Designblog

I have always been fascinated by different kinds of materials and combinations of them as there are thousands of different possibilities of the outcome. And especially in art or design works where you can feel that the material was completely ‘understood’ by it’s artist or designer. It was exactly that feeling that I got when I saw Tomas Gabdzil Libertiny’s Honeycomb Vessel #2 in the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.

The Paper Vase or the Honeycomb Vases demonstrate a new way and approach of working with materials. This means that natural processes have to be understood and investigated from all different kind of perspectives. I like this thought and I think it is a crucial one for ‘sustainable’ design. We should communicate with our environment and understand it. Therefore it is important to take advantages of the things that are already there. The Honeycomb Vases symbolize this crucial understanding. In collaboration with beekeepers he found a way to make the bees build a vase like shape. The vases are created by placing a basic beeswax mould printed with a honeycomb pattern into a beehive. The bees then start to work with that pattern. It took 40,000 honey bees that worked over a course of one week to create one vessel! Libertiny himself calls this process ‘slow prototyping’. Every vessel has a unique form and they also vary in color and smell depending on the flowers that are in season.

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sustainable |s??st?n?b?l|
adjective
able to be maintained at a certain rate or level : sustainable fusion reactions.
• Ecology (esp. of development, exploitation, or agriculture) conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources.
• able to be upheld or defended : sustainable definitions of good educational practice.

Sustainability has become an word used easily in the design world. It has become somewhat of a trend to be sustainable. However, to what extent are these designers, categorized as sustainable, truly part of that platform? Recently, there has been an exhibition in the Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam on sustainability, slow design and new energy. There was a great collection of works that were chosen to be displayed in the museum by the curator. While I was walking through the collection I wondered how and why the curator had chosen to present these particular works. There is a link to sustainability in all of them, yet, is the relationship valid enough?
There were many products which used natural elements, but do they fulfill the criteria of being sustainable? As you can see above the definition is: ‘conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources’. This is a very complex statement. If you are creating awareness of the natural resources and using it as a platform for design does that imply that you are being sustainable? It seems to be that designer takes this idea of sustainability a bit too easily. To investigate this concept I interviewed Mike Thompson and looked at his work.

Mike Thompson sees himself as an instigator of design in the bio-technological world. Using unusual power sources, he has developed a myriad of ways to create light. One of these unusual design was shown in the Boijmans exhibit. The piece, named “the blood lamp“, contains a fluid, which reacts to blood to create an ambient lighting. Curious about it’s versatility, I asked Mike Thompson whether his light only reacts on blood or if other fluids could trigger a similar reaction. The answer was surprising, a yes for urine. Urine is as effective as blood as it is the ions that react to the fluid.
His objective behind the project was to create a ‘debate piece’. In his words: a piece that would ‘plant a seed of thought’ and ‘change our relationship towards energy’. The user of the lamp would have to think about the sacrifice (blood donation) that would have to be made in order to use energy. Blood, is a romantic to stimulate self-analysis. Do we use energy with that same consciousness, when we are in fact sacrificing the delicate balance of our natural surroundings.

Blood Lamp – Mike Thompson video

My choice to investigate Mike Thompson as the representing designer of the Booijmans van Beuningen, was based on the fact that he established a piece which by using beautiful symbolism, had created a clear message towards the public. However the question still remains whether or not we can call this ‘enlightening’ piece sustainable.

When I asked Mike Thompson how he interpreted the word sustainability; he directly admitted that his work and his way of working was not based on being sustainable. He merely wanted to create some consciousness and does not believe that his rather unsustainable process of creating pieces will distract from the message he is trying to bring across.

But is this the role of the designer? Designers, in this day and age are merely the instigators of something new and innovative. It is the role of the designer to create something tangible for the public. Mike Thompson is working on a biotechnological level surrounded by people whose main goal may only be sustainability. From which a product or solution may appear that do not relate to the world around us. The designer’s role can be seen as a mediating role, a role which Mike Thompson takes with pride. It is important to remember ‘that no one is shown the way to speculate’ and speculation is all we can do. A nice example of how the relationship between the design world and the biotechnological world works, is a new project that Mike Thompson is working on. He is in cooperation to create an ambient light that would trap light. The principle behind trapping light is that the lamp would catch light through which it would be able to reuse light and work for hours after the light has been trapped. In theory this project may work, but it does not yet. This initiation of creating the trapped light can cultivate a whole new stream of designs for recyclable light sources. Mike Thompson often works in theory, he has also designed a light called the algae light. The light would hypothetically work through photosynthesis. This however is not possible. But by designing these hypothetical pieces he has initiated a chain of thoughts: Are we able to use these natural processes for our own benefits? Or as he has written on his website: Are we able to use a flower as a light switch?. A question definitely worth further investigation.

