Muse: Hooray for Wellywood (Really!)
187 Responses
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Or getting to the point where you start screaming “do SOMETHING, ANYTHING” – which is rapidly where I’m getting with the Saint James up here. It’s not exactly the foundation of good decision making, but I have to wonder if we’ve learned anything from the near-death experience of the Civic. Stalling with another round of reports stating the bleeding obvious one more time isn't going to make a massive job any easier, cheaper or politically risky.
(I do hope someone is going to be outraged that I’ve been rude about Auckland. You Wellywooders can just hold your tongues. ;)
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BenWilson, in reply to
with scrubby stuff just hanging on the last thing it needs is the tattered remains of a giant sign
That actually sounds even better, if the sign became like a modern ruin. There was one like it, but much bigger and more visible, in Ponsonby not so long ago. The "HYDRA" sign could be seen from the North Shore. Practically the last sign that Ponsonby had once been a working class neighborhood, when I lived there, and my Pacific Islander neighbors would hack up meat beneath it before retiring to the Gluepot (also gone) for beers, music and fights. Now it's a bank, and the Gluepot is fashion shops. But they kept the Post Office, because it looks all euro and Oldie Worldie, and repaired it at considerable cost, so that it can serve Belgian beer. A stone's throw from there I was whelped in a run down piece of shit cottage with shocking rising damp. My Dad used his kiwi ingenuity to transform it by building an attic room in which his two boys escaped the asthma heaven below. It's the only one in the street, now such things are frowned upon by the millionaire neighbors, who like to preserve the charm of the ramshackle Victorian huts.
The new owners did do one thing right though, they took down the poplar tree in the back yard. Dad foolishly took a cutting from it and planted it symbolically out the back of their Herne Bay place. Now it's about 200 feet high, causes considerable damage to the property with its roots, casts an acre sized shadow, drops a metric fucktonne of leaves every year, and he can't do a damned thing about it because it has been marked as an important tree for the neighborhood by a bunch of people who don't happen to live under it.
Is anyone picking up that I'm not a big fan of communally driven fashion sense? To me, it's school uniforms all over again.
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Now, perfectly serious questions for you public policy nerds and legal beagles out there.
One thing that doesn't sit well with me, on principle, is that the resource consent for this was non-notifiable.
Question with two follow ups -
1) How difficult would it be to change the law so every resource consent application has to be notifiable?
2) Is there any party out there whose policy supports such a change?
3) Are there any good arguments against? -
giovanni tiso, in reply to
Whilst at the same time unavoidable since the decline of sea travel.
Not really. The airport is perfectly entitled to brand itself - when they say they're wild at heart a) nobody cares and b) it doesn't reflect on the rest of the city.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Being a petty bourgeois twit, I was bemused (and horrified) that Starbucks opened their first New Zealand offence against good taste on Lambton Quay -- almost literally a stone's throw from a dozen or more superlative cafes. I'm not so sure that reflects badly on anyone or anything other than Restaurant Brands and their customers.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Being a petty bourgeois twit, I was bemused (and horrified) that Starbucks opened their first New Zealand offence against good taste on Lambton Quay -- almost literally a stone's throw from a dozen or more superlative cafes.
One of your usual acrobatic equivalences, I assume? You'll note that Starbucks only installed itself, it didn't place a huge sign on the hill behind Parliament that says STARBUCKSWOOD.
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I’m really sorry if this sounds condescending, and it’s not mean to be, but doesn’t it all boil down to I don’t like it?
Oh yeah, absolutely. Which is why I’m not arguing that the airport doesn’t have the right to do this. All we can do is tell the airport we don’t like it, as loudly and as insistently as we can. I imagine most civic disputes like this spring from nimbyism. What make this different, as Conal pointed out, is the scale of this thing, which in my view is greater than any of the examples you mention. Not as a sign (I’d be fine with it somewhere less visible), but as an artwork. We’re all neighbours to this, and our neighbour is being an asshole.
I’m very sorry if you got the impression I’m trying to crush anyone’s dissent.
