Hi everyone…. I've set up a community blog for “The Gates,” the upcoming art event in New York's Central Park by the artist Christo. For two weeks in February, Christo will decorate Central Park with thousands of saffron-colored flags on gates throughout the park.
The website is set up to accept new blog postings from anyone who visits The Gates and wants to comment on the event. The site will accept these posts via email and voicemail. Part blog, part wiki, part mobcast; think of it as a public experiment in collective art criticism. :-)
There are two emails you can use to post comments to the site – one email for people with positive comments about The Gates and one for people with negative comments. You can even attach a photo to the email and have it placed on the blog, if you go to Central Park and take pictures. Soon, I'll have the blog set up so that visitors can post audio blogs/podcasts about the event from their phone, using a call-in number and PIN code. I used this technique at the Berkman blogging conference for the blog http://mobcasting.blogspot.com.
So for those of you who are in NYC or are planning to visit the city during the February event, I'd like to invite you to post your thoughts about The Gates. Feel free to post before, during or immediately after the event; I'll probably close the site's posting features a couple of weeks after the exhibit ends.
How to Post Your Comments and Photos to the Site
If you would like to post your thoughts about the Christo Central Park exhibit to the website, please send an email with your comments to either of these addresses:
For positive comments:
yes-christo.gates /at/ blogger.comFor critical comments:
no-christo.gates /at/ blogger.com
(You'll have to remove the “/at/” and replace it with an @ symbol. This is to discourage spam.)
Please put the title of your comments in the “subject” field of the email, and then your comments in the body of the email. Feel free to sign your email or post anonymously, whichever is more comfortable for you. Spam and off-topic posts will be removed immediately from the site.
You can also use these email addresses to post a photo to the website; simply attach a photo to your email, then put the title in the subject line and a description and photo credit in the message body. Please only send your own photos; do not send copyrighted material or other people's photos without their express permission. If you would like others to be able to use your photo, please feel free to make a note of it in the body of your email message.
If you're interested in discussing the site, including the development of lesson plans and other tools related to it, I've set up a yahoo group as well. To subscribe, please send an email to the-gates-subscribe /at/ yahoogroups.com and you'll be added to the list.
thanks,
Andy Carvin
7 comments
has anyone determined the best approach to seeing the gates…like what is the travel path that makes the most sense.
The Gates will cover more than 25 miles of paths in the Park, so there’s really no “wrong” way to experience it. Having said that, the Central Park Conservancy has a web page with self-guided tours (pdf) you can download.
ac
Was out there yesterday, here are some photo’s of the gates:
http://imgcache.com/?i=42377
http://imgcache.com/?i=42376
http://imgcache.com/?i=42375
http://imgcache.com/?i=42374
http://imgcache.com/?i=42373
Beautiful installation.
Hanging a bunch of saffron colored tapestries isn’t art. Reminds me of the emporer’s clothes.
While orange isn’t my favorite color, I think it’s most definitely art. The very fact that hundreds of thousands of people were in Central Park this weekend debating its beauty and the role of public art in general makes it a very successful work of art, whether or not you like it…
ac
Emperor’s New Clothes, indeed. Nowadays, one could blow their nose on the sidewalk and come up with some reason for calling it “art”. Art, these Gates ain’t.
Funniest Gates thing I’ve seen. Check this out:
‘The Crackers”
http://www.smilinggoat.com/crackers1.html
Funny stuff and a tasty snack (it was in Sunday’s NY Times, too)