Comments on: Street art on crosswalks

By: NFB documentary about street artist - Absurd Intellectual

NFB documentary about street artist - Absurd Intellectual — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:35:25 +0000

[...] I posted about “street art” a little while ago, including Montrealer Roadsworth, I didn’t know that the National Film Board of Canada was [...]

By: Colin Corneau

Colin Corneau — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:18:35 +0000

Headline: “Dead Person Salutes Cool Street Art”

By: Grant Hamilton

Grant Hamilton — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:18:06 +0000

Pardon the buzzword, but I still maintain that this art does more good by “raising awareness” in the future (and through media coverage) than it does harm through immediate, one-time distraction.

Remember, too, that we’re talking about statistics that are normally measured in the “per 100,000″ column, so both the pros and the cons here are very, very small.

The cool factor, though? Off the mutherfuckin’ charts!!

By: Colin Corneau

Colin Corneau — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:41:20 +0000

These are fleeting decisions made in a chaotic, busy environment.

99 times may sound good, but news flash: it takes only ONE time to get schmucked.

And the odds of that are higher if you are going down a street or seeing the street art for the very first time.

Trust me, it’s hard to say this because I’m all for street art – and more art in general! Better that than billboards or advertising!

By: Grant Hamilton

Grant Hamilton — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:19:57 +0000

Yeah, I noted that too — and while it’s a valid criticism in the short-term, I wonder if it holds up in the long-term. What I mean is, although the street art project distracted some pedestrians, making the crosswalk slightly more dangerous, could it maybe make them more aware the next 99 times they cross a street? In that case, the good outweighs the bad.

Plus, consider all the publicity that they got in the news media. That multiplier effect more than outweighs the distraction factor, I think. Heck, even we’re talking about it, and it didn’t even happen on our continent!

By: Determinator

Determinator — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:02:19 +0000

I do, of course, have one criticism of this initiative. The pedestrians are all of a sudden paying more attention to the street at their feet, than the cars that are driving by them (as shown in the video). When a person’s attention is diverted (add cell phones as another example), it does make drivers and pedestrians less aware of the actions of other people that could turn them into another statistic, and a mess load of street jam.
I would have to question whether these kinds of cross walks, as inventive and interesting as they are, don’t actually makes things more dangerous, not less.