Monday, January 23. 2012Postcards from the edge----- de Andreas Angelidakis
Browsing through the Graham Foundations' press section yet again, I found this really nice set of photos from Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown
of course it is the studio which led
to the book Learning from Las Vegas,
which we all know
I had not seen the entire set of photos, so I decided to study them a bit more.
(of course this famous image is not from Vegas but from New Jersey) somehow I always understood this book to be talking about a contemporary moment in architecture, instead of Las Vegas in the 60's
Thats because I always confuse car dashboards with computer screens
surfing through a landscape of logos
surrounded by lit surfaces and animated information
finding corners of peculiarity hidden behind software facades
google-earthing places I have been to only to notice patterns anew
where reality becomes as abstract as desktop background
confusing real people for avatars and vice versa
chatting behing facades of un-updated websites,
looking back at the landscape of the screen
from the desert of the real
Wednesday, January 04. 2012Year 2000 in 2012, viewed from year 1910...
The future (years 2000) as seen by french illustrator Villemard in 1910:
Fits well with the previous post (sort of... digital fabrication with the architect-coder in command from its --remote-- location ... or "just" a regular construction with mechanical machines?) You can see more images of Villemard here (obviously a lot of "flying stuff"^, but also some "video-telegraph", some "audio newspaper", "mail send via loudspeaker", etc.) PS. Thank you Diana Malkosh for the tip.
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Architecture, Culture & society
at
10:01
Defined tags for this entry: architecture, culture & society, fiction, future, illustration, science & technology, speculation
Friday, November 18. 2011A comprehensive guide to navigating parallel dimensionsVia @chrstphggnrd -----
A curious project and fake old book about the future that Christophe Guignard pointed out to me. Designed as an exhibition project by designer/photographer Cameron Baxter.
Related Links:
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Design
at
17:02
Defined tags for this entry: books, design, design (graphic), designers, fiction, photography, print, speculation
Monday, June 06. 2011About The City and the City by China MiévilleVia Pasta & Vinegar ----- By Nicolas Nova
One of the best novel I’ve read recently was The City and the City by China Miéville. Quick notes I’ve taken while reading it: What struck me (as well as lots of other readers of course) as fascinating in this book was the role played by the cityscape in the whole narrative. The action takes place in the distinct cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma. However, both of them actually occupy the same physical space. It’s the city and the city. Because the citizens chose this separation, Besźel and Ul Quoma are perceived by people as two different cities… which means that inhabitants are taught to “unsee” or “unhear” the persons from the other city:
Unseeing, as described above, is supposed to be unconscious. This ability is important because it doesn’t mean that people would’nt notice anything (e.g. if you drive in Beszel, you have to be aware of Ul Qoma car presence but you must not see them). This of course means that this ability is taught very early to children and that each cities has its own peculiar design/color/shape/architecture. This “unseeing” process is so deeply grounded in the cities denizens that it almost act as a physical barrier. The act of ignoring this separation, even by accident, is called “breaching”. Illegal passage between the two cities or discussing with an Ul qoman citizen while being in Beszel can be qualified as “breach” (” Someone said graffiti were appearing on walls in Ul Qoma in styles that suggested Besźel artists.“). But this is hard to do, as shown by this excerpt:
Besides, the fact that the twin cities exist in the same physical space leads to highly curious topological problems… such as the intriguing typology of places:
And this is just part of the remarkable vocabulary that the author employed to create this odd geography. See also “fractured city boards”, “Schrödinger’s pedestrian”, “maybe-grosstopic proximity”, not to mention Orciny (I don’t want to spoil anything about this).
Why do I blog this? I am currently preparing a workshop (planned to be conducted in Zürich at the end of the week) and I wonder whether I could use this spatial typology in the design brief (to engage students in designing locative media based on this universe). Despite the importance of spatiality in this novel, it’s curious to see that the various covers do not try to pick on that. I would have been intrigued to see how the cities could have been represented visually.
Thursday, April 21. 2011Das Grosse Interieur
Very nice edited picture by Philippe Rahm architectes on Rahm's Facebook account. It's about a publication in Hochparterre, a swiss magazine. I haven't read the article yet... but the picture describes a sort of climatically variable, imaginary "landscaped" architecture according to what I speculate. Architecture as variable landscape. I like it a lot. To understand why the different "functions" are at different level and why you would need to use ladders to get there, you should check this project.
