Herd - the hidden truth about who we are

How long should a ghostbike be allowed to hang around?

We've long collected examples of cellotaphs and ghostbikes - those popular floral tributes to the fallen that populate so many streets here in the UK and in the US.

I think they're particularly interesting social and cultural phenomena because they are examples of public-created art and monumental social artefacts (rather than stuff created by and for the great and the good for private consumption).

Today reveals an interesting problem: how long should a ghostbike be allowed to hang about?

Should it be a temporary monument? Should it be a permanent feature? Should they even be regulated? I've got my views but what do you think?

 

Copycats everywhere

Amusing story in the UK media today concerning the arrest of Rob Smith (above) who decided to remedy the admin error surrounding the painting gold of a Royal Mail postbox to celebrate the Olympic success of Team GB yachtsman Ben Ainslie. 

It turns out that the original site selected was in Cornwall (where Ainslie grew up) but Lymington is where both men now live. 

So Smith took the brush in his own hands and copied the handiwork seen elsewhere around the country on a postbox near to Royal Lymington Yacht Club - not a tricky thing to do but the obvious response, surely.

In sadder news, I've been struck by the huge cellotaph which has grown outside the home of Tia Sharp's family (12 year old who recently went missing). Flower by flower, card by card, candle by candle & soft toy by soft toy the shrine has grown as individual neighbours follow the example of others' actions to demonstrate sympathy with the family.

I've written about this phenomenon before (not least in HERD) as something shaped by individuals copying the behaviour of others but the thing that struck me in this exaple was the emergence of the particular grammar here: candle, flowers, cards and toys (when did the toys become part of cellotaph design? I've seen a few at cemetaries and road-crossings recently but think this is a new design feature evolving through the same means). 

And in the US, news of yet another campus shooting.

We know that many things good and bad spread via the copycat effect (the Norwegian Anders Breivik not only copied the example of other mass murders but seems to have plagiarised large chunks of unabomber manifesto, too, as if to underline this). 

But don't be mistaken: copying itself is neither good or bad.

It just is and we do it all the time.

 

Today in the super soaraway...

In a previous post discussing what the 5-ring Circus (see pic) is revealing about us, I mentioned in passing the lessons about national identity.

Today I want to return to this part of the subject and talk about the striking split emerging between those who see the UK through the lens of Henry VIII, Mary Poppins and Beefeaters (and feel uncomfortable at any evolution of national identity from this) and those who see us as 

human kaleidoscope of a country where those of every race, faith and background are a part of a huge and mostly happy family

Not my words but those of the Sun leader writers (yes, I know). 

Of course, it helps that our multiracial Team GB demonstrate their prowess and determination in front of us and that as we look around (in the crowd, in the pub or in front of one of those really huge screens erected in public places) at our fellow supporters we can see the same kind of shared vibrant shared identity reflected back. And that we had such a uplfiting and novel Opening Ceremony to respond to and interact around. 

But it is striking that this view of who we are is being so widely embraced as an agreed definition of who we are...

Sporting events are great for accelerating this kind of social change - remember how the Mexican Wave (la Ola) emerged from the 1986 Mexica World Cup and how other kinds of public phenomena can create widespread change (as I described in HERD) the cellotaphs (floral tributes to road accident victims) emerged from the death of Princess Diana.

Events like this bring people together and help them interact with people they wouldn't normally see and - as they do - they learn behaviour and feelings and opinions from those around them. Exposure to so many people so frequently and so strongly suggests to each of us that a. this what we now do b. this is what we now feel c. this is what we now think. 

What we do, what we feel and what we think we take from those around us. Remember that line from Oscar Wilde? 

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation

Our deeds, our feelings and our words can all become badges of membership and a challenge to them is often treated as a challenge to the tribe of which we are members [which also serves to explain the incredible bitterness of those who resist the new story]

 

Cellotaph plus Ghost Bike = ?

Walked past this today - a memorial to fashion student Min Joo Lee who was killed last month. 

Fans of HERD will recognise the phemonenon as a combination of a cellotaph (a floral tribute to a road accident) and a Ghost Bike - which kicked off the introduction of the HERD book

While familiar as an idea, I am still moved to see one in real life.

