Designblog

Idealistic intentions

All over the world idealistic ideas about ecological, peaceful communities and city’s rise up with the intention to create a new world and to design a new society and mentality that would chance the world. Nature supporting architecture, religious like rituals, education, economic and social structures are developed to amplify the realization of this new and “better” world. In every such project that was developed until now, cultures come together in a fusion of art, education, rituals and tradition. It is clear that a lot of people have the desire of a new structured, new spiritual and in every aspect more organic and ecological world. One that gives us the peace of mind that we will not use up our energy sources, that we will not exterminate our nature and therefor importantly to most humans ourselves! Every kind of media is trying to inform us to be aware for the need of change throughout the hole world. To raise the question of awareness, in what way do we go on manipulating the world, in what way can we change our living conditions. It is even a big inspiration for the art world, television series that create science fiction out of it, writhers, designers, architects etc…

Utopia’s

Some reactions to all of this have bin the design and building of Utopia’s. Still up until today non of these “Utopia” projects seem to really succeed. It is an interesting question to why these projects fail time after time and still why so many projects are rising up. It is a question that I will give my own perspective on. I will take two cities as an example for the experiment for the improvement of a better quality of live.

Auroville

“Auroville wants to be a universal township where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity”. In there philosophy they try to wave cultures and societies together with traditional and modern lifestyles. In that way Auroville has become a playground in many area’s such as architecture. Not only does Auroville have an interesting architecture it has it’s own economical structure, a research area for renewable energy and recyclable energy and elements, it’s own social structures and developed education.

The sketch of Auroville ‘1965’ begun with Mirra Alfassa (who was collectively called “The Mother”) she laid down the basic concept for the town. Here first sketches are called “The Galaxy” in witch she tries to lay down all the important activity areas that would fulfill the vision of making it a universal township.  It was to be a city that would totally intergrade and be submissive to nature. Then in 1970 Mirra Alfassa asked Roger Anger to begin with the design of the center “Matrimandir” the hart of Auroville. This is the most and very important  building of Auroville. It is called the “soul of the city” and is situated in a large open space much like an arena called “Peace”. Inside the building there are 4 pedestals that all belong to a wind-region North-East-South-West and symbolize characters. And also a mediation hall, this contains the largest glass globe in the world. Above it is a hole in the roof so that the sunlight shine’s s straight line into the globe by daylight. Witch gives it a extraordinary glow and light spectacle.

Every building has a symbolic meaning. The city exists out of 4 zones (cultural, international, industrial, residential) and a green belt. The movement of the city became to be intergraded in the nature it was build in. Around it other communities came into existence. Thus a kind of double city gradually developed. Auroville starts weaving into a structure of it’s evolution and become one pattern. The city has relied on the possibilities that nature trees and plants gave room for to build, and because of that a very natural shape became to be, almost tornado like, if it was made and shaped by nature itself.

This all came to be in the order of a charter of rules that where developed to the being of the City. Some of the architectural rules:

1. Not to Harm nature or its existing habitants in the build of the city
2. Eco Friendly Architecture
3. Climate responsive architecture
4. Architecture integration with natural surroundings

The following link is to the architectural aspect of Auroville: http://www.auroville.org/thecity/architecture.htm

Chandrigarh

Here I want to make a bridge to Chandrigarh another city that was build in India. This city came to existence because in 1947 Punjab was divided into a Pakistani and Indian part the new Indian state therefor needed a new capital city. The architect is Le Cobustier who also created the Modular formula and his own charter’s of rules for architectural constructions.

Some of Le Cobusier values:

1. Architecture that has a moving relation with light, shadow and space.
2. Provide of cheap and high quality buildings
3. To contribute to a more comfortable and easy lifestyle
4. To connect people by the use of elements and natural senses

These formula’s had everything to do with the natural elements.Le Corbusier had an aversion for industrial like cities, he thought it led to crowing, dirtiness and lack of moral landscape. He tried to intergrade a way of architecture that suggest and encourage people to have a certain lifestyle. He was also very concerned with the human body responding to its architecture. Also the feel and touch of materials and shapes, color, space, sounds, light where all even as important. The city Chandigarh pronounces itself as a city where modernization coexists with nature’s preservation. Tree and plants are as much a part of the construction plans as the buildings an the roads. And he city is surrounded by a green belt.

The most important and symbolic monument is an metal 85 feet hight open hand that rotates in the direction of the wind and carries out the message of peace and unity “open to give and open to receive”. Much like the symbolic meaning of the centre building “Matrimandir” in Auroville. Also Chandrigarh is divided into different area’s witch are self-sufficient neighborhoods, that are linked to each other by roads and path networks. The zones are numbered from 1 to 47, with the exception of 13 (since it is considered unlucky). The shape of the city is much like a patchwork blanked. It is clear that the city, roads and networks are organized and designed for practical use and comfort.

