22/3/2014: WLASze: Architecture v Art

It has been now some time that I have posted last my once regular WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics.

The break was partially self-imposed and partially a necessary response to constraints of time. The latter is easily understood, The former might not be. I found myself too bound by a formulaic search for 'new' items to cover. Something that game me pleasure of looking through pages and pages of arts and sciences related posts, yet drive me into less contemplation of works I covered and more into covering… not a good place to be.

So as I am re-thinking this post format, and yet want to return with its substance of bringing forward interesting notes on arts and sciences, here is a shorter version of the post. Enjoy.

Dezeen has a delightfully challenging post on director of Zaha Hadid Architects Patrik Schumacher's challenge to the political correctness in architecture and to the definition of architecture as art:  http://www.dezeen.com/2014/03/18/architecture-not-art-patrik-schumacher-venice-architecturebiennale-rant/

Schumacher is curating this years Biennale and his argument is that "Architects are in charge of the form of the built environment, not its content, " and that as such it is not "a l’art pour l’art" discipline.

Provocative? Yes. On both points. But is it true? Is form a near-utilitarian and objective aspect of aesthetic or is it also an artistic expression? Or more strongly put - is it more of an artistic expression than a utilitarian aspect?

Schumacher opines: "We need to understand how new forms can make a difference for the progress of world civilisation. I believe today this implies the intensification of communicative interaction with a heightened sense of being connected within a complex, variegated spatial order where all spaces resonate and communicate with each other via associative logics."

Sorry, but is that not the essence of constructivism as well as, stripping out subjectivity as an expression (not the driver), also Kandinsky's theory of abstraction?

And a good expression of this interaction between spatial order, resonance and communication (on so many levels that some might imply a pun) would be constructivist Moscow's Shukhov Radio Tower.

The tower is, incidentally, in the news nowadays because of international efforts, petitioning President Putin to save it from demolition:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/top-architects-petition-to-save-moscow-s-shukhov-radio-tower-1.1738235

Here is the actual letter: http://theconstructivistproject.com/a-letter-to-putin

There is way more to this tower than just 'form' or connection with a spatial order alone. Instead, there is subjectivity that transcends logic. Point and line in a multinational plane.

In contrast pure heightening of the sense of being linked to form - in a very rich and beautiful way that is non-artistic is in these two examples, both from Switzerland:

IMAGE: http://www.dezeen.com/2012/08/17/holzkristal-by-hurst-song-architekten/

and

IMAGE: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/03/19/house-in-balsthal-by-pascal-flammer/

So is architecture 'art'? To my amateureeing mind - yes. Is it l’art pour l’art? No. But framed in the context of space it transforms... may be it is. Afterall, intrinsic value does not have to conflict with extrinsic valuation...

14/12/2013: WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences & zero economics

This is WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics


Amazing work of experimental architect and artist Lebbeus Woods drawing on his work from the 1980s: http://www.dezeen.com/2012/11/08/lebbeus-woods-early-drawings/. Lebbeus traces back to the Chicago 'Bauhaus' and worked under Eero Saarinen. He later co-founded and led http://www.riea.ch/ which seeming became largely inactive back around 2009-2010, but left a marked legacy of daring innovation. Woods' site is here: http://lebbeuswoods.net/. His work is going to be profiled in November-March 2014 exhibition at the Michigan State University: http://www.archdaily.com/444068/exhibition-lebbeus-woods-architect/

Another wonderful feature from dezeen, with nice home connection: Dublin-based designers Notion have set up own brand NTN. The inaugural collection is brilliant, although short: http://www.dezeen.com/2013/12/08/first-collection-from-new-dublin-design-brand-includes-a-table-with-a-hammock-underneath/
Occasionally whimsical, often challenging, and frequently truly non-derivative in originality, this is an excellent start for what is promising to be a bright, light, creative design shop. And it is a much needed boost to Dublin design community which generally lacks brands that can stand on their own internationally, but has so much real potential. Let's hope Enterprise Ireland is paying attention!
My favourite of the lot:

The brand design base is here: http://www.designbynotion.com/
And NTN brand collection is here: www.ntn.ie



Unlike design in Dublin, which moving toward real sustainable life, life on Mars has taken a turn for the worse in recent years (rather billions of years). Nonetheless, fascinating bit of news from NASA's Curiosity rover is that "a crater found on Mars is actually an ancient lake bed that could have contained the proper conditions to have supported life on the Red Planet."

