ViewersLikeMe
I’ve been interviewed! Yes me, your (not always so humble) author and blog ‘curator’. Many thanks to Max at ViewersLikeU for the quality questions. You can read it, along with loads of other ace stuff to fill yer head over at [viewerslikeu.squarespace.com] (BTW I nicked the picture below from Max’s Flickr account, I hope he doesn’t mind).
Self On Sea
Collectivism. If there’s one thing emerging image makers excel at these days (apart from being massively creative, of course) it’s this. Mr Tom Havell [tomhavell.com] contacted Boicozine to let us know about an ace new ‘collective’ that has been set up in Brighton. The Art is Proof Press [artisproof.com] is on a mission to give creatives the means of production and outlet for self-initialised work. Their inaugrial exhibition is being held at the Castor & Pollux gallery [castorandpollux.co.uk] from the 6th until June 15th down on the Brighton seafront, with the running them of ’self’. Contributors entering the Art is Proof group pool include Jez Burrow’s and Sarah King who are part of their own collective going by the name of Evening Tweed [eveningtweed.com], William Exley [williamexley.co.uk] (whose work can be seen above) and master of all things ‘web’, Mark Pavey [themarkpavey.co.uk].
Cyber Dada Data
→ → → → → Digitise the World. Take technology apart. Reuse everything! Right of access to all data. Don’t be rude: talk to your fax machine. Go beyond current standards and values and make your own. Lets digitise the world and save human society on laser disk. Forget the meat of your bodies. Have sex with a computer. Interface! Your body is a burden. Wetware can enhance it. Cyborg implants bring you closer to the true experience. Neuro-circuits. Fully synthesised environments where all physical and emotional feelings can be chemically simulated. This is the future. Don’t let a physical existence fool you. Become superhuman! Modern man’s aesthetic is grounded in pre 20th century decorativeness and over indulgent art theorising. The end of the world is coming, but it is the beginning of a perfect techno world. Stop reviving old cultures. The new aesthetic is computer generated CYBER DADA. ← ← ← ← ←
— an excerpt from Troy Innocent [iconica.org], Dale Nason’s ‘Cyber Dada Manifesto’, 1994.
Stick-on Architecture
As human beings, we’ve become awfully proficient at building buildings, particularly large scale buildings. Sometimes the bigger the building, the easier the construction. Putting aside the intricate complexities of modern engineering, you only have to glance up at any recent highrise construction to understand the basic techniques involved. First you build a concrete footprint for the building, then you build the metal frame to hold the floors, then you add on a protective glass shealth or facade to stop the weather getting in. Bang, you’re done. It’s a reasonably fast, efficient and streamlined approach. It’s also deathly dull. Developer-led (as opposed to architect-led) construction favours the cheap and easy approach. There is now little mystique behind large scale construction. With engineering at the fore, for many modern buildings, the facade becomes it’s only form of decoration.
It’s taking far too long for London’s architectural decision makers to recognise this fact. You can see a number of smaller scale developments (usually mixed-use or residential) around East and East Central London where random architectural elements are just stuck on to the exterior of the building with little thought for their purpose or look and feel. You get the over all impression that English Architects and developers need to rediscover ‘decoration’.
Architects in Melbourne realised this in the late 90s and have been experimenting with embellishing the shell of their buildings with various patterns and different types of cladding and materials ever since. The most notable early examples include RMIT’s Building 8, completed in 1993, by Edmond and Corrigan and Ashton Raggatt McDougall’s renovation of Storey Hall in 1996 [a-r-m.com.au]. Lyon’s Architects have picked up the baton in recent years with a breakthrough design for Victoria University’s Online Training Facility [lyonsarch.com.au] and similar experiments such as BHP Billiton Global Headquarters [lyonsarch.com.au] with it’s deceptively straight forward glass cladding that buckles and warps at street level.
This trend has continued, although many of these Architects and their contemporaries now use the buildings exterior shell to boast about it’s environmental credentials by using natural, sustainable materials such as wood and brick. We’ve talked about wooden buildings such as DesignInc’s CH2 building for the Melbourne City Council [architectureaustralia.com] and Ashton Raggatt McDougall’s 2004 revamp for Melbourne Central’s Swanston & Latrobe street entrance on Boicozine before. Lyons have just completed the build on a Nursing House in Mornington that puts a new twist on the wooden facade by creating bricks that mimic patterns found in wood [via dezeen].
