Over the last while a controversy over street photos taken by Humans of New York came to light where the renown fashion label DKNY used the a bunch of photos in their Thailand shop front without credit or payment for the right to use the photos. You can read a good article about it on the Wall Street Journal.


Retaliating with a Facebook post demanding DKNY to own up to its mistake and donate the proceeds to a local Brooklyn charity, DKNY did eventually own up, saying it was a mistake and that they will go ahead with paying the charity. I thought it was all done and dusted - a pretty good outcome to a pretty bad situation on all sides. A global label like DKNY having a lapse in communication with an Asian branch? Understandable.

But it didn't stop. A stinging vindictiveness from the supporters of Humans of New York and from those standing up for intellectual property rights for creative products (which in itself is a terribly controversial issue with fuzzy boundaries and awkward skirmishes in price battles such as the one in this example). Humans of New York happened to take the initiative this time and got a compromise but still DKNY is still getting trashed post-apology. Perhaps it's the easiness of just pressing a 'like' button, the epitome of a 21st century cliché, or the convenience of reading half a sentence on a very long (partially hidden) post and sharing a scathing comment.

In the creative industries, it's not always clear cut but more importantly, the field is malleable and open to new collaborations. There are many ways to go about crediting/PR and I think this example is a particularly creative example of standing up for one's creative property rights. But let's remember that we are also human and prone to mistakes.

To see the raging comments about the issue (which toss between different views), see the Facebook post that started it all.

With great sadness I report the passing of Ralph Hotere, one of my favourite artists and an outstanding example of an artist-activitst. Described as the 'warrior artist' he uses his art as an arsenal to fight issues of injustice, destruction of the environment and of deep spirituality.


The courage displayed in his work pervades the ongoing timeline of NZ history - points such as Aramoana,  and activism for being nuclear-free - to artworks of enormous presence such as Godwit/Kuaka, inspired by a Maori chant and the godwits' migration it was originally a piece welcoming people to Aotearoa at the Auckland International Airport's arrivals area. Now the 18 metre long Godwit/Kuaka is displayed at the Auckland Art Gallery for all to see.


Rest in peace Ralph Hotere, you've given us so much. And I hope very much we will see your courage and conviction in all generations to come, not only in art, but with all that we do.

Last time I featured micro-housing, I mentioned architect Gary Chang's trendy and transforming little apartment. Today I saw a picture on Twitter (thanks @MrGeorgeClarke) which really shows the other side of 'compact living' and it's not pretty. Unfortunately, that is the norm for many people in Hong Kong and other over-densified places, including slums and badly planned apartment blocks.

@MrGeorgeClarke People aren't just living in cramped spaces like this in Hong Kong...tragically it's happening everywhere! pic.twitter.com/rdRHeIvGYa

Hopefully these days more regulation allows for better baseline design for accommodation. The remaining stock of these terrible living spaces serve as a reminder than for many, a space to call home is greatly different from our expected standards.

Often creativity is stereotyped as a fluffy practice where one paints or draws or designs something but creativity also encompasses a great deal of innovation. In fact, it's more of a culture for being able to think beyond the box. A blog post on Not Another Quarter-Life Crisis brings up this idea as the blogger (a medical doctor herself), commented on the role of creativity in the field of medicine and why it isn't an integrated part of medical work culture.

One of my fellow house officers paints in his spare time, another writes poetry. I can think of a couple who play musical instruments to a professional standard, and another few that composes on their nights off. I think overall we’re a pretty creative bunch, and handpicked for medical school because of our interests outside of academia.

And yet one of the biggest problems I have with the medical system is the lack of creativity.

Medical school is regimental, it rewards conformity, and rarely provides the opportunity for critical and creative thinking. Being a junior doctor is worse. Before becoming house officers we were told the most important skill to have in order to survive the next few years is time management. Not an ability to analyse or problem-solve, nor an ability to make decisions, but rather efficiency, an ability to keep your head down and finish the jobs.

Being new to the medical system we have different perspectives and fresh ideas, and yet we often lack the opportunity to express them. Who do we tell for it to be taken seriously? And who wants to listen to us naive idealists anyway?

I believe the formality of medical school and the ensuing hierarchy within the medical system is crushing our creative spirits, and the healthcare industry is losing out. Imagine if we can turn all those creative energies into innovations! How? I’m not exactly sure. Maybe a FedEx Day as this author recommends may help, maybe not. But let’s start brainstorming, and start nurturing those creative juices right from day one of medical school.

In a way medicine is built on a foundation of formality, procedure and (at times) bureaucracy, but none of our largest medical advances were ever made from conforming to procedure. Is scientific research creative? It might not be the kind of organic expression that you might expect from the word 'creativity', but it does create advances in medical practice.

Understandably, in today's world, conformity has become the norm - accountability and rigid systems efficiency doesn't allow much leeway for ideas, let alone change. Medicine might have a completely different feel if the 'creative juices' were a part of practicing medicine and this can be said for many other fields where followed processes is encouraged, even in 'creative' fields such as architecture (where planning permission can stifle even the most humble of designs).

Along the lines of creative problem solving, an article by New Scientist cites a journal which found that people who feel anger brainstorm in a more unstructured way, consistent with creative problem-solving. Anger is often seen as a negative emotion, but examples of how controlled anger can be used for great effect are people like Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Of course, how you express or use your anger is up to you. To quote the former: "You must be the change you want to see in the world."