NASA scientists basically claim that they "have discovered the fossil remains of a lake inside Gale Crater. The scientists say that this lake would have existed for as long as tens of thousands of years, which is long enough for life to have evolved." And, allegedly, the lack "contained chemical and mineral conditions needed to support microbial life. The lake waters held low salinity at just the right acidity and all the chemicals needed to support living organisms." Read more on this here: http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1113023177/life-bearing-ancient-lake-discovered-mars-120913/

Let's hope Irish Water will too contain the right acidity and all the chemicals needed to support living organisms… and deliver these to us at a price that won't turn Ireland into a Martian 'Gale Crater'…

Fabian Oefner show at the whimsically inimitable MB&F M.A.D. gallery, Geneva (through May 2014) is based on pain tacking deconstruction of classic sports cars and re-assembly of their deconstructed images into a static representation of dynamic motion called 'explosion'… See the brilliant video of the work here:
http://www.designboom.com/art/fabian-oefner-explodes-views-of-classic-sports-cars-11-29-2013/
And MB&F gallery link is here:
http://www.mbandf.com/mad-gallery/explore/disintegrating-by-fabian-oefner/

His other work is here: http://www.mbandf.com/mad-gallery/explore/hatch-by-fabian-oefner/
and his personal page is here: http://fabianoefner.com/
So now you know, when that Lambo no longer fits the driveway… go 'Boom' instead of 'e-Bay'… for some serious visual impact.



Of course, the concept of destruction as artistic expression is not novel. Perhaps surgical nature of Oefner's work makes it rather more technically advanced, but the idea traces back centuries, including historical alterations and defacements of the ancients. One good example from the past is this article on "The seeds of destruction" or "Art Under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm at Tate Britain" covering the recent exhibition of the Tate:
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/seeds-destruction
I love this work by Jake and Dinos Chapman:

And here's a feature about Capmans show in Kiev earlier this year: http://www.designboom.com/art/the-sum-of-all-evil-by-jake-and-dinos-chapman/

Not a cheerful note to end, but superb art…

Enjoy!

24/11/2013: WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences & zero economics

This is WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences & zero economics. Enjoy!


Shopping malls rarely inspire - both in terms of exterior architecture and interior design… their utilitarian purpose combines with aesthetic of the masses to produce bland, dentally-inspired greyness… unless, of course, it is a shopping mall in Sweden, where extreme capitalism collides often spectacularly with extreme socialism to produce unexpected visuals. Behold this Van-Damme-Volvo-ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7FIvfx5J10) equivalent in the shopping mall architecture:
http://it.phaidon.com/agenda/architecture/articles/2013/november/14/malmos-melted-shopping-mall/
After all, energising those satiated consumers to spend their money on things other than social justice requires visual experiences that are truly spectacular...

Three sets of links relating to space next.

First, NASA's latest Cassini images of the Titan - with high resolution section showing Northern Lakes (Salt Flats): http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/imagedetails/index.cfm?imageId=4900
H/T: @raluca3000 @NASAWebbTelescp (click on image to enlarge)

Second, a beautiful set of visuals to put the relative dimension of the Earth and our solar system compared to some stars out there:
http://www.mbandf.com/parallel-world/our-sun-is-extremely-large-our-sun-is-fairly-small

The page above comes courtesy of a fantastic Mechanical.Art.Devices (M.A.D.) Gallery http://www.mbandf.com/mad-gallery/explore/ A fascinating glimpse into the world of unique engineering and design… (not strictly space image, but so elegant, it might just be stellar)...

