07/10/2013

Biodesign: A Cross-Pollination Exhibition

Now our light-hearted summer is over, and people have returned behind their keyboard devices again to post and publish tons of worrisome information about our planet’s state of being, it feels like the perfect timing for the exhibition Biodesign, on the Cross-Pollination of Nature, Science and Creativity. The exhibition opened recently and runs until January 5th at the The New Institute in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.


The exhibition is curated by New York-based writer and teacher William Myers, who published his book BioDesign: Nature + Science + Creativity exactly one year ago in collaboration with Paola Antonelli, MoMa’s senior curator of Architecture and Design. Antonelli, in her turn, introduced the word ‘biodesign’ to a large online audience in her article for Domusweb, States of Design 07: Bio-design, in the fall of 2011. In short, biodesign stands for designers who utilise living organisms as essential components for the production of new materials and experimental projects.

Now, throughout this fall, Myers’ exhibition about biodesign lifts the described projects from the flat paper of his book onto the displays. Myers’ and The New Institute’s goal with this exhibition is to show us that nature can help us building up a better future by replacing industrial or mechanical systems – that now seem to antagonise us increasingly – with biological processes. On display are 57 projects that show us how lamps can shine without electricity, how snails and spiders can excrete new fibers, how mushrooms can replace synthetic foam and how microbes and algae can be used to grow textile, vases and shoes.

Yet, if we look further than these breathtaking projects, this exhibition is, to be frank, quite in line with the growing trend of exhibitions about design and healthcare, new-technologies and our future. Are all these courageous attempts to highlight design’s lifesaver-potential, because of our mens rea, our guilty mind? Can biodesign genuinely replace our own invented machinery, apparatus and systems to which we are so accustomed, with nature’s organically growing processes in sufficient quantities? Hopefully this exhibition provides not solely inspiration for “designers, artists and scientists in the form of varied, in-depth information on new materials and potential biological application in architecture and design” but also for the corporate, engineering and investor world in order to give this side of design a chance to gain solid ground.

Lisanne Fransen – Photo courtesy of The New Institute 
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05/10/2013

Playlist: Indie-Dance

Blending Electronica, Synthpop and Disco into one almost lubricious musical concoction, with a dash of Punk, will give you a particular strand of dance music, frequently referred to as Indie-Dance. And although we use the term “dance music” with hesitation, as they are quite clearly songs, with intricate lyrics and the typical verse, bridge, chorus structure of a song most of the times, they also make you dance quite effortlessly; Flamboyantly with moving hips and bent wrists in some cases and jumping around ferociously in other.

Chela – “Romanticise”
A great debut release by what seems to be a very promising new artist. Released by Paris-based Kitsune Maison on August 26, “Romanticise” is sweet, catchy and slightly melancholic.

Surahn – “Wonderful” (Aeroplane Remix)
A great remix by Aeroplane, featured on Surahn’s Wonderful EP which was release for digital on September 24.

Holy Ghost! – “Dumb Disco Ideas”
Disco at its best! “Dumb Disco Ideas” is the swinging single from the new Holy Ghost! album Dynamics, released on September 10.

Yacht – “Party at the NSA”
Rocking a little harder, “Party at the NSA” is Yacht’s latest track. Wild, rebellious and the most contemporary incarnation of the Punk spirit, hell yeah!

MAS YSA – “Why”
On the more emotional side, “Why” is the debut single of MAS YSA, nomadic composer Thomas Arsenault’s new project. Something tells me that we’ll be hearing much more of MAS YSA.





Andreas Stylianou 
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04/10/2013

Perfect Cities

Vicious werewolves, lecherous trolls, dark demons, stomping giants and other such monstrosities have classically represented evil intention for centuries now. And naturally, at the other end of the spectrum has lied the proud ‘knight in shining armour’, an exemplary handsome figure bearing great strength and light, serving and protecting the good. Philosophers, psychoanalysts and thinkers dating back to the Enlightenment (and throughout the history of critical thought) have of course repeatedly called these oversimplified representations into doubt. Post-colonial theorists further revealed their true ideological nature: indoctrinating the masses with ideal images of ‘citizenship’ or perversely stigmatising the ‘other’ as an undesirable threat.

It’s perhaps not so ironic then that some storytellers have developed counter representations of evil in the direct inverse way, exposing the perfect knight in shining armour as a monster. In American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis presents Patrick Bateman as the archetypal inverted monster. Perfect on the outside, a psychopath on the inside.

