At times i get very disillusioned at the lack of an artsy visual culture in this city…i find myself repeatedly bringing up the point that maybe … just maybe… if this city had more of a ‘pedestrian’ culture than a ‘mall and vehicle’ culture — there would be more opportunities to explore art and design. Then again, every city has its own urban flavour and expecting it to be similar to other cities seems not only unfair but a rather derogatory attempt to homogenize and standardize.
“Every society gets the visual environment it deserves. Doesn’t it?” (from the Preface of David Carson’s ‘End of Print’)
Always liked that question, but also always found myself probing further into the real meaning of the statement…
What did it REALLY mean ??
What would it mean in context to a Dubaian society?
What would it mean in context to an artsy visual culture in Dubai?
What visual environment does Dubai deserve?
To me, the words ‘visual environment’ refers to the environment that one encounters whilst interacting with a city. It is the fabric that gives meaning and substance to an individual who is engaged in a quest to experience his/her environment. In the case of modern city like Dubai, there are two coexisting environments.
On the surface, Dubai’s visual environment would essentially be zing-zing buildings, varooom cars and bigger-brighter billboards all contributing to the even louder ‘kachhhiiiiingggg!!’ of an extremely successful cashregister economy.
The Dubaian society essentially is a very colorful multicultural one and therefore to say that ‘every society gets the visual environment it deserves’ would logically mean that it deserves a visual environment that essentially speaks to many cultures in unison such as the language of business and money perhaps.
Under the surface however lies multiple unique visual environments born out of various cultures that have attempted to settle themselves in this city over the years. It is here, where different cultures have found a niche market and it is here where a ‘chutnification’ takes place on an aesthetic level. (Salman Rushdie popularly used the term ‘chutnification’ to describe this phenomena of modern multiculturalism – i quite like the word)
In the next couple of posts, i’ll try and deal with this idea of chutnification from an aesthetic point of view and see where i go with it. I think this post has drained my brain a little too much – too much theorizing and over analyzing kinda spoils the fun of free blogging…
watch out for ‘the urban flavour (part2)
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http://www.livejournal.com/users.ishtyle Ish
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http://www.livejournal.com/users/ishtyle Ish
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http://www.blogger.com/profile/1743733 Amrit(raj)