Three: one hell of a cool story, via arstechnica, from the Antarctica, where earlier this year, scientists discovered Ernie and Bert, "two neutrinos with energies over 100 times higher than the protons that circulate in the LHC. Now, the same team has combed through its data to find an additional 26 high-energy events, and they've done a careful analysis to show that these are almost certainly originating from somewhere outside our Solar System."
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/11/south-pole-detector-spots-28-out-of-this-world-neutrinos/

And in a related story, http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/04/coolest-jobs-in-tech-literally-running-a-south-pole-data-center/ arstechnica covers the jobs at the South Pole data centre where they have to "heat the air used to cool… data centre".

Brilliantly written and fascinating!


Science Gallery at TCD is featuring this week in dezeen with a story about the latest show "Grow Your Own - Life After Nature" that runs through 19 January 2014 and is worth visiting…
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/11/20/olafur-eliasson-tears-used-to-make-human-cheese/ See @ScienceGallery

A brave show, pushing the bounds of what we consider aesthetically acceptable and blending these bounds with what we consider both art and science. And the science bit is not about the actual physical stuff, like growing cheese culture based on human body excretions-produced bacteria. Instead, it is a science of our self-awareness, the compartmentalising nature of our understanding of the acceptable. In many ways, this is about ethics reaching beyond their own domain into aesthetics. As we commonly have a problem with seeing the animal that provides us with a steak in their living condition, we have a problem seeing (let alone tasting) a slice of cheese that was grown from the bacteria harvested from our bodies.

"Selfmade is a series of ‘microbial sketches’, portraits reflecting an individual’s microbial landscape in a unique cheese. Each cheese is crafted from starter cultures sampled from the skin of a different person. Isolated microbial strains were identified and characterised using microbiological techniques and 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing. Like the human body, each cheese has a unique set of microbes that metabolically shape a unique odour."

We then frame the whole experiment into what is ethically or aesthetically acceptable to us: "Cheese odours were sampled and characterised using headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis, a technique used to identify and/or quantify volatile organic compounds present in a sample."

I will leave you at this and suggest you explore the said boundaries on your own…



Interesting show in London's St Petersburg gallery: Vladimir Baranov-Rossine: From Cubism to Surrealism:
http://www.saintpetersburggallery.com/exhibitions.html

Apparently, the first exhibition in 30 years retrospecting his works in Europe.

While on Russian art, an amazing collection of rare Allies posters highlighting the role of the Soviet army during the World War 2: http://rbth.co.uk/multimedia/pictures/2013/11/14/wwii_lend-lease_posters_campaigning_for_soviet_troops_31715.html

And travelling further in time, an unseen until recently collection of early photographs of life in Russia from the beginning of the 20th century
http://www.businessinsider.com/prokudin-gorskii-photos-of-russian-empire-2013-9#a-water-carrier-poses-for-prokudin-gorski-in-the-street-25
Here's a sample - both in colour and original print:

Readers of WLASze would know that I am not a big fan of Zaha Hadid, having written before my opinion about her over-exposed, over-worked studio. However, where credit is due, it should be given. Fantastic aesthetic and total absence of respect for balance can be a cool combination. This building confirms:

http://www.designboom.com/architecture/innovation-tower-by-zaha-hadid-at-hong-kong-polyu-11-20-2013/


And for the last bit - an absolutely fantastic Gel talk by Vi Hart on mathematical applications to music composition:
http://vimeo.com/29893058?utm_content=bufferb7b81&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

Enjoy!

21/7/2013: WLASze Part 3: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics

The third part of my regular WLASze: Weekly Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics...
Parts one and two are available here and here. Enjoy!


On science, first.

The EU calls for a radical action to cut carbon emissions on Mars… well not quite, but sometime ago, they could have with some justification, some 3.6 billion years ago: here. Alas, the Martians were not to be blamed, it appears, for that environmental disaster, as much of the CO2 concentration on the Red Planet is due to rapid and massive thinning of the atmosphere, as new data from NASA's Curiosity rover shows: here.


And on arts - more specifically, architecture.

