|
Another season, another exhibition worth taking the train to Florence for at Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina. Marnix de Nijs' latest installation, Exploded Views - Remapping Firenze, spectacularly recreates a visual and dynamic body experience of the city. Minus the added visual layer of the hordes of tourists who walk through its cobbled streets every day. See for yourself: Two industrial treadmills in front of a huge screen display renderings of a deserted Florence. The 3D images are put into motion by the physical effort made by the viewer(s)/runner(s)/performer(s). The speed of his or her movements directly guides the intensity of the aesthetic experience. Sensors placed in the handle bar detect movements, and allow the viewer to determine which direction should be followed and what will be the intensity of the images traversed.
That might sound a bit like de Nijs' famous installation Run, Motherfucker Run. There are some similarities of course. There's the irresistible element of risk. Don't be fooled by the cushion which gently inflates behind you as you run.... Runners don't have much more control on the probability of their fall as they have on its location (i did witness some "lateral falls" but they were totally benign.) I actually wonder what would happen with this installation in "risk-management" crazy Britain. But that's another story. Just like in RMR, the runners meets with the emptiness of the city, with an almost total absence of any human imprint on the spaces. In Remapping Firenze however, the human presence is crawling back into the city through a store of sounds registered in the city by audio designer Boris Debackere.
The runner can only hear the field recordings when navigating slowly through the geometry of the streets and buildings. When they accelerate, contact with human voices and noises is lost. Which touches upon one of the most impressive characteristics of Remapping Firenze: running and slowing down/stopping on the treadmill provides the public with a totally different perspective.While you adopt a gentle walking pace, the city looks real and recognizable in all its touristic cliches and beauty but once you run, you enter a new dimension, the one of modernization and globalization which Florence, just like any other city, has to live up to, no matter how fascinating the history lurking behind its thick walls can be. RMR shows a modern city. It was in fact Rotterdam but unless you intimately know Rotterdam there was no hint of the actual location. It could have been anywhere. As its name attests, Remapping Firenze is deeply grounded in its location.
The images on the screen are part film, part computer graphics re-creation. They were created using a brand new scanning software, developed both at the Technische Universität Darmstadt and at the University of Washington. The system generates a kind of extremely detailed 3D. Its functioning is very different from the usual procedure to generate 3D images. This one works with image recognition. When a peculiar spots in the picture is recognized in different pictures, it become the reference point of the 3d meshes.
Exploded Views - Remapping Florence was made especially for the CCCS. It's the first of a series of works by leading international artists who have been invited to Florence to create site-specific works that reflect the diverse realities of this city'. Catch it while you can. The exhibitionis open until June 30 at Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina in Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. |
|
The Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo in Sevilla is currently running an exhibition dedicated to Ant Farm, a group of experimental architects and critical artists active mostly in the '70s. The exhibition includes videos, models, original drawings, inflatables and all the quiet you can expect in a cultural center located inside a stunning monastry on the bank of the Guadalquivir River, the Monasterio de la Cartuja de Santa María de Las Cuevas.
Founded in San Francisco in 1969 Ant Farm could be regarded today as a very effective mix between Archigram, the Rolling Stones and The Yes Men. Ant Farm embraced the latest technologies at the same time as they hit American culture on the head with their social and political comments and their highly critical (up to being in some cases destructive) approach to mass media. Their projects do not stop at the work of art itself, they also encompass the mass media rendering of that work of art. All i knew about them was their rusty Cadillac Ranch installation which i do not like very much but the rest of their practice impressed me beyond words. I can't think of any artistic group playing a similarly brilliant, innovative and multidisciplinary work today. Here's a shortcut to their works:
Ant Farm deployed their conceptual world through videos, manifestos, spectacular performances and installations until 1978, when they disbanded following a studio fire. Most of the slide and video documentation was saved, but very little else survived.
Ant Farm started their career as evangelists of inflatable structures. Cheap and easy to assemble, they challenged the American consumerism culture and fitted perfectly a nomadic, communal lifestyle, in total contrast with the Brutalist architecture prevalent in the United States during the 1960s.
In 1971, they took the road abroad their Media Van, a customised Chevrolet van turned into a mobile studio to share information and images with the public while they toured the country to give talks and organize public happenings. The van not only transported the material necessary to build their ICE 9 inflatables but its motor was also used to generate the energy indispensable to blow up the structure.