Thanks Alice for her blog (shown above) - you can see more from her on Not Another Quarter-Life Crisis. You can also see more about creativity and science here on Creative Collision.

Silo Park by night


I actually can't believe I haven't blogged about this before because I'm a real ranting fanboy of Silo Park and Wynyard Quarter. Right now 'Summer of Sculpture' is on, turning the urban waterfront park into an interesting sculpture walk. In the period before this, Askew One, a renown NZ street artist that I've featured before, did a series of pieces on the decommissioned silo tanks (see above). They act as a backdrop to all of the activity and signals the increasing move towards making Silo Park as a space a creative one. The sculpture in the foreground is one of the many great pieces out there at the moment (the pose kind of reminds me of Assassins Creed).


Imagine that just a few years ago, this space was a broken down industrial waterfront. I hope that the spirit in the place is what Auckland as a whole can move toward - an accepting space open to rejuvenation and creativity.

SimCity 2013 - as realistic as the screenshots?

As some of you might know, a new rendition of SimCity is coming out on March the 5th. After a momentary hype from the exclusively released beta, people are starting to see how detailed this age old simulation game has come.

Without sounding like an old man (unsuccessfully), when I was a young boy, SimCity was pretty awesome if a bit simplistic. I remember little black rectangles ('cars') marching along streets and thinking they were ants. In SimCity 3000, cars were already moving around with more automation - car crashes, traffic jams (tut tut, Mr Mayor), you name it - and by the time SimCity 4 came out, there were mini-game missions where you had to drive to different places, a great test of how extensive your road network had become. Graphics were also much more polished.

Screenshots from this latest Simcity promise not only a much more insightful urban simulation, but graphics to be reckoned with. The producers seem to have upped their game  (excuse the pun), allowing different conditions to be shown atmospherically and in perspective (I think) - take an industrial town for example, you can't beat the smog to tell you there's air pollution.


A plethora of architectural forms beckons toward the urbanism of today - terraced housing, skyrise apartments, a range of medium rise. Strangely, towns in the screenshots seem oddly familiar, as if it wasn't a scene taken from a game, but from a real town with its own character. Urban design is really taking off these days and it's not only about the practical stuff. A sense of place is crucial to urban schemes and I'd be interested to see how a game with a limited palette of predefined items can make it seem like this is happening.

Of course, urban design in real life isn't really like SimCity. Although it is more entertainment oriented, there is a lot to be taken from this approach in our understanding of cities (see my blog about laypeople's understanding of architecture). Real urban design/planning is a lot of analysis and space creation - you have to have an in-depth understanding of people and society to create spaces for them. Games like this are completely out of context of course, no boundaries, a sandpit for creativity. So go wild!

I recently happened across a fairly old article about architectural critique (Why Don’t We Read About Architecture?), not by people like me that has studied the art of architecture, but by the layperson public.

“Buildings are everywhere,” writes Alexandra Lange, “large and small, ugly and beautiful, ambitious and dumb. We walk among them and live inside them but are largely passive dwellers in cities or towers, houses, open spaces, and shops we had no hand in creating.”

We live around and inside of architecture. Our cities are largely made up of buildings that define spaces. So why are most people so passive about it? Walking down the Auckland CBD one day with a friend, I commented on how one of the high rises near the waterfront was sleeker than the rest and elegant against the rest of the skyline. My friend said "ugh that's disgusting." To be honest, in many a situation I've heard that gut gag reflex.

Say for art criticism, you really don't really bump into art, especially the ones more open for layperson flak, unless you enter a gallery. But architecture is everywhere. You can't avoid it, yet there seems to be little appreciation for buildings, more importantly, good design and the effort that is put into it. The dreaded phrase in the architecture industry is a notified resource consent (in which everyone and their dog can comment about something they know nothing about, or give an isolated opinion against the greater good). Of course, this passivity can also act by allowing 'bad architecture' into the field - people just don't care.

What are your thoughts on the matter? I'll be inviting a few planner friends here to comment too.

A short film of Ian Ruhter's photographic process reveals a practice of inspiration. Often a camera is used as a mere tool for capturing images, but Ruhter's 'camera', which is held in a baby blue truck, exposes the lives of others (pun intended), or more accurately, their way of life.


Whether intentionally or otherwise, Ruhter's practice brutally disassembles the 'American dream' - that it is not for everyone, nor is it essential for a happy existence. Finding your own happiness is in your own hands and no one else's. The truck travels around documenting the American existence. Certainly he can't document ALL of it (most of it would be pretty banal anyway) but he sure has a knack of finding the more interesting characters around.

"The LA skyline photo is so important to me. That fence symbolises every fear, every doubt. Once we went over that fence, our trip to America began."  Using a full plate film technique, crisp details can be blown up. He can inhabit the camera - in the film you can see the world in reverse around him like being in a giant pinhole camera (some spaces are made for this purpose). Doing both portraiture and landscape/cityscape photos, it links the peculiarities of the city with those inhabiting it with their particular stories. The technique reminds me of the chemigram, the imperfections mirror the imperfections of humans.

Blogger's note: I need to stop talking about photography for a while... this blog is becoming a photo blog or something!

Artist Luke Jerram takes these microscopic forms and, magnified countless times, creates glass sculptures. Whether or not a feat of biology or evolution, the established shape is mesmerisingly beautiful but at the same moment, terrifying. Terrifying that these shapes, honed to perfection for efficiency of invasion, can enter a blood stream and cause a horrific struggle with one's own body.