In relation to many other works that where exposed I do believe that the work of Mike Thompson has an interesting approach to sustainability. I would however like to put him on a new platform, and make clear that he is not being sustainable with the blood lamp and is in no way ‘conserving natural resources’. The platform for designers that I would like to create and initiate would be called; ‘instigators of sustainability’. You can question whether this does not fall under slow design, but I am a great fan of clear labels, and words like sustainability are very easily manipulated to something that it is not. To prevent this from happening again we can merely add the verb ‘instigator’.

More on Mike Thompson: http://www.miket.co.uk/

John Körmeling's "Hi Hi Ha Ha" (1992), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2006.

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These days there seem to be an ongoing battle; a destructive, and in many ways ignorant battle, between nature and technology.
Nature, as in our whole planet, with the various organisms living in it; the stars, the sky and so forth.Why does the technological world try to conquer what is, in fact, our source of life, and an ancient, mysterious and beautiful force of the unknown?
Maybe that is why –in today’s society– we don’t like to be left in the dark. We don’t like not to know, unexplainable things. There are, indeed factors to nature that we can neither explain nor understand at this moment.
I, myself, find that to be extremely comforting, and beautiful. I find myself constantly surprised by various factors in nature, and its mystical ways. To be assured of the fact that we actually don’t really know anything, do we?

There are these two designers in our midst today: Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta. Both graduated from the Design Academy of Eindhoven.
Lonneke Gordijn,   a passionate beliver in the strength of nature, found the love of her life, and business partner, in the technological Ralph Nauta  ; Together, they founded “Studio Drift”.

Studio Drift has a futuristic vision, which is truly beautiful, but nevertheless an ideal to strive for. This vision has peace and love written all over it, and is so idealistic that I felt like the world was all nice, and pink, and soft again after reading about it.
They believe in something most people have shoved under the carpet a long time ago, or haven’t even thought about at all.
They are curious about a future where the new technologies are constantly changing different aspects of our daily life, and also curiosity about how the evolutionary developments in nature and human culture will proceed.
Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn says that they are striving to find the perfect combination of knowledge and intuition, science fiction and nature, fantasy and interactivity. Their goal is to create a dialogue between the viewer and the objects created, embodied in tangible objects that refer to realities that are often impenetrable and difficult to understand.

Combining their two minds and fascinations, both their work and their minds ended up complementing each other, merging two good sides into an even greater unit. A great example of this is their design “Fragile Future” where you can question whether or not the nature is, in fact, THE technology?

Creating with their vision ahead in the horizon somewhere, the vision of letting nature and technology complement each other instead of being in this restless, useless battle. Seeing how two people with quite opposite fascinations become a better one, than two separate poles gives me hope that they are in fact going to be able to open minds all over the globe; open eyes to see that war is not the answer to anything, no matter how innocent the war might seem.

My own opinion of the relations between nature and technology, is that these two are more closely linked than one might realize. If you look more closely, nature is in fact nothing more, and nothing less than highly advanced technology. All the organisms, the stars, the sky and so on, (as mentioned earlier,) are indeed a product of nature itself. For example, if you look at the snowflakes, fingerprints or the iris in the eye, you will find that these three creations of nature’s technology is an endless stream of astonishing, unique compositions far beyond what we have ever created with our technology!

As the technology of nature has gone on for millions of years, and goes beyond the human ability to comprehend, a spiteful urge to compete appeared; human made technology appeared.