At worse, it’s verging on the downright creepy and offensive.
I agree with you, Craig, I think you’re right about the nature of some of the dissent, particularly where it threatens property rights or anyone’s physical wellbeing. But to borrow a phrase from a local wit: “The small learn to shout the loudest because they have to.” This arrogant and outsized artwork has drawn an outsized response. The airport has reaped what they have sown.
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Another reason I don’t like it is that there’s something really obnoxious about enormous letters. They frustrate abstraction. With, for example, a giant weta sculpture, people can give it any name they like: the insect, the bug, PJ’s puppy, Monty etc., and those names can connote whatever the utterer feels about the artwork. But Wellywood is always going to read Wellywood: it’s so overt. People won’t believe you when you tell them it’s pronounced “Steve is a muppet (the d is silent).”
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BenWilson, in reply to
It's unavoidable that anything the airport puts up will "brand the city" because the airport is how the majority of visitors arrive. Of course they could put something else, or nothing up. But I don't buy that it's an outrage that they have this ability. It's in the nature of an airport.
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BenWilson, in reply to
One of your usual acrobatic equivalences, I assume? You'll note that Starbucks only installed itself, it didn't place a huge sign on the hill behind Parliament that says STARBUCKSWOOD.
It does have a lot of big signs everywhere though. Considerably more square footage than Wellywood will ever have. They're all about town. Even worse, they commit the cardinal sin of actually having shops taking up valuable real-estate that could be used to serve genuine NZ coffee. Is this the kind of coffee we want to brand our city with?
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
One of your usual acrobatic equivalences, I assume?
You know, Gio -- I'll stop agreeing with you or making jokes at my own expense, m'kay? Shitty coffee-like beverages are one of those things I get cranky (and more than a little boring) about. Most people, I suspect, don't give a rodent's rectum either way.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
It's unavoidable that anything the airport puts up will "brand the city" because the airport is how the majority of visitors arrive.
Mmhhh... no. People aren't dumb and generally they can tell an airport apart from the city it's in. But the Wellywood sign doesn't make a statement about the airport, it makes a statement about the city. (And on top of that, the visitors that it's aimed that are unlikely to even know that it's on airport land.)
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Is this the kind of coffee we want to brand our city with?
If the two of you are so adamant there's some sort of analogy here, start a campaign. I'll be interested to see how many people agree with you.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
If the two of you are so adamant there’s some sort of analogy here, start a campaign. I’ll be interested to see how many people agree with you.
And another desk goes to furniture heaven...
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Sacha, in reply to
communally driven fashion sense? To me, it's school uniforms all over again.
Uniforms are imposed, not chosen collectively. Those who have to wear the things seldom get any say - so perhaps not the example you were looking for.
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Sacha, in reply to
Is this the kind of coffee we want to brand our city with?
Is it called "WelliCoffee"? Tagline "absolutely positively beany"?
Didn't think so. -
giovanni tiso, in reply to
And another desk goes to furniture heaven...
Seriously: if you can't see how Starbucks opening its shops in town and the airport putting up a huge sign that names the whole city aren't the same thing, I can't help you or your furniture. I'd add to the bung analogy that you can exercise more of a right of dissent with Starbucks by refusing to patronise it, as most people seem to be doing. Whereas the airport has a monopoly on civil aviation.
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(And if you still wanted to pursue it, hell, I'm not even against it. And it's been done before. When McDonald's opened in the cathedral square in Milan, it was allowed to but couldn't use its ordinary signage, on account of the fact that it was too loud and brand-y. I assume this has happened elsewhere as well.)
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BenWilson, in reply to
But the Wellywood sign doesn't make a statement about the airport, it makes a statement about the city.
Does it? I thought it was talking about Peter Jackson's studio suburb, rather like the Hollywood sign doesn't represent the entire city of Los Angeles.
People aren't dumb and generally they can tell an airport apart from the city it's in
So what's the problem then? People will see it doesn't represent Wellington. Or are you using the word "brand" in a different sense, like the marks they put on cattle?
