The Curiosity Project: underground

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Urban Experiences - Explorers

Like straight out of a movie, Steven Duncan explores the underside of hidden urban spaces going into sewers, to the tops of bridges and even along subway tracks. He calls it Guerrilla History and Urban Exploration - I call it plain old crazy and brave. Duncan says he's "peeling back the layers of a city to see what's underneath." To see NYC's strangely gorgeous sewer system, the first (closed) subway station and a breathtaking view of the city from the top of the Williamsburg bridge, watch the video below. My fear of heights kicks in on the bridge part and I felt like I was watching an action movie

UNDERCITY from Andrew Wonder on Vimeo.

Duncan also sells these INCREDIBLE photos from all of his journeys which include cities all over the US as well as London, Berlin, Paris, Rome and tons of others.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Urban Experiences-Graffiti Art

If we think about the subculture in NYC, graffiti art is the most substantial thing that we we see it everyday in our lives. But when and how did graffiti start spreading over the city? The curiosity project brings you back in the old days to the 1970's–a video from Jon Naar's view about graffiti art in New York.

Stussy - Jon Naar from Stussy on Vimeo.

Jon Narr is a photographer in New York who enthusiast about graffiti photography, and he published "The Birth of Graffiti", which was his photo collection of graffiti.

It is incredible that subway trains was still full of graffiti in the 1980's. The documentary film "Dream City"(1987) depicted the graffiti culture at that time: some graffiti writers were busy creating their new pieces during midnight, and some of the artists tagged their names on every train that they wrote. Until 1989, The Clean Train Movement started and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) begun a program to eradicate graffiti on the subway trains.