Designblog

There are two feelings I have with libraries. I’ll put these two feelings in words:

Feeling #1. Being in a library makes me feel intelligent. Surrounded by all this knowledge there is no other option for me.

Feeling #2. Being in a library makes me feel dumb. Surrounded by all this knowledge I was never able, in my library history, to pick out a smart, interesting and mind-opening book.

I went to the library with an optimistic feeling; I went there with the intention to find the book that’ll make my day. I spend thirty minutes (approximately) looking for the most smart, interesting and mind-opening book. After picking out thirteen (approximately) smart, interesting and mind-opening looking books, feeling #2 was once again confirmed. All the thirteen books were swindlers.

Book #13. was the worst, it was never lend before, though it stood here between the “s,i,m-o” books since 1994. (Yes indeed, for fifteen years). The book was a waste of paper. I had to lend this book; we are soul mates in a way, both library losers.

774.7 zee 1

The white spot in the middle of the book immediately grabbed my attention. It’s the only element you see on the book. The rest is covered with denim. Strange actually because the book contains information about the Japanese architecture. And denim is typical ´West´. But for me strange is not that negative, I think it is quite interesting.

Actually I don’t know anything about Japanese architecture. But I was thinking about it, because the last two years I learnt a lot about the Japanese environment. I wondered if you could see the Japanese flora and fauna back into their architecture (which it does).

While flipping the pages you only see black and white photographs which show the simplicity of their architecture. It shows a lot of buildings with interesting spaces, lines and basic elements. I really recognize ‘Japan’ in it.

It’s a squared book fit in one color which I like. Not too big, not to small and it really wanted to tell me something about buildings created with natural elements of Japan.

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7/3.3

Shoin

Searching without an objective search criterion in a library seems to contradict the way a library is organized. However, after deciding that it is exactly this intellectual approach that I need to abandon, I decide to approach the books basing my choice on feelings and preferences alone.

1. I like graphic art

2. I like vivid colors

I notice a book that is a faded neon pink. I recognize it, because I have it at home, twice. Living with my boyfriend has caused some books to be connected with a twin, and our copies of ‘Een teken aan de wand’ are standing next to each other on the shelf, looking beautiful.

Should I choose this book? Isn’t it too obvious, seeing that I know it, have read it, used it in projects and above all, that it concerns some of my favorite topics: feminism and human rights? Yes I should, neon pink looks even better times three.

754.1 Hof1

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.

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This book is conceptional. Size is small. Color is white. It has no image.
It is very simple that’s why it works well when you read this book.
There is no disturbance. You can see only a few word in the middle of page.
For example ‘A distance of 86 steps‘.

Each page has different number of steps.
Minimum is 3 steps. maximum is 3252004362 steps.
I can imagine the place if I walk this steps then I can reach somewhere.
In general we don’t notice about steps before we walk somewhere.
So this book can make us become aware of the number of steps.

Catalog number : brouw4

Library politic department

As the title of my book already suggest, it is all about books. I choose for a book, which shows a collection of the most interesting libraries in Holland, all supported by interesting pictures of them. It is all about the silence and intellectual atmosphere that fits into the library. The reason I took this book is because it is about the industrial architecture were books need to fit in perfectly.

The title of the book is called: “/hier groeien boeken uit de grond” which means: “Books are growing out of the ground”. The photographers and designers show you how books can be part of the design of the building, which was for me the most important reason to choose for this book. When I look at the images in this book, I get the feeling of the enormous archive of all kind of letters, words, lines and story’s there are in a library, but also in the whole world.

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I entered the library with the intention of taking the first book that catches my eye, even it is based on pure visual, superficial attraction.
The book that I noticed first was standing right next to me and I instantly decided to take it because it brought me back to my past. It was a massive book called S, M, L, XL by architect Rem Koolhaas in collaboration  with designer Bruce Mau. I was 13 years old when I  held it in my hands for the first time and I was playing with it by choosing words and sentences from it randomly, translating them into my own language and retyping them in my big book of quotes. Today, 6 years after I played this game again and picked with my finger, with my eyes closed. The word was DISORDER.