To some extent, we have “tamed” and defeated nature, to fulfill our own selfish needs for luxury
Although this development is increasingly polluting nature, we keep wanting more, craving even more of something unnatural. Human made.
Nature might seem to be in danger, and constantly being harmed by the footprints made by the human race, but this is only partly true!
Today we are so cocky and confident that we allow ourselves to think we have the ability to eventually destroy nature, which is a thought that scares us all, but is it true?  – I believe not!
Nature is, has been, and always will be a sustainable, reincarnating force that is too robust for us to destroy. We might be able to change the planets environment, but nature is still evolving in its own way, despite of the destructiveness forced upon it. It is truly highly adaptable, and might eventually show us that “survival of the fittest” will be, not only a saying, but also a fact. If we don’t take care, if we don’t stop the narrow mindedness, the selfishness and the urge to be God,
we might end up being the ones terminated by nature while trying to change the path into what we think is right.
An excellent author dealing with these thoughts and issues, Gert Nygårdshaug, has written a few books that are worth reading, like “Mengele Zoo”, and “The pool of Aphrodite”.

Why not take a step back, breathe, show a little humility to “the elders”[x]; our source of life?
The human kind is not essential for this planet, and certainly not our technology. At some point this has to be realized, and changes has to be made. Letting go of the great ego for something even greater. Life itself.

Now; I am not naive nor the biggest believer in the human mankind. Of course I don’t see us taking a break from developing new technology in order to stop and “smell the flowers”, but with designers like Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn I feel hope.
Hope that they might be able to spread a little more awareness amongst us, and start this thinking process in people that haven’t been thinking in this way before. Hope that more people will feel inspired to nurture the bond between the two [x], rather than the separation of them.
It’s amazing how far you can get, just by setting a simple seed in the ground; a simple thought in one’s mind. It might grow into a whole new forest.

Interested in more contributions on the subject of nature in technologie or vice versa check the project "Beauty in Science"

Society as we know it today may seem at points really grey and monotonous at times, but in my opinion, in most cases, if you look at the small details, you will find out we are obsessed with colors, even in our every day life.

Imagine waking up, going to work, seeing your colleagues and breaking this conversation:?

-“hi how are you?”?

– “fine, and you?”?

– “good, thank you”?

And from there on work goes on, another day comes, and the same conversation all over again. Like an endless loop without any point or interest. Just being still like a sculpture.?

But not in reality, and this is where color comes in to the story, I believe our soul is built like a tray that carry things on it, it can be things that happened to you, opinions, philosophies and even believes. this is what makes life more complicated and interesting, the source for trouble and solutions at the same time.?

I feel like everyone trying to achieve some level of balance on the tray they carry, moving things around, adding good on bad and bad on good in order to find the balance between not too full or too empty, and between completely flipping the tray over. This balance that we seek for, as an individual forces us into all sorts of situations and feelings. And when you start to look for it in other people or in yourself, you may find people to almost look like they are brushed with a different color of paint anytime they try to balance the tray.?Happiness, sadness, hope, fear… is it all feelings? Or just colors that we can paint over? Dose every layer leaves a mark on us?

Is an argument presents a fight between different life perspectives or just shows two different colors trying to blend with each other?

As an artist, how do you decide what color to add to your work? Or even to your day, is it by what reality tells you should or is there. Or by what you feel needs to be there?

The emotive use of colors is something that interests me deeply; it is visible in various artists from Picasso to new age artists, how strong a color addition or lack of a color can be on a work?

All this questions started to rise up in me after seeing the work “Reuzen (Giants)” by the design group- 75b.

Reuzen (Giants) – 75B

Realizing how much color can effect and dose affect our everyday life, even in the deepest places, the core of our being. This work presents to me very well the feeling of change and process we all have in life.
Looking on the portfolio of 75B the versatile use of colors is visible. Creating or dividing spaces, adding a dimension to an existing reality, and evoking different feelings on the viewer. Also at other works the lack of color serves the same purpose. In different ways like dividing spaces, adding or taking away certain colors to evoke various emotions on the viewer.

Reuzen (Giants) – 75B

Know. the control is in your hands, in your own life you are the artist that holds the brush, and not obliged to be effected only by other colors being implied on you by others around you. So what happens tomorrow is completely up to your hands.

Sheila Hicks took the long way of learning weaving.

She studied painting under the Bauhaus professor Josef Albers, but when a pre-Columbian textile course captured her attention, he took her home to meet his wife, Anni, a noted weaver. At his suggestion, she applied for a Fulbright scholarship to South America, and spent the first few years of her weaving life journeying through Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Chile, and back north to Mexico. The old weaving traditions have so much more then just the methods and techniques, it is a mix between their history, spirituality and religion. It is mostly based on symbols.

