In addition to my former post about Growing Chairs, here’s a small footnote – a project more close to home.

A fellow student in the Rietveld Foundation Year is Ana Oosting,who is working on her ‘free project’.  In this project, she works with growing materials. The essay she wrote about this subject  is relating to science,  focusing on bio art and art in a more general way. In her essay, she also talks about the more simply forms of this, in both nature and art, not specifically to be executed in a lab.

In relation to this essay, she made some pieces in which she experimented with growth – combining nature with art. In one of her works she let two doves build a nest on a pair of slippers (picture below). This changes the shape of the sandals as well as the way the nest is build.

Another work consists of growing different things on crystals. You see a scorpion in crystals (picture above).
Within her ‘free project’, Ana also worked with citrons (she tried to make them grow in different shapes) and she made an attempt to make graffiti out of moss.

In the same way as the designers – mentioned in Growing Chairs – are working, Ana is working together with nature to make interesting new art-pieces.

Super Mighty Market

- Same rules but BIG difference ? Not all supermarkets must be created equal.

‘There is no other material a designer can work with that is so close to the human body and soul as the material of food’

Marije Vogelzang

Welcome to a new generation of spaces dedicated to food culture, where ? Located inside my very own head.  Please cross over to my ideal dreamworld as this space does not yet exist anywhere else. Over here I design a supermarket  – only it is not really just a supermarket – it is more of a space where design, art and food can meet – becoming more like a Mighty Market.

The dream begins with a beautiful architectural form screaming in need for a revival. The structure of what was once a beautiful spacious building whose glory has passed, now sits ghostly waiting in suspension like those christmas ornaments in storage that wait all year for december to arrive. In order to orchestrate the “revival” of my dream food space – it must not only have that “feel good quality” that makes you want to hang out there all day, but also allowing it to be inspiring and stimulating in a way that makes you think about how we relate to each other, our social food culture, how it’s context affects our behavior and choices.  Naturally, being a food lover – wannabe- healthy- eater myself as well as an art and design enthusiast, I became interested in finding a “glue” for all these to exist under one context of food culture and how its role affects our senses and perception.
In order to create my dream SUPERmarket THE MIGHTY MARKET I had to think about its social, psychological, chemical, technical and ethical core values. No employees but team members for starters. Environmentally friendly and with a fun attitude. I also didn’t want my supermarket to have the same old shoe box boring construction as most supermarkets do. I mean have you noticed how boring grocery shopping can be? So it definitely can’t have an uninviting interior like the cold, dark, dull, crowded interior in most grocery shops. My Dream Mightymarket has to be part renovation and part innovation – not just to refurbish and old existing iconic building such as one of ‘BEST’ old buildings but

a combination of both, bringing also new ideas of design into one unique place.

Small things make things big and even little changes to an approach can make a big difference. With this in mind,  I dream of the inside – it will be subdivided into areas such as a gallery for instance, where food exhibitions and lectures are given maybe  by someone like Daniel Spoerri who’s been an icon of the food art movement since the 60’s. A space in which I dream of bringing in people to host events like Marije Volgezand or Droog,  some nutrition specialists and chefs as well as artists and designers such as Ayako Suwa who’s emotional food art won her international acclaim in 2008 .

‘Designed by Marije Volgezand for a meal for Droog design, she hung the table cloth to the ceiling as a means to conceal signs of status like clothing. The meals were served on plates that had to be shared as she supplied the guests with unusual eating utensils for this purpose.’

Back to my dream. Incorporated but not occupying the same space you can find an area for home appliances that follow the same motto for innovative conscious design.  Everything in this alter- space-s is meant to make you feel something, and actually the whole supermarket is designed to make you feel something – in other words, it is designed to make you become aware of your senses. The rails for the stairs are cold to the touch to wake you up. Similarly all the senses are thought of in every detail of the stores design and even the lay out of the products is carefully thought through. From the lighting to the sound, even the sense of smell is incorporated to bring different sensorial experiences.  Some of the products you would see in this supermarket wouldn’t be the ideal healthiest, although its main focus IS the organic and healthy, and the selection of others redefined. Some of the products you can find at the Mighty market are for instance “EYE CANDY” by the Play coalition for Beta Tank who use something called sensory substitution to allow you to see images contained within the candy.

The packaging of products can’t stay behind and would have to be considered – it must aim to avoid sacrificing freshness amongst other factors in favor of warehouse storage as well as its reusability . Playing an important role as an example leader is ‘ Grown in transit’ by Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Agata Jaworska whose concept is simple: the food grows in the package as it is in transit to reach you changing the label from ‘best before’ to ‘ready by’.

At the eating area you would find ‘tasteful design’ and edible design pieces such as cutlery made out of food etc.. maybe since it is my dream, Nosigner would design the interior which would feature for instance his light unit “Spring rain” made out of bean starch vermicelli, which is edible when boiled (meaning no trash- zero!), or sell things like the ‘Unsustainable’ necklace by Greetje van Helmond for whom choosing food as material is a comment on the impermanence of fashion.

But the dream doesn’t end there. At the Mighty Market you can use books as currency which will eventually create the mighty market interactive library.