Architecturally, this inversion is best characterized by the ‘perfect city’, a functionally flawless synthesis of culture and corporation. The film Den Brysomme Mannen (The Bothersome Man) captures this synthesis strikingly in its depiction of a clinically pristine unhomely modern city. In this parallel disaffected universe no one recognises emotions (look up ‘alexithymia’). No one can taste anything or feel anything; everyone just goes on with their daily routines, seemingly content and tranquil.

Indeed, the inverted ‘perfect city’ has become a recurring motif/trend in recent popular culture and can be found in music videos (Woodkid’s Run Boy Run), videogames (Mirror’s Edge), TV series (Mad Men) and many other movies (THX 1138, The Truman Show). Architectural theorists such as Rem Koolhaas have interrogated the controlling ‘Program’ of the city – an approach championed by modernist architects such as Louis Sullivan (father of skyscrapers) who supported that form should always follow function.

It has become abundantly clear that in today’s age free market corporations run the world, not governments. Everything is becoming a packaged good to be marketed and sold, including our lives. The polished ‘perfect’ aesthetic has become symbolic of this global market order. Global movements and riots are erupting in resistance. It’s no wonder, then, that we take pleasure in watching such cities collapse.

Peter Eramian 
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04/10/2013

A Split Escape

Only recently finding its exquisite way onto the tourist map, the ancient Croatian city of Split has played an integral role in transforming the Adriatic Coast into an elegant, Old World, seaside destination. Attracting international model scouts keen to uncover the next local superstar (summer evenings in Split could easily be confused for a catwalk show) and tourists who stare wide-eyed at the city’s Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, bustling port and labyrinth-like alleys, this city has plenty of charm.


Split – which is brimming with Roman walls, squares and temples – was built around the Diocletian Palace. The original inhabitants sough refuge here, yet contemporary visitors are now greeted by underground markets, fire twirlers and rather fine operatic performances. The Palace’s central square (Peristil Square) is best observed from the top of the steep and slippery Campanile, which rewards you with views of the rooftops, ocean and surrounding hills. The UNESCO listed palace has four monumental gates and houses, within its huge white stonewalls, a true culinary find – Hotel Peristil. Overlooking Peristil Square, this quaintly delightful hotel is highly sought after during the high season and offers up a truly Croatian breakfast and the best tuna carpaccio around. It’s a great place to watch the world stride elegantly by. Just beyond the hotel is the local fruit market, packed with nuts, honey and fruit in every conceivable hue. Equally picturesque – although slightly confronting on the olfactory front – is the fish market. Compact yet bustling, this venue offers a wonderful glimpse of what the city was like all those centuries ago. It’s also a stone’s throw from the Riva promenade, a huge street that winds its way along the waterfront and is lined with restaurants, jewelers, market stall and kava sellers.


Other Split wonders include Jupiter’s Temple, which has taken on the more modern name of St John’s church, two original Egyptian sphinxes and the city’s sandy beach. You could always while away the hours watching the bustling Port. Truly alive on a Friday and Saturday, this is the starting point for many of Sail Croatia’s exotic, sun-filled adventures.

If the bustle of the city becomes a little too much make for Marjan, a hill situated on the west of Split. A local oasis, here you can amble along tree shrouded walking paths (a mecca for joggers and cyclists) and gain a view of the city from the summit that completely justifies the ascent! This hill boasts an array of churches yet it devoid of houses – building here is completely forbidden in order to save the wild brilliance.

Historic and beautiful, Split really is one of the Adriatic’s most lively jewels.


Liz Schaffer, Images courtesy of Household Riot, Marcin Szala, Adrien Dubuisson, Sarah Sampsel, Tom Kelly, Athena Lao, Dworzec 
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03/10/2013

Spring Denim

Historically worn by Genoese Navy sailors in the 1500s and then popularized by Levi Strauss during the 1870s gold rush, the robust cotton fabric has been reimagined countless ways since its laborious beginnings. The denim was available just in few washes, sizes and without stretch. Thankfully, all that’s changed and now the variety of Spring looks from our favorite designers is delightful and refreshing; it’s no longer confined to a pair of jeans. From boldly striped trousers to boyfriend shorts to the dress you can wear to the office or for a night out, here are the top denim trends for Spring Summer 2014.






Chiara Tiso 
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02/10/2013

Kim Öhrling: Summer Stillness

Serene and still it all seems, frozen by a slice of time. Empty, desolate in time, in fantasy. In reality always changing, always moving, never still.