Sheila’s work has a focus on the material and the space in it, and around it. In her pieces you can see how she also let go of the weaving and modeled it instead so it became an installation.

New energy is not just finding new sources of energy but also taking something old, such as weaving, and giving it life and a new meaning. Weaving is no longer a necessary activity or a way to show status, as it was back in pre-industrial times. Its social importance is less and less fainting in this world of new technology. When I was a child I grew up partly with a Tibetan woman who had history written on the walls in the disguise of tapestries. I remember the stories that I kept developing in my head with the inspiration from these woven paintings. And back then, I didn’t know that it had the same effect that I today get from a painted piece. I am glad that I got the opportunity to experience weaving and the lost handcrafts of this kind at such a young age, before people told me how to read a story properly, or what is “good” and “bad”.

The first time i saw Sheila Hicks work was in Rotterdam’s “Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen”. She showed some of her smaller works, and the title of the show was called “Cent Minimes”- one hundred small works collected together

The works were presented like paintings in frames, but was still given the space of 3D objects. In her book “Weaving as a metaphor“, that she made in cooperation with Irma Boom, she shows a lot of her small pieces. Which also won the gold medal for “Most Beautiful Book in the World” prize at the Leipzig Book Fair. The book is very honest, with a focus on the physicality of touching and feeling the material. The book is one of the most popular art books of our time, I think it’s because of the special feeling of having a book that shows and “feels” this kind of art, which is meant to be both seen and felt. .

As she once said in a interview “I found my voice and my footing in my small work,” and that really shines through.

When I saw that show, I could immediately relate to Sheila Hicks in my own way of working and the satisfaction I get from painting. The way that she lets the fabric work for itself is amazing! She creates something, but she also gives the fabric and the different materials the space and life that they need in the frame. For me it was almost like seeing a sketch book, i think it is very honest to show “work in progress” might not be the truth behind it or the attention, but it had the affect on me. I myself have been struggling with the thin line of finishing a piece without over do it, so it was inspiring to see someone how could let go of the control and just show it!

Her experience really shows in her work, you can almost feel the wrinkles on her face, the laughter and tears that have been there.

She once said, “The act of creating is much more exciting for me than leaving a monument to myself,” explaining how she would deconstruct her fiber twists, spirals, ponytails and tapestries into piles of yarn. “It felt great. It meant that my imagination could run free.”

That really says something about her way of living, that she is not afraid of life.

When we think about design we usually consider a fragile compromise between the practical qualities and aesthetic qualities of a product. The result will lead the viewer to consider a known concept or problem from a new perspective. Experiencing contemporary design is essentially re-adjusting our view of the future. In this essay I will attempt to outline Oskar de Kiefte’s work in the light of SLOW Design and sustainability. I will also consider the role of humor in his work.

In the work of Oskar de Kiefte we are not presented with a considerate balance of aesthetics versus practicality. Instead, Oskar chooses to show us a crude example of how technical simplicity can lead to new and interesting solutions. The Wind Turbine Car is a car without compromise, without consideration for elegance but rather the result of pure technical problem-solving. The wild, exciting and adventurous shape reminds me of deep sea exploration and space travel. The cause for such boyish associations is merely the technical nature of its design. From start to finish, every aspect of the car was designed to be for optimal performance. How do you turn wind resistance into wind stimulation? You build > this<

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Based on the idea of sustainability and especially the so called Slow Design I want to have a look at one of the works from  Eindhoven based design office EDHV, which were displayed in the Museum Boijman van Beuningen in Rotterdam. 

The work i want to talk about in this Essay is called „Time Writerz“, first exhibited at the Dutch Design Week 2010. It consists out of different plates of wood which have been hidden in the ground and sealed from air and erosion for more then six hundred years. By putting it back to the air the wood comes to life again. To show the ”growing” process there are pencils attached which are holding the wood and are „writing“, documenting  all the movement the wood is making.

EDHV is a creative office that was founded and based in Eindhoven in 2005 by Daan Melis who is a publisher and Remco van de Craats who take care of the design part. They are working in the field of product design, webdesign, motion design and architecture. As the title of the website already shows you „At EDHV, we don’t specialize in anything!“ and ” We can best be described as architects of identity. We work interdisciplinary so all aspects of identity can be fully integrated.“
One of many important things for EDHV is the sustainability of their work. Therefore the most important thing is to start every project with a proper research because this is important to create a sustainable concept or idea. To quote Remco van der Craats: ”A shape without a foundation has no meaning“. Another key to a good result for him is trust and intensive collaboration between his office and the client.