Wel bekome !

For the first time in fifteen years an overview exhibition on the work of the French artist Sophie Calle is organize in The Netherlands. Central work in this exhibit is “Prenez soin de vous” (Take care of yourself), in which Calle invites 107 women from a ballerina to a lawyer to use their professional skills to interpret an email in which her partner breaks up with her.

Sophie Calle is part of the April 1st BasicYear Design Trip
look for more on Sophie Calle
newspaper article NRC  9/5/2008 (dutch) pdf

In this work you see influences of Design, Fine arts, Architecture and Graphic design.
A nice thing of this work is that the upper drawing can stand on his own, and therefore can be divided in Fine arts. What Lissitzky is doing in the painted photo below, can be compared with design. Almost all his work contains influences of Design, Fine arts, Architecture and Graphic design. For myself I see it back the most in this one.
I really like the composition and colour distribution and how Lissitzky combines the 2D/3D perspective, which makes the drawing much more architectural.
I think the later work of Kandinsky is in some way comparable. I’m talking about elements of composition, colour distribution wise and form contrasts.
What’s fascinating actually is that for example in these paintings ( K1, L1, K2, L2 ) the triangles, (half) circles, stripes and composition have so much in common. While the ideas of their work are so different. Kandinsky combines painting with music, which Lissitzky does with architecture.

What I appreciate is the modern way of exposing his work. I like the way he puts his drawing and his street-exhibition in one frame on the cardboard. And the fact that he paints on the photo. The street celebration design reminds me a bit of graffiti in legal manners. In Graffiti you have multiple meanings of doing it. Some do it for the adrenaline-kick, some for the group or competition feeling, some to show their design skills and others for  political statements or propaganda. This last example is what I see in a part of Lissitzky’s work.

I think it’s interesting to see how he uses his propaganda work in other work but then he integrates his in his autonomous work (proun. street celebration design).

All in all I think it’s a great work and a unique style. I really admire that Lissitzky makes so many different things, and still keeps it in one theme

From Van Abbemuseums power point presentation I got attracted to a painting by El Lissitzky called “Proun P23, no 6″, in this presentation it has number 51. I have never really been into constructivism, suprematism or any of these kind of movements but I will try to focus on the things I actually like in El Lissitzkys painting. In general, I like the way he is able to leave empty spaces without making it comfortable. I always have to be alert so I don’t fall into the harsh abstractions of his work. The patina or aging paper makes it easier.

In this specific painting, “Proun P23 no 6″, I get the false illusion that he has done the same thing and left an empty space. But in fact the painting is packed. Trying to describe the painting, one can say that it has a fleshy colour in bottom, there are two deep red triangular forms almost meeting in the middle. Preventing them from coming together is a rectangle, a cube and two things that appear more flat, a stick and a square. The cube has a deep green coulor, the other objects are more neutral to the paintings colours. I like the colour composition and that it feels light even though it’s made in oil and on canvas. It’s a nice mix of painting and drawing. I also like the spacial aspect and the loose objects. It’s interesting the way he here presents the abstraction, I mean the space and volume is meeting some very basic shapes that seems easy to recognize and comprehend but makes an intriguing whole.

It’s hard to say anything about the texture of the painting from this point of view, but with the zoom site I attached it’s easier to get a feeling of it. From looking at other modernistic paintings, I really don’t like that dry texture from when the paint is not enough in one stroke or when the canvas is shown too much. These things create a very uncomfortable and also very physical feeling, just like some people don’t like and get chills when scratching your nails against a blackboard. This don’t seem to be a problem here with Proun 23, and I can understand that Van Abbemuseum must be very proud to have this painted Proun in it’s collection.

In 1913 Victory over the sun was firstly performed in Moscow. From aesthetic perspective, it was Malevich who was responsible for the costumes and decor, we may recall upon this happening as the start of Suprematism.
In 1920, this time directed by Malevich, the opera was performed again. During this period El Lissitzky made his lithographic designs for the nine figures from the opera. Instead of costumes he designed electromechanical puppets. Puppets that would be controlled by one person. Lissitzky deliberately left this concept at the stage of the lithographies, as he had made his mind up that he wasn’t going to be the one realizing the project. “You can do this”, was his vision.

In terms of fashion, there are many ways to encounter these designs. I myself encountered three major elements that can be related with contemporary fashion: technology,expression and giving emphasis to -suprematist- shapes by utilizing them in a different context.
The use of electro mechanism could have easily inspired the work of Turkish designer Hussein Chalayan. This element comes strongly back in his 2007 spring/summer collection, used as a tool to transform. The remote control dress as an interesting outcome of the same mentality.

Dutch designer duo Viktor & Rolf greatly succeed in establishing moods and characteristics through their designs. Making these -invisible- elements visible and more importantly visual. A resemblance that goes up for every figure from the opera designs by Lissitzy.

British designer Gareth Pugh touches on these elements too, though in a more abstract way. Abstract in the sense that clothing no longer hold on to the outlines of the human body, but -form wise- is completely free to go into any directions. Great representatives of these elements are Japanese fashion designers -or rather fashion sculptors- Issey Miyake, Rei kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto.

