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| Sunday, 12 October 2003 |
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Visual pollution or just social reality? by JAYANTHI LIYANAGE Take a drive around Colombo and you are dismayed and disillusioned by what is happening to its surroundings. The little bit of greenery there is along pavements and in the meager garden plots in front of roadside houses are vanishing before our very eyes under cemented walk ways, construction rubble and huge mounds of garbage. On Jayantha Weerasekera Mawatha, the tunnel cutting across from Dematagoda to Panchikawatte is in a pathetic state. While trains plod across the top of the tunnel propped up on top by corrugated sheets, highway vehicles taking this short cut through the tunnel have to wade in puddles of mud and dirty rain water collected in the badly furrowed road. Posters of many colours and denominations have gone on a spree over the huge pillars of the overhead highway belt in Dematagoda. In fact, they cover most of Colombo wall space. Even houses by the roadside are not spared. The sign clutter is awful. Garish advertising bill boards glare at the motorists and commuters from above and the stress created is hard to put in words. City buildings are a muddled mix of all types of architectural shapes, with the crumbling ones sandwiched between the brand new. The visual character of the city and its community conveyed can be described in one word. Chaos. Docu-drama This situation was captured in very effective rhetoric through the story of Dharshana (Philosophy) and Jeewani (life), which recently unfolded in a 67-minute docu-drama on "Visual Pollution", at the Auditorium of the Open University of Sri Lanka. Chandana Kulasuriya, Lecturer and Chartered Engineer at the university, conceptualised, scripted and directed the film by on behalf of its "Inattention" Production Team. The film described Visual Pollution, which is one of the most unnoticed environmental problems of the day, as a degradation of the composition of our visual environment. Jeewani (life) and Dharshana (philosophy) are inseparable in love and companionship. To celebrate Jeewani's birthday, Dharshana envisages taking her out to Rose Island. Even the thought of the island, full of beautiful and luscious rose blooms, brings pleasure to his mind. The couple arrive at the banks of the mainland to head for the island. They are obstructed by a security guard who barks, "No visitors. A boat repair station is in the process of being constructed there." Pushing him aside and running into the island, Dharshana is shattered. Not a trace remains of his beautiful roses. All around there is rubble. The little island gapes, denuded of its green cloak of shrubs, trees and rustling grass. Dejected, they re-trace their steps to the mainland where Dharshana turns back to take a last look. The world revolves around him and he falls on to the ground in a crumpled heap. Revived at a hospital, the doctor treating him finds that Dharshana's memory is gone. After much prodding, the silence is broken when Dharshana bursts out with two accusing words: "Visual Pollution!" You need not smile. For, though the incident reads like a hypothetical situation, the next victim of visual pollution may very well be you. Or me. Visual pollutants can be anything from unmatched buildings, structures, advertising bill boards, power lines, garbage, muddied roads and even dog poop. Obviously, one cannot create the visual environment afresh, but can only add to, or remove from it. An unpolluted visual composition creates the impact of music or a painting of colour wherefore melody, rhythm, harmony and balance become factors of prime importance in creating aesthetic habitats. Debate The film thrashed out the two sides to this argument, in the two perspectives of the classical and the modern. "Beauty of composition is linked to unity," says the classical thinker who sees beauty as structures which match in architecture and colours which harmonise. "Bah!" scoffs the modern thinker. "Unity is only imaginary. Dissolve this fib called composition and you see the true reality of decomposition in multiplicity." For the modernist, a brand new apartment house sprung up amidst scraggy, crumbling flats is but the social reality of housing for the increasing new rich. Posters which compete with each other for attention are props of consumer-based economy. "What is pollution to the classical is beauty to us, for we accept the social reality as aesthetics! So, beauty is only relative, not absolute!" Collective consciousness Visual pollution of an era cannot be changed overnight. Yet, begin from somewhere, urges Inattention. "The way to do this is to address the collective consciousness of the society. Then the need to preserve visual aesthetics of the environment will operate from society itself!" For Kulasuriya, the docu-drama was a social expression of the different input he had received from the public. "People described visual pollution as something which marred their surroundings and took the thrill of life away from them," says Kulasuriya. "Some feel that any change to the environment must conform to the surroundings, and others, that the conflicts in an environment create a beauty of its own. But when you forcibly change the visual environment, it becomes a social problem. As the visual environment is a public property, the solution is to consider the related historical, geographical, cultural, social and bio-diversity factors and do the changes by a 'social agreement' through a social discourse." Prof. Arjuna de Zoysa of the Open University narrated how, on arriving in Sri Lanka after seven years in Scotland, he found the local environment 'absolutely beautiful.' "But even the smallest town was very, very ugly. I don't know how we managed to achieve this." Commenting on how Colombo marine drive is being speedily polluted by polythene as well as massive constructions, he said, "I went for a swim but couldn't swim, not because of the rough waves of the ocean, but because the sea was full of polythene and it kept wrapping around my body. If you don't look out, nothing of the environment will be left to us." "The visual aspect of the built environment is activated in town planning and architecture. What is done in today's urban designing is not creating cities, but adding separate features of shopping malls, bus stands, arcades and landscaping to an already existing city," explained Dr. Dayananda Waduge, Chartered Architect and Planner. "What should happen is urban re-creation, increasing quality and beauty of urban public places. Standards for this are subjective and when you violate concepts of proportions, volumes, light, texture and scale, there is visual pollution." Regulations Citing outdoor advertising bill boards as one source of visual pollution, Hester Basnayake, Director - Environment and Landscaping, Urban Development Authority (UDA), said that currently no regulations are imposed in Colombo to control such advertising. "Outdoor advertising regulations are now proposed for Nuwara Eliya, which is the highest city on the highest elevation in the upper catchment area. The boards can be provided by the local authorities, according to location and type," she said. "Next, the rules will be imposed in Kandy. Such an activity cannot happen overnight. A gradual phasing out is necessary to remove hoardings when their paid period of one year expires. The regulations also apply to road traffic signs, road name boards, 3D and sculptural advertising, notices and advertising stalls." Regulations need to be incorporated into the development plan of a city. "And you cannot have haphazard putting up of notices and posters. Urban development plans have architectural control to control heights and backspaces of buildings, harmonise architectural features and avoid ugly spaces to prevent ugly urban development." But the UDA is hampered by a dearth of qualified architects, landscape architects and town planners, though plans are in the offing to commence the country's first degree course for landscape architects, and to set up an Institute of Landscape Architects. |
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