Scarcroft Road / Bishopthorpe Road Junction, York:
Public art commission £7300

Artist Brief:
City of York Council is seeking to commission an artist to design and deliver permanent site specific art work/s to improve the visual appearance and public use of the grassed area at the junction of Scarcroft Rd / Bishopthorpe Rd, York.
The works will form a new landmark, reflecting the area and engendering a sense of place and pride locally.
The artist will work with local communities, engaging people in the design process to ensure the work is accessible and appropriate.

1st April 12.00pm: Deadline for expressions of interest
3rd April: shortlisting artists
20th April 3.30 – 5.30: On site consultation including shortlisted artists
18th May: Confirmation of contract
Oct 2009: Completion of work

If you would like to be considered for this commission please submit:
• Up to two A3 sheets showing examples of your previous work as relevant to this project.
A disc with up to 5 images of your previous work + 100 words briefly describing your work and how you would approach this commission. (The above information from short-listed artists will be shown to community groups for comments.)
• Two references or testimonials from previous work
• Your CV and artist’s statement.
To Emily Harvey, Arts and Culture, City of York Council, Mill House, North St, York YO1 6JD.
Email: Emily.Harvey@york.gov.uk or Kristina.Davey@york.gov.uk

Background information
Micklegate Ward Committee wishes to improve the appearance of the grassed area of land at the junction of Scarcroft Road and Bishopthorpe Road, adjacent to the perimeter of Bishopthorpe Road Car Park.
This is a prominent public space, with a high footfall, where people gather and meet. The final scheme will include consideration of seating, safety and maintenance and will be effective all year round both in daylight and after dark.
Local community groups will be involved in the initial selection of an artist to deliver these improvements.
A steering group including local councillors, CYC officers and community representatives will oversee the project.

The role of the artist
The artist will be committed to engaging local groups such as schools and residents associations through workshops and/or demonstrations, and be able to reflect this involvement within the production of their own work. A timetable of community contact time will be negotiated between the artist and the steering group.
The artist will be expected to work up designs and models for comment by the steering group and relevant CYC officers. The artist will work with the steering group to seek the relevant approvals and ensure the scheme is appropriate and deliverable. Evidence of current CRB clearance, public liability insurance and self-employed status will be required.
The artist will have access to their own work base, tools and equipment.

The fixed fee of £7300 includes
• Research and design of the scheme.
• All materials
• Attendance at agreed planning meetings, and liaison with project partners.
• Co-ordination and delivery of community activities relating to the design process.
• Fabrication and installation of work.
The artist will be contracted with the City of York Council through Arts Action York.

Plan of site:
Photographs of the site:




Additional information and constraints:
• The site is at the junction of Scarcroft Road and Bishopthorpe Road, adjacent to two busy roads.
• The site is just outside a conservation area.
• The space to used includes the two main green areas and seating indicated on the plan.
• Trees are valuable, particularly a mature lime tree, the root system of which is likely to spread over most of the open space there. Consultation with specific CYC departments will need to be undertaken before any ground works are planned.
• A pyracantha hedge will be planted along the wall running from the hairdressers round to the car park.
• There is electricity to the site.
• Water, mains cables, gas, signal cables run underneath the footpaths, which must remain in place.
• There are no height restrictions for the site, although the trees may well restrict the height of any installations. Final proposals must be agreed with CYC officers.
• The view of the road junction should not be impeded in any way.

Whitby Town View Webcam

York Minster Webcam

Scarborough Beach View Webcam

http://www.bbc.co.uk/northyorkshire/content/webcams/york_minster_constantine_webcam.shtml

http://www.ycrc.co.uk/webcam

Although requesting CCTV footage from the council was possible but not appropriate, They did provide me with these links to several live webcams in York, Whitby, Scarborough and various other places which i may use within my work. The Webcams aren't streaming over the net however, the images are refreshed every 5 minutes. 

In response to the data brief i have began to look at the CCTV presence in York. I acquired the locations of all 59 CCTV cameras in York and have plotted the majority of them on a map of the city. The presence of CCTV in the city center obviously suggests which areas need to be monitored in this way. I have tried to retrieve some footage through the council (they provided me with the locations and other helpful information also), however the project isn't really an appropriate reason for this info. I am continuing to develop ideas and collect information regarding surveillance in York.       

   

just deriving via the web and found theis old photo of york. Looking into bootham bar and found it of interest. think its a lovely photo.

Part2ism

Something more local!! Keith Hopewell is best known as 'Part 2' or Part2ism by many for pioneering photorealist graffiti in the late eighties and early nineties shown here, in ‘galleries’ around York. He has been slowly re-establishing his art for the last few years. Keith first caught people's attention once again with his cardboard cut out installations. He placed complex geometric type, as long as 30 ft in broad daylight around busy city centre's throughout the world. Never designed as commodity, but many of these works were left in the public domain for people to hijack & Keith was caught on the BBC news & also received editorial in the Times & Independent. “I just wanted to play with people's perception of what this art is about, like the first time I saw graffiti on the New York subway! It was an arthouse of its own, born out of suppression & creating something from nothing. It was about expanding your own space & taking things to their limits".His work concentrates on disposable graffiti interventions which are constructed from discarded pieces of cardboard repossessed from the streets. They are designed to modify our city environments & daytime pedestrian streets.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=63185756

Become dérivers

“the dérive [literally: “drifting”], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.”

Internationale Situationniste #2, (1958), Theory of the Dérive [Internet] Available from: < http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display_printable/314> [Accessed 3 February 2009]

“psychogeography [:] The study of the precise effects of geographical setting, consciously managed or not, acting directly on the mood and behaviour of the individual.”

Internationale Situationniste #1, (1958), Definitions [Internet] Available from: < http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display_printable/7> [Accessed 3 February 2009]

Become dérivers.

Form groups of two to three people to conduct psychogeographical observation and collection of data (images, texts, objects, etc). Conduct your dérive over deliberately pre-arranged periods of a few hours at a time. Avoid the later hours of the night. Agree a meeting place as a point of departure. Modes of movement other than walking may be employed but only as long as a principle of random direction remains within your control (getting on or off buses spontaneously, riding a bicycle, etc.).

The aim is to see the city anew, and to (re-) discover locations to which you might address the creation of new work as form of intervention. We hope this will lead to collective research into the city of York, as we will be able to cross-refer the observations and data emerging from differing dérive methods. You could consider letting a dog take you for a walk, walking blindfolded with a friend, use a map of another place to try to get around, toss coins, follow smells or sounds at whim, turning first left, second right and second right again repeatedly etc….

Consider ways of documenting/mapping each dérive before and while walking. Marking a route with a piece of string, photographing and sequencing images, textually or graphically representing your dérive are initial ideas. Record material for these documents/maps for presentation next week and upload on this blog now.

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Welcome to Outside the White Cube

Outside the White Cube is a project by artists at York St John University who are investigating a range of locations in, and possibly around, the city of York between February-May 2009. We aim to create new work through interaction with off-campus settings and mount a group exhibition of material and works emerging from this enquiry in May. Our initial starting points relate to observation; passages through the environment; identification of settings; mapping; placement / displacement; other creative and critical strategies for generating, moulding and composing material. We are also concerned with image, event and meaning creation in relation to those particular tensions present in the reciprocal interaction of 'art' and 'site'. We hope to use this blog to share images, texts, observations, links as we proceed. The project represents art as research and exchange in the urban context.