This work seems to me like a project that started as a painting, then it became a 3d object and in the end it became something with a function on large scale. That was my first impression. But it’s not a coincidence at all. Lissitzky made this work in his Proun- period. And if you look at the painting closely you can see that he has been using differect perspectives. It’s like he was already searching for a good architectural design, the painting seems like a study for the model.

Later on Lissitzky calls this Proun period “the station where one changes from painting to architecture”. But nothing comes from nowhere. The Russian Revolution and the First World War had gave art and design a whole lot of new opportunities. Art and Design were ready for a new start, with no right or wrong.

When I look at the painting and I see all the lines and different compartments, I find it very intriguing how Lissitzky makes the transition to architecture. It’s interesting to look at a process like this, making something that is two dimensional into tree dimensional.  It really triggers me, the whole thing looks very playful and I like the model very much. The building that came off of the painting and the materials that have been used in the model are very exciting.  The shapes that you see in the painting are literally translated to the model, but the materials that have been used in the model are very different from what you expect of the painting.

For me personally, something is missing, something that I find very interesting and important. I conclude that there has to be made a next step in this very nice project. You don’t see any doors, windows or floors. Finding the right balance between exterior and interior is the challenge.

Since I have chosen books in which the yellow color has been part of the content in different contexts, I took a book by Wassily Kandinsky for the last posting. The book describes a Color Theory according to Wassily Kandinsky, “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”. Here is his theory of the color yellow and the color that he thinks is the most opposite of yellow (blue).

Yellow means “warm,” “cheeky and exciting,” “disturbing for people,” “typical earthly color,” “compared with the mood of a person it could have the effect of representing madness in color [...] an attack of rage, blind madness, maniacal rage.

Blue means “deep, inner, supernatural, peaceful “Sinking towards black, it has the overtone of a mourning that is not human.” “typical heavenly color”

Number: Kan 5

I entered the library with a goal to find a unique book, and I did.

But what is unique ? Isn’t it pretentious ?

A funny thing happened, I picked a unique book about one of the least unique subjects that I know. Shoe obsession, which is really almost every average woman’s obsession.

The book is a miniature with more than 500 pages of text and images with at least one image of some kind of shoe per page.

Pretty unique.

But what is unique ?

I came to a conclusion that :

Unique Is Not So Unique.

(Unique Shoe)

12178 / 908.3 o’kee 1

My second book choice was based on my tag word that was yellow. I went for a book that was completely yellow and hoped that the contents of the book related to my other tags (dot, shapes and forms and jewelry). The book I ended up with was a book made by an artist called Toon Verhoef. I did not find many dots in the book, but there were some. There was no jewelry to be found in this book, but there were many super yellow paintings which had many shapes and forms that could be easily seen as beautiful shapes and forms, as you will find in many jewelry rings, necklaces, earrings etc.  I was happy with the book because it was really yellow so was the inside of the book.

Number: verhoe 3

for my third choice of book i chose this monograph on the work of Maurizio Cattelan.

a donkey with a widescreen television on its back- the contradiction(the ancient donkey and the modern television) and absurdity of this picture got me into a conversation with the student returning this book who  strongly advised me borrow it. upon looking in it i saw a similar anarchistic italian wit to that of Felini (especially in the chaos of Amarcord).

the book features some of the very interesting projects that the artist has been engaged in from early 1990 to 2000-

Super noi(super us) where the artist has been portraited by 50 of his friends through a police sketch artist.

Spermini the artist created 500 molds/masks of his face, each slightly different representing sperm.

Torno Subito(i’ll be right back) due to unsatisfactory resulting work for a solo show the artist locked the gallery with this sign hung on the front door.

Stadium the artist elongated a table soccer game to fit 25 people, commenting on racist issues on immigration in itali, half of the players of north african descent and half of italian.

i have not finished this book yet but i really recommend it, in the projects as well as in the large, extensive,insightful interview with the artist.

Rietveld library code : -catt – / 1

While looking for a book I was in search of something with a personal link to me since this is the first time I expose myself on this blog. Finally my choice was a book called “Indiaanse Tekens en Symbolen” (Indian signs and Symbols) written by Carren Caraway. I chose this particular book for no better reason than for the fact that I have a very strong love-hate relation to Indian symbols and forms of art embracing them. I always found them fascinating and pleasing to look at. But on the other hand they inherit an enormous risk of slipping into kitsch. Especially in pieces of so-called modern art these Indian symbols are often abused to produce gaudy trash. This picture I scanned from page 200 represents the Raven. He’s the central figure in the mythology of the Haida – a tribe that lived on the North West Shore in Canada.

754.9 cara 1

Conditional Painting is truly happening in the van Abbemuseum Eindhoven! They call it the Vitruvian Paint Machine.

As part of  “Take on me (Take me on)” /Dutch Design Week 17 to 25 Oct 2009, Luna Maurer and Edo Paulus executed a mural painting on pre determined conditions based on the proportions of the body and visitor interaction.

