...another camo hat test - soon to be undertaken in colour.

The following is some text on my part of the project:

Party Hats

The party hats are an exploration into the concept of camouflage in a highly surveilled environment of celebration.

Camouflage has historically been used to conceal or disguise people, equipment and structures from adversity by blending into the surrounding environment. For it to be effective it must be designed in relation to the visual capabilities of the observer.

The 2010 Winter Olympics have seen unprecedented public investment into surveillance technology in Vancouver. Due to the corporate nature of this spectacle there was very little public debate into how it may change our city. The Games have been marketed to city residents as an event that will bring a financial return on their public investment. Despite this optimism, only time will tell if the Olympics will positively contribute to the livability of the city. Enormous investment in surveillance technology will no doubt initiate monitoring processes that will operate at varying levels and become apart of the Olympic legacy.

The party hats are intended to highlight the strategic role of camouflage and the surveilled environment. By subverting the power of the observing eye camouflage can affect the subject's sense of space and place. As a strategy to blend and reveal the party hats provide the opportunity to question if invisibility is freedom or loss of agency?

The hats are intended to highlight the proliferation of surveillance cameras that the Olympics has brought to our city and create a discussion around the technological and attitudinal legacies that a corporate event of this scale demands.

Here's another hat test for the codelab project. More to come on what this project is all about. tommorow.

Coming up:

Some process for my part of the Code.lab project.

The Code.lab project is an interdisciplinary collaborative art project that will coincide with the Code.live event this February in Vancouver. (Code.live is an international interactive art and music event)

Code.lab is a publicly-sited art project that asks visitors to consider who plays the observer and the observed in a film and photo saturated environment. It is being undertaken by artists, students and the public. Code.live will be activated on Granville island in the last two weeks of February.

The following is the beginning of prototyping for my camouflage hats. More on this project to come.

Introduction

Yellowalk is my first foray into blogging. I intend to create a space where my experience will intersect with socio-political dimensions of contemporary design practice.

moored...houseboats

Houseboats have intrigued me for a long time. In recent years this interest was rekindled following a 2005 stint redoing 2 bathrooms on the Pacific Yellowfin(incl-picture), an award winning wooden boat on the Canadian southwest coast of British Columbia.
brief note on Yellowfin project.

I was approached by my dear friend Leonard a couple years ago who has the same passion for projects I also find myself in the throws of - somewhere between a healthy fervor and as my colleague Pat says O.C.D., or obsessive compulsive design. Leonard is passionate about houseboats. I don’t think he’s ever lived in one but I know he dreams, and has the practical sense to make those dreams happen in small steps.

If one was to ask Len what he does he’d say general labour, mostly of the construction variety. But where he goes at the end of the working day, often with his sixpack, is into the research and interview and discuss and investigate and release domain of investigative journalism in a multitude of fields. They largely centre around bringing darkness into light, and most specifically the fight for justice in the lives and families of aboriginal persons. Those whose lives have been affected by the systemic racism occurring within many Canadian institutions, often the police forces and justice system.

Len has had a long interest in house boats. He is well respected and trusted amongst local first nations both personally and within their local institutions - and we’ve worked together in construction on numerous projects over many years.

So the idea is we’d design and build houseboats involving first nations communities around the province. Both of us are only looking for the creative fulfillment of undertaking a project like this, a decent wage and profit share and in a best case scenario, a home.

The following are some links to sights we like and a few general ideas on where this project could go both aesthetically and functionally.

About yellowalk

The word yellowalk first came about following reflection on some of my most basic interests while walking through, over, and across this city I live in, Vancouver, B.C. Those interests were first my feet, legs, and hips, and second the colour yellow. At least on this walk they were. About fifteen years ago I became increasingly drawn to the color - this first manifest in an expanding collection of yellow T-shirts, and grew to encompass many other mainly consumer goods in my world, the color yellow.

Looking up some of the history and etymology of the color yellow one might be struck by the bad rap its gotten through history. In the English language it is sometimes associated with fear, and has been traditionally associated with jaundice. The color is often associated with caution especially as the yellow light on stop lights. Yellow has also been used as a derogatory slang term for both Asians and light skinned African-Americans.

"Yellow" (“giallo”), in Italy, refers to crime stories, both fictional and real. The term "yellow movie" (黃色電影) can refer to films of pornographic nature in Chinese culture, and is analogous to the English "blue movie". It has also been associated with sensational journalistic practices, or yellow journalism.

Not quite the historical definitions one might hope to find to describe a color that is not only their favorite but one they’ve been drawn to for many many years nontheless.

However one could also see these definitions as subjective, and even as those sentiments used to describe the ever present other that is often subject to a marginalised position in a class and race heirarchy, in order to maintain that hierarchy.

However pure and bright yellow is the easiest color to see. People who are blind to other colors can usually see yellow and it is full of creative and intellectual energy.

Other more contemporary takes on meaning held within the color yellow are that yellow shines with optimism, enlightenment, and happiness. Shades of golden yellow are considered to carry the promise of a positive future. Yellow advances from surrounding colors and can instill optimism and energy, as well as spark creative thought.

It is considered a color that stimulates the nervous system, activates memory and stimulates the mind and encourages communication.

Yellow is maybe a color to represent both the sunshine that sustains us and the creative hopes of myself and those I love.