Remco van de Craats on design

I choose the artwork „Time Writerz“ because it fascinated me for different reasons. For me this work from Edhv is a lot about making change through time visible and here I see the strong connection to a collaboration work I did myself for an exhibition in Munich in an temporary space in the summer of 2011. 

We decided to use very basic geometrical shapes and also keep the choice of colors really simple. It also should remind you of the wooden blocks you were playing with as a kid and also was a direct reference to a old mural that was painted  on the ceiling of the exhibition space. The mural shows silhouettes of houses painted out of the basic geometrical forms and colors. These basic forms were made out of colored wax. Over the sculpture we placed a lamp. The wax was slowly melting down during the time of the exhibition by the heat of the lamp hanging over it. Our goal was to work with the space and also showing the fact that the space, which we were using was temporary, by letting the artwork vanish during the show.
 

Another Artist that works with the same idea of making change visible is Belgian born artist Francis Alÿs. Educated as an architecture in Tournai and Venice, he move to Mexico City in 1986 and soon started to work as visual artist.

Melting wax sculpture

He mostly works with video and performance art. His performance „Paradox of Praxis 1 (Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing)“ done in 1996 in Mexico City is maybe the best example of how Alys worked with the topic of showing the change through time, by pushing a big squared formed ice block through the streets  of Mexico City.

Why do we build walls, roofs, doors? The same reason we build fires, run air conditioners, blow fans, humidifiers and de-humidifiers: to define and bend the atmosphere to our will. Once it is contained within walls, we change our atmosphere to the conditions we find to be the most pleasing, the most conducive to our continued growth & existence. In a cold place, the walls protect us from certain death at the hands of the wind & the freezing air. But what does the house do but capture the frozen air all around & tame it, domesticate it, as one would a wild animal, with constant care & attention? Human survival nearly everywhere on earth depends on this task.

Keeping air is like keeping the sea–it is all flow and energy, and everything we do to one part of it affects it all, creates a wave of reaction, for air resembles water in its motion: its currents and waves are wind, its warmth and chill move atom by atom up or down, each molecule making way for another as the others make way for it. How do we learn to use the qualities of this substance to our advantage, instead of treating it as something that happens to be there, an inconvenience, a battle to be fought with radiators and air conditioners? We know that this void is no void but a thin liquid in which we swim. Inside and outside, this air-thing called “climate” has finally found a place in the modern imagination, something that has its own identity, something that changes, that must be “saved”, and now that we recognize it, it is necessary to take it into consideration as we continue to build, as we continue to exist and grow.
 
Philippe Rahm is in some sense an activist for the interior climate, for finding an integrated way to use and not waste the nature of air and to revolutionize the way that we would constrain and encourage its flow with architecture. His focus is not the efficiency of the building for ‘the greater good’, however; he redefines how interior space is conceptualized in order to create a new language of architecture, one that can be equally bent to the need of function, efficiency and art.
 

 
His “Digestible Gulf Stream”, a series of projects begun as an installation for the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, is a prime example of this language in use. As opposed to heating or cooling the different spaces in the structure to the optimal temperature for their use (warmer in the bathroom and living room, cooler in the stairways and bedroom), he uses the principles of thermodynamics to create a convection current that is perpetually cycling, aided by the structure of the space and two radiators that are set at a difference of 16 degrees Celsius. The function of the different areas of the house is thus prescribed by their place in this current as much as by their trappings.  This is not a new idea, of course, but what is new (at least to this writer) iis the sense that there is a continuity, instead of merely a radiating outward of heat, from cold to warm, or vice versa.

This cyclic flow of air and energy implies an efficiency that is currently being used in sustainable architecture (as well as many traditional types of architecture that are not reliant on central heating and cooling), but with the sun as the warming influence and the shaded area to the north of a building as the cooling influence. The Earthship design concept has been around since the 1970s, and other practices in sustainable architecture and living–using recycled and recyclable materials and determining the form of the building by how to best use the natural forces available in the area, among many others–have been being implemented for millennia. In the industrialized world, however, these considerations have mostly only used as guiding architectural forces by the “hippie” community, but in a very practical way they speak to the same concerns and techniques that Mr. Rahm uses to an expressive end. They both assert the necessity of involving the atmosphere that we capture in our houses in the architecture, involving the living with the rules and patterns of the natural world instead of attempting to deny or fight them.

