a new book from temporary services
Tonight I made some time to get lost in the new book from Temporary Services, Public Phenomena. It is, on balance, an impressive document, and an enjoyable book experience.
With this book I have my usual gripes about Temporary Services work, though. Chief among them this time around, the 'straight' style of image presentation and the direct voice in the text. For example, in the collection of photos documenting improvised methods of saving parking spaces on snowy Chicago side streets, the pics are almost all straight on. There, centered and filling the picture field, is an old chair or a couple of beams balanced on a box. Odd objects caught in the technically illegal act of saving a private space on a public street. But you'd never know about how the functional imperatives actually shape these creations because the method of photography gives no context. I want to see what else is on that street, how this pirated space relates to the parking spaces around it, how it stands in relation to the other side of the street, what kinds of junk might be found in the parallel alleyway, etc. A few distance shots would have been helpful for the reader to understand and imagine what drives these acts. In the text TS makes a joke about these temporary, soft-aesthetic barricades coming across as Arte Povera sculptures, but their photography makes it true. I know TS prefers ostensibly direct approaches in the name of accessibility, but sometimes a simplicity of documentary style renders acts grounded in concrete socio-spatial circumstances more abstract than they are, which reduces accessibility.
But don't read this commentary as a statement of disappointment! I depend on TS–my trusted colleagues and occasional collaborators–to produce work we can argue over. They deliver every time. I recommend this book. It is worth it alone for the digestable and smartly annotated list of book and web resources included at the end. As generous as ever, they turn me on to lots of things I never knew existed.