The act of designing is based on rules they say. So Luna, Edo together with Roel Wouters and Jonathan Puckey created a manifesto of explicit rules for design.

Visiting their lecture, as part of the “Take on me (Take me on)” event, they made it clear that setting strickt conditions does disconnect you from subjective standards and creates awareness in the process. A beautifull timebased movie of their “machines” made this cristal clear.

Jules Esteves, questioned the practice of Conditional Design and wrote an essay on it called “Conditional Drawing, Conditional Painting“.

[enjoy reading more]

Gustaf Klimt caused alot of commotion in his time (±1895-1910) by breaking taboes of the current politcal artculture. Although Klimt’s work is know as groundbreaking he used alot of existing elements to which he responded by giving them a different interpretation and thus giving populair themes his own posture. Taking elements of all sorts of areas which are liked and combining those together make the definition of what we nowadays call popart.

Zooming in and taking an image or a situation it’s surrounding away makes it into an statement instead of an narration. This objectifying/ distilling let to an more architectural form in which the most known feature of Klimt is visible namely the decorative side.

Which characteristics did Gustaf Klimt use to open the barrier between art and decorational expression?

Gustav_Klimt

Welcome to part 3 of : tagging slow design. This is a worksheet on which all the link-topics and post-it tags collected on the “slowWall” are listed in relation to the research subjects as components of the ’slow design project’. (researches can be downloaded as .pdf’s).

link topics.

Performance links the Morgan O’Hara research to the one on Julia Mandle. The Julia Mandle research links to the one on Richard Long on the topic street /nature & art, by slow movement to the Kunsthalle Bern exhibit and by sensibility & violence to the Psychogeography research. Psychogeography has the link topic urban life with the Karmen Franinovic research, consumption /destruction /life style with Futurisme, against and pro community with Wim Wenders, evolution of everyday life to Downshifting, and a anonimous link to Maria Blaisse. This anonimous link is not the only one linking Marie Blaisse. Link topics like art and left over, connect this research to Uta Barth. Karmen Franinovic links to Christian Nold by means of the topic mapping, and to Psychogeography by urban life, to Futurisme by life is getting faster & people are getting a social, to Julia Mandle by just stop & think and to Richard Long by the link a way to see. Richard Long links to many other researches: to Sophie Calle by self related art, to Christian Nold through a line made by walking, to Karmen Franinovic linked by the topic a way to see, to Downshifting by choosing slowness. Downshifting links back to Julia Mendle by the link topic us and them, to Psychogeography by revolution of everyday life, to Futurisme tagging the link with designed lifestyle, to Marie Blaisse by us and them, and to the Kunsthalle Bern exhibit by reflect /a closer look. The research on Futurism has some remaining links to Julia Mandle through the topic exploring / explosive / sculptural. Following links from Wim Wenders to Uta Barth is made possible by the topic notice the small things in life, to Christian Nold by moving /memories. Mapping links Christian Nold to the Ambient/Brain Eno research while that last one makes a link back to the Kunsthalle “The Half and the Whole” exhibit creating a take time to cook link.

Reading all the researches the links will surely start to make sense, as will their variety shed light on the specific nature of many of them. Some research subject however did not create any link at all, like in the case of Maison Martin Margiela. And it was 0nly after some discusion that the performance link was created between Sophie Calle and Karmen Franinovic. Uta Barth was anonimously linked to Richard Long which might have been an intuitively act

Post-it tags.

No links did not mean no tags. Time, Maison Martin Margiela for example was closely read and tagged with post-it. This created tags like memories, replica, time(less), can’t relate to it, time, physical picture of memory and the photographical tag to a picture by Mark Manders. Wim Wenders (present in our research list because of his beautifull documentary “Notebook on Cities & Clothes” about fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto) generated also many tags like sublime, I finally found time, hillbilly, surreal, the truth, place, moving. Sophie Calle tagged by the moderator with authorship, generated: life=art, stories, documenting life. Uta Barth looking was tagged: rainy day with half closed eyes, in between places, no left over, sunday. Ambient the research connected to Brian Eno tagged as big here long now was retagged as live the moment, loosing yourself, don’t think, sound. Christian Nold place-ness got tagged with keywords like biomapping, google earth, links, remapping memories. Linked to many, tagged by few. Julian Mandle pause, was tagged with pause from urban flow only. Morgan O’Hara gestures was tagged with trans, transforming, concert-art, transmission, energy of moments, reaction. Maria Blaisse architecture by border between self and not self. Futurism with fast life, life style, save time? Downshifting was tagged with life style too and change assumption. Richard Long tagged as a subject with landscape was enriched with the two tags: exploring fast and slow and perception of space, time and personal potency. Psychogeography with destruction of community, philosophy, socialism, anarchisme and urban live. Finally Karmen Franinovic subtraction, served as a hub for the tags: observe, spontaneous landscape, discover a realy nice place that never be online, easy fast, MTV generation, reflect, and observe. Some researches like Conditional Design re-mapping did not make “the slowWall” and were concequently not linked

added tags from the slow design lecture.

scale, gestures, measurements, relations, sustainability, evolving, creative activism, reveal, expanding awareness, reflect, engage, participal, deceleration, fresh connections, rhythm, probing, (im)materiality, metabolism, reflective consumption, live span, memories, community, record, tracing, (human) body, break (take a break), nothingness, inclusive, transparent, re-mapping, connection to scale

read also: >tagging slowdesign part 1

On request of Gray Magazine (yearly published on the occasion of Rietveld’s final exams show) 40 students of the Foundation Year, guided by Henk Groenendijk and Tine Melzer, unleashed a two day project to create a new context for a highly varied 20.000 slide images archive. André Klein, now chair of Fine Arts and Sandberg Applied Art Dept, compiled these slides over his 25 year long career of art history teaching.

