These posts are either "jump pages" for my weblog or posts-in-process that will eventually appear there. For what it's worth, here's an archive of these random bits. The picture to the left is by a famous comic book artist.
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Xtreme Houses
Courtenay Smith and Sean Topham
“The house has become to contemporary architects what the seven-inch single was to Punk bands,” declare Courtenay Smith and Sean Topham. “It is a liberating challenge for its designer and an immediate, accessible product for the end user.” Xtreme Houses examines forty-five newly designed and built dwelling spaces by architects, artists, collectives and individuals from around the globe. Responding to the changing desires of consumers and the inevitable influences of overpopulation, suburban sprawl, environmental concerns, technological advances and economic fluctuation, each of the selected projects offers radical and unique solutions to our basic human need for shelter.
Xtreme Houses considers four general approaches to residential dwellings. The first chapter entitled “Self-Construct” covers a variety of do-it-yourself strategies. From private individuals who consider custom building a luxury to impoverished self-builders for whom it is the only means to obtain shelter, taking matters into one’s own hands and starting from scratch has resulted in exceptional and innovative housing solutions. Three pioneering examples are Michael Hoenes’ Tin-Can Houses in Africa, Brooklyn artist Vito Acconci’s House of Cars #2, and Atlanta-based Richard Martin’s Global Peace Containers in Jamaica, an entire community constructed from converted shipping containers.
Aided by the Internet, fewer people are bound to their jobs by location and are opting to live in rural areas. Chapter 2, “Move to the Sticks” focuses on nontraditional country abodes that work in harmony with their surroundings. Unlike conventional country cabins, these homes disappear into the landscape, as is the case with Michael Reynolds’ Earthships, float on water like Jean-Michel Ducanelle’s Aquasphere, or rest in the trees such as Softroom’s Tree House. As with other dwellings throughout the book, many of the projects take tremendous strides toward sustainable building, including Rural Studio’s Corrugated Construction made from recycled cardboard.
Chapter 3, “Bring Your Own Building,” explores modern takes on nomadic living. In addition to discussing the plight of forced nomads, such as refugees, the homeless and other displaced people, this chapter also examines transient living as a purposeful choice, often adopted by fashionable young urbanites and the super wealthy. California architect Jennifer Siegal and New York artist Andrea Zittel revisit the mobile trailer home, while other designers explore portable pods and articles of clothing that double as architecture, also known as “clothes to live in” or “buildings to wear.”
The final chapter, “Space Invaders,” discusses innovative methods of inhabiting the rare empty spaces left in cities. Through stacking, hanging, inserting and inflating, these homes playfully reclaim unused urban gaps. Many tap into underutilized resources, such as New York-based Michael Rakowitz’s inflatable homeless shelters which attach to the ventilation systems of public buildings. Others hang outside windows or are inserted into the existing infrastructure, such as LOT/EK’s Guzman Penthouse which rests on top of a Manhattan skyscraper.
Well-written and generously illustrated with photographs, drawings and plans, this exciting new book provides a sampling of the most cutting-edge developments in residential housing. Whether spurred by the latest advances in technology or the scarce resources of poverty, these homes challenge our traditional notions of what a house can be and demonstrate architecture’s ability to shape the way we live. They will undoubtedly set the standard for where and how we live, now and in the future.
Other featured dwellings by: Cal-Earth, FAT, Doug Garofalo, Herman Hertzberger, Doug Jackson, Jones, Partners: Architecture, Lacaton & Vassal, Atelier van Lieshout, Greg Lynn FORM, Monolithic Dome Institute, N55, Oosterhuis.nl, OpenOffice, Po.D., Marjetica Potrc, Michael Rakowitz, Jessica Stockholder, Sarah Wigglesworth, and Krzysztof Wodiczko, among others.
Courtenay Smith is a curator with the Kunstraum München in Munich, Germany. She was formerly Associate Curator at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art and has written about contemporary art and design for a variety of publications, including ARTnews, InForm, TenbyTen and the book, Icons of Design (Prestel).
