Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#181

Post by ffgjgf1 » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #75

endisneigh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious - what's something that's not an eyesore? People think art is, graffiti, even buildings, etc. The difference is some of these generates money for governments to solve actual problems, and the others... do not.

One key difference is the scale. You can think of a billboard as really bad graffiti that’s shoved in your face to manipulate you. Graffiti is ugly too (not to be confused with urban art) and should always be removed. Generating money for the government isn’t something to be concerned with in this context, and most likely a billboard doesn’t generate enough money for the government versus the drain it has on the publ…

> Greco-Roman architecture

Neoclassicism is much more than “Greco-Roman architecture” (whatever that even means..) (Hagia-Sophia?). Greek and Roman public buildings were pretty awful in almost every objective measure compared to any of the best (or even better than average) buildings designed in the 19th/20th century.

Unfortunately the person who wrote that document seems to have a very poor understanding of both architecture and history..

> Notre Dame Cathedral is objectively beautiful (this also answers your question about what is not an eyesore) and Boston City Hall is objectively an awful building

Let say so.. but even then you must realize that these buildings serve extremely different purposes? Buildings have other purposes besides just looking good (accounts to some subjective definition of that).

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#182

Post by robocat » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

soapdog wrote: post #147

Luctct wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither murals nor graffiti is art. None of those would have been accepted in any gallery some 30~40 years ago when standards were higher and the world didn't suffer from the high number of grown-up men who are hooked up on comic books and animated cartoons it suffers through today. A lot of it is just vandalism. None of it seems to be made by or for adults. 99% looks like it's made by some comic book fan on LSD. Alw…

As someone who graduated from an art school, let me be another voice here to say that you're absolutely wrong. Art is about intentionality and process. Duchamp and Wahrol are prime mainstream examples of that. The intervention in urban equipment is art. Making it yours, sharing it with the world, the dialectical dialogue between the mural and the surrounding cityscape, there is so much to unpack here. Also, comic boo…

I think your example of Duchamp is incorrect (and I’m an engineer not an arts graduate) Attempting to cast yourself. as knowledgeable and then using Duchamp without understanding his history shows lack of taste IMHO.

Duchamp stole his signature artwork from Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven:

  a 1917 letter Duchamp wrote to his sister, Susanne, translated: “One of my female friends who had adopted the masculine pseudonym Richard Mutt sent in a porcelain urinal as a sculpture.”
  R Mutt was identified as an artist living in Philadelphia, which is where she was living at the time. 
  Duchamp said he had purchased the urinal from JL Mott Ironworks Company, adapting Mutt from Mott, but the company did not manufacture the model in the photograph
  the handwriting on the urinal matches the handwriting Von Freytag-Loringhoven used for her poems.

I recommend you avoid presenting yourself as an expert on art : or at least try to become more knowledgeable. Second-hand information from experts is often misinformation. Of course: “great artists steal” just usually not quite so literally.

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#183

Post by whats_a_quasar » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

causality0 wrote: post #114

kibwen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since this law was adopted, there's been an increase in full building graffiti, which is not banned. Now 10 years later, it is more likely to see one of these nowadays than an empty outdoor frame Nearly all of these look like murals, not graffiti (these are distinct forms of street art). Regardless, those photos are beautiful and I'd love to have those instead of billboards in my city.

Are building murals not associated with ghettos outside the US? Where I live you know if you start seeing big faces on walls you're in the bad part of town and need to be careful.

In San Francisco there are building murals throughout the city. I quite like them!

I'm not sure if there are murals in the richest neighborhoods (Pacific Heights) or the less dense, more suburban neighborhoods (Sunset, Richmond), but there are murals throughout the dense neighborhoods near downtown. (SOMA, the Mission, Haight, etc.)

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#184

Post by whats_a_quasar » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

tchaffee wrote: post #99

airstrike wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of those full building graffiti are the beautiful work of renowned street artist Eduardo Kobra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Kobra

I love SP street art but I think most of Kobra's stuff is terrible. I did see one recently that I liked. Is it art? Yeah. Is it fine art? Yeah probably. Just not my cup of tea.

Can you say more about what you don't like about Kobra's art vs. other street art? I'm curious, not familiar with the genre!

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#185

Post by oivey » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

Luctct wrote: post #166

tchaffee wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're uninformed about it all being the same. The graffiti in São Paulo has a vast range of styles. I have hundreds of photos I've taken myself. This fine art I can see outdoors is one of the most pleasurable things about living or visiting there. I studied art in university, am an artist myself, and visit major exhibitions around the world on a regular basis. Much graffiti is indeed valid art.

[flagged]

I’d expect an artist to know that a mural is just art applied to a wall. That includes frescos like The Last Supper.

Usually artists also don’t police and get so angry about other people’s self expression.

