Sunday, August 5, 2012

The Olympics miss: Why street art should be embraced not snubbed

By Richard Howard-Griffin, Special to CNN

August 3, 2012 -- Updated 1832 GMT (0232 HKT)

Hackney Wick is a run-down area on the fringes of the Olympic Park. Many of its old warehouse and factory buildings are now used as studio space by artists, and the area has a vibrant and colorful street art scene. This mural is a collaboration between artists Sweet Toof and Paul Insect in Stour Road.

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East London's street art

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Richard Howard-Griffin: Street artworks have become integral to regenerating east London
Howard-Griffin: The Olympics organizing committee has failed to engage with street artists
He says the cultural thinking behind the Games feels alien to people living in the local area
Olympic organizers have missed an opportunity to be more culturally relevant, he says

Editor's note: Richard Howard-Griffin is chief executive of Street Art London, an independent arts organization that seeks to document and represent the London street art scene.

(CNN) -- Hackney Wick is nestled next to the Olympic site, separated only by a waterway known as the Lee Navigation. It is a half industrial, half artistic enclave, little known to Londoners, but which has, in recent years, become rich in street art from a cast of artists who have been integral to regenerating east London and informing its cultural identity.

With the Olympics now underway, Hackney Wick can been seen as a microcosm highlighting the forces that street art faces across east London.

Usain Bolt's street art portrait

Street art meets Locog

The Olympics organizing committee, LOCOG, has been asked to deliver a long-remembered games, and multifaceted legacy for London. This is no easy task.

Unfortunately it has failed, overwhelmingly, to engage with London's street artists.

It seems the cultural thinking behind London 2012 is being carried out from within an impenetrable ivory tower, with scant access granted to decision makers.

In essence, there has been a top-down imposition of what LOCOG thinks is the relevant cultural identity of London -- and this has been presented to the world.

To many in east London, where the Olympic Park is located, this imposition feels alien. It feels akin to a form of cultural imperialism, out of synch with the true culture, including street art which may be found just a stone's throw from the Olympic Stadium.

In essence, there has been a top-down imposition of what LOCOG thinks is the relevant cultural identity of London
Richard Howard-Griffin

Missed opportunities

Politicians and officials talk about London 2012 using words like "regeneration" and "legacy." Such aims are a key reason behind London winning the Games, and the ideas are laudable.

But by not engaging with London's street artists, LOCOG has arguably missed an opportunity to be more culturally relevant and connect with artists who are a real transformative force.

Olympic park transforms London's East End

London builds to Games thriller

From a purely cultural standpoint, this is a shame. London boasts some of the finest street art in the world from fresh and exciting artists such as Stik, RUN, Ben Eine, David Walker, Pablo Delgado, Christiaan Nagel and Cityzen Kane.

London is also a global street art hub, welcoming artists from all over the world. People also come from all over to see London's street art. The diversity and vibrancy of London's street art is staggering, and celebrating this would have shown vision.

Perhaps more importantly, LOCOG's spurning of the street art scene counteracts one of east London's key regenerative forces.

Street art brings energy to the streets and infuses color onto gray and dilapidated walls. Street art has fostered community spirit and made east Londoners proud of where they live too. This is the very thing alchemists within LOCOG are trying to deliver as part of London 2012's legacy.

Public art

Many of London's street artists view themselves as servants to their local communities, and maintain close connections with them. They depend on their communities for patronage and support for wall space.

As such, London's street art can be defined as public art for the city's people. Around east London, in particular, the local populace has taken street art to its heart with many locals familiar with each of the different artists at work on the street.

Today's generation often work in daylight hours doing legal walls. They are happy to reveal their identities and also to stop and chat with people passing by in the street while they work.

LOCOG's spurning of the street art scene counteracts one of east London's key regenerative forces
Richard Howard-Griffin

It's sometimes hard for bureaucrats to understand this, so truly ingrained is the media-driven paradigm of all street artists being mischief-makers who put up numerous illegal socio-political stencils in the night.

East London's local councils are, however, actually starting to understand street art's evolving nature and its importance to east London's spirit.

Legal pieces are routinely left alone by councils now, and this has largely been the case in Hackney Wick. Pieces still get buffed by over zealous clean up crews but reports of a pre-Olympics war on street art are a little overplayed. The greatest threats to the street art in Hackney Wick are now arguably from companies like Coca-Cola painting over local artists with "cool" Olympic themed murals.

What legacy?

Street art is an important part of east London's identity and a positive force for regeneration. Street art has been dismissed and misunderstood by London bureaucracies in the past, and LOCOG's attitude is no different.

However we hope it will not always be this way. Changes in attitude and policy will of course take time and by the time the Olympics visits London again perhaps we will be ready. We are seeing encouraging green shoots every day.