It's still a memorial to someone who's died unnecessarily.

And a mark of the feelings of those who knew the dead person.

Marketoonist extraordinaire

Last week in Chicago had the good fortune to catch up again with the delightful Tom Fishburne AKA Marketoonist

Regular readers will know how much I love the wit and insight of that other marketing top toonist, Hugh Macleod but am chuffed that Tom had been led to do an I'll Have What She's Having toon since we last met down in West Wales

And lovely it is, too.

Do yourself a favour, go sign up for their regular toon mail-outs. You'll see the world differently through Tom and Hugh's eyes

 

 

 

 

 

What we share

 

One of the most unhelpful and destructive ideas of the last few decades has been "what I own"

Apart from encouraging us to think about things rather than people (which misses the point of being human, frankly), it also serves to devalue the things we own in common. They clearly can't be worth anything if everybody owns them, can they?

Things like the great 110 year old St Pancras Baths which re-opened today after a 3.5 years refurb 

Splash....

No sheep were harmed in the making of this video

 

This got me in trouble a year ago; let's hope this doesn't, too

Responding to the human - Isaac Cordal

 

Love this art portfolio

Suspect there's something that my interest in this that's also at work in Anthony Gormley's figures

It's a human thing - our specialist subject as a species.

HT @Saramarshall

Thank you for coming

Yesterday, we trekked to the British Museum to see their fab Montezuma exhibit. And today I get this.

It's not tricky.

It's not something you should have to think hard about.

It's plain courtesy. Good manners, as Sair says. And you can (as in this case) get a machine to do it for you.

So why can't most businesses be bothered?

Too concerned with themselves. And the money thing. Just not human enough...(more on that shortly)

HERD redefined

Love Wordia - human dictionary, offering personal definitions of chosen words alongside the official ones.

Here's me on HERD

Bus stop art

 

Alfie D's got this fab project shortlisted for the Cultural Olympiad in the UK . 

More here.

This is the original pitch which got him & Paula shortlisted.

"Bus.tops – a city wide canvas for sharing the art of our streets, our communities, our London, our experience.

Marika jostles back and forth as she struggles up the stairs to the top of the 242 bus. There are seats below but she likes the view, she likes the feeling that she is seeing a different London. A London of gargoyles so high up no one can see them from the streets, a London of facades so old no one knows what lies under the grime, a London of adventures and characters. Today, a story begins to unfold. From bus.top to bus.top Marika follows a visual adventure as she sits on the top deck of the 242.

Amir clicks on the web page to his favourite bus.top. Every Wednesday at 2.30pm, someone called J1ll posts a collection of her housemate’s favourite memories from the week to her local bus.top in Hackney. One of them always has something to say about the football..usually a great laugh. Amir reckons he could do something on bus.tops. He and his schoolmates play hockey at school...wouldn't it be wicked to play a game of hockey across all of London. Hackney could be one goal and Harlesden is the other...Amir takes another look at the bus.tops website...

Bus.tops provides the canvas that allows London to tell its stories. These can be small, intimate stories of a neighbourhood or citywide adventures that draw us into a London we never imagined; or simply moments of beauty, wonder, questioning, critique, comment and exploration. These stories unfold on a canvas made up of networked panels of programmable LEDs situated on the roofs of bus stops across London.

As well as the canvas, Bus.tops provides the tools and platform from which both publicly recognised artists and the public we recognise as artists are empowered to create a truly public art experience. Bus.tops will work with established artists to create a “curated” collection of works distributed across the bus.tops canvas. These will be celebrated as being at the vanguard of artistic innovation and exploration. However these works will also be the foundation from which a new generation of authors and artists will be inspired create their first piece of public art.

Bus.tops provides a window for the world to experience and explore the cultural richness and diversity that makes up Greater London. But critically, it will also provide the means by which we within London understand and value that same cultural richness and diversity across our communities.

The potential of bus.tops is only limited by the imagination of 8 million Londoners"

I love it but am not one of the judges.

So why don't you go tell the folks who make the decision what you think. Please!