Kim Öhrling 
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02/10/2013

Errata Editions | Books on Books Series

There’s something funny, a little stubborn even, about the thought of a small photobook press cropping up in the midst of today’s brutal media landscape. But here it is: Errata Editions, a wonderful downtown New York publishing house dedicated to reissuing historically significant photography books that have fallen out of print. Their eloquent Books on Books series features modern reproduction of the original text, page by page, word for word. Their aim is to provide students and amateur photographers a snapshot of landmark works that have become increasingly hard to get a hold of.


Of course our first thought was: why go through the trouble of publishing a book? You can, after all, see all of the images from Alexey Brodovitch’s Ballet, or any shot ever taken by Walker Evans online, for free. But for Jeffrey Ladd, the photographer and writer behind Errata’s Books on Books series, the medium is the message. “It’s not just about the work, but the total package,” he writes on his blog 5B4. “And expanding the discourse on the photobook as a mode of fine art in and of itself and reopen them for study, making these treasures of the past available again, and to a new generation.” With history, context is everything.


Ladd conceived the idea for Errata Editions’ Books on Books series in 2008 with co-founders Ed Grazda and Valerie Sonnenthal. “The idea that young photographers just learning their craft couldn’t, without great effort or expense, experience what came before them was very disturbing to me,” he writes. “It begged the question of consequence: what if the greatest literature or poetry was not available for young writers to be informed by?”

The books are beautifully bound and laid out in their original sequence. Titles include Eugene Atget’s seminal Photographe de Paris, Paul Graham’s Beyond Caring, Walker Evans’ groundbreaking American Photographs, and William Klein’s bizarre magnum opus Life is Good & Good For You in New York: Trance Witness Revels. Klein’s frenzied photos of city street life in the late 50s convey a mood that echoes our own times: hurried, paranoid, the people slightly deluded and begrudgingly in the public eye. To see the images as they were originally presented on the page adds a dimension that can’t be found by looking at the pictures on a screen. The case being made is that photobooks are a work of art in their own right, in the same way that putting on a dusty old vinyl record is different than listening to a single on your phone.


“Again, it is a compromise in treading the fine line between a reprint and a study and keeping our books affordable for most everyone,” Ladd writes. “Will our books provide the same experience as the original? Of course not. Even modern reprints, unless they are printed with the same paper and technologies, would fail to do so. But Books on Books provides a full sense of the character and history of each book we feature.” Students can breath a sigh of relief at the thought of no longer having to pay $800 for a first edition of Chris Killip’s In Flagrante. Someday maybe all of the books will be available on your iPad. Then again, that would be somewhat beside the point.


Lane Koivu 
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01/10/2013

Monthly reads: PIN-UP Interviews

If you are not an architect or a designer and you were to read the payoff “A magazine for architectural entertainment”, wouldn’t you be at least a little bit intrigued? Wouldn’t you want to know what is it exactly that those serious architects find entertaining and what does actually crack them up? Well, if you are going for nerdy inside jokes and puns about form and function, probably you are looking at the wrong magazine. Aside from its clever catchphrase, PIN-UP is a publication that actually takes the matter seriously, albeit often quite unorthodoxly.

Founded in 2006 and published twice a year, PIN-UP has grown to become one of the most significant publications about design and architecture. Standing up against all those apparently serious and deep, but also kind of dull, established publications, it has tried to develop a critical discourse about contemporary architecture. Aided by a hint of irreverent graphic design, it has surely made its point: architectural magazine can actually be fun and engaging even for the general public. This is why it should only be right that they immortalized their eight years of work with a more serious, yet equally interesting publication.


Simply named “PIN-UP Interviews”, this book is a collection of all the feature interviews published in the magazine since its first issue. Properly re-edited to fit their new purpose, this book features interviews with architects David Adjaye, Shigeru Ban, Ricardo Bofill, David Chipperfield, Zaha Hadid, Junya Ishigami, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Marino, Richard Meier, and Ettore Sottsass; artists Daniel Arsham, Cyprien Gaillard, Simon Fujiwara, Boris Rebetez, Oscar Tuazon, Andro Wekua, and Robert Wilson; and designers Rafael de Cárdenas, Martino Gamper, Rick Owens, Clémence Seilles, Hedi Slimane, and Bethan Laura Wood. Even though we would not go as far as Hans-Ulrich Obrist and state that this is “A mesmerizing book of interviews that reads as addictively as a thriller”, it nevertheless appears a timeless form of architectural entertainment, perfect to read (or re-read) just any time.


Rujana Rebernjak 
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