Apartment in the mall

[seemslikeadream]

http://trummerkind.com/mall/Living_in_the_Mall.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9WOj0hCOFE&eurl=




Michael Townsend photo
James Mercer and Colin Bliss sit on a sofa in a room they built and furnished with performance artist Michael Townsend in the bowels of Providence Place mall. They also built the concrete block wall at rear in photo.


The Apartment at the Mall has a Web site, with embedded video of life in the hidden room. If you missed the Journal story today by Gregory Smith and Philip Marcelo (1 room, no view), it begins,


PROVIDENCE — Eight artists snuck into the depths of Providence Place mall and built a secret studio apartment in which they stayed, on and off, for nearly four years until mall security finally caught their leader last week...

In contrast to Boston's fear of what it doesn't understand (Cops to Flashy Things: Stay Out of Boston!), Providence seems to have gotten relatively sophisticated about performance art since Barnaby Evans turned burning braziers on the downtown rivers into WaterFire -- conceptual art that made Providence hotter for tourists and conventioneers.

Several commenters in an anonymous online survey did leap to thinking if artists can lurk, so can terrorists. (And bogeymen. Anywhere. Eeeek!)

Art is supposed to make you see in new ways. Whether what you see delights you or terrifies you probably depends on what you bring to it.


http://www.beloblog.com/ProJo_Blogs/shenews/archives/2007/10/apartment_at_th.html

[grasswire]

1. God, I'm surprised that malls DON'T have condos in them!

That would have been a billion dollar concept in the 1990s.

Live where you shop!

[seemslikeadream]

2. I was thinking that too

There are so many malls with lots of empty space they should rent it out to folks! Kinda the opposite of places like in Chicago where there are shops on the ground floors of apartment buildings

[Swamp Rat]

4. Rent? They should let the homeless live there for free.

Then employ them to maintain the mall.

[seemslikeadream]

11. Of course Swampy but

that would be too humane for them, they can only be for profit, no?

[jmm]

6. Some already do

http://www.nouvelleatnatick.com/02.html

For only $1,399,900 you can have direct and convenient access to Needless Markup Neiman Marcus.

[Warpy]

12. I think some new ones are being built that way

It was one of those stories I saw a couple of years ago and didn't comment on because my mind was boggling too loudly.

I did a quick search, and came up with http://www.thegreene.com/ and one of the original stories at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/07/REV8SH3S8.DTL

Too see how nauseating the whole thing has gotten, visit this one: http://www.150madison.com/

It gets even worse from there if you're willing to put up with the nausea.

[seemslikeadream]

13. This is what I am looking for

but I haven't found the land where I can build it, building codes, ya know!

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/home.htm

[aquart]

3. Scary, limited definition of "art."

As to those idiot lit-up ads that were placed all over Boston and other cities...ART????

ART?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I knew no good would come of dropping Art Appreciation from the curriculum.

[seemslikeadream]

7. The art of remembrance - The artist Michael Townsend,

http://trummerkind.com/

The week after September 11th, we set off into the City to draw a record of the lives lost. Using a specialized tape, we drew life-sized portraits of every airline passenger and fireman on the buildings of Manhattan. The drawings are counting all 2,749 who passed away in the tragedy.

This website, the Eleventh of September: an act of remembrance, is the cumulative result of 30,000 hours of volunteer effort, compiling five years of documentation and biographical information relating to the people and our journeys through New York City.

[RandomKoolzip]

9. Wow, the multiple question mark thing underlines your point well.

[NMMNG]

5. Aye.

Several commenters in an anonymous online survey did leap to thinking if artists can lurk, so can terrorists. (And bogeymen. Anywhere. Eeeek!)


Thanks to GWB, people can see bogeymen everywhere, in everything. :eyes:

[seemslikeadream]

8. Providence Place Mall - Demographics Entrances

Providence Place Mall - Demographics Entrances

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz1TGzlBjPU

[seemslikeadream]

10. The Tunnel

http://www.tapeart.com/green/3year/tunnel/tunnel.html