NOW AT HLP: Public Phenomena [Poster-Booklet]

By Temporary Services
February 2013

This poster-booklet is the result of over fifteen years of photographic documentation and research on the variety of modifications and inventions that people make in public. From roadside memorials to piles of unused bicycles, people consistently alter shared common spaces to suit their needs, or let both man-made and natural aberrations run wild. The result is a new kind of public space that lies just outside of ideological articulations – with creative, inspiring, and sometimes confounding moments that push past the original planned design of cities.

Public Phenomena continues to demonstrate to us that people will always find ways to resist plans others make and try to impose on them, whether through direct defiance or quiet misuse. This inspires us to learn from city spaces and the people that use them rather than seeking to impose aesthetics on these spaces.

This publication is related to 3 others that we have made: Public Phenomena [Booklet]; Public Phenomena [Book] - PRINT and PDF; and Mobile Phenomena.

Marc and Brett are in London this week. They start installing work for this show. It opens on Friday. Come by if you are in town.

Temporary Services - Public Phenomena. One and a half inches of snow in Chicago means it’s time to start saving those parking spaces! Here is one entry, with audio, spotted earlier this afternoon. Documentation of other material like this can be found in our Public Phenomena books from 2008 and 2005.

We just received a shipment of a new poster-booklet that will accompany an exhibition in London next month. We will post more images and a PDF soon.

Our November Newsletter is available.

[Image — Public Phenomena: Pile of bikes, Copenhagen, 2011]

Ghost House in the Nørrebro neighborhood of Copenhagen. Similar to images from the book Public Phenomena of Ghost Houses from Chicago, Portland, Barcelona and Halifax.

A PDF of our book Public Phenomena is now available from Half Letter Press.

Temporary Services - Public Phenomena. A detail of a very large memorial in Chicago, on Western Avenue at Adams Street. Documentation of other material like this can be found in our Public Phenomena books from 2008 and 2005.

Temporary Services - Public Phenomena. A detail of a very large memorial in Chicago, on Western Avenue at Adams Street. Documentation of other material like this can be found in our Public Phenomena books from 2008 and 2005.

Temporary Services - Public Phenomena. A detail of a very large memorial in Chicago, on Western Avenue at Adams Street. Documentation of other material like this can be found in our Public Phenomena books from 2008 and 2005.

Temporary Services - Public Phenomena: a detail of the front door from this unusual rehab project on a side street in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. Documentation of other material like this can be found in our Public Phenomena books from 2008 and 2005.

Temporary Services - Public Phenomena: It’s not entirely clear what is going on with this rehab project - the front door situation in particular - but it has an intense presence on a side street in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. Documentation of other material like this can be found in our Public Phenomena books from 2008 and 2005.

Temporary Services - Public Phenomena: Even though snow has been very light in Chicago so far this Winter, that hasn’t prevented people from claiming parking spaces. Here is a combination of a broken child’s chair and a child sized mini pallet. Documentation of other urban interventions can be found in our Public Phenomena books from 2008 and 2005.