Related Links:
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Architecture, Territory
at
16:18
Defined tags for this entry: architecture, artificial reality, fiction, function, landscape, territory, variable
Friday, April 01. 2011Concrete IslandsVia Analix Forever via Domus web ----- Related Links:
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Architecture, Territory
at
08:49
Defined tags for this entry: architects, architecture, artists, exhibitions, fiction, narrative, speculation, territory
Tuesday, February 15. 2011Translated ByAt the Architectural Association, 11 writers and 11 literary places are the subject of an immaterial translation – via the voice The walls of latest exhibition at London's Architectural Association gallery are painted a muted grey. There are 11 large-ish white numbers placed carefully around the room and small postcards next to the numbers. There seem to be various kinds of chairs or seats everywhere. But, as someone hands over the props of the standard exhibition audio tour, a heavy-duty pair of headphones and what looks like an audio guide, it becomes clear that the exhibition doesn't take place in this room. It is not a visual experience at all. (...) More about it HERE.
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Posted by Patrick Keller
in Architecture, Territory
at
09:55
Defined tags for this entry: architecture, exhibitions, fiction, narrative, schools, sound, territory
Monday, February 14. 2011They have "landed" on Mars----- 14 February 2011
Walking on 'Mars' Three crewmembers of the virtual flight to Mars have 'landed' on their destination planet and two of them today took their first steps on the simulated martian terrain. The highlight of the Mars500 mission lasted for one hour and 12 minutes, starting at 13:00 Moscow time. Three of the crew, Russian Alexandr Smoleevskiy, Italian Diego Urbina and Chinese Wang Yue, entered the lander on 8 February and they ‘landed’ on Mars four days later. After this first sortie, they will venture twice more onto the surface simulator wearing Russian Orlan spacesuits. “Today, looking at this red landscape, I can feel how inspiring it will be to look through the eyes of the first human to step foot on Mars. “I salute all the explorers of tomorrow and wish them godspeed.” The next sortie, by Alexandr and Yue, will be on 18 February, followed by the last, again by Alexandr and Diego, on 22 February.
Gusev crater Gusev, an old lakebed filled with sediments, is one of the most interesting targets for investigation by robotic explorers and humans. NASA’s Spirit rover landed there in 2004 and has shown the crater holds many clues to the planet’s wet history.
Soyuz-like living for 16 days The lander will return to orbit on 23 February and dock with the mothership the following day. The hatch between the modules will be opened on 27 February for them to rejoin Romain Charles, Alexey Sitev and Sukhrob Kamolov, who have continued to ‘orbit’ Mars. Already a successful mission “The science community is very pleased with the quality of the material but, as this is a long experiment, we have to wait for the results until their ‘arrival’ at Earth. “At this point, everything looks very good.” The most difficult but the most interesting part of this psychological study of long flights is still ahead: the crew is now faced with another monotonous ‘interplanetary cruise’ without a highlight like the Mars landing to look forward to. They will start their eight month journey back home on 1 March, after loading the lander with rubbish and discarding it, as will likely happen during the first real Mars flight.
Related Links:Personal comment: “I salute all the explorers of tomorrow and wish them godspeed.”
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Science & technology, Territory
at
15:07
Defined tags for this entry: artificial reality, conditioning, fiction, research, science & technology, space, territory
Tuesday, November 16. 2010Architecture Fiction: Badly Printed Printable Housinghttp://zeitguised.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/concrete-misplots/ “Featured in Swiss architectural magazine Hochparterre’s “Raumtraum” section, these visualizations of future architectures search for the accidental in computer driven manufacturing processes. “Based on iconic housing shapes, these buildings were intended as prototypes for mass-customization. Yet, as things go with computerized manufacturing, there have been misplots. The cartridge was not loaded properly. The concrete was set to the wrong parameters or scale. The printer module falsely translated a data set… “These misprints are the rejects of this early process, and they are now being used as shared homes by elderly people from the former squatter scene….” Related Links:
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Architecture
at
13:30
Defined tags for this entry: architecture, artificial reality, digital fabrication, fiction, housing
Tuesday, October 26. 2010Christian Marclay: The Clock
As engaging as it is an excellent concept, The Clock is the latest video installation by Christian Marclay now on at the White Cube Mason’s Yard. A chronological collage that pieces film footage into a twenty-four hour clock, using the illusionary devices that carry you through the duration of a cinematic narrative – characters checking watches, dramatic shots of a clock on the mantle piece, etc – by localising the time zone of a fictional event, it’s as if fantasy is replaced with real time. Related Links:
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fabric | rblgThis blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research. We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings. Most articles concern the intertwined fields of architecture, territory, art, interaction design, thinking and science. From time to time, we also publish documentation about our own work and research, immersed among these related resources and inspirations. This website is used by fabric | ch as archive, references and resources. It is shared with all those interested in the same topics as we are, in the hope that they will also find valuable references and content in it.
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