Trapped somewhere between functionality and art, the posters used to advertise gig have a short enough life span - binned after an event or merely ending up on the wall of some appreciative fan or organiser until when destroyed with blue-tac they are dumped unceremoniously when moving house. With this tragic faith in mind it's good to see a thread on Thumped archiving some of the better examples from the Irish music scene. It's well worth a look for the brilliant work done by the Skinny Wolves organisers and Scrawl zine's Glyn from Belfast.

It always struck me as rather tragic that Dublin looks culturally barren in comparison to other cities that allow postering on the street or at least turn a blind eye to it. Head into George's St Arcade and there's a riot of posters going on, but such a shifting exhibition of posters and designs is confined to rather narrow spaces. Could you imagine if public lamp posts and hoardings across the city fluttered with the culture and nightlife of the city as opposed to dry corporate advertising?

This visual vitality is the one thing that has really blown me away about Toronto, you just know it's a city that is happening. Radical urban re-imaginers Spacing carried a brilliant photo essay on just what exactly such posters add to a city both politically and culturally over on their site some years back.

Labels: Art, Music