We could only guess after the motives and meanings that bound these images together in a dynamic process of ever changing contexts and wonder what new context of relation they would have in the eyes and minds of the basicyear students. The uninhibited existence of a ‘democratically’ selected 1000 reproductions, registrations and images was given new meaning through a process of retagging with subjective keywords. In the 2 day process new contexts and connections were created, processes where discovered, and results presented in a physical display of image related tag-lists and monumental alphabetical (key)word lists. I am a kid
I burn
ice
ice cube
iceberg
ice cream
Iceland
ideal
IKEA
ill
illusion
Illustration
image
imagination
immigration
imitate
imitation
immaterial
impale
imperfection
impossible
impression
in scene
incest
inconvenient
increasing
identical
India
India
Indian
industrial
industry
infinity
influence
information
ink
inner space
innocence
inquiry
insane
insect
insecure
inside
insides
installation
institute
instruction
instruments
integrate
intellectual
intense
interaction
intercourse
interest
interference
intergalactic
interior
intertwine
intimacy
intruder
invasion
invention
invisible
invitation
irresponsible
island
isolation
it
Italy
itch

Awareness surfaced about the relation between content and image and word and form and content in the contexts of our own terms. Tagging images uncovered these relations

some of the question we asked ourselves were:

The mechanisms of images and imagination on one side and the mechanisms of names and naming on the other – where do they both meet?
What is the link between what we see and how we call it?
What is the process of agreement with the other(s) to find relevant and appropriate names?
Is tagging also a kind of ‘baptizing’? Or rather an act of memory and memorizing, how things are called?
What is the level of interpretation when we have to give an image a tag?
What is the relationship between tag and image, word and view?

For more information on this and other project based on the same archive, read Gray Magazine 2009.

And again repetition. It’s also ironic, to repeat a search for repetition. But this time it’s different:
this time it’s art;
this time it’s pink;
this time it’s really big;
this time it’s Sophie Calle.
But still it’s repetition

A letter, over and over again, but the same letter. 30 women from different ages, professions, layers read it, interpretate it into what they think is the content. Now suddenly it seems not to be about the same letter anymore, but it is!
Repetition in language apparently is different than repetition in forms and shapes.
Language has a personality to it that by the slightest (miss) interpretation or (miss) understanding, the content seems to change. So now it’s not a repetition of the same letter 30 times, it’s about 30 different letters.
I get confused now, because I seemed to think that our interpretation of forms, prints and products would be more alike for everybody. Because a form is a form and a product is a product. Because we learned a cup is to drink from, we see a cup to drink from.

We also learned the meaning of words, but somewhere through life these meanings seem to form itself into (slightly) different ones.
Our idea about forms and products are also changing through life, but it somehow seems to me that there is more of a conventional thing to it, or al least a less personal one. At least the function.

cat.no. -call-2

keyword: repetition

Our sculpture teacher gave us an assignment this monday: To make a sculpture based on a painting by Philip Guston. He had also brought a book. I looked at it, and to my great surprise I had found a third pyramid. The painting on the cover is called “Pyramid and shoe”.

Guston, who first was an abstract expressionist, begun painting cartoonesque images of his everyday life and looking at them is like taking part of it.

About the painting pyramid and shoe:

“In pyramid and shoe (1977) the two objects named meet litteraly on an equal footing. The latter being no  less rooted in place than the former, it represents the individual and the ephemeral confronting the anonumous , the collective and the eternal”.

cat. nr: GUS 3

keyword: pyramid

I was walking around with the keyword in me mind: connection… And this nice little book jumped out.

This connection is really good. The human being fighting against the nature. One of the pictures shows a animal/person running away from a chanterelle, -Or is he just yelling “Hurrah” because he find the chanterelle, meanwhile he is wearing a rabbit costume?

This is a art book. A really art book. I don’t understand the connections anymore. The logic is gone!

It seems to be another way of communication, a more free way. I have to look at this book as an art book, and use another way of thinking.

cat.nr: -mut-3

keyword: connection

Doris Salcedo is a columbian sculptor who works with the seemingly fragile subject of memories. Salcedo has for years travelled the land of Columbia, searching out and listening to the stories of people who have witnessed and survived the cruel civil war. People that have lost parents, siblings, spouses, friends and neighbors to guerillas, drug gangs and military death squads. These stories Salcedo translates into beautifully unnerving sculptures. She works with everyday objects such as wardrobes, chairs and tables and she turn them into assemblage like sculptures.

