 2010. It will reveal my personal experiences and findings in my daily travels from place to place. The content I will provide is currently not available in mainstream city catalogues or tourist brochures.
AUDIENCE
The audience of this project is curious, open minded and investigative people. They range from the ages of 14-50, live in Vancouver as well as outside Vancouver but they share the common interest of wanting to learn more about the city. They are up to date with popular communication websites (i.e facebook, youtube, myspace etc.)
MATERIAL
As photography is dependent on light and time, it is an appropriate medium to capture the unique quirks and experience of Vancouver. Rather than being a passive observer, it is important to be engaged to reveal every days existance to reveal Vancouver. It could reach realization in the form of a journal/visual log book, photographic map of the city or an navigation system to highlight my findings in the form of a website.
KEYWORDS
raw
real
exposed
macro
REFERENCES
BOOKS
Reading City Life by Patrick Bruch and Richard Marback
City of Glass by Douglas Coupland
WEBSITES
Vancouver Project Civil City Site:
http://vancouver.ca/projectcivilcity/
Vancouver Drug Use Epidemiology
http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/fourpillars//pdf/report_vancouver_2005.pdf
Vancouver Airport Development
http://www.airport-technology.com/projects/vancouverint/
No Olympics On Stolen Native Land Campaign
http://no2010.com/node/19
Project in Action
CONCEPT
A person will never know everything about a city. My project will let people learn more than they currently know about Vancouver structurally(static) as well as how it operates. (dynamic) Examples of city characteristics are; people, business, buildings, houses, road infrastructure, products, transportation, nature etc.
WHY?
1.Because;
- a city undergoes change all the time (construction, environmental change etc.)
- people can’t access everyone’s personal space
- social class (some people will never enter a million dollar apartment in Vancouver)
- people experience life at different heights (wealthy Yaletown apartment owner vs. homeless person sitting on Hastings St.)
- censorship of the media prevents us to see everything
2. People who do not live in Vancouver can learn more about the city before they come to it (travel tool)
3. Everyone is unique and there for see things differently. This creates value and the opportunity to learn
4. Individuals have a free online space to start their own photography portfolio and be noticed
HOW?
By uploading pictures to the internet so people within in the city as well as people outside the city can learn more about Vancouver. Everyone will have their own space (facebook, myspace, youtube etc.) to upload pictures to however, people can also search by an area of the city (Strathcona, Marpole etc.) Within an area of the city people will be able to search within certain categories (street, nature, interior, people etc.) If a person searches within a community of the city, the pictures with the most views will show up descending to the least viewed (google search engine)
The Transparent City by Michael Wolf
The Transparent City.
Photography by Michael Wolf, essays by Natasha Egan and Geoff Manaugh.
Aperture, New York, 2008. 112 pp., 60 four-color illustrations., 10½x13¾”.
Publisher’s Description
Chicago, like many urban centers throughout the world, has recently undergone a surge in new construction, grafting a new layer of architectural experimentation onto those of past eras. In early 2007, the Museum of Contemporary Photography‚ with the support of U.S. Equities Realty, invited Michael Wolf as an artist-in-residence. Bringing his unique perspective on changing urban environments to a city renowned for its architectural legacy, Wolf chose to photograph the central downtown area, focusing specifically on issues of voyeurism and the contemporary urban landscape in flux.
This is Wolf’s first body of work to address an American city. Whereas prior series have juxtaposed humanizing details within the surrounding geometry of the urban landscape, in The Transparent City, his details are fragments of life—digitally distorted and hyper-enlarged—snatched surreptitiously via telephoto lenses: Edward Hopper meets Blade Runner. The material resonates with all the formalism of the constructed, architectonic work for which Wolf is well-known, but also emphasizes the conceptual underpinnings of his ongoing engagement with the idea of how modern life unfolds within the framework of the ever-growing contemporary city.
http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?Catalog=AP565The Transparent City
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