Re-posting from original discussion board. Thursday, May 3, 2001 - 01:03 pm:

WOW! This project is the perfect antidote to the hyper-advertizment of our city! Surfaces all over the place, everywhere we look, are covered with ads that pander to our own fears, to our own insecurities and fantasies. That does not have to be, and Symphony of a City has proven that RIGHT on City Hall!

A perfect example is South Station. Just the other day I was in the Station and I was struck by how our human environment has been assaulted by the MBTA with loud, unattractive advertizements that are so large you cannot ignore them.

I wondered what the MBTA would lose by putting ART on the walls instead of advertizements. Money: they would lose money, but they would gain so much more.

Symphony of a City has great potential to counter the commercialization of our environment (buses, trains, billboards, so many billboards!) with art, with representations of, by and for the people who make this city thrive.

Thank you!

Re-posting from Monday, May 14, 2001 - 06:05 am:

in reply to Culture Jammer. Of course it would be nice to be surrounded by art , but are you willing to pay for it? Or settle for worse service/ fewer trains and busses, that those ads are paying for? Besides who gets to choose the art? The ads look better to me than a lot of the " Art " I see out there.

Re-posting from May 15, 2001.

Free Speech,

Regarding who will pay for the public art, I believe that if the issue is framed properly, plenty of support/funding for public art will arise. Public art is a civic issue, a quality of life issue which ultimately translates into the attractability and livability of the city. The Mayor loves that stuff, and I think that if the City and State could get their head out of the BIG DIG and FENWAY PARK, then there would be plenty of tax funding to pay for public art. I also think that the Chamber of Commerce and the Tourist Lobby would fall all over it once they were convinced that tourists/convention goers think that art looks better than ads for job placement services, broadband internet access, and HMO's (things that MOST people cannot afford or have no control over). For example, see the front of the State House, where the Convention and Visitors Bureau has covered unattractive scaffolding with a mural (more or less) depicting the seven hills of Shawmut Peninsula. As for your inference that ads pay for better service, I do not believe that there is a direct correlation between better service and the commercialization of our human environment. I think that if you are looking for better service you should consider the amount of money that is being POURED into the Central Artery Tunnel Project, and compare it to what the city and state are spending on improving URBAN mass transit. I don't see the BIG DIG arguing for increased advertisement revenue to make ends meet, to ensure that their tunnel is big enough or their bridges are wide enough. You seem to assume that we should predicate funding for mass transit on the marketability of its surfaces. I would argue that this rule is NOT universally accepted, but is rather based on the priorities of powerful special interests who, in the current example, want to see big roads built underground for suburban cars instead of more trains built for urban commuters. As for who should choose the art, I think that this is an easy question to answer, and while there are plenty of public art projects that have gone awry due to lack of input from citizens, there are also plenty of projects that have included the community through their entire review process and have therefore benefited the community immensely.

In Solidarity,

CultureJammer