-KOOL- 2a

The book that attracted my eye hold the promising title „The new textiles“ and can be found in the library „Textile“ section. Although the word „new“ is no longer valid as it refers to the 80’s and early 90’s, the book could still – through its vast range of images – nurture my curiosity about the possibilities of the textile and its value as the work of art. The traditional textures are treated as abstract objects, out from their usual use and the common field of associations. One can find the textures wrapped, stretched, broke into pieces, collaged, melted in the high temperature, or replaced by materials not considered as textiles in the traditional sense: papers, wires, needles, glass etc. All those actions broaden the sense of what textile can became, especially when it becomes an work of art.

'White Arc 3' Akio Hamatani 1983

Catalogue Number: 779.0 col 1

I find myself wandering in the jewellery section, in my search for an interesting book. But what to choose? What appeals to me? Suddenly my gaze stops at a word that strikes me, in my search of making a choice:

‘Choice’.

I’m choosing choice.

The cover shows some kind of structure, which reminds me of the pathways of airplanes, drawn on a world map. Only in this case it’s not cities on the map, but the jewellery artists and the types of jewellery described in the book. ‘Brosche’ (the German word for brooch) is a busy airport, as well as ‘Barbara Maas’.
When I take a closer look at the colophon of the book, I realize that my assumptions were wrong. Not only the jewellery artists are mentioned on this world map, but also the key author: Barbara Maas. That explains all the airplanes flying towards her.
To me, this cover shows all the choices Barbara Maas has made, writing this book. Now I am choosing, I am choosing ‘Choice’.

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“subjective library” images and flickr tag-cloud

Read the reflections of A and C group’s journey into the Rietveld Library’s Design and Art section. This journey to investigate, made our fascinations, preconceptions and hidden desires manifest. How does a subjective book choice create a personal mirror and leaves traces of tags, connecting Design to Art, exposing autonomy in both.

Read about the subjective, open and intiutive first book choice from the Design section of our library. Wonder about the tags connected to those accounts. Follow the continuing story as a second book is selected based on those tags created. Witness the third posting in which those sets of tags lead us from Design to Art. A move that forces us to reflect upon the connection between them both.

Follow the continuing accounts of the three succeeding investigating postings by clicking on the yellow link. Experience the total list of tags created during this “Subjective Library” Project.

LIST OF TAGS:

3289 days, A4, cover, funky colors, television, unatractive, film photography : fauna, flora, interesting, lines, strange, fluffy, simple, horrible, brainwork, complicated, proud, “to know” : disorder, game, grid, systematization, “One Minute Sculpture” : library, swindler, breaking news, library loser, extraordinary, talented : space, absence-presence, framework, surrounding, returning : abnormal, rediscover, choice, plain, others : 1000, 754., direction, signs, city, direction, traffic, political, posters : blue Pinocchio, screaming, spine of book, blue, Pinocchio, blue fairy, eyecandy, contemporary, folk, mentality : not getting there, unknown, judging by covers, content, connection, strangers, subject : supermarket, theft, housewife, tiny, midlife crisis, multilingual : logic, question, reason, consciousness, interest, remarks, impossible, mathematical, perspective : attraction, strange, swissfolk, art, death, life, love, Maurizio Cattelan : cover, old book, unique, obsession, miniature : Anita, eyes, portrait, dominant, name, color, film : Wiener Werkstätte, characteristic, hand work, mass fabrication, original, process, realization, detail, photography, the nude : cheap fashion, funny, random, tattoo, tribe, weird, mysterious, tribe : attraction, new texture, action, quick, warning, a priori, new, amusement, choices, eye-catching, eyes, random : escape reality, library, overflow of impulses, fruitless reality, jostling time, absorbing force, déjà-vu : arrange, industrial, library, architecture, museum, self-made, Andreas Gursky, index : city, nomadic, reality, funky, colors, interiors : contrast, fat, texture, typography, culture, nudity : conceptional, distance, no image, steps, thinking space, braille : cat, compulsive, font, chaos, subjective, illustration, objective, random, Tadao Ando : airplane, airport, choice, structure, worldmap, 756, 80’s, human, machines, unique, flying : dot, jewelry, shapes & forms, yellow, children, fun, paint, playful, all colors, blue, green, theory : extraordinary, life, normal, objects, absurd : 80’s, desire, fashion, party, techno, desire, fabrics, orgasmatic : alchemy, identical, methaphysics, mysticism, mythology, Arabic, identical, inaccurate, ladies, naked, orient, sculptures, stereotypes : Canada, Indian symbols, kitsch, raven, Indian art, Mexico, Jeff Koons, porn : attraction, gold, meeting an old lover, recognition, cheap, irresistibility, not psychology, wrong, beauty, compare, contrast, couple, same, similarity, together, two books, ugliness : connection, embroidery, hundred years, death, funerals, general terms, invisible, object, spirit, visible : color, feeling, personal story, feminism, graphic : first sight, mystery, old-fashioned, bloody, mad, rituals, revelatory, Yin : oblivion, automatic lives, bottom shelve, eat, mantra, story-making, colorful, dogs, double-take, eat sleep, vases, vegetables : attracted, nothing, black, disturbing.

still curious read the books involved at the Gerrit Rietveld Library, (catalogue numbers are included).