CNN asked Locog to respond to the opinions expressed by Howard-Griffin. Here is their response:

The London 2012 Festival has 25,000 artists taking part in more than 12,000 events across the UK in the largest cultural celebration every seen in this country. Our program in east London has already seen 100,000 people enjoy artists such as Rhianna, Jay-Z, Jessie J and many more as part of the free BBC Radio 1 Hackney Weekend.

People are currently a visiting a car park in East London where an exhibition of BMW Art Cars, designed by artists including David Hockney, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol, is being staged.

Rio and London carnival artists collaborated for the Hackney One Carnival to welcome the Olympic Torch Relay, screenings of restored Hitchcock films at east London venues and a fantastic program of theater, dance and outdoor events at the Barbican and with the Create festival.

The London 2012 Festival is a UK wide festival, and we are very excited about the upcoming London 2012 Festival event "See No Evil 2012: Urban Festival" in Bristol. This is the UK's largest permanent street art project and the biggest urban arts festival in Europe, attracting the world's leading urban artists to converge and create a series of temporary and permanent street art installations and sculpture, including some of the world's largest scale outdoor paintings.

For the first time it will bring together two major international artists, Adrian Utley of Portishead and French artist, Joanie Lemercier of cutting 3D projection experts AntiVJ. They will create a free, one off cross art-form performance, featuring huge scale digital projections and live music in the centre of Bristol from 13 -- 19 August 2012.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Richard Howard-Griffin.

Loving life in Paris' Empire of the Dead

By Amanda Sealy and Samantha Weihl, CNN

August 2, 2012 -- Updated 1452 GMT (2252 HKT)

The remains of more than six million people are buried in a vast network of tunnels below Paris, France. People who call themselves 'cataphiles' visit the catacombs illegally and occasionally hold underground parties.

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Underground Paris's secret life

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Beneath the streets of the French capital lies a hidden, macabre Parisian playground
The catacombs are also the last resting place for six million people
Adventurous Parisians use the underground network as a place to party and relax
One said: You are free to invent yourself again, to be somebody else

Watch the full "World's Untold Story" documentary on Friday August 3 at 1630 GMT, on Saturday at 1400 and 2130 GMT and Sunday at 1030 and 2130 GMT.

Paris, France (CNN) -- Beneath the streets of the City of Light lies a world draped in darkness and shrouded in silence. The tunnels are narrow, the ceilings are low and death is on display.

The skulls and bones lining the walls, arranged in a macabre fashion, make up what is known as the Empire of the Dead -- the Catacombs of Paris.

The catacombs snake below the city, a 321-kilometer (200-mile) network of old quarries, caves and tunnels.

Some Parisians are drawn to this largely uncharted territory -- a hidden network of adventure, discovery and even relaxation. They are known as 'cataphiles' and the catacombs are their playground.

Empire of the Dead: Part 1

Empire of the Dead: Part 2

Empire of the Dead: Part 3

It is a top-secret group. Catacomb entrances are known only to those daring enough to roam the networks on their own -- and break the law.

Entering unauthorized sections of the catacombs is illegal and a police force is tasked with patrolling the tunnels, and caught cataphiles risk fines of up to 60 euros ($73).

But for explorers like Loic Antoine-Gambeaud and his friends, it is a risk they are willing to take.

"I think it's in the collective imagination. Everybody knows that there is something below Paris; that something goes on that's mysterious. But I don't think many people have even an idea of what the underground is like," Antoine-Gambeaud said.

For those who want to find out, but are not willing to take the risk of going in unsupervised, there is a legal, tourist-friendly public entrance to the catacombs off Place Denfert-Rochereau. Visitors from around the world will queue up to see death on display.

"I think people are fascinated with death," one visitor said. "They don't know what it's about and you see all these bones stacked up, and the people that have come before us, and it's fascinating. We're trying to find our past and it's crazy and gruesome and fun all at the same time."

But experiencing the history of Paris in an orderly fashion is not the cataphiles' style.

Underground, there are plaques echoing the street names above etched into the walls, helping the cataphiles navigate.

Often equipped only with head lamps and homemade maps, they explore the tunnels and ancient rooms, sometimes staying underground for days at a time.

They throw parties, drink wine, or just relax in a silence they say can't be experienced anywhere else.

The catacombs are a by-product of Paris' early development. Builders dug deep underground to extract limestone to build Paris above ground.

But the subterranean quarries that were formed proved to be a shaky foundation for the city, causing a number of streets to collapse and be swallowed up by the ground.

Eventually, repairs and reinforcements were made, and to this day, the tunnels and quarries are still monitored for safety.

The quarries went through several transformations throughout history. Over time, they have served as everything from hiding places for revolutionaries to mushroom farms.

In the 18th century the Catacombs became known as the Empire of the Dead.

Paris' dead had been buried in cemeteries and beneath churches in the city center, but the number of bodies began to overwhelm the land, breaking through the walls of people's cellars and causing major health concerns.

So, beginning in the 1780s, the bodies were transferred in carriages at night to a new, final resting place in the old quarries.

