Austin By Thumb
There’s a synchronicity between thumb’s-up sign as “it’s all good,” and also “I’m all good. Invite me into your car.” I hitchhiked Austin for three days. Most of it spent … Continue reading
Sing the City of the Rounded Shoulders
For Carl Sandburg and Nelson Algren. O sing this city! a land of unstoppable drive to the self-satisfied middle where it stops to spare its energy for another corporate happy … Continue reading
Austin Within and Beyond the Dome
As improbable as the metaphor might seem, Austin is a glimmering and warming snow globe. A steadily growing number of tourists behold a beautiful kingdom of sun. Austin is a … Continue reading
Making Granite Shake
The state capitol of Texas sits in the center of Austin on the top of a hill. Its sunset red granite looks pink in the sun. Statues dedicated to a … Continue reading
Black and White Austin
These photographs were taken in Austin on December 10th and 11th. I met these kids while exploring the neighborhood east of downtown. Anna Kuperberg is a photographer based in San … Continue reading
Start Fresh: Never Give Up
TEOA asked Andrew Takano, a video artist, to comment on the relationship between the morphing character of Austin’s graffiti and the city itself as reflected in a recent time-lapse video … Continue reading
Capital Improvements, 1984
TEOA is very pleased to publish Jeff Meikle’s introduction to Mark Goodman’s Capital Improvements. Written in 1984-85 on a Kaypro 2 computer and then filed away for almost thirty years, this wonderfully evocative essay … Continue reading
Capital Improvements, 2013
If you want to learn something profound about how Austin has transformed itself in the last few decades, one of the best places to look is through the eyes of … Continue reading
An Emotional Map of Austin
TEOA sat down with Austin artist Jennifer Chenoweth to talk about creatively mapping the emotional highs and lows of the city in a project called the “Hedonic Map of Austin.” How … Continue reading
The Most Beautiful City in the World
I do not want to write about leaving Austin. I don’t want to write about it because it feels like generalizing. Because, as someone noted, African Americans are the most … Continue reading
Noctornes
I came to Austin last week to work under the guidance of mentor and Magnum photographer, David Alan Harvey at a workshop and exhibition hosted at the University of Texas. … Continue reading
Familiarity in (Sub)Urban Form: The Death of Highland Mall?
Where do malls go when they die? They go to deadmalls.com, or, alternatively, Facebook. In 2009, deadmalls.com visitor “Susan” warned that Austin’s Highland Mall was one foot in the grave: … Continue reading
The End of Education
Oh, Austin. The world has been witnessing your gentrification from all angles. When we look back as recently as Richard Linklater’s early filmography, we see a more desirable city than … Continue reading
The Rise
The Austin skyline is punctuated by cranes and rebar and silhouettes of future buildings in every direction you look. I work downtown at 301 Congress Avenue, a building constructed in … Continue reading
Austin is a Graffiti Wall
The aerosol boom of the 1980s gave rise to a new wave of street artists who commandeered the popular image of graffiti as an illicit and subversive medium and breathed … Continue reading
Letter to the Sultan of Brunei
One thing is for certain in the hearts and minds of our little “weird” city, and that is coming to the defense of our sacred landscape! Granted, not everyone “gets” … Continue reading
Finding Loston
Is this the End of Austin? How presumptuous. Endings and Beginnings are always the same process. Austin has been around for a long time; only it wasn’t always called Austin. … Continue reading
The End of Austin 