Fashopolitico
Fashion and Politics, they don’t sit amazingly well together and yet there seems to be a recent trend towards mashing them up to create new angles on the age-old subjects. The most talked about at the moment has to be Esquire magazine’s (U.K. edition – website coming soon) recent 75th anniversary event where they revisited a number of classic covers from the 50s, 60s and 70s, replacing existing imagery with photographs of various fashion designers [via magculture]. All the chosen covers were originally art directed by George Lois [georgelois.com] who took a distinctly concept driven (almost ‘advertising-y’) approach to each cover. They were often overtly political too. Something that would be considered death at the newsstand by many men’s magazines today. The end result of Esquire’s new cover versions is that you begin to question the political relevence of modern fashion designers. Vivienne Westwood and Christopher Bailey’s images seem to be a snug fit although Donatella Versace & John Galliano’s logic seems fundamentally flawed when posed next to Muhammad Ali & Roy Cohn’s worthy illustrations (As a sidenote, Wired seems to have picked by the ‘topical’ baton with their ‘Screw the spotted owl’ cover for their June issue [wired.com/16-06]. It’s nice to see a revival in controversy being used to sell a ‘mainstream’ magazine, and I’m not talking about some selleb’s ‘amazing’ weight gain/loss story). SHOWstudio have also been giving Fashion & Politics a shove with a ongoing series of ‘Political Fashion’ pieces that are worth having a rummage through [showstudio.com/politicalfashion].
What’s Up #29: Christoph Senn
Christoph Senn [dersenn.ch] is a recent grad from Zurich University of the Arts and has just completed an internship at ace Helsinki-based graphics house Kokoro & Moi (formerly Syrup Helsinki) [kokoromoi.com]. He is also part of the first round of specially elected designs to go into production via the BonBonKakku website [bonbonkakku.com]. His ‘broken mirror’ design is shown above. Other super graphic designs you might like to hang in yer window include this one [bonbonkakku.com] by a mysterious group going by the nom de plume ‘Speed of Light’ and this one [bonbonkakku.com] by the equally obtuse Nada Go-Go [nadagogo.com].
The Chaumont Massive
The Chaumont Poster and Graphic Design Festival is back and starts today… and, this year, it’s huge! If you are fortunate enough to make the pilgrimage to this little French village for the 19th International Poster and Graphic Design Festival of Chaumont [ville-chaumont.fr/festival-affiches] you’ll be able to take your pick from a smorgasbord of events such as Fanette Mellier’s ‘Circus (dans l’espace public)’, in which she uses her unique brand of typography (see above) to tell a story that weaves it’s way through the street of Chaumont [fanettemellier.com] and Pierre du Sciullo’s challenge to plaster a space in one’s Chaumont’s main squares with 4 posters per hour, in 10 hour periods during the course of the festival [quiresiste.com]. Of course, there’s loads of other events and designers involved as well as the Annual Poster competition Chaumont first became known for and a temporary events venue they’re calling ‘Le Super’ (see image below) which promises to carry the vague 1950s theme that carries through the festival this year. There are many events that seek to link the worlds of design and publishing this year too. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, this year’s poster is designed by Frédéric Teschner [fredericteschner.com]. The annual book produced for the event has just been released by Pyramyd publishing [artdesign.fr]. There’s a Facebook group too [facebook], natch.
Olympic Octagons
Forgive the trainer geekiness of this post but Nike have come up with an identity for their Olympics line that’s out shines any of the official Olympics logos from the last decade by turning the rings into octagons. There’s a nice play on the ‘08′ too using the same shapes. There’s not a lot of great pics of the logos themselves but loads of geeky trainer snaps. Kix Files is as good a place to start as any… [kix-files.com]
Roman’s Reddy Red Reddy
An oldie but a goody. Roman Coppola [romancoppolastudio.com] and Andy Bruntel [andybruntel.com] collaborate for adicolor on the theme of ‘red’. I like the banana. Roman is currently working on a slightly bizarre skin care line that uses ‘free range scavengers’. You can see a presentation about it here [youtube].
Paper Rad’s Problem Solvers
See more rad Paper Rad stuff at [paperread.org]. Coming soon: ebay, paypal, blogs, the internet… true, it says so on their website. :)
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