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#186

Post by lIl-IIIl » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:15 PM UTC

Luctct wrote: post #166

tchaffee wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're uninformed about it all being the same. The graffiti in São Paulo has a vast range of styles. I have hundreds of photos I've taken myself. This fine art I can see outdoors is one of the most pleasurable things about living or visiting there. I studied art in university, am an artist myself, and visit major exhibitions around the world on a regular basis. Much graffiti is indeed valid art.

[flagged]

>"I studied art in university, am an artist myself" Garbage argument.

Why? I would assume "what is art?" is a subject on which much time is spent in art school.

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#187

Post by eberfreitas » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:17 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #161

kibwen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since this law was adopted, there's been an increase in full building graffiti, which is not banned. Now 10 years later, it is more likely to see one of these nowadays than an empty outdoor frame Nearly all of these look like murals, not graffiti (these are distinct forms of street art). Regardless, those photos are beautiful and I'd love to have those instead of billboards in my city.

Almost all of the city of São Paulo is covered in gang graffiti, buildings covered in these rune-like tags from top to bottom. It is extremely ugly, and of course also unsettling since it is a signal on who runs the city.

Actually it is the opposite, it is a scream from those who don't really have a voice in the city.

Really recommend watching the documentary PIXO, you can find the full doc in YouTube with english subtitles.

[edit: suggesting the documentary]

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#188

Post by wood_spirit » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:17 PM UTC

Mordisquitos wrote: post #148

wood_spirit wrote: post #24

Presumably in a few years all billboards will be virtual, painted over top of reality by AR? And San Paulo will be bedecked again, at least as experienced by normal people with whatever comes after mobile phones. As will Rome and your local park?

What makes you think normal people, such as myself, would have any reason to willingly use advertisement-laden AR rather than enjoy good old ad-free R?

In the same way that today everyone is dependent on phones. When I grew up, the phone hung in the kitchen with a long curly lead. Nowadays everyone (including adults) seems to have their head in their mobile phones at any and every lull in conversation.

My car projects traffic info and directions straight onto the windscreen. A fancy feature now, but surely ubiquitous in just a few years.

My windows computer, an Operating system which I paid for, has started injecting ads and promoted content into the start menu.

And so it’s easy to imagine that everyone is going to be bombarded by injected ads in a future world whether we like it or not?

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#189

Post by ericmay » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #169

Luctct wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see, you just said that "We just don’t have the tools yet to objectively define beauty" and "Boston City Hall is objectively an awful building" (and holy shit, it really is awful) in the same paragraph! Don't you see the contradiction? In another comment here, someone said, "I'm not arguing for or against that - I'm just stating a fact (...) I find it extremely ugly." Hey, "I find it extremely ugly" IS arguing ag…

Unpopular opinion, but Boston City Hall is an objectively VERY beautiful building. Brutalism is absolutely an acquired taste, but it is, by all measures, an objective style that can be measured against, in the same way classical or say, Spanish Mission architecture style is. In fact, some would even go so far as to argue that most Victorian/neo-classical architecture is just a chintzy facade with no real architectura…

Boston City Hall isn't just awful because of the deranged architecture (which admittedly is a consistently abusive architectural style), it's awful because it's also a place that nobody wants to be because of the poor design of the plaza (necessitated by the bad design of the building). So it fails not just in terms of design, but in terms of harmony with the city and the people.

I will definitely give the building credit. It's an exemplary expression of brutalist architecture and it'll be in architecture textbooks forever. If you had to design the peak brutalist building that included how it affected the built environment, this would be it.

The style is objectively bad in the same way that if you say that Starry Night is a bad painting or that David is an example of bad craftsmanship you're be wrong. It's not a matter of opinion. A good way to separate your opinion (beauty is in the eye of the beholder stuff) is like this. I like Blink 182. It's not great music but I like it. The Beatles or maybe the Rolling Stones could be considered objectively good music. I don't particularly care for either, but I don't have to let what I think get in the way of what's true.

You can do the same thing with Boston City Hall. You can compare Boston City Hall to something like the Notre Dame Cathedral. There's a reason why one is considered a global treasure, and the other is probably the most hated building in America. We can converge on truthy understandings of things we don't have good objective measurements for (yet). You know it when you see it.

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#190

Post by whats_a_quasar » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:19 PM UTC

tr4vis wrote: post #49

kroltan wrote: post #36

I lived until recently in Florianópolis, one of the state capitals of Brazil. It is a naturally beautiful island city, and it has an iconic bridge leading into it ("Ponte Hercilio Luz" if you want to search for photos). For some god forsaken reason, someone got away with building a gigantic - and I mean GIGANTIC - screen billboard right in line of sight of this historic postcard. I don't recall when it was installed,…

I'm from Florianópolis and everyone I know hates that stupid billboard - it goes against the natural vibe of the city. In person it's an eye sore from kilometers away.

Not directly related, but it's so cool that three different people from Florianópolis have commented! I don't think I'd ever meet someone from that part of Brazil in my normal life. That's a little bit of internet magic