In those tunnels there are now the remains of more than six million people. And for the cataphiles, the life among the dead opens up new dreams and possibilities.

"It's like an alternate reality," Antoine-Gambeaud said. "You don't have the same sort of social interaction with people as you do above. You are free to invent yourself again, to be somebody else."

Bone people: The explorers of the Parisian catacombs

High-tech kit speeds athletes into new era

By Matthew Knight, CNN

August 4, 2012 -- Updated 1100 GMT (1900 HKT) | Filed under: Innovations

Sport's regulators face a "delicate task ... as sports technology becomes ever more powerful," according to a recent report by the UK's Institution of Mechanical Engineers. "The legal wrangling over Oscar Pistorius' move from the Paralympics to the Olympics is a sign of things to come," say the authors.

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Sprinting into an uncertain future

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Olympics showcasing technological advances in equipment
Customization of equipment the next step to improving performance, says sports scientist
Improving computer power will also help coaches analyze and hone technique
Pace of technology poses philosophical questions about how we define sport in future

(CNN) -- From hydrodynamic swimwear in the pool to lightweight carbon-fiber bicycles slicing through the air at the velodrome, the Olympic Games is once again shining a spotlight not only on the athletes, but also their kit.

The technology propelling athletes to glory in the future will be even more refined, taking bespoke equipment to another level says Mike Caine, professor of sports technology and innovation at the UK'sLoughborough University.

"The sports industry talks a lot about customization at the moment. Typically, they mean you can pick your color and put your name on the shoe," Caine said.

"What I'm talking about is the bend and stiffness of a sole plate which can be optimized to give the most power for an individual athlete," he said.

Measuring the power, geometry and biomechanics of individual feet is enabling the creation of "tuned" midsoles in athletics shoes, says Caine, which can correct gait abnormalities or soft-tissue inefficiencies.

If you compare elite male runners with elite females they are very, very different. But at the moment the footwear is ostensibly identical
Mike Caine, Loughborough University

The soles are built using an additive manufacturing (also known as 3-D printing) system invented and patented at the university. Caine is confident it can deliver new gains on the track.

"If you compare elite male runners with elite females they are very, very different. But at the moment the footwear is ostensibly identical," he said.

This type of custom-built kit will become the norm for lots of elite sportsmen, he thinks, and will eventually filter down to the high street.

The research is one of several pioneering efforts being led by Loughborough's Sports Technology Institute, which works with public and private partners to drive innovation in sport's equipment and training.

Caine and colleagues are currently pioneering new tracking devices for swimmers, which employ body-mounted gyroscopes and accelerometers in tandem with cameras and sensors around the pool to monitor body position, acceleration, speed and power.

"(The data) removes ambiguity for an experienced coach. If you can provide quantified time and speed data, you reinforce learning behaviors," he said.

It works best with the technical sports like sailing and cycling and will only get more accurate as technology presses ahead, Caine says.

"If you speak to (aerodynamic and hydrodynamics) experts they say there is a lot more that can be done because our computational power will be at a level where we can understand the nuances of small changes," he said.

Rapid advances in equipment have encouraged some sporting bodies to reign in technology's influence.

In 1996, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) published theLugano Charter which drew up narrow guidelines on bicycle design, and in 2009 the swimming world governing body FINA outlawedSpeedo's LZR Racer swimsuit (launched in 2008) after world records were routinely broken.

Sport is "heading towards a crossroads," according to the report "Sports Engineering: An Unfair Advantage?" published by the UK'sInstitution of Mechanical Engineers in July.

Regulators now face a "delicate task ... as sports technology becomes ever more powerful. The legal wrangling over Oscar Pistorius' move from the Paralympics to the Olympics is a sign of things to come," say the authors.

The South African double-amputee's appearance at London 2012 poses interesting philosophical questions, says Rayvon Fouche, associate professor of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and author of the forthcoming book "Gamechanger: Technology and Science in Sport."

Well-informed governing bodies promote incremental changes which mirror the technological advances in wider society
Mike Caine

"It really pushes us to think deeply about what sort of athletic competition we want to see. How far do we push the technology in a way that also doesn't undermine the authenticity of the sport?" Fouche said.

"There definitely needs to be a larger dialogue about what it means to live in a world where technology surrounds us at every moment."

Sport, he says, has always been played using emerging technologies with the goal being to find the largest legal advantage you can.

"In the last 30-40 years, technology is clearly the effective place to look for the substantial gains."

A wider conversation involving governing bodies, athletes, sports manufacturers and fans may help us define what sport is, Fouche says.

Caine agrees.

"Well-informed governing bodies promote incremental changes which mirror the technological advances in wider society. The key is to do it in concert with athletes and manufacturers," he said.

"What you don't want, in my view, is a disruptive technology that changes the essence of the sport and/or makes it completely unfair. What we like is human endeavour, which is the primary construct on which competitive sport is based."