Comments on: Why the last thing London needs is more Clouds

By: Greenpa

Greenpa — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:16:24 +0000

Andrew and Rob- “On the plus side, it’d give the pigeons a somewhere new to go and poop all over.”

Ah, beware, beware!! Always think about “what happens next” in these dialogs.

What happens next is: the promoters decide (after reading your comments) to project movies of falcons and goshawks on those lovely balloon billboards. Swooping from one to another. Then, you see, they can claim that the towers are providing yet another community service, by spooking all the pigeons within sight…

By: john thackara

john thackara — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:24:20 +0000

Rob,

It’s not nimbyism, it’s environmentalism.In Italy, for example, they call ad-blight in public space ‘semiotic pollution’.

But there are serious examples of resistance: Sao Paulo for example, a city of 11 millions people, went ad free in 2007: http://tiny.cc/vYGmo

Mind you, when people campaign against billboards In the US, the industry starts screaming about “freedom of commercial speech”: http://tiny.cc/DnvMS

Pass the sick bag.

By: Sensitive

Sensitive — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:43:19 +0000

It’s not unlike the BBC’s ‘Big Screen’ idea for city centres. A few years ago, I was invited by the Humber Mouth Literary Festival to show some of my work on the Big Screen in Victoria Square, Hull. Normally, the Big Screen plays BBC television for those who get so little television elsewhere in their life that they need to have it when they’re out in the city as well. One of my pieces deliberately contained 30 seconds of blank screen with no sound, following a slow fade of the word SILENCE from the screen. Without asking permission, the BBC edited the blank screen out entirely. When the curators objected, they were told that it had to be removed because “people would think the screen wasn’t working.”

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:00:28 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by robintransition: Ranting about this stupid idea to build ‘The Cloud’ in London, a ghastly unavoidable advertising monstrosity … http://tinyurl.com/yemo4sn...

By: neckie

neckie — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:10:00 +0000

we should get together with the pigeons and have a coup.

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:03:14 +0000

Fair comment Andrew, one should always think of the pigeons.. with these spiky iron things on every available pooping surface in London nowadays keeping them off, to provide them with such a glorious technicolour latrine which is a celebration of technology is surely the least we can do.

By: Andrew Ramponi

Andrew Ramponi — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:46:34 +0000

On the plus side, it’d give the pigeons a somewhere new to go and poop all over.

By: Peter Bralesford

Peter Bralesford — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:35:13 +0000

Just something I forgot to mention in my last post:

“As it is, our mental environment is being encroached upon and eroded by advertising and uninvited messaging at every turn.”

A very eloquent and appropriate statement. I’m fourteen at the moment, and almost everyone else in my year group is (RANT ALERT – sorry about this) a slavering corporate drone, for want of a better expression. The adverts on TV at the moment are constantly hammering home the message that if you don’t have the latest piece of electronic crap that comes out of a Chinese sweatshop then you are nothing, nobody. Perhaps the most scary part of it is that I actually treated a fellow student for hyperventilation when their mobile phone broke down. (End rant)

I’m probably unfairly generalising, but it is honestly how I feel.

By: Graham Burnett

Graham Burnett — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:19:19 +0000

when myself and Mark Warner ran a permaculture design course at Tottenham Marshes earlier this year we were amused by a hoarding in front of one of the big olympic building projects near Tottenham Hale station that read ‘Working with Nature’. We peered over looking for signs of cob and straw bale buildings, timber framed houses, wind turbines, forest gardens and aquaculture ponds, but saw only a multi-storey concrete and steel building under construction, surrounded by bulldozers, earth movers cranes and plastic piping…

By: Corinne

Corinne — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:28:05 +0000

Rob, I think your analysis is right on. It’s sad to think that if you want a project to celebrate technology in such an imposing way, this is the best you can do? Instead of such a fluffy concept, why can’t we integrate objectives that you can get your teeth into, something that will address problems that need fixing. Surely the mayor of London can think of two or three issues in London that crowd-funding could actually have an impact on?
Any of your suggestions would do.
Corinne in Paris

By: M

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:05:34 +0000

NIMBY!

By: Head in The Cloud « kimberley crofts

Head in The Cloud « kimberley crofts — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:58:43 +0000

[...] of The Cloud concept for London’s 2012 Olympics, I have to agree with the ever-sensible Rob Hopkins of the Transition Town movement who says that what the project amounts to [...]

By: Lauren Writes » Fast Thursday links

Lauren Writes » Fast Thursday links — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:55:50 +0000

[...] http://transitionculture.org/2009/11/11/why-the-last-thing-london-needs-is-more-clouds/Adverts now follow us on and off buses, the Tube, into films we watch and all over the internet. That’s bad enough. But to put this Cloud into the sky, projecting news and advertising 24 hours a day is an invasion too far. … You can bet it will end up like the Kings Cross screens, advertising, ‘news’, celebrity tittle tattle and more advertising. While I think there may be a role for “celebrations of technology”, the kinds of technology I want to celebrate are those … [...]

By: Mike Grenville

Mike Grenville — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:38:14 +0000

I just know that something good is going to happen.
I don’t know when,
But just saying it could even make it happen.

Cloudbusting……
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRHA9W-zExQ

By: neckie

neckie — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:58:19 +0000

I see google are offering free advertising for the “cloud raising effort”. Interestingly if you google cloud the first result is about cloud computing, which I believe google have an interest in. Spot any links/vested interests here?