In the Untitled series chairs and wardrobes merge into each other in solid blocks held together by concrete. The concrete fill out the hollowness inside the wardrobe and the space under the table as if trying to fix the memories and keep the secrets these spaces holds. In the work Unland the orphan tunic, two table halves becomes one, dependent on each other they create a new unity. Salcedo takes everyday objects and by slightly changing them she turn them into symbols for human relations and carriers of memories.

I feel affected by these works. They are curious, narrative, they want to tell the story but still don’t give away the secrets. I feel like this is art that wants to change the world, not in a big revolution, but by telling stories and changing us a tiny bit at the time, so slightly that it can barely be noticed. I’ll end this with a quote from the artist;

`I know that art doesn’t act directly I know that I cannot save anybody’s life, but art can keep ideas alive, ideas that can influence directly our everyday lives, our daily experience.´

cat.no. -salc 1-

keyword: fragile

Constructing patterns, all around the world.
That’s what they do in my last book also.
But now in a more emotional way, rather than functional.
Here its more clear what their dreams, fairs and thoughts are.

Outsiders,
as we call them,
just because they see it from their own vernacular perception.
More pure, more spontaneously, out of visionary need.
They are more independent from what we consider art.

cat.no: 705.9-car-1

keyword: culture

As a final post on flaneurship and neon lights in the city landscape, I chose to write about  Bruce Nauman. This might seem confusing, because his works are usually displayed in a gallery or a museum, quite isolated from the busy city environment that was my starting point for the first post.

Nauman made some installations with neon light, some containing text, others consist of images only. I chose these three examples from the mid-eighties (One Hundred Live and Die, 1984, Seven Figures, 1984, Mean Clown Welcome, 1985) for the more or less brutal messages they communicate.  I still don’t know what the medium neon in itself expresses. This needs a more elaborate research. I’ll try to give a short comparison between Nauman’s work and the neons in Vegas. Comparing these two types of neon signs arise questions about this romanticist (yet uncanny) idea of a flaneur who gets sucked into a dreamworld of lights in the city. The common divider between these works of Nauman and for instance the neon signs in Las Vegas is immediacy. Both types of signs are attacking the viewer, but the effects are parallel reversed to one another. Nauman plays with a system of repulsion, while in a competitive commercial context (such as Las Vegas), neon signs would rather be used to evoke attraction. Still, I think both have to do with desire.

cat.no. -naum-8

keyword: neon

“things as they are” is a book reflecting photojournalism of the last 50 years.
it is a documentary about the development and change in this specific genre, but also very useful as an overview of of social, political and enviromental topics, concerning the media in this timeperiod.
Its definition as an artbook functions, because it is dealing with the medium photography itself, aesthetics, how they change, but also with the investigation of reality and how it is and has been shown to us.
It’s great flipping through it for the matter of inspiration, information, investigation, interest and the aestetical experience.

cat.no. 761.6-pan-

keyword: overview

When browsing the exciting digital world that is the library catalogue I came across a title containing the evocative, mystic word… vorticism. Conjuring up images of covert religious sects full of sinister hooded eidolons walloping around subterranean crypts. Muttering arcane, paeanistic assertions filled with astonishing amounts of radiant, completely redundant verbosity. These esoteric figures adulated to the apotheosis of the vortex.

Not completely to my surprise it was nothing of the sort. It turned out to be something rather less inclined to cliché’s and more inclined to paintings.

cat. nr: 705.8 cor-1

keyword: develope envelope

While I was looking for the book, which could give me some materials about identity, I found, that there are not much books about photography in our library. So, I decided to stop on this History book, which includes photos from 19th-20th century. I have chosen a portrait genre. But I found that it’s difficult to talk about this topic objectively, showing just a few examples. The idea was to show changes in society, that led to the changes in photography also. Not only technical innovations had influence on it. I can say that now we have a good material, good inheritance, that we can use in our work. And, of course, our present time has it’s own identity, interesting, what kind of changes it will leave after.

book no: 761-WAR-1

keyword: identity

we are humans…

humans who are creating…

creation is an human action…

humans who are destructing…

destruction is an human action…

creation and destruction

thats human, thats us…

-twom- I

keyword: playground

Ondanks dat ik meteen weer een passend tijdschrift had gevonden dat over kunst ging en ook gelinkt was aan mijn vorige onderwerpen ben ik deze keer toch eens iets grondiger gaan neuzen tussen de boeken. na een blik in boeken van een hoop bekende en onbekende namen kwam ik al snel uit bij iets wat me wel aanstond; Een boek over Tom Friedman.
Deze kunstenaar werkt voornamelijk met materialen die we allemaal kennen als dingen die we ‘gebruiken’ in het dagelijks leven. bv: tandenstokers, suikerklontjes, kauwgomballen, een potlood, vuilniszakken, plastic bekertjes etc. met deze materialen creëert hij geometrische vormen of totaal nieuw ogende structuren. Friedmans kunst heeft connecties met conceptualisme, arte povera, minimal art en land art, maar zijn visie en werk methode gaat verder dan deze historische achtergronden; Friedman creëert een totaal unieke en eigen visuele communicatie.

cat.no. -fried-1

keyword: oppervlak

This whole century fashion has been very influenced by the arts. This is because of co-operations from the fashion- and artscene which started already in the beginning of the 20th century.

