Visual Cacophony in SOHO

Location : Soho


The artistic past of Broadway between Canal street and Houston Street



The wandering eye!

Initial idea
I came to New York City in fall 2008 and I feel the city-New York has exhausted me visually. New York's cacophony of appealing storefronts and hip billboards kept me in a constant state of unfulfilled desire. Passers by sported fashions upheld by the edgy language of the alternative press, both pointing to lifestyles that I longed to emulate without understanding how. Everything I saw I wanted; most of what I saw I couldn't afford!

Since then I feel how a public space transforms with the use of visual cacophony and hence gave me the idea to explore this further.
I would like to focus on street signs, outdoor advertisements and other "urban texts" that first appeared in force in the city between 1825 and 1865. I feel that the appearance of these signs is significant because they reflected dramatic changes in the city and marked the rise of a new type of public discourse.

I first imagined the street media of New York city as a layer superimposed on the city's geographical location and physical structure, and then began asking questions about its contours. What are the varied spaces and temporalities in which the media appear and disappear? Which spaces are public and which are private? What rules govern the exhibition of media in these spaces? Are these spaces accessible to all? Are they enforced? By whom?

How do urban texts intrude upon a public space? I first imagined the street media of New York city as a layer superimposed on the city's geographical location and physical structure, and then began asking questions about its contours. How does the social behavior of people alter in a public space with ‘urban text’?

Site : Broadway – between canal street and Houston street. This is a part of SoHo.

Methodology:
1. I am carrying out this study from two lenses-As an actor and as an observer.
As an actor, I am developing my observations the street as a set of 10 paintings.
Walking down the broadway in Soho is an experience in bricolage – a post modern collage of odda and ends from all time periods, which combine to form new patterns and meanings.

As an observer, I sit in a café (generally Dean and Deluca on Broadway) and observe the behavior of people in this commercial public space.

2. After the narrative observation, I plan to look at the second visual layers imbedded in the social cultural moment of Soho. There are echoes of its artistic and industrial history of the past. I want to un ravel these layers as well.
3. The third layer of observation / analysis is the effect of economic crisis on the social behavior. I will relate my observations last year on the same site with the one’s I am doing now for the same.
4. Finally, looking at Soho as a smaller site within a larger system of tourist attractions in New York city.
5. Also, as a part of the analysis of the above research, I would like to once again look at the initial question : How does the hype and reality collision contribute to the publicness of this creative district – is it a perception colored by mythology? Or has branding overtaken reality?

Still to come: paintings and sketches.