Here's an excellent retrospective of new architectural practices from around the world by the Wallpaper: http://www.wallpaper.com/directory/architects/2013

Numbers 13-16 are a delightfully whimsical translation of a barn-set modernism.
Brilliant treatment of stairs in number 29

A physical proof that modernising garden gnomes is not an improvement on the hideous original at numbers 36-38. A great attempt at doing the obvious: merging outdoors with indoors and opening up to light and view at 92-95 and 106-109… and so on… drive through this deck!

And Metropolis mag has another, much more pret-a-porter stairway treatment - http://www.metropolismag.com/July-August-2013/Ready-to-Build/


My most favourite museum in the world, NYC's MOMA is having two exhibitions not to miss: the first one is the Rain Room installation: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1380

and Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes retrospective http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1321. The clinical painting devoid of dynamism (Le Corbusier was a lousy painter, as most architects are) contrasted by surgical ability to restructure space (Le Corbusier was a brilliant architect, intuitive and bold at the same time, dynamic and imposing, a fine balancing act of mass and space).

Both exhibitions are, ultimately, about forced interactions between external and internal , both are basically about pushing nature into our domain (yes, in that - reversed - order).


Moscow Biennale is coming up in the second half of September:
http://www.theartnewspaper.ru/posts/104/
Official site here: http://5th.moscowbiennale.ru/ru/ or in English: http://5th.moscowbiennale.ru/en/
You can see previous Moscow Biennale site here: http://4th.moscowbiennale.ru/ru/
Special Projects section is of interest while the rest of the site is still being assembled: http://5th.moscowbiennale.ru/en/program/special_projects.html


An interesting article on the issue of whether dinosaurs were cold- or warm-blooded suggesting that the latest evidence points to the latter possibility: link here.


Dinosaurs might have been warm blooded, but our news flow this week, concerning Detroit, was very much cold-blooded, with Detroit being in the news - for the wrong reasons, but possible for the right outcome as I argued here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/07/1972013-detroit-officially-files-for.html. However, as they point out in Detroit's favourite graffiti message:

For all its multiple 'fails', there's always a reminder of the Detroit's good corners. DIA is one… a superb museum…
http://www.dia.org/object-info/1b623d3b-2a68-4c93-8fea-2073126e55e0.aspx?position=50
Kiki Smith, Lot's Wife, 1997
http://www.dia.org/object-info/df738a50-a117-494f-a6dd-3ceedfd6f442.aspx?position=55
Beverly Fishman, C.E.L. 1997 MediumCollage, resin, paint
http://www.dia.org/object-info/b421345c-1220-444c-827e-f5329e997fbd.aspx?position=91
Clyfford Still 1951. Oil on Canvas - my favourite of all DIA collection:

And, H/T to @FrankSunTimes we also have Detroit's music legacy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23377160. MrsG has encyclopedic knowledge of this stuff...


Last point on the arts via ArsTechnica:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/07/algorithmically-generated-artworks-comprise-average-of-faces-from-movies/#image-3

I am not sure this qualifies as art, since the whole project is a simplified form of averaging based on dimensional measurements. There is a very clear separation between a mechanical averaging exercise and a perceptive interpretation of the average by an artist or a human observer.

To see this, look no further than the most famous 'averaging' attempt by an artist (actually two artists together - Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid) here: http://awp.diaart.org/km/painting.html. Artists' official webpage is here: http://www.komarandmelamid.org/. The duo brilliantly took their Most Wanted and Least Wanted paintings series to music: http://www.wired.com/listening_post/2008/04/a-scientific-at/


And for another dose of smiles, recall Mr Grigory Yakovlevich Perelman (You say who? I say Poincare) who in 2006 was confirmed by the Science journal to have proved the famous Poincare Conjecture that eluded mathematicians from 1904… Mr Perelman has a beautiful mind. And as such, he is rather eccentric, earning him number 1 spot in Top 10 Odd News Stories of 2011: http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/Features/Top-10-Odd-News-Stories-of-2011/5963/ (H/T to @greentak for spotting the list). One obviously wonders what his Mom response was when he came back home with the news: "Ma, I told em to shove their 1 million dollars where the sun doesn't shine, cause I can control the universe, ya know!" Needless to say, Mr Perelman has not been seen in the news ever since… Note, the Dude also declined Fields Medal (2006) which is the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in mathematics.