In 1972 the group built in Texas the House of the Century, a ferro-cement weekend residence with organic shapes that remind the inflatable structure that Ant Farm had realized a few years earlier, in particular their ICE 9 prototype.
Video showing what the House was like before its decay: The Dolphin Embassy was a never realized sea station in Australia which engaged with interspecies communication using the new video technologies. The structure would sail with the help of a solar mechanism.
In 1974, Ant Farm created their most famous pieces in Amarillo, Texas, Cadillac Ranch. They half-buried a row of used and junk Cadillac automobiles dating from 1949 to 1963, nose-first in the ground, at an angle corresponding to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza. To add to the outrage done to the iconic vehicle, the public is very welcome to graffiti the cars.
The installation was originally located in a wheat field, but was later moved 3 kilometers to the west, to a cow pasture in order to place it further from the limits of the growing city.
A year later Ant Farm staged the performance Media Burn. Dressed as astronauts, they drove at full speed a 1959 Cadillac into a wall of burning television sets. Media Burn critiqued American ideals of heroics and technological superiority, and offered an affront to the television media who were the only one invited to attend the event. Their video of the performance is styled after news coverage of a space launch, including melodramatic pre-stunt interviews with the artists and a speech by "JFK" (impersonated by Doug Hall).
Short video and a 26 minute one. Media Burn was not their first attack of the media, in 1972 they collaborated with the video collective Raindance to launch the guerrilla Top Value Television (TVTV) to provide alternative coverage of the political conventions of that year.
Let's close the post with The Eternal Frame, a 1975 reenactment of the John F. Kennedy assassination. Part of it plays on America's obsession with the media, but the video demonstrates also that the sacred images of the assassination cannot be mocked. The work can be read as a commentary on the pervasive media culture in America, as it explores how the Kennedy assassination itself became a new type of media event. Video: More images. The exhibition of Ant Farm's work is on view at the CAAC in Sevilla, Spain, until June 8, 2008. Actar has just released Ant Farm - Living Archive 7. Felicity D. Scott has collected archival material to illustrate the early trajectory of the collective, including its architecture, inflatables, performance, multimedia, and video work. |
|
Jessica Findley lives in Brooklyn where she works as a "freelance designer, illustrator and animator." That brief description hardly encompasses all Jessica's many activities and talents: she makes animated movies, crafts reversable dolls, she draws, she is also a web designer but what brought my attention to her work are the performances and interactive installations she developed and shows around the world., crafts reversable dolls, she draws, she is also a web designer but what brought my attention to her work are the performances and interactive installations she developed and shows around the world. Oh! And just for the info, Jessica received her BA at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA with her studies focusing on Film, Video and Animation. She then completed her MA in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. On your website there is a section called "Work" and another is "art". what's your art for if it is not work? is it just a question of what pays the rent? Are you happy with that equilibrium or would you rather focus only on the art? This is always a difficult challenge. In a dream world it would be great to focus on the art all the time, but a girl needs to eat. It is also nice not to have to think of the monetary value of my art when I make it. I would love to have less work and do more art. Or at least more interesting work and do more art. I have been very happy doing illustrations and work for museums and educational programs. It would be great to take a break to just focus on the art for a while, then go work, then do art. For now both art and work seem to need to be constantly in process. Can you explain us the project "millefiore effect"? And in particular the Front inflatable garments? How do they work?
The Millefiore Effect was the name that Margot Jacobs, Ralph Borland and myself gave our team when we made "Front". Millefiori means 1000 flowers in italian, it is also a technique used in crafting many colors of glass or clay together to create patterns. We liked this symbolism for the collective efforts of our group. Margot came from an industrial design education, Ralph from sculpture, and I from film video and animation and had experience sewing my own clothes. The project "Front" consists of 2 symbiotic, voice-activated, inflatable conflict suits. Front is a sort of an endless game of vocal battle between two people who wear suits equipped with fans which inflate when they yell. Each suit has two types of inflation sacks - aggressive and defensive - which inflate depending on who is making sound. The suits are to be worn by the public.
