your hands will get burned.
mao was 70% right and 30% wrong.
great leap forward.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
_if you walk across the univer with me II
your hands will get burned.
mao was 70% right and 30% wrong.
great leap forward.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
'...I'm caught up in a spiral'
Workshop: 'Choreographing Space'Delft School for Design/ 12-13 February, 2007
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Keywords:
body, space, harmony, choreography, sensation, intensity, information, visualization, representation, mapping, diagramming, performance
Asignment:
modify a space in the TU Delft School of Architecture in half an hour to provoke a different relation of body in space
Result: a body-challenging task/ try to get to the upper level of the DSD, using the spiral staircase, avoiding the lazer-cutting toilet-paper threads. Entrapment-chic.
Recommended listening: William Orbit - Spiral
Recommended listening: William Orbit - Spiral
Friday, February 23, 2007
_if you walk across the universe with me
allow me to introduce, myself with no excuse. my name is deng xiaoping. to get to know my name i didn't need a jury . i took the crown myself and put it on my head.illustration deng xiaoping with soft PS filter
paraphrasing miss universum
Thursday, February 22, 2007
_line rider + fl0w
indie gaming. tool? go you tube for line rider clips. open-ended play experience.
UNDERWATER ADVENTURE
UNDERWATER ADVENTURE II
UNDERWATER ADVENTURE
UNDERWATER ADVENTURE II
_psychocartography of conceived space
Atlas of emotions
Human interaction / simultaneity
Multiple space
Understanding of reality(ies)
reminiscence
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
_ruins of the map
… In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guild drew a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, coinciding point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography saw the vast Map to be Useless and permitted it to decay and fray under the Sun and winters.
In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of the Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; and in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.
‘On Exactitude in Science,’ Jorge Luis Borges
In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of the Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; and in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.
‘On Exactitude in Science,’ Jorge Luis Borges
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
More downtown chinese hairdresser stories... coming soon.
Someone is going to have a chinese haircut in Amsterdam soon... and that's me.
Maybe I should try the more modern one there and get some more 'modern' chinatown information for our project. I'm looking forward to collecting all our data and visualize them. I suspect that not-so-profound patterns will emerge.
I sometimes wonder what the final product might be, or whom it might be interesting. Will it really have something small but new to say about the subjects and objects that we study? Will it be so specific and subjective that it won't be really describing a whole microcosm? But then again, I think that no project or research can really escape those factors. I believe it's good to focus on the data for the time. Good things usually come up when not forced to. And I have to say it's been quite enjoyable so far. We'll see how it goes... together.
Maybe I should try the more modern one there and get some more 'modern' chinatown information for our project. I'm looking forward to collecting all our data and visualize them. I suspect that not-so-profound patterns will emerge.
I sometimes wonder what the final product might be, or whom it might be interesting. Will it really have something small but new to say about the subjects and objects that we study? Will it be so specific and subjective that it won't be really describing a whole microcosm? But then again, I think that no project or research can really escape those factors. I believe it's good to focus on the data for the time. Good things usually come up when not forced to. And I have to say it's been quite enjoyable so far. We'll see how it goes... together.
Music video of the week! #1
Hi there. This is the first post of a series of china-related music videos that will be (hopefully) posted here every week by oxotnic! Most of them might hard to bear in audio terms, but there's always a mute button there to protect sensitive ears. To start-off and get you into the mood, I've chose an instant cult classic, Modern Talking - China In Her Eyes. Beware, the imagery can be quite powerful and funny at the same time - you choose. Don't be fooled by the preview frame and Enjoy!
Project website
Hopefully you'll be seeing more of this soon on ... http://www.urbanbody.org/students/group_02/index.htmlour website for the Urban Body course. Beware of immitations.
LIFE IS LIVE AND PROSTITUTION
Still back in Amsterdam, we tried to find the perfect place where gamblers, prostitutes, visitors, voyeurs, tourists, locals and apparently me come together. In one of the side alleys across the windows of the prostitutes and close to the gambling house there was this place, the HONNY BAR. The place is run by a man around sixty from Turkey, who is looking forward to his retirement. After he lived for in Tyrol (Austria) before, Amsterdam seemed to worn him out. He was tired of the location.
Georg Simmel, a German sociologist called prostitution a “transnational survival strategy”(1978). Prostitution has become a central metaphor for the choices people make and the pressure they face in moving across borders in search of better lives. Is this not also what the old man is doing?
In the Netherlands prostitution is legal and nobody hopefully is forced to do this job. For more information see also www.pic-amsterdam.com
Currently confronted with the computer game “second life” it came into my mind, that the gambler, spending his day in the playhouse, the prostitute not recognized by her father passing her window is also a form of second (secret) life. And every other form of dressing up like Carnival as well.
The origin of Chinatowns outside China was a self supporting ghetto for Chinese people in order to survive abroad. Isn’t this a transnational survival strategy, what Simmel was talking about, as well? Today Chinatowns all over the world turned into a promotion of commercial Chinese goods, but it still has the notion of hidden places and powers in twilight.
Georg Simmel, a German sociologist called prostitution a “transnational survival strategy”(1978). Prostitution has become a central metaphor for the choices people make and the pressure they face in moving across borders in search of better lives. Is this not also what the old man is doing?
In the Netherlands prostitution is legal and nobody hopefully is forced to do this job. For more information see also www.pic-amsterdam.com
Currently confronted with the computer game “second life” it came into my mind, that the gambler, spending his day in the playhouse, the prostitute not recognized by her father passing her window is also a form of second (secret) life. And every other form of dressing up like Carnival as well.
The origin of Chinatowns outside China was a self supporting ghetto for Chinese people in order to survive abroad. Isn’t this