Art + Architecture + Design
Archive for April, 2007
Alamo: A Radio Play by Rick Moody, with Miranda July and Ethan Hawke
Apr 15th
"In this radio drama, middle-aged, doctoral candidate Irving Paley is obsessed with a work of contemporary sculpture in downtown Manhattan, and the ways it affects those who pass by it regularly. On an answering machine he collects the stories of a range of New Yorkers, all of whom have some relationship to Alamo, aka “the Cube.” Over the course of an interview with a public radio reporter about the project, Paley reveals how the Cube has slowly consumed his life, while back at the sculpture, a mystery surrounding the artwork deepens."
You can find more on this one here http://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/audio_library_2004.asp Be sure to check out the interview with Moody:
> You’ve recorded several of your short stories for the radio, with musicians and artists playing along. How do you imagine the experience of hearing these versions of the stories differs from reading them?
Well, I think literature really benefits from being performed. It makes the beauty of the language more apparent, and it makes an implied voice an actual instrument. I always feel like I understand literature better when I’ve heard it read aloud. For example, there’s a recording of James Joyce reading some of Finnegans Wake. That’s a very difficult book, but it sounds fabulous when Joyce reads from it.
Solar Flare Anomoly Animation by liyongqiang (YouTube)
Apr 15th
I’ve watched this 3 times so far and it gets better each time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQyp9y_9s10
"SOHO stands for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. The SOHO Gallery has movies and animations on sunpots, solar flares, photon showers, and comets. This video of solar flares was made from SOHO’s images. Push Play or go to YouTube.
Link to SOHO. -via Ursi’s Blog. via Neatorama
10 Famous Literary Bars
Apr 15th
Eagle and Child, Oxford
Literary Patrons: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien
CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien spent many an hour in deep discussion in the Rabbit Room at the Eagle and Child. Every Tuesday morning, these two luminaries held meetings of the Inklings, a literary group consisting of fellow writers in the Oxford community. Although the group began gathering across the way at the Lamb and Flag pub in 1962, the Rabbit Room remains the favorite spot for literary fans.
Link: 10 Famous Literary Bars | ForbesTraveler.com.
via Wit
Eikongraphia’s MoPo 2007 – Top 25 Architecture Blogs
Apr 14th
Faithful readers, we have been booted from the Eikongraphia Top 25 List. Tough break, but there it is.
Anyway, I realized that I did not include the full list from Eikongraphia in my last post on them. Well, here you go. Be sure to check out the bottom 5 (we used to fill slot 25), as they are the ones who need the hits, and you never know, you might find a new favorite:
1. BLDGBLOG
2. Things Magazine
3. Pruned
4. Archidose
5. Plataforma Arquitectura
6. Tropolism
7. Dezeen
8. Edgar Gonzalez
9. Jetson Green
10. Subtopia
11. Eikongraphia
12. Anarchitecture
13. Noticias Arquitectura
14. Mirage Studio 7
15. Brand Avenue
16. Architecture.mnp
17. Archispass
18. Archinect News
19. Architechnophilia
20. Bird to the North
21. Dezain
22. ecAr 2.0
23. PartIV
24. Blog Like You Give A Damn
25. Death by Architecture
Barbara Kruger on Design Matters Online Radio
Apr 13th
This one is great! I haven’t heard Ms. Kruger speak since I met her in graduate school in the nineties. She has a unique viewpoint as an artist who bridges the commercial and fine art worlds. True, she is a bit mired in both which can make for a bit of the "can’t see the forest for the trees" syndrome, but she is very charismatic nevertheless.
Don’t miss this great interview with the legendary Barbara Kruger on Design Matters Radio.
"No commercial should be longer than 10 seconds." Barbara Kruger
Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center
Apr 13th
Now you have one more reason to visit Lithuania! As if you needed one…
"New York/April 12, 2007 – The City Council of Vilnius, Lithuania established the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center on February 19th. The new center will exhibit collections by Jonas Mekas, the internationally renowned avant-garde filmmaker, and George Maciunas (1931-1978), the impresario/creator of Fluxus, a key art movement of the second part of the 20th century.
“New York City has always been home to the avant-garde and two of its most influential figures have been Lithuanian. The international resonance of the Fluxus world that they created will provide the impetus for Vilnius to become the world’s new center for the avant-garde,” said Mayor Arturas Zuokas.
Mayor Zuokas noted that Vilnius has been declared a European Capital of Culture for 2009 and the founding of the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center is the first step in preparation for the City’s monumental role.
Jonas Mekas, renowned filmmaker and inventor of the Diarist Cinema, continues to preserve a collective memoir where life and art are inseparable. Mekas came to New York City in 1949 and quickly became a prominent figure among the city’s art scene. He founded Anthology Film Archives, the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, Film Culture magazine, and wrote film reviews for the Village Voice from 1958 to 1978. Mekas’ expansions upon the qualities of intimacy, spontaneity, and supreme selectivity are crafted through his distinctive discourses of time as the ordinary. Films focus on friends and collaborators such as Hans Richter and Andy Warhol to reveal deeply intimate portraits. Mekas masterfully extracts from thousands of hours of film footage, giving rise to interpretations of life experienced and life remembered.
more here: http://www.mayastendhalgallery.com/
Ball-Nogues win Young Architects Program
Apr 12th
Props to the west side crew…
"P.S.1 and MoMA are proud to announce that the winner of the eighth annual Young Architects Program is Ball-Nogues, a Los Angeles–based firm led by principals Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues. Their winning design, Liquid Sky, will immerse viewers in kaleidoscopic patterns of color created by sunlight filtering through an array of translucent, tinted Mylar petals.
"The installation will be on view in the P.S.1 courtyard beginning in late June and will serve as the setting for the Warm Up 2007 music series."
Alex Prager @ Robert Berman/4.21.07
Apr 12th
Going to be in LA this weekend? Be sure to stop by Robert Berman to check out the terrific/surreal/sexy photographs of Alex Prager. The opening is on Saturday afternoon, which will give you time to get down to the beach for dinner, if that’s your thing. Summer is in the air…
ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY is pleased to present Polyester, a solo exhibition of photographs by Los Angeles based photographer Alex Prager.
Prager uses a cinematic approach in her vivid, intriguing, still imagery. Stories unfold with each photograph that stimulate the senses. Playful yet bizarre scenes are a balancing act between fantasy and reality. Prager’s signature look, consistent in its surreal high-saturated colors, continues to intrigue the viewer with a fresh yet strangely comforting uneasiness. The L.A. Times noted: "Her photographs reveal a keen eye for the shining and the bizarre, a bit Annie Leibovitz, a bit Diane Arbus."
The show will be open to the public on Saturday, April 21st and a special catalogue signing will take place at the gallery starting at 3pm. Show runs April 21 – May 12, 2007.
Eikongraphia’s Top 25 List: We made #25!
Apr 12th
Hello and thanks to all you who are stopping by via the post on Eikongraphia. We are thrilled to be selected and are pretty sure we fit the bill, as noted by Michiel:
"Also note that the chart becomes a bit obscure after number 20. There are not that many architecture blogs out there, so the figures down there are quite low and unstable. To illustrate: BLDGBLOG is linked by 1,086 blogs, Progressive Reactionary only by 1. New blogs could easily enter at the bottom of the chart and silently leave without anybody noticing them. There are winners and losers."
Can we call ourselves "Award Winning" now?
Be sure to check them out HERE: http://www.eikongraphia.com/?p=1395
Golden Cage by The Whitest Boy Alive feat. Geoff McFetridge Animation on YouTube
Apr 10th
AMAZING! Geoff McFetridge’s video for The Whitest Boy Alive.
Click the URL here or watch below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y78FztTd414
via neverhappened
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