How do people behave when they wear it? Does it trigger any particular/unexpected behaviour? It's interesting, some people are quite shy and then others get really into it and get really silly or serious about it. It can have a explosive emotional release or instill stage fright. We have had people sing opera, burst into contagious laughter, bark like dogs, talk like knights in armor, and make up comedy routines. Some places we go people are too shy to even put them on, and usually Margot and I will just get in and go for it, after that we end up with at least a couple people who sign up to get ridiculous.
What was the impetus for your project Aeolian Ride? I wanted to do something that would transform the everyday public landscape and make people giddy or baffled. One day I was riding my bike in Brooklyn with white nylon jacket on that was unzipped. I felt it fluttering behind me and thought that it would be great to make costumes for a big bike ride. I forgot about it until one day my friend Ryan O'connor was trying to think of ideas for an art project at burning man. I told him my idea and he thought it was great but he ended up making a giant octopus instead. A year later he called me. He said he had been thinking about my project and I needed to do it. This was not too long after 9/11 and my life seemed to lack any luster. A switch flipped in my brain and I suddenly was up to my elbows in rip-stop nylon designing inflatable costumes. You brought the project to different cities, was the experience extremely different from one place to the other? Any plan of organizing another Aeolian Ride any time soon? I'd love it if you could bring that to Europe. I find that riding a bike in a city is such a wonderful way to get to know its landscape. The people are what make the place for me. Its interesting who comes to the ride. It often depends on the connection who brought me to the city. It's usually a combination of different cycling cultures, every day cyclists, commuters, advocates, artists, messengers... anyone with a bike is welcome! I am always looking for people willing to organize and find funding to bring the ride to their city. I call these people champions. Each ride has had great champions who made it happen. The responses vary from city to city. New York was the first ride, it was rainy so I wasn't sure if it was going to happen and I didn't have a permit so I was nervous when the cops showed up. Funny my dad was there and he is such a charmer he gave the cops a couple of Aeolian buttons and told them about how excited he was for his daughters art project and they left. San Francisco happened in conjunction with the Bicycle Film Festival and was sponsored by a grant from the Black Rock Arts Organization. The people there had seen it all and loved it. They shouted out Angels! Sperm! Capetown was gorgeous. My good friend Ralph Borland was the Champion of this ride. The Discovery Chanel was doing a program on local artists and tried to show a collaboration between myself and artist Matthew Hindley. They purchased a couple suits for Matthew to work with. Unfortunately the Discovery Channel dropped the ball and gave me no images or video for that event.
I worked with Bike Summer's Dave Benoff to bring the Aeolian Ride to LA. The riders out there were used to lots of fun. Before the ride I joined the Midnight Ridaz for a fun ride in Heavy Metal Costume to a bowling alley where they had Metal Karaoke and giant paper mache musical instruments. LA was our first night ride with lights in the suits and we had a magical moment where mostly just the riders got to see the effect of the lights. During our ride through the bright city most of us didn't notice or remember we were wearing lights inside the suits. When we arrived at the dark park all the riders softly gasped and oohed at the forgotten surprise that they were glowing. My connection in Melbourne, Chris Star, is very deep into the politics of cycling and its community. We had a bit of competition in that the naked ride was happening at a similar time. The city and its people are super charming and laid back. Halifax was wonderful, my connection, a great photographer Francesca Tallone is embedded into the arts there. It was great fun and there was tons of enthusiasm for the ride. The Aeolian Poster was on the cover of their local weekly happenings paper all around town! The waterfront there is magical. The next Aeolian Ride will be Saturday September 8th 2007 from Brooklyn New York to the Dietch Art Parade in SOHO. Sign up already available!
I would love to bring the ride to Europe. Who wants to be the champion? Grow is a serenade for plants. Are you sure that the plants appreciate all that musical effort? How did you compose the music? Does it depend on the plant? Haha. I am not sure if the plants really react to the sounds or not. It seems at least one vintner believes it.I did read that it is a common grade school experiment to play music for plants. I found it difficult to write love songs for the plants. Half of them are for the plants and half are actually love songs for my friends. I wrote and recorded each song myself in an abandoned studio in a building I used to live in.