The concept that nature is a force opposite to the interests of humankind is, to all modern sensibilities, a very dated idea. It is an idea brought on by the industrial revolution, colonialism, an us-vs.-them mentality, one that as the world progresses past fossil fuels, past the ‘civilized man civilizing the savage’, past the need to explore (read: conquer) the unknown and remake it in our own image, we find of less and less value. To see the world as irrevocably “other” is to assume that we are not connected to it, that it is in some sense infinite, & time and technology have taught us that the world is a much smaller place than we think. We must throw our lot in with the trees and the fishes & all the other peoples of the world, because we are all connected and it will be a delicate balance that we strike, if we can strike it at all.

This emphatic need is being recognized in modern architecture and design, characterized by the so-called “green” movements of Slow Design (in the image of Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food movement) and sustainable architecture. Again, though, much of this design is based on a desire to make something that works in the best way, the most efficiently or the most cleanly. Philippe Rahm, although first an architect, is among those who recognize this need as an opportunity to create a new and subtle artistic medium, the chance to bend the very air around us to the task of expressing the human experience.
 

2012. – After a conversation with Eric Klarenbeek

In a time of growing public awareness of the prevailing environmental consciousness. Consumers are looking for ways to contribute to the unnecessary burden of the environment. Large companies want to connect to these developments of environmental consciousness. Often because of the shared concern for the environment, but also because it will create a new market. Inventors search for products which are environmentally conscious, beautiful, and also financially interesting. You can summarize these results as ‘sustainable design’.
An example is Google’s new computer design which shows a more efficient use of less energy than most computers. Another example is “General Electric” which is increasingly investing in the design of cleaner technologies.

This investment in “permanent design” is not only on a multinational level. People are also searching on a smaller, more individual level for the environmentally conscious design. After the exhibition “New energy in design” at the Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, I came in contact with the work of Eric Klarenbeek ‘designer of the unusual‘. After passing the Design Academy in Eindhoven, Eric Klarenbeek (Amsterdam, 1978) started his own studio in Zaandam. “His work is characterized by innovation and answers the developments on environmental consciousness in today’s society.”

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This post is part of he subjective library project “Unopened Book”
An assignment initiated by Corinne Gisel and Nina Paim [graphic design]
in cooperation with Henk Groenendijk and Matthias Kreutzer [supervision]

Intro part 1 /The Assignment

Assignment as presented

Select a book from the library collection based solely on its spine.
You will be given only a short amount of time to make a choice, you probably have to make a very spontaneous and subconscious decision. We will take your book away to make sure that it remains unopened. It will be kept together with the other unopened books in a vitrine in Rietveld Academy Building for the time of the assignment. Now rationalize your decision:
Why did you choose for this spine and not for another? What do you think this book is about?
Write a Blurb on this Unopened Book and visualize that imagined content in a vitrine!

[x]

read all “Blurbs” and see all “Vitrines” imagined as part of this assignment, by selecting Unopened Books from the “Projects” Menu

Intro part 2 /The Lecture

Fernand Baudin Students Publications March 2012 was the first edition of a yearly event dedicated to students publications. It was an event dedicated to editorial productions by students in Belgium and connected to the international scene. The first year was an experimental, reflective and prospective one – engaging students, teachers and ‘professionals in public discussions on the practice of making and thinking books today. It was also a moment to think about publications (book fairs, book awards, book exhibitions, etc) questioning their relevance to the realities of students’ practice today.
As part of discussions and presentations, organized during this event, Nina Paim and Corinne Gisel gave a lecture presenting their 2012 graduation project Library Talk of which “Unopened Books” was a part initiated in cooperation with the Basic year’s Design/DesignResearch program.
This lecture is integral published in the book “Fernand Baudin Students Publications/This Is Not A Most Beautiful Books Award” and can be lend in the Rietveld Library [lib no: ]. Mixing different times and spaces this publication proposes another way to document that event. It publishes elements retracing its making, explaining its structure. It makes public what happened before and during the event –the pieces and the facts– but also what happened after and is still happening while those lines are written.
 