In the 80’s fashion was brought to the next level, there was an economic growth which brought the attitude of the individualism. On the other hand this pushed the rhythm of change which meant the originality was less interesting because of the many copies and this ended the modernity. The post modern esthetics blew the galleries and museums away with its welfare.

Everything was said and done, from now on creations were nothing more then reproductions. The convervatism who denied the value of progress and ideology, focussed on the main values. This means they re-appreciated the art of painting now-a-days and from the crinoline.

Today again we are very much into individuality, which forces us to be more and more personal with ourselves. The will to keep your unique individual self is actually a statement which connects you to a certain group. You want to be seen for your specific, different individual personality and want to be recognised for this. And because you are not the only one you suit in a certain group that thinks in the same way as you do so you still fit in a box. Off course every person is different, but actually how unique and individual are we…..?

Catalog nr: 11297

keyword: individuality

This letter I want to attach to my last messege about identity in a street signs. For the second time I’m using this book, which you can also take in a library. This time I made a selection of posters made in different countries, but for the same movies. My thought was about the possibility of existance of different schools of postering. This posters, that you can find below, were made in the time when there were no internet for sending files with information and designer or artist had to improvise making a new masterpiece for the public. But this problem had made movie presentation even more interesting in different countries. Each country had added something special, non cliche. So, enjoy, and thank’s for your attention.

cat. nr: 754.1-keh-1

keyword: identity

It was big….impressively big. That’s why.

Maybe it wasn’t fair for the other books, because this book was also on a ‘special’ place. It had a place of its own as if it was more valuable than the others.
It’s not that I’m a shallow person, but it just caught my eye because of its physical appearance.
I think the pattern on the outside was disastrous by the way.

This book is about patterns. I became really fascinated about patterns, because it seems to bet hat everything becomes a pattern as long as you repeat the shape, form, act or colour over and over again. This is also how patterns become part of our life. Interesting

…At least I thought so

cat. nr. : 701.9-sch-1

keyword: repetition

You start playing with plastic cubes…
for now, they are big… easy to fix…

they get smaller… it s time to play more precisely…

they are really tiny… play really precisely…

50 years later… still playing with cubes…
but now, they are huge… really huge…

cat. nr: 710.9-cat-6

keyword: playground

As I was walking in between the library’s narrow lines of bookshelves I quickly browsed through the titles on the shelves. A book caught my eye, I don’t know why, maybe a combination of the title and the layout and what notes of association they strike. The book that caught my attention was on the bottom shelf, in-between books about african ceramics and the art of pottery. The title Fragiles in black on a white background. I instantly felt a liking for the title “fragiles”, a poetic word that suggest vulnerable and delicate objects that has to be handled with care. As I picked up the book I noticed that it was a new book from one of my favorite publishers Gestalten Verlag.

Of course. I’ve got some of their books and always find them interesting, they cross over the borders between design, graphic design and contemporary art, in a playful and inspiring way. So sitting down and opening the book I found a collection of contemporary work in porcelain, glass and ceramics by both established and emerging design talents and artists. Gesltalten Verlag always seem to have an extraordinary eye for finding the most interesting subjects of right now. Ceramics is an area with history going back to the beginning of human kind but recently new  technical developments allow designers a new approach. Collecting inspiration from the whole history of ceramics, these artist’s freely play with the language of old ceramics styles but by fully mastering that language and adopting it to new techniques they can create new unconventional objects that range from housewhare to artworks.

cat. nr:

keyword: fragile

A book I found interresting is about pyramid design in ancient Egypt. The quality of the designs created by the ancients can be very inspiring tough it may seem a bit qliché, the mystery around the monumental pyramids as a timeless form are still facinating.

The book is an old and worn pocketsized relic it self. Its plastic wrapping that is protecting the cover almost falls off as you open it. It contains lots of illustrations and groundplan sketches of pyramidstructures, materials used, design methods and tools.

cat. nr: 712.5

keyword: pyramid

I am in my mothers tummy… I am playing with myself…

I am born… i am playing with my cuddle toys…

I am 3 years old… I am playing with other children…

I am 14 years old… I am playing with boys…

I am 18 years old… I am playing with men…

I am 24 years old… I am still playing with men…

I am 32 years old… I am playing with my kids…

I am 63 years old… Am i still allowed to play?

YES, I AM…

cat. nr: -cal-2

keyword: playground

“Slow” for me is enjoying life in the way I like it myself.
The slowest thing that I did, which I can remember, is to make an artwork.

Sometimes it takes months or years to finish it.
The process of being an artist is also slow for me, but I am enjoying this process a lot. The most unique part of an artwork is that not everyone can understand the meaning and feeling of it. During my research I have found sentences from Robert Hughes that made me very curious:

“What we need more of art: art that holds time as a vase holds water; art that grows out of modes of perception and making whose skill and doggedness make you think and feel; art that isn’t merely sensational, that doesn’t get its message across in ten seconds, that isn’t falsely iconic, that hooks onto something deep-running in our natures”.
It makes an artist very special making this kind of art.