So little does Mr Perelman engage with the media or the public, that his life is already attracting that voyeuristic attention which can only be attracted by the unattainable (oh, human nature) - there's a German book on his life out last month:  http://www.welt.de/geschichte/article117427879/Die-wahnhafte-Welt-des-russischen-Rechen-Genies.html.

Here are some good academic links on Perelman's proof of Poincare Conjecture: http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/285g.1.08s/ You can feel your brain twist reading this and after about an hour, you too can get to the point of controlling the universe... just don't tell your Ma, please... And should you be at risk of gaining such powers, a non-technical discussion: http://theconversation.com/millennium-prize-the-poincar-conjecture-4245.

Image from the Clay Institute and a write up: http://www.claymath.org/millennium/Poincare_Conjecture/


The end of WLASze for this week… 

22/6/2013: Weekend Reading Links: Part 2 of 3

The second post (of three) of my regular weekly feature of the Weekend Reading Links On Arts, Sciences and Zero Economics (see the first post here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/06/2162013-weekend-reading-links-part-1.html):

Some interesting long-exposure photos: http://likes.com/misc/amazing-longexposure-pics-of-star-trails?v=eyJjbGlja19pZCI6IDExNzI1NDE3MDMsICJwb3N0X2lkIjogMjUxMTQ1OTZ9 These remind me of the dynamics of Hurst's spin paintings series and a circular geometry with fractal qualities of Frantisek Kupka.


Some stunning architecture next:

http://www.designboom.com/architecture/tatiana-bilbao-studio-visit-interview/
That 'gabriel orozco house', roca blanca, mexico, 2008 project evokes Casa Malaparte. my favourite house in all of the world... well, one of the most favourite ones, because it has to compete with Neutra(s) and Mies Van Der Rohe(s) and so on...

Same forceful linear projection into the landscape, same blending into the physical geometry of the landscape and same play on contrast of height and angularity:

Where science meets art: Images of Cosmographic Maps Chart Galaxies and Superclusters in Local Universe
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/06/cosmography-maps/?cid=co8792474 via @wiredscience and @adamspacemann
I love the term 'local universe'...  Awesome maps show you galaxies and cosmic clusters... and wonkishly clinical 'flow' map... of the 'local universe'

Back on Earth, 'local universes' are moving, again...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130617104614.htm
Just as G8 announced bringing closer (via trade) North America and Europe, so in geology the process of driving Europe closer to the USofA et al is on... so non-economic quote of the day is "This break-up and reformation of supercontinents has happened at least three times, over more than four billion years, on Earth. The Iberian subduction will gradually pull Iberia towards the United States over approximately 220 million years." I dare say, those visas one day will be done with and then Dublin Airport US immigration clearance desks will have to be abandoned.


http://www.urbannexusinitiative.com/ is hosting an exhibition on Liffey: A boulevard of rooms + corridors: http://www.urbannexusinitiative.com/May-2013(2689947).htm This really is worth much more than just few web pages, so let's hope the folks at Urban Nexus get their act together and produce a killer site with images, interaction etc...
As Joseph Brodsky noted:
"What do you love most of all?
Rivers and streets - the long things of life"
Liffey is a tortured river, defaced by modern and contemporary ugliness and decay in places, as well as by spots of rather banal old architecture too, yet highlighted by moments of beauty and by more recent city efforts to bring it to life. It is alive and it is stunningly beautiful as a counterpoint to and reaffirmation of what we, humans, have wrecked around it: good and bad. It is one of the three core natural attractors that create a physically visual pull of Dublin (the other two being Wicklow mountains and the Dublin Bay, the latter being equally defaced by our inability to stop abusing the commons of nature).


The third post of links for this weekend (I warned you I have many this time around) is coming up, so stay tuned.