Lecture about "Unopened Books" by Nina Paim and Corinne Gisel as part of their "Library Talk" graduation project

“click on image above to download lecture [15 pages]

thanks to Nina Paim for permission to publish the lecture
thanks to Lorain Furter for donating a copy of the book to the library

Manual: How to dress YOUR man?

The number one fashion book!

After the success of many magazine publications for “Dolce and Gabbana” the author Mario Vivanco was invited to write a new guide continuing on his previous works. The “UOMINI” is Italian word for a manly, plural. The book “UOMINI” has became a guide for the men fashion from the beginning to the end. It’s a manual showing the way from the childhood to the grown age. It’s like a road going through the jungle, makes you going further and further, climbing through the forest of the fashion, finding the way not to get lost in this dangerous and wild world of models, TV- shows and coming stars.
The “UOMINI” can become your manual to be yourself. Step by step you will find the answers and finally the answer on only one and very important question: how to dress your man?
If you were wondering what boxers can compromise your wish to see the sexy bottom of your boyfriend and his love for comfortable going to the knees shorts? If you don’t want to be shy when you invite your men to meet your friends? Or nice family evening to introduce him to your parents?

This book is for YOU!!!!

How to choose the right outfit for every situation in your life?!
Witch colour of the tie will match the suit?
And even the right style of the socks!

All these answers you can find inside!!!

Don’t wait till someone will take the place of your man at work. Just because his boss thinks that someone is more representable! Or your friend will show of her new boyfriend just because he is more fashionable!

Open this book today and tomorrow you will have the world next to your man’s feet!!!!
And he will give this world to YOU!!!!

this post is part of he subjective library project "Unopened Book"
the book can be found at the Rietveld library : catalog no : 908.2-dol-1

In these modern ages the limits of what is possible are more fragile than they have ever been before.

A time comes when a choice demands to be accepted. With the virtues that history has provided us, it allows us to abide to certain conditions and forces, to bow with lowered heads and bended knee to the wrath of its consequence. When presented,  –if those choices cannot be made by us–  they shall be made for us. In the name of progress and advancement of the human condition a secreted few use their hands to guide us blindly into the future. The ceramic cup from which you choose to sip, the intricacy of the paved streets in which you walk, the remote to which you use to turn on your TV,  the sitting room in which you cower, they are all the materialization of an accumulation of designers, the ones who have assembled our gilded cage.

Design was created to aid us, and, in the course of time, it now governs over us. It’s social and moral repercussions are the very thing that restrict and shape us.

This book documents the history of those select silhouetted figures, the ones towering over you, heaving at your strings. They are the one’s responsible for the solitary toaster-oven-juicer that gathers dust in your kitchen cupboard, the lifeless red plastic Corn on the Cob holders that line your cutlery draw.

In the so called incline of our post-industrial society >DICTATUUR< unmasks the truth and reveals the busting of the seams of our everyday lives. Those packed tightly with the gadgets, the knickknacks and the other manufactured paraphernalia created to weigh us down.

But now it is time for us to realize. It is time to understand that the choice is presenting itself to us once again and now, it is our turn to give an answer.

this post is part of he subjective library project "Unopened Book"
the book can be found at the Rietveld library : catalog no : 770.6-nor-1

New revised edition of essays about spaces distributed inside of the cities and outside of these, inside of the ‘’close’’ and outside of this last. Reaching a new kind of environment trough different assignments and lectures related with the real world of now, breaking the based bubble attached to the ‘’what‘’ should be your space in the last 50 years. A generation is changing the screen of a real house trying to figure out this in a really different kind of space so far from your surface and so close to your rational and ‘’developed’’ imagination in the front of your screen. [x]

Complicated, frustrating, stressing, confusing, reaching a harmony between the conceptual and the real, is how it was the beginning of what you had been reading and looking or not yet. The conceptual taking a piece of a real world and its necessities, becoming it in a messy text inside of our minds and after a tiny text in a paper or whatever. Our text is changing its purpose taking the shape of some streets and places so far from these, big yellow tracks and intense white light at night enclosure by a skull net, are inside of these places, where our co-workers begin to work depending in several times on your behavior, critical point of view and other really important things. So there should be a certain point in all this last statement where this book take advantage and begin to compile simple and clear pictures and diagrams of the whole process of creation of a new space, adding certain text to make more understandable just for some people. ’’Interactive’’ is the right word to describe our commercial approach.