If the two of you are so adamant there's some sort of analogy here, start a campaign. I'll be interested to see how many people agree with you.
No, I'm happy to just make my point to anyone who can see the analogy, which is quite a straightforward one. You're bitter on a prominent brand shown prominently. Why is Starbucks different? Or if it's about the "Welly" bit, what's the difference with it an all the signage for "Kiwiburgers"? They "brand" the entire country, in the sense you seem to be using the term. So what? It's advertising and it's tacky, and no-one is fooled even if you put an egg in it.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Does it? I thought it was talking about Peter Jackson's studio suburb, rather like the Hollywood sign doesn't represent the entire city of Los Angeles.
Wellywood refers to Wellington, not to Miramar. Not unlike Bollywood.
Otherwise it'd be called Mirawood, no? Or Hollymar or some such.
So what's the problem then? People will see it doesn't represent Wellington.
How will people see that? People I think will naturally assume that it's how Wellingtonians have decided to market their city.
You're bitter on a prominent brand shown prominently. Why is Starbucks different? Or if it's about the "Welly" bit, what's the difference with it an all the signage for "Kiwiburgers"? They "brand" the entire country, in the sense you seem to be using the term. So what? It's advertising and it's tacky, and no-one is fooled even if you put an egg in it.
Wellywood is not marketing a product - it's marketing the city. The city doesn't belong to the airport. This stuff doesn't seem to be particulaly difficult to grasp - is it just me?
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Sacha, in reply to
Wellywood is not marketing a product - it's marketing the city. The city doesn't belong to the airport. This stuff doesn't seem to be particulaly difficult to grasp - is it just me?
Seems clear to me, for one.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Wellywood refers to Wellington, not to Miramar. Not unlike Bollywood.
You might be right. Do you have anything to prove that is the intention of the sign? Isn't it actually quite close to Miramar?*
Otherwise it'd be called Mirawood, no? Or Hollymar or some such.
It's not my joke. But "Hollywood in Wellington" is the very first thing that jumped to my mind not "Wellington is Hollywood".
How will people see that? People I think will naturally assume that it's how Wellingtonians have decided to market their city.
By the same process as when you said:
People aren't dumb and generally they can tell an airport apart from the city it's in.
Edit: OK, so I checked. So far as I can tell, the sign will actually be in Miramar.*
Edit: I checked again, and now confess I don't actually know where it will be.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
By the same process as when you said:
People aren't dumb and generally they can tell an airport apart from the city it's in.
Nobody has a problem with the Wild at Heart campaign because it clearly refers to the airport. The Wellywood sign doesn't refer to the airport at all - it doesn't even attempt to. So I think people are going to be confused. And they are going to assume that it's an initiative that was properly cleared by a representative body - on the basis that who else would bother to promote the city but the city itself? I think that's why people mind it. Not just because it's cringeworthy and dumb, but primarily because it claims to represent us but was foisted upon us.
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Tim Hannah, in reply to
How will people see that? People I think will naturally assume that it’s how Wellingtonians have decided to market their city.
By the same process as when you said:
People aren’t dumb and generally they can tell an airport apart from the city it’s in.
The hillside it's planned to be on isn't within any visible airport boundary, it's separated from the airport by a decent sized (by our standards) road and no one looking at it is going to be able to tell it's an airport sign.
People can tell the airport terminal from the city, they can tell the runways from the city, they may not be able to tell the bit of airport owned but unlabelled land in the middle distance from the city.
I suspect if I was a visitor, I'd assume it was a Wellington city sign. I'd rather visitors didn't think that.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Being a petty bourgeois twit, I was bemused (and horrified) that Starbucks opened their first New Zealand offence against good taste on Lambton Quay -- almost literally a stone's throw from a dozen or more superlative cafes. I'm not so sure that reflects badly on anyone or anything other than Restaurant Brands and their customers.
That shop is now a Mojo outlet (thank heavens).
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Edit: I checked again, and now confess I don't actually know where it will be.
It will be in Miramar.
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