Failure and Succes

Both cities show in some way’s a lot of resemblance to each other but are also very opposite to each other in a lot of way’s. Both city are divided in sectors that have there own function, witch is also very important to both city’s is the richness of nature. In both city’s the architecture is build with a very friendly approach to the human body and environment. And both cities contain symbolic elements. But where Auroville wants to be a total new economic, ecological and self sufficient city and break loos of commercial and mass production companies, Chandigarh has companies like Mc Donalds etc… The mentality and philosophy differs in a economical, spiritual and educational way. Auroville tries to contribute to a solution for our problems of pollution of our environment, our energy sources and the quality of our mental and physical health. Chandrigarh tries to have a quality of living environment but does not in the hole try to change the use of economical and commercial consumers with the outcome of a more nurturing use of our environment. Still Auroville has not provide a solution and is now surviving on neighbor-villages. If you look at the world as a symbiotic organism it is clear that one can not survive without the other, everything is linked to each other. Even within the smallest organic cels and atoms there is linkage to everything around us. We humans have designed and created a world full of problems that are totally linked and symbiotic to each other. If we take one of them away the survival of function as we created it is in danger. In order for a concept like Auroville to work there has to be a chain reaction throughout the hole world to maintain that symbiotic relationship that we have with the world in order to survive.

It is very clear now in the scientific world, the spiritual world, the business and economic world, that a change and chain reaction like that is very necessary for our survival. Money became digital and lost its value and creditability. Banks are falling, oil one of our biggest sources of energy is running out. There is a big hole in the ozone-lear that damages our  bio culturals. We have to find a way to make a solution possible. And finding this way is very inspirational for designers all over the world!

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

Cultureflock: source, Atelier Sophie Krier

50 years after Willem Sandberg defined his vision on curating by inviting the audience to look inside the museum through the windows of his “New Wing”, the SM is in a state of comatose transition towards becoming the future’s best tourist attraction. The old adage “time flies, space stays” does not count anymore. Space moves too and a new generation of digital natives moves with it. About time to think up new directions.

The Graphic Design Museum takes the lead again with the symposium “me and you and everybody we know is a curator” about quality in an age of visual overload, after an idea by Sophie Krier and Mieke Gerritzen. How do we present and preserve quality to this new generation of “digital natives”. Sophie Krier presented this tentative diagram (above) about the main question behind the symposium  “me you…”, namely “what is quality online? – The diagram represents culture as a flock of migrating birds, always on the move, and the connected dots as our mutlifaceted attempts to make sense of that dynamic whole. In her presentation she compares it with the well know “designproces scheme” by Charles Eames in which he presents the believe of the Eames office in working from genuine interest only- in this diagram, he maps the partly overlapping interest zones of society as a whole, of the client and of his office.

The program consisted out of two stimulating culture-philosophical lectures by Bruce Sterling and Andrew Keen illustrated with case studies presented by researchers, artists, designers, critics and of course curators. Among these quality speakers the opinion surfaced that a transformation of space from physical to digital will lead to a revival of the physical quality. I would call it a reassessment of deja-vu in which the internet replaces the subconsciousness.

Designblog provides the links to a summary of the symposium by Liselotte Doeswijk (source designhistoryNL), but like to emphasize the provocative introduction speech of Bruce Sterling (Cyberpunker and blogger for Wired)  “Gothic Hightech in the Future Favela”. download a full transcription by Morgan Currie

My second search in the library, this time with a whole list of tag-words in the back of my head. I try not to search for something precise, but rather let it come to me. I pick up a lot of books, not knowing what feels right. Then I see a book with an interesting structure on the cover. It looks like a computer-drawn structure, like a cheap 80’s wallpaper. On the first page I read that this publication is part of a numbered series, from 1-1000. While making this book, by using different techniques, 1000 different books were made. Each unique book has its own number, this one is numbered 756. I expected this book to be about production techniques, but instead it’s about human behaviour and how we perceive things. More human than the cover. More human, less machines.

772.9 suy 1b

Do contemporary subcultures replace folklore in our globalized world?

modern_folklore

(Headwear popular with believers)

Why do people, both men and women, cover their hair or head for religious purposes?

Do they all have the same reason? Why are the rules different for men and women and what does it mean that we all want to cover this part of our body that is in first appearance not the most intimate one?

And finally what do have the differences between religions, but even the differences within one religion, to do this?

religious_headwear

The Netherlands is well known for its liberal thoughts and its sense of the ability of living a free life. I would like to go back to a period in time where I believe that this feeling of freedom started. Well, at least for me it started in this period. And after having seen in the Zuiderzeemuseum some memories came back to me.