How science looks at the universe today...

Sinds het ontstaan van ons mensen hebben wij de behoefte om een verklaring te vinden voor alles dat om ons heen gebeurd; voor waar wij en de wereld vandaan komen en waarom in deze hoedanigheid.
Deze drang om alles te ordenen en enige controle te krijgen over de choatische levendige wereld heeft geleidt tot vele romantische verhalen.

Vaak zijn de personages in deze verhalen almachtige goden en godinnen wiens vetes, liefde, verdriet, frustraties en eigenlijk menselijkheid bepalen hoe het er aan toe gaat in de wereld. Al gelang de situatie maakt dit de mensheid onderdanig, devotisch, woedend, machteloos of doodsbang. Vast staat dat de relatie met deze oppermacht zij het zeus, god of het universum ontzettend diep gaat en als van levensbelang voelt.
Vaak wordt deze manier van omgaan met ons bestaan toegeschreven aan onwetendheid. De onwetendheid maakte echter plaats voor veel wetenschappelijk verkregen kennis wat de meeste verhalen onaannemelijk maakt. Misschien hebben de mensen ook nooit echt gelooft dat bijvoorbeel de wereld voorbeweegt op de rug van een schildpad, als is dit een gevaarlijk statement, maar zagen zij vooral  het gote belang van het vertellen van verhalen. Verhalen die spelen met de vragen van het leven en de behoefte om te weten hoe alles in elkaar zit te verzadigen.
De komende beschrijving van hoe de wereld is ontstaan is een samenstelling van verhalen van volken van over de hele wereld. Heilige verhalen die mede door de wetenschap en globalisering voor vele te niet gedaan zijn; mythes. Mij is duidelijke geworden dat veel mythes het idee van hoe de wereld is ontstaan bij het juiste eind hadden volgens hedendaagse standaard. Zo word er bij voorbeeld  gepraat over een olievlek, een massa latente energie en over een chaos. Dit symboliseerde denk ik precies hetzelfde als dat wat vooraf ging aan de nu gangbare theorie over de oerknal.

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Jan Jansen, the shoe designer in Amsterdam.

He is still working on his collection of shoes even he is 68 years old.

He has so much passion for his works.

First Question to start my research was;
“What are you going to use to make your own research for Jan Jansen?“.

Then I turn to use Video and it was not too hard to think. The idea was, taking interviews from Jan Jansen himself, Workers from his store and customers and make them together.

Here is my ‘Interview’

Ted Noten thinks these days the function of jewelry is quite not necessary in the western culture. In his opinion we have forgotten what it means. He asks himself the question; What is jewelry? And; Why do we keep it?”
He wants to make jewelry people can afford, and that’s a funny thing because his way of working is to pack things into acrylic material, so he actiully makes a distance between object and public.
And the fact that he don’t want to make art for the elite people. But – if you make jewelry that goes into the art field, it’s only the elite who can buy it.

That’s also my question; What’s the use of this ‘useless jewelry’?

  research on_Ted_Noten

The work of Lucy Sarneel interested me. Her work is precise and careful. She translates historic time to our own time. She also shows ideas which are derived from her personal daily life experiences.
A really interesting work of Lucy Sarneel is called ‘Stoelringen’, (Chair Rings), made in 1992. This work represents different types of personalities. To each personality, she connects a different chair. She is thus showing a personality as a chair, in a ring format.
This work caught my attention, because it shows a different interest of the artist if you compare it to her other works. In the ‘Stoelringen’ work, she focused on the relation between material and personalities instead of time and personal feelings, as in most of her works.
The small size of the jewellery remembers me of traditional games, particularly the chess game.
As a response to this work, I decided to make a chair for each personality on the chess game. Each chair, its size and shape, is related to the social difference and position of the chess piece.

Lucy Sarneel