Design, animation, illustration, interactive installation, etc. You seem to jump effortlessly and with talent from one medium to the other, is there anything you are bad at? My strength is definitely my weakness. I love learning new skills and working in different mediums, but sometimes this can be fragmenting. I really envy people who know exactly what they want and have a path to get there. I chose this path, to explore, and it can be really challenging not to lose sight of what I really want. I try to follow my heart, eat my dessert first.
And more seriously, what do you find rewarding about each of these mediums? I am most interested in the idea first, then the materials and medium second but they definitely inform each other. Every medium provides me with a way to explore my ideas in different ways. Are there any designer and/or artist whom you think should get more attention from the public? Two of my favorite artists are Gelatin and Theo Jensen. I love the possible positive and the ingenious imaginative. Any upcoming project you could share with us? I am working on a graphic novel about the adventures of a girl who gets transported to the twin planet of earth. Thanks Jessica! More on her websites: Work + Art, Illustrations and Inspirational Blogging. |
August is ending and everyone is coming back from the beach. Including the interviews!
|
Watashi-chan, by Tomoko Ueyama, is a garment that visualizes sounds in a space. The balloons attached to the clothing inflate when there is a sound in the space, even if the wearer does not consciously perceive that sound.
How it works: Watashi-chan divides the human audio range into six frequency bands and calculates the quantity and frequency of signals entering each frequency band. An electromagnetic valve is assigned to each frequency band. As a quantity of frequency signals is calculat-ed, a signal is sent to an electromagnetic valve to open it. As a result, air is sent to a balloon corresponding to the quantity of frequency signals. After a balloon has been inflated for one second, air is released again, so that the balloon does not inflate too much. More images. Runs on August 24 August and 26, at the Spiral Garden (Spiral 1F) in Tokyo. More inflatable in fashion: Self-Sustainable Chair, wearable canoe; The Life Dress; the Inflatable Breasts Dress; Fat Suits; Wearable Crisis Management; Modes for Urban Moods and Inflatable wedding dress; SurvivaBall and the Aeolian Ride. |
|
Nothing brightens my day better than an inflatable dress!
Self-Sustainable Chair, by Joo Youn Paek (designer of the Polite Umbrella and the Pillowig), works a bit like the Uniblow Outfits. The dress is made up of 7 trash bags, 2 foot-pumps and a pair of slippers. The shoes pump air into an inflatable bubble attached to its rear part on each step, slowly turning the garment into a chair. The chair is slowly deflated under the weight of the wearer, motivating him or her to consistently switch between walking and sitting as a loop behavior on the street. The balance between exercise and rest would be maintained by wearing this suit. The purpose of this project is to transform the humdrum experiences produced by routine walking commutes into an amusing interactive performance. More inflatable garments: wearable canoe; The Life Dress; the Inflatable Breasts Dress; Fat Suits; Wearable Crisis Management; Modes for Urban Moods and Inflatable wedding dress; SurvivaBall and the Aeolian Ride. The Self-Sustainable Chair is part of Unravel, a fashion show curated by Amanda Parkes (check out her boots that pump out air as you walk). Place & Time: Monday Aug 6, 2007 8:30PM / The Chapters Party ‘On Broadway’ 615 Broadway / San Diego. |
|
I can't say that i've been extremely excited by what i saw at Designmai this week (except the very nice UDK's Sacral Design exhibition on Karl Marx Allee - images). Actually maybe i should only blog about awful things i see in Berlin so designers and artists from other cities would stop writing me everyday to ask if i can help them find a job here. Just (half) joking of course, i love this place too much. Today, i went to DesignMai Youngster in Kreuzberg and finally remembered why i find this festival so fresh and charming. Just two examples of what i've discovered today:
Franziska Dierschke, student at the Bauhaus Academy in Weimar was letting people play with Aimat, some toy-like guns that hide a camera inside. No display, no focus, no screen, no fuss with buttons, no restricted field of vision. Just look at what you want to photograph as if it were a target. What matters is not the quality of the picture but the simple, playful act of taking it. The images shooted were displayed on a big screen in the exhibition space.
There is also an impossible to ignore real-size inflatable tank with pink flowers sprouting from its barrel. Designed by Yuji Tokuda and Junya Ishikawa, it is part of the retired weapons project that uses graphic design, videos, badges and other items to spread a message of peace around the world. Whatever... More images of the tank and the guns. |