In the beginning of the 90s a new form of dancing and partying was developing worldwide: ‘The House scene’. The Netherlands, and especially Amsterdam, was an important spill in this scene. Clubs like ‘The Roxy’ and ‘The It’ were internationally well known and formed the basis of experimenting within all boundaries of partying. In these clubs it felt as if all things were possible and all different types of people were accepted. This also attracted many homosexuals from all over the world to come to Amsterdam. Which led to an extravagant gay scene that gave these dance parties a free and exceptional character.

(house scene back in the early 90’s filmed in The Roxy)

Until today many people try to redevelop the feeling we experienced back in the 90s by organising the same types of parties. Dressing up, drugs, gays, extravagant shows, and all other sorts of things are organised in order to recreate that great sense of freedom. In my opinion: ‘Dutch folklore that developed into a worldwide dance scene’.

You shall not think that you are special

You shall not think that you are of the same standing as us

You shall not think that you are wiser than us

Don’t fancy yourself as being better than us

You shall not think that you know more than us

You shall not think that you are more (important) than us

You shall not think that you are good at anything

You shall not laugh at us

You shall not think that anyone cares about you

You shall not think that you can teach us anything

This concept was created by the Danish author Aksel Sandemose, in a novel from 1933. In this novel he is describing the mentality of the Danish people as he observes it, and the core of this mentality is described in the law of Jante. There are Ten Commandments which makes a reference to the authority of the Ten Commandments of the bible. “The Law of Jante” is part of the ironical self-concept of the Danish people and is an expression for the collective pressure on, and limitation of the individual. In spite of the fact that “The Law of Jant” has become a big part of the Danish mentality, culture and folklore, most Danish people hate this concept.

Folklore, traditionele gebruiken, leven ze nog?? Tradities veranderen vaak in herinneringen, die dan weer als inspiratiebron kunnen dienen voor kunstenaars, zoals we konden zien in het Zuiderzee museum. Jonge kunstenaars blazen de traditionele klederdracht een nieuw leven in. Zo laten we ons verbazen door voorwerpen die vroeger tot de orde van de dag behoorden. Mijn folklore ligt in het zuiden, in een kleine stad genaamd Maastricht. Het Mooswief, wat vrouwtje van de markt betekend, is zo’n herinnering die weer tot leven kwam. Ze stond altijd symbool voor de plattelands vrouwen die naar de stad trokken om hun producten op de markt de verkopen, maar sins enkele jaren is er een enorme papiermarche pop van haar gemaakt waarmee jaarlijks de ‘Vasteloavend’ wordt ingeluid. Tijdens carnaval hangt ze dan boven het vrijthof waar ze neerkijkt op alle mensen die carnaval komen vieren.
Behoort folklore tot de geschiedenis of is iets enkel folklore als het nog steeds leeft? Carnaval leeft, dat is zeker. Het hele zuiden kijkt er maandenlang naar uit. Verenigingen worden bij elkaar getrommeld, moeders worden ingezet om kostuums te naaien en enorme hoeveelheden bier worden door café eigenaren binnengesleept. Voor enkele dagen wordt de hele binnenstad omgetoverd tot een andere wereld, een wereld vol felle kleuren en fantasiefiguren. Het verbaasd mij elk jaar weer wat het effect van carnaval is op mensen. Alles mag en kan op eens, zo wordt er in elk geval gedacht. Drie dagen lijkt de wereld op z’n kop te staan, maar daarna is alles weer zoals het was. Het papier op straat en de bergen met glasscherven zijn het enige bewijs voor de losbandigheid die een paar uur geleden nog normaal leek te zijn. Een ochtend later gaat iedereen gewoon weer naar z’n werk, de duivel van gisteravond moet weer terug naar zijn advocatenkantoor en Zorro moet weer broodjes bakken in de bakkerij.

Netmenders are immediately connected to the concept of folklore.
Now we do it industrially, there is no need of preserving this kind of
techniques in order to have sea-nets. Nowadays it’s more convenient to
buy a new one than repair a broken one.

For this reason it's said that technologies are destroying folklore.
It's like saying that we shouldn't live the present
because it leads too far from the past.

Folklore is (in one of the numerous definitions) a word to define
that part of the culture that deals with popular more or less spontaneous
habits and beliefs.
The word was introduced when there was still a strong relationship
with folks, villages etc.
Now that society has changed we find it difficult to apply the term folklore
to contemporary matter. 
The Zuiderzee exhibition confirmed this idea. 
The contemporary-times involvement wasn't about contemporary folklore, 
but about reinterpretation, 
modern design inspired by old dutch folklore. 
While taste, style and aesthetic values are continuously evolving 
human behaviors don't change that much in time, they just adapt. 
I think we can find these recursive characteristics on the internet. 
And here comes my "involvement".
I found out that just as I've never been into 
my country/city traditions, i also (do not) relate 
with current habits on the internet. 
I'm just geographically connected, trough my ip, to the rest of the network 
like a 18th century's person who was not participating to 
its village folk's habits and celebrations. 
On the other hand, all the people always up to date with memes and myths on the internet, 
using social-networks, blogs, forums and chats, 
corresponds to the folk of that time. 
Different context, different medium of transmission, different people, 
same dynamics. 
We will see 

Moving again

and as usual somebody elses home – not mine. Strange place again.

They will not tell me about their tales, nor teach me their songs, nor share their wishes. Keeping mum like the puppets in a museum.

It is just what I see.

Their slow thoughts gahtering together behind the fences, which seperate their belongings. There into the woods. Closed faces, stubborn and the city people are not worth it anyway. And steps you hardly hear, sound is disappaering in thick layers of fallen spruce needles. Who shot the dog, the roaming, the strange one? It starts getting cold. But one stays. One does this and this and this – but never this. This girl, on the photo – you don´t know her anyway. This is mine – this is yours. Don’t dare a step.

I ask who is closing all the window shutters a long time before dawn? Who draws the lines? Who is hiding all the storys? Who is stealing the whispers about the people who did never return? And I ask who is removing the walls of snow and who is bringing the brothers to remain violently silent while sharing their lifes? Why do they stay calm when they see what they should not?

I ask questions, but the answers I get back, I can not be satisfied with.

It was in the middle of the ‘Walpurgisnacht’ (the night from April 30 to May1) when a small group of German teenagers sneaked to the marketplace of a neighbouring village in Oberfranken to steal the ‘Maibaum’ which was supposed to be erected there during the festive gathering the following morning. If they succeeded the villagers would have to pay, according to this Bavarian custom, a tribute of beer and food in order to retrieve it.

It is believed that every ‘Maibaum’ has a blessing effect on its town. It is a symbol of fertility and prosperity. Although its contemporary form dates back to the 16th century its real origin is far older: Germanic tribes already worshipped holy trees long before they were christianized. Presumably these cults have their seeds in ‘Yggdrasil’, the mythologic Norse ‘World Tree’.

The Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen / Holland exhibits a modern chintz which also shows a ‘Tree of Life’. To some extend it might have the same mythologic background as the German ‘Maibaum’.

Generally the ‘Tree of Life’ is an archetype which is deeply rooted in the psyche of almost every culture. But what does it really mean to us today in our high-speed society in a more or less globalised world? And will it still have a meaning in the future?

Burning paper money (also called Hell bank note or joss paper) to worship deities, honor ancestors or rest ghosts in peace is one of the most common rituals being practiced in Taiwan. The ritual is related to the belief that after the paper money is burned, it travels to the other worlds where deities, ancestors or ghosts reside.

There are different sorts of paper money, each varying from another in terms of size, pattern and purpose; however, in general it can still be divided roughly into two categories: gold and silver, which indicates the color of the square-shaped foil attached to the center of each paper money. The gold foil represents the higher rank of the deities while the silver one is therefore only used for ancestors or ghosts.

As a child, I had always been fascinated by the act of burning paper money because it somehow added more fun and interesting factors into the whole religious ceremony and summed up the whole ritual as a climax in the end.

*inspired by: Borststuk Souvenir, 2008, Robert Smit

This picture was taken at my First Holy Communion in the Roman Catholic south of the Netherlands, where Catholicism has become more like tradition than religion (although one can ask whether religion is not always more like tradition than anything else).

The style of dress in this picture is quite representational of what I remember most about this ritual. Girls got dressed up in the most outrageous princess-like dresses and boys looked like forgotten side-kicks in their little monkey suits. Only later did I see that the girls were really dressed up as brides of God, and the boys, I don’t know what to make of. This cultus of female dress, as is also visible in the historic Dutch attire that is now on view at the Zuiderzee Museum exhibition “Gone with the Wind”, is a jumble of mixed messages of virginity and seductiveness, sobriety and decoration, even in children’s holy rituals.

To investigate a design work, i chose the advertisement-poster „PSP ontwapenend“ designed by George Noordanus in 1971.
When i saw the poster, i liked the spirit and the freedom it shows! It has something light and joyful. At the same time it also has something humorous to me. The photograph might stand for the new freedom at that time, won from the 60‘s: the possibility to show nudity in public and even the use of it in advertisement.
Further more, the design and composition of the photograph struck me. The image shows a lot of (formal) parallels: the nudity and vulnerability of the woman and the cow and the pattern of darkness and lightness. Also the setting of the woman and the cow show parallels. And in the end, of course, the context of the slogan „PSP ontwapenend“ in connection with the image is important and interesting to find out more about it!

ANOTHER TIME-SPIRIT

The political background of the poster back then, in the seventies (it raised many controverse reactions), is already discussed so many times. So I decided to relate the poster to recent times: living today, I want to reflect on the poster in the context of today, on the combination of nudity with politics nowadays…. continues as pdf

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