Sean Topham is a full-time writer and journalist. His recent projects include the popular book Blowup: Inflatable Art, Architecture and Design (Prestel*) and Hands That Really Grip, an award-winning documentary about Action Man for British television. He lives in London, England and is currently working on his next book about space age design.
The following is a selection of images culled from Krystal Ishida's VCL page. I like them for their simple iconic punch, ability to capture emotion, and formal invention. Her use of color is especially good. She recently upgraded to Paintshop Pro 7, which I'm somewhat ambivalent about, however. All the drawings below except the last one feature a jagged, pixelated line (a byproduct of scanning the original drawing) that isn't so "professional" but contrasts nicely with her shading. One of the problems with computer drawings in general is a kind of smooth saminess of texture: that "airbrushed look." The pixelated line brings a kind of crackle to all that sameness--like spicing up bland food. In the artists's most recent drawings (see "Krystal as Capricorn"), the new software gives a smoother line, making the drawings more professional and seamless, but perhaps at the expense of the crackle. I say perhaps because I'm waiting to see where she goes with it. In "Krystal as Capricorn," the clip art flowers provide a certain amount of that needed contrast. Majora Prowling Kib Walking (animation) Mystica Fighting After the Battle Power Furs Dark Cocomon/Aisha Mystica at Night Mulonica in the Sunshine Patch and Jock Krystal as Capricorn
Addendum: My concerns about the line quality were misplaced. In her most recent drawings she's really getting it down, using two or three shades in the outlines. Also, she's been posting some pencil drawings on non-VCL pages that are just great. I'm completely envious of her confident hand. Most artists who draw so precisely are a bit cold and unemotional in their content, but not so with Krystal. These drawings brim with energy and good humor. I have more to say about this work and will put up some more links soon.
Addendum 1/5/03 Some new pencil drawings by Krystal Ishida have been uploaded here (may load slowly). This is some of my favorite work of hers, because you can see the line before it gets computerized (even though it's scanned, of course). She's really good at groupings of characters, where they're all interacting in some way. "Link hit with frying pan" (hyperlink removed) is also a grabber. Here's a detail of his hands:
And a couple of good dragon paintings are here and here.
Press Release: Hotel New York, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Gallery 205, curated by Alice Smits
On Sunday Oct. 8, 2000 between 12 and 6 pm a legendary seventies consumer machine will check into Hotel New York and present a day-dream performance for one day.
The legendary status of the CED video player "SKT-090" by RCA stems from its short availability: CED was the forerunner of laser discs. The crucial difference is that these discs are made of vinyl and played back with a needle, almost like an ordinary record. Similar to the short history of the 8-track audiocassette, CEDs lasted less than 5 years as laser discs became the more popular and reliable media.
What makes this particular SKT-090 model a unique performer is its highly individual and eccentric way of playing the video. The machine, 17 years old, reads scratches on the disc not like crackles on an audio record but chops a scene into fragments less than 1/4 second long and reassembles them by chance operation. The needle gets physically irritated by several factors besides the scratches that let it skip the grooves, resulting in an infinite number of similar but not identical collage variations of the same scene. The performed "cuts" are almost seamless.
Considering its historical context, there is some irony involved in this "accident" as the SKT-090 (which was built in the early '80s) reproduces without human interaction the video art collage techniques that originated in the same decade. Before digital video was available, some 5000 edits, each a couple of frames long, were done tediously on time-consuming tape-to-tape editing systems.
The unpredictable nature of the machine reproducing the stored analogue information in such an illogical order produces a rare machine autonomy that questions the way time progression is adapted to cinema. The latter usually features a successive order of events as the only factor that tries to level up with reality. Based on the given data the machine suggests an alternative reading. It could be seen as a practical approach to ciné-thinking. For Hotel New York the SKT will dissect a long distance Hollywood love drama.
The SKT-090 was found and modified by New York-based video artist Caspar Stracke.