Michael T. Martin

The artist traveled with a blue neon billboard that read ENJOY POVERTY and worked with Congolese photographers, teaching them how to sell images of suffering to Western media and aid agencies.

Review of Art and Activism in the Age of Globalization

(via We Make Money Not Art)

I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline. Particularly when one can’t see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don’t feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body. Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (via wandery)

(via thiscitycalledearth)

In exchange for struggling in the crowded city, the poorest artist can be enriched by the ideas circulating for free. from “Art and Urban Density” by James Panero

Birds living in cities sing at a higher pitch to reduce the impact of echoes from surrounding buildings Urban birds sing at higher pitch - Telegraph

It’s a musical Venn diagram placed over the landscape, and at any time you might have two dozen tracks playing in your ears, all meshing and colliding in surprising ways. The path you take determines what you hear Central Park, The Soundtrack