Somebody should not ignore the beauty of products, nether do I, but an overload of the visual and mental impact of consumption is forcing me to find a way to deal with this headache, which emerges from the stress of speed. Speed is arising from measurement. So the first step was to put down my watch to give myself some freedom. But “slowness” almost doesn’t exist in my life, what means that the stress is not erasable. What is left is to find a way out of this reality into daydream spaces, where I can have the total freedom of time in a self-chosen speed or system. “Daydream spaces, such as those generated by reading a good book, are often more commanding than physical spaces. While you read, you don’t even notice people who walk through the room because you are actually in the space that’s generated by the author. … the spaces generated by music can be much larger than the one in which you are physically…” here I totally agree with James Turrell. The same goes when he says that these are the spaces that we are inhabiting most of the time, much more then the conscious awake space that is called reality.

read it online

read it in print

Maybe you find it puzzling that this posting about Helvetica and Wim Crouwel starts with an image of Paul Elliman’s “Bits” Alphabet.

Extremes can sometimes meet when you least expect it, and this fascinates me. It became apparent again during the investigation by the FoundationYear C group, into Gary Hustwitt’s Movie “Helvetica” and our consequently visit to the Wim Crouwel exhibit last month at the “van Abbemuseum”.

left: Bits by Paul Elliman, right: Objectified by Build (click images for blog info)

“Bits” was developed by Paul Elliman in the mid 90ties and published in the 15th (Cities) issue of Fuse’s conceptual Font Box. quote: “Language moves between us and the world on patterns of repetition and variation, and a mimetic example of this might be something like an alphabet”
Later, in 2004, it was included in the Cooper-Hewitt Design Triennial N.Y. which made “concept type” part of the established design world.

Gary Hustwitt’s new documentary “Objectified” takes design, and as a matter of fact “Bits” too, one step further by making it popular in the same way as he did with “Helvetica”.

Modernist thinking, or even constructivist-, lays at the base of the “Helvetica” concept and the work of Wim Crouwel, as this first movie on typography has him stated. As a true Dutch graphic design icon Wim Crouwel illustrated this through work, presented at the library exhibition of the van Abbemuseum, celebrating his 70th birthday. A small but beautiful display of catalogues and posters made for both this and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

pages by Crouwel versus pages by Jan van Toorn from publication “Het Debat”

Extremes met in person when Crouwel and Jan van Toorn celebrated their life long controversy with a recurrence of their famous 1970 debate. Functionalism versus engagement. Jan van Toorn succeeded Crouwel as a designer at this museum under the directorate of Jean Leering to manifest in an inspiring cooperation what that leads to in terms of exhibition concepts and graphic design (“Museum in Motion” at the library). Jean Leering also closely work together with Jan Slothouber (read part 1 of C group’s research) at the TU-Delft where the published several internal essay’s on the philosophical and social consequences of design.

80/20/100 © Nijhof&Lee booksellers – Laurenz Brunner, final exam poster

More research was conducted to explore related content or work approach of other designers like, Laurenz Brunner’s “Akkurat”, his successful contemporary remake of Helvetica, Experimental Jetset convicted users of Helvetica, the cooperation “8020100″ between Vivid Gallery in Rotterdam and Nijhof&Lee Bookstore in Amsterdam. Context was created by turning the focus on Adriaan Frutiger, designer of Helvetica’s conscientious alternative “Univers”. To further explore the relation to language and image we further focused our investigating efforts on the visual legacy of Charles & Ray Eames, the “El Hema” exhibition/store and Massin’s timeless publication “Letter and Image“.

With the inclusion of Belgian artist Guy Rombouts the full circle of our focus on type design was completed. The investigation into his visual language concept “AZart” will be presented soon in a separated part 3 C_group posting. This was part II of the C_group research
All researches linked in this posting can be downloaded in A4 format and are also available as hard copy research prints at the ResearchFolders available at the academy library

Echo,

v. reverberate; repeat a sound; transmit immediately each character received by a computer back to the course as to serve as a confirmation of receipt (Computers)

n. repetition of a sound produced by the reflection of sound waves from a solid surface; (Computers) user input printed to the screen so the user can read it; (Slang) person who reflects on another person; person who imitates another

As I walked trough the hallways of the Rietveld I see everything developing,
objects, drawings, performances, everything is moving and growing.

although the strange thing is that everything looks a bit a like,
exchanged words, moves, thoughts connected, reflected and formed,
into one echo that belongs to the voice of the Rietveld academy

Here the assignment “make a connection” became the inpiration for some reasearch on how to change two bodies into one. How to become a siamese twin. It is interesting to see the new shapes the bodies make, recognizable but totally new.  This project posts questions like; what would fashion look like if the human body was formed differently and how much can fashion form our appearance. It is interesting to think about what effect clothes that conjoin two people would have on our behavior and relationships.