Tokyo I
Berlin
Cape Town I
Buenos Aires
Deception
I imagined initially that all the stars would have streets or towns named after them (or themselves be named after terrestrial locations), but this was far from the case. Using Google as a research tool I found that star names were more often than not the name of an object, a document, a person, something transient at a specific time and place…Using Google as a research tool? This is our world, this is our geography. This is the universe. Of course, I would probably have done the same thing (then again, I might have taken the trouble to check somewhere else, you never know). But it's strange, the way we seem to combine the conviction that we live in a global village with, indeed, a village mentality.
Jeff Wall, A Sudden Gust of Wind (After Hokusai) (1993)
Katsushika Hokusai, Ejiri in Suruga Province (a sudden gust of wind) (19th century)
With Mollycoddle, Christine Liu wanted to explore the relationship that people have with their clothes.
Mollycoddle is a dress with a hunger for love and attention. Its wearer needs the dress for obvious (coverage) or nonobvious (personal) reasons, and in turn, the dress needs the wearer. Mollycoddle wants to be touched and caressed by the wearer on a semi-regular basis, but it can be happy being touched by other people, too.
More at we-make-money-not-art.
(now how often do you get that in a review? ;))
Calling something "hybrid" is just too easy. The word refers to a combination of two or more species, suggesting some original purity of form which is then combined with other pure forms to create the hybrid.
Kee, designed by Shira Miasnik , is a motion-based digital music instrument.
The user modifies the digital output by tilting and rotating the wooden disk.
Movements can define endless parameters: manipulating Kee in different directions, angles and speed changes different qualities of the animation. Pressing the logo button modifies the presets which define the changes in the animation.
It is fairly hard to say from the video how exactly it works, but it seems like a nice combination of "digital" with "retro".
(via)
This is given as big news on several blogs. Apparently Seiko/Epson have just presented this "new invention". As you have already guessed, flexible screens were one of the products we had the documents of in our classes. Six years ago. And let me tell you, the prototypes were much more flexible than that. That's what I call going "back to the future". And this is another reason why I don't get too impressed with the "inventions".
...to pretend that a man standing on a hill could be doing everything except just standing is simply divorce from life-Merce Cunningham
Avant-gardes get middle-aged; they become the establishment. When one goes to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, for instance, one is likely to see the work of artists who belonged to the avant-gardes of the 1960's and 70's and early 80's. Some are perfecting what they've already done. A few keep on experimenting, while some are being better paid to calcify than they ever were to innovate.And that is a problem. Because avant-garde today, as Jefferson rightly puts it,
is not a designated tribe of rebel outsiders anymore. It is a set of tools and practices; certain styles and attitudes.Which should be a good reason to redifine experimenting and change the way we see it (and criteria for discovering it). It is far from the idea of people coming up with completely new, unexpected and revolutionary worlds. It is much more about using the current conventions, habits, paradigms, to their best use, exploring how far they take us. And that trip is pretty difficult to execute if we don't understand those paradigms (the darned question of competence, irritating, but true?). But once we do, I see no reason to suspend judgement altogether, other than belonging to a generation that considered criticism to be a horrible idea and "gave itself away". The problem is, the Robert Wilsons and Laurie Andersons (two names cited in the article) are really far from anything one could call innovative today: their art, good as it may be, has been pretty much the same for a long time. And frankly, I see no reason for going on with the suspended judgement, especially, since this attitude hasn't really helped much in introducing the "avant-garde" to main-stream culture. Any ideas about that?
Tadeusz Kantor, Panoramic Sea Happening (1967)From the time of Verdun, Voltaire's Cabaret and Marcel Duchamp's Water-Closet, when the 'status of art' was drowned out by the roar of Fat Bertha - DECISION became the only remaining human possibility, the reliance on something that was or is unthinkable, functioning as the first stimulant of creativity, conditioning and defining art. Lately thousands of mediocre individuals ahve been making decisions, without scruples or any hesitation whatever. We are witnesses of the banalization and conventionalization of decision. This once dangerous path has become a comfortable freeway with improved safety measures and information. Guides, maps, orientation tables, directional signs, signals, centres, Art Co-operatives guarantee the excellence of the functioning of creativity. We are witnesses of the GENERAL MOVEMENT of artist-commandos, street fighters, artist-mediators, artist-mailmen, epistologs, pedlars, street magicians, proprietors of Offices and Agencies. Movements on this already official freeway, which threatens with a flood of graphomania and deeds of minimal significance, increases with each passing day. It is necessary to leave it as quickly as possible. This is not easily done. Particularly at the apogee of the UNIVERSAL AVANT-GARDE - blind and favoured with the highest prestige of the INTELLECT, which protects both the wise and the stupid.- Tadeusz Kantor (1915-90), a great, wonderful Polish artist, creator of the Theater of Death (the theater (or rather: performance) group he founded in 1955 was called Cricot2). Beyond being an excellent theater director and visual artist, Kantor was an eternal provocateur. His biographies are full of outrageous statements and controversial incidents.
Kantor during the performance of his most famous play, Umarลa Klasa (The Dead Class) (1975). You can see the director on the left, behind the bench, as he had the habit of "directing" (observing, but also slightly changing) the shows even during the performance.
["But you know - anyhow, i feel free!"]
["I need consumer information! (Argh!)"]
["Blue would have been nicer"]
What's wrong with that?
The work stayed on for two weeks. By week two, some storekeepers simply couldn't resist it:
Bad? Well, many other people couldn't resist either:
