Τεχνάσματα

 

Ελένη Βακαλό, 1991

#elenivakalo #poetry #trickery #artifice

Buried Urne (from Urne Buriall and The Garden of Cyrus)

Paul Nash, Buried Urne (from Urne Buriall and The Garden of Cyrus), 1932

Collotype with pochoir

31.5 x 22.5 cm

Paysage desertique

Johannes Peter Holzinger, Paysage desertique (maquette)

Triste Tropicalia

Marcelo Cidade, “Triste Tropicalia”, 2004, concrete pipes and fems. 

The Continuous Moment

The eerie technocratic world of Superstudio, taken from The Continuous Moment series 1969. Objects float in a transcendental void of crisp glass and the quiet hum of infinity.

Don’t worry – the endless grid is a metaphor for a social state where all of humanity is constantly connected to a web of information, energy and even matter.

Source: http://architectural-review.tumblr.com

Arcadian Boxes

Arcadian Boxes brings together works by contemporary artists interested in the confrontation between geometrical volumes and structures on the one hand and the whimsicalness and irregularity of nature on the other. In so doing, these artists situate themselves in an age-old tradition that goes back to megalithic structures characterized by simple geometrical shapes. This fascination for the confrontation between nature and simple geometry also marks the Greek temple and the tradition of the Picturesque, which favored the disposition of neoclassical buildings in rustic gardens. In addition, the juxtaposition of nature and geometry runs like a red thread through modernity, from Goethe’s so-called Good Luck Stone or his Altar of Agathe Tyche (ca 1777) in Weimar to Le Corbusier’s building slabs in park-like environments and the construction of so-called “scenic highways.” Finally, the Earth Works by artists such as Smithson, Heizer, De Maria, and Long in the late 1960s and 1970s epitomized this age-old tradition.

Arcadian Boxes includes works by contemporary artists who share these age-old fascinations for the confrontation between geometry and nature. However, the exhibition focuses on works that also add new perspectives and new definitions of these relations. Some artists make clear that a simple juxtaposition between nature and geometry is simply impossible. Others emphasize that introducing geometry in the landscape inevitably entails its opposite, i.e. containing the landscape in a box. Still others focus on the perception of the landscape. Seeing the landscape becomes an act of measuring or demarcation and geometrical volumes are presented as viewing devices that enable us to enjoy the irregularity of nature.

Participating artists:
Dan Graham, Dirk Zoete, Elias Heuninck, Ellen Harvey, Geert Goiris, Gregor Neuerer
Curated by Steven Jacobs

Siakos Hanappe House of Art, Glyfada, Athens
5 April- 24 May 2012
www.siakos-hanappe.com

Bosco di quercie nel giardino del Quirinale

Bosco di quercie nel giardino del Quirinale, 2011

Source : paesaggioitaliano.blogspot.com

Giardino del Quirinale già di Carlo Alberto

Municipio I, Rione II - Trevi, Roma, 2012
Epoca: XIX - XX secolo

Cubist Tree

Maquette for Arbre Cubiste (Cubist Tree), 1925
Jan Martel (French, 1896–1966); Joël Martel (French, 1896–1966)
Painted wood H. 31 1/2 in. (80 cm), W. 15 1/8 in. (38.4 cm), D. 15 in. (38.1 cm)

The twin brothers Joël and Jan Martel were avant-garde sculptors best known for their four concrete Cubist "trees" designed for a garden setting at the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. Although the exhibition was intended to feature the best examples of contemporary decorative arts and design, most of the works shown were stylistically rooted in tradition. The small number of uncompromisingly modernist displays, including the Martel trees, was derided in the popular press of the day: one cartoon depicted a baffled gardener debating whether to water them. More than fifteen feet high, the trees were destroyed when the exhibition closed, and this maquette is the only nonphotographic record of them. Each had a cruciform trunk supporting quadrangular planes attached vertically and at angles, suggesting foliage; their abstract modern sensibility clearly derived from the polemics of Cubism.

Colored demarcation of a small garden

These pictures show a colored demarcation of a small garden in a semipublic residential area somewhere in Moscow this summer, 2011.

Outdoor Furniture

In the heart of the expanding "docklands" of Malmo's harbour i had to deal with a remarkable number of public design. Winter 2011.

Bird on Stamp

Ain Draham is a city in northwestern Tunisia.
Its name describes the sulfurous hot springs in the area used by the Romans in antiquity.

Butterfly Effect

Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?' by Bik Van der Pol, image courtesy of MACRO

Public art is gaining a more and more significant position in today´s art scene, in the time of the domination of "liberal capitalism" that imposes privatisation of urban space and social system all around the world. Paradoxically, more and more "public art" projects are being funded and even organised by private sectors while the public authorities are increasingly retreating from the mission both due to financial and ideological crisis... How much public art can still make sense in such a context? How to imagine and implement relevant visions, forms and strategies to engage with this contradictory reality? At the end, is public art, like public sphere itself, a utopia in this age of privatisation? Is there anyway to make it realisable and meaningful for ordinary people in order to re-activate debates and projects of reclaiming the rule of democracy? And, facing the urgent issues of our society today such as economic, cultural, political and ecological crisis, how much the art world and the powerful ones - both public and private authorities - can resume their responsibilities to take initiatives to propose intellectual, ideological and spiritual ideas for improvements of the society?

Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?' by bik van der pol

Therefore, public art becomes crucial for the survival of our society. This is a true battle.

Bik van der Pol are among those who have been acting on the frontline of such a battlefield for the last two decades. Based in Rotterdam, the Netherland and consisting of Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol, the collective has been actively exploring the notion of public-ness and its impacts on various contexts across Europe and other parts of the world. Their projects, systematically conceived for specific venues as devices of memory, knowledge production and communication/collaboration with different communities. The outcomes are utopian and radical proposals for transformation of communal spaces in order to produce new forms of social life and public realm. Exploiting both physical and psychological dimensions, and dynamically engaging social dialogues, they often turn up to be provocative and enlightening.


Referring to common heritages of modern and contemporary utopias evoked in recent history , their work is frequently related to invention of new architectural forms, often resorting to temporary constructions that provide new spaces for public interactions - ranging from mobile cinema to diving platform, from public library to multimedia interfaces ... More than often, the interventional projects of Bik Van der Pol leave highly inspiring and enduring legacies in the communities where they take place. This long term effect successfully extends the significance of artistic activities as a major resource of collective and social imagination and critical reflection - an efficient form of reality check.

Bik van der Pol understand that ecological crisis and related issues are increasingly central to the debate of the common good of our society today. They tackle the question of environment as a main part of their artistic and sociological reflection and production. Environment, or Biosphere, is now understood as a key public sphere in which human beings are striving to rescue and improve the harmonious relationship with nature after much damage of natural conditions of our existence due to over-exploitation driven by our own activities. It´s at first social, cultural and hence political - an intense territory of change and exchange in terms of production of common projects for our survival. For the occasion of the Enel Award, referring both to the emblematic Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe as an ultimate example of human pursuit for the harmony with Nature and the scientific theory of Butterfly Effect they propose to create an environmental structure in the heart of the Eternal City - Rome, to incarnate the complexity, contradiction and fate of our world. Combining a human living device and a gathering niche for butterflies, or the "indicator species" that can not only play the role of pollinator for plants but also change completely the giant system of Nature by simply vibrating their thin wings, the structure functions as a condensed environmental machine that constantly reminds the fragility of our Environment, or the true public sphere. On the other hand, like the contemporary technology of virtual reality, this machine that embodies "virtually" the key negotiation between Man and Nature invites and relies on the interaction with its users, namely the public. Walking around and through the structure and contemplating the beautiful modernist architecture and the massive and energetic movement of the butterflies, the public are actively involving in the maintenance of the sensitive equilibrium between the two indicators of Existence... Like the movement of a butterfly´s wings, our every gesture can indeed trigger unexpected incidents in the system and provoke uncontrollable chain reactions... This is even inevitable.



Public art, in this respect, can also have its butterfly effect!
Text by Hou Hanru

Bik Van der Pol: are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?
MACRO museum of contemporary art, rome
december 4th, 2010 to january 16th, 2011

Paesaggio Italiano

Luigi Ghirri, Bari,1982



Luigi Ghirri, Modena,1973

Cactus

Caroline May, Untitled (Cactus I), 2010, color photograph, 39 x 39”.


Caroline May, Untitled (Cactus II), 2010, color photograph, 39 x 39”

The Apartment Gallery, Athens
November 10 - January 8, 2011
www.theapartment.gr

Figland Housing

Figland Housing
Drawing by Sarcoptiform, 2010

Pionen – White mountain, Architecture of WikiLeaks

The project takes place in a former 1200 square meter anti-atomic shelter.
An amazing location 30 meters down under the granite rocks of the Vita Berg Park
in Stockholm. The client is Wikileaks and the rock shelter hosts server halls and offices.







Architects: Albert France-Lanord Architects
Location:Stockholm, Sweden
Construction: Albert France-Lanord Architects
Construction Area: 1,200 sqm
Project year: 2008
Photographs: Ake E:son Lindman

Source:www.archdaily.com

Can ecosystem engineering prevent ecological catastrophe?

For over a decade, University of Arizona ecologist Michael Rosenzweig has preached a gospel of what he calls reconciliation ecology: designing everyday landscapes to support as many plants and animals as possible.

He says it’s the only way of averting ecological catastrophe, which standard approaches to preserving nature will only slow. Some conservationists have embraced the idea. Others think it’s rose-tinted dreaming. With a computer program directing the design, reconciliation ecology will get its test in Tucson, Arizona.

“We decided to turn Tucson into a lab of a million people,” said Rosenzweig, who spoke on reconciliation ecology Aug. 3 at the Ecological Society of America meeting in Pittsburgh. “We’re not trying to restore old habitats. We’re trying to invent new ones.”

The project’s roots extend back to 1995, when Rosenzweig wrote a textbook on island biogeography, a field of research describing ecological dynamics on ocean islands. Over the last several decades, the research had been applied to terrestrial islands formed by human development. The findings were discouraging. Ecologists predicted the loss of 40 to 50 percent of all species. After reviewing the literature, Rosenzweig thought they were optimistic. He put the figure at 90 percent.

More island-like preserves and parks wouldn’t fix this, he reasoned. It required a “reconciliation” with nature inside human-dominated biomes that were largely ignored by conservationists, and cover almost every piece of non-tundra, non-desert land.

Rosenzweig pointed to piecemeal examples of this approach, like ecosystems flourishing amidst shade-grown coffee canopies, or the wetlands of southern Czechoslovakia’s fish farms. The strategy took shape in his 2003 Win-Win Ecology: How The Earth’s Species Can Survive In The Midst of Human Enterprise.

Reviews were mixed. There wasn’t much doubt about Rosenzeig’s diagnosis, but his solution was questioned. Wrote then-Conservation International ecologist Thomas Brooks in a review, “I genuinely fear that Michael Rosenzweig’s theories and examples are less broadly applicable than he argues. And yet I want to believe that he is right.”

In the intervening years, Rosenzweig hasn’t backed down. “The attitude we’ve had for 100 years is, let’s save habitats. We’ll have remnant patches and call them national parks and wildlife refuges. That slows extinction down, but it doesn’t change the endpoint,” he said. Mass extinctions won’t be avoided “unless we turn our attention to the habitats we haven’t paid attention to, that we haven’t even called habitats.”

In Tucson, those ignored habitats are backyards, schoolyards and the mosaic of neighbourhoods and businesses typical of America’s suburban sprawl. Rosenzweig wants to arrange their habitats with a program built on a database of life-history characteristics on 300 local plant species, plus natural history records gathered from a century of research on Tumamoc Hill, an 870-acre island of relatively undisturbed desert west of downtown.

People can decide what species they want to have. The algorithms tell them what other species they’ll need. “It calculates what the relationships are, and which need to be maintained in order for species of interest to live,” said Rosenzweig. Calculations are modified according to local soil type and topography.

Rosenzweig plans to do an “alpha test” at sites on Tumamoc Hill. Another is now taking place in the Barrio Kroeger Lane, a poor neighbourhood set in the Santa Cruz River floodplain. Native, rainwater-harvesting Sonoran Desert vegetation is being planted to lessen summer floods. It should also bring back four local hummingbird species.

If that works, other Tucson neighbourhoods could follow suit.

“There is so much potential to harmonise people and nature” in this approach, wrote ecologist Gretchen Daily in an email. As head of Stanford University’s conservation biology centre, she studies how to predict ecological changes in human-directed landscapes, a research branch known as “countryside biogeography.”

“There is a fair amount of scepticism about reconciliation being a viable model, which is why this is an important experiment,” said Madhu Khatti, an urban ecologist at California State University, Fresno.

Rosenzweig envisions the tested program becoming a tool for developers, neighborhood associations, businesses, anybody with a backyard -- first in Tucson, then elsewhere, as other ecologists localise the code.

“I can’t put out a general rule to fit every toon, but I can put out a general method, and program it,” he said. “That’s what we’ve done. This has to be done for every area.”

Of course, computer-aided ecosystem design is far from what John Muir or Edward Abbey had in mind, and old-fashioned preserves are needed for true wilderness. But as Khatti noted, “there’s very few places in the world where humans can be completely removed.”

“If you produce an ecological theatre that meets the animals halfway, they’ll do the rest,” said Rosenzweig.

Text by Brandon Keim, 16 August 2010.
Source: Wired.com

Fairy Story

Fairy Story
Wanda Gag, 1937
lithograph from Zinc plate

The Garden of Pallazo Orsini

Herbert List, Grotesque Figure, Park of Palazzo Orsini, Bomarzo, Italy, 1952