An essay and nothing more should be added. We just tried to create a recreation of your world and visualize it in our way. Beforehand or not we apologize about the mistakes that just you can find inside of this essay. But we are afraid to can do nothing by the moment because this is just a reproduction of your world.

this post is part of he subjective library project "Unopened Book"
the book can be found at the Rietveld library : catalog no : 774.7-c

The Spirituals of Art – abstract painting 1890-1985 is a peek with a penetrating eye, into abstract painting, with paintings that  has stood and still stand symbol for many radical thinkers ideas, and big leaps forward in the visual. From Picasso to Boccioni, from Malevich to Pollock, this “pure art” in painting has played an important role through-out its history, in art and still is. Follow as the Spirituals in Art – abstract painting 1890-1985 takes you on a photo-illustrated journey. An enlightening text, covering in detail the world of abstract painting, its mysteries, in solving many of its riddles.

“A line is a dot that goes for a walk” says Paul Klee. It is impossible to fully understand the genius mind, its visions, ideas, or something like Rothko’s great grief. His paintings however can tell us plenty of our world and personal struggles at the time of the masterpieces creation, and now, as before the works birth. In this book the paintings are presented as keys to great knowledge (also where to find the doors). Read about the process of abstract painters. Read about the progress of abstract painting through time and the conquests within the field. Easy to browse in, rich in information, this book is a true discovery and it is unique.

The Spirituals of art – abstract painting 1890-1985  is part of the appreciated and influential book series Lacma, covering art with texts of renowned authors.

this post is part of he subjective library project "Unopened Book"
the book can be found at the Rietveld library : catalog no : 735.8-cat-9b

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure.

When the lights are on behind a big black blanket it looks like a dusty night sky. It’s basically impossible to capture this effect, but still worth trying. The morning comes through the speakers, signaling that it’s time to move. As this decision kicks in, the doorbell rings, the body moves through darkness, stumbling down the stairs and landing with a bump! Opening the door, letting in the light, and a man with his sign. The man enters and the light comes on in the main room. He has a proposal concerning the future source of light, and one must agree to it.

 
In physics, a photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. The effects of this force are easily observable at both the microscopic and macroscopic level, because the photon has no rest mass; this allows for interactions at long distances. Like all elementary particles, photons are currently best explained by quantum mechanics and will exhibit wave-particle duality, exhibiting properties of both waves and particles. For example, a single photon may be refracted by a lens or exhibit wave interference with itself, but also act as a particle giving a definite result when its position is measured.

The themes of the book can best be described with this written collage of close ups and full scale images, since the content of it isn’t words but images. The Israeli photographer Adi Nes was born in 1966 in Kiryat Gat, studied in Jerusalem and is now living in Tel-Aviv. His cultural background may evoke religious associations, and his works are also filled with references to iconic Christian imagery of especially Caravaggio. This can be seen in the clearly staged compositions of the photos and in the use of light and shade that create a high contrast, an effect known in painting as chiaroscuro. Furthermore he is very interested in depicting masculine stereotypes and situations, and does so in photographic series of prisoners or soldiers.

The command places a vertical band against a richly textured atmosphere. But here the creamy yellow vertical band separates two elaborately textured zones of colour. God’s initial Command “Let there be light” led to a sequence of creative acts of division: first darkness from light.

For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.

this post is part of he subjective library project "Unopened Book"
the book can be found at the Rietveld library : catalog no : -ne-2

Kunst, muziek en technologie smelten samen in installaties waarbij de interactie met andere elementen centraal staat.
Het geluid reageert op beweging en beeld reageert op geluid. Het begon allemaal in 1958 met de videopresentatie Poème Electronique van LeCorbusier, ook wel het eerste ‘multimedia-kunstwerk’ genoemd, met als doel te laten zien wat technologische vooruitgang de mensheid oplevert. Een klankgedicht waarin architectuur, geluid en beeld samen vloeien tot een geheel.
Vanaf dat moment ontwikkelen technieken zich verder en daarmee de mogelijkheden voor deze installaties.
Dit boek bevat een overzicht van een aantal kunstenaars die zich vanaf dat moment zijn gaan specificeren in deze ‘multimedia-kunstwerken’.

this post is part of he subjective library project "Unopened Book"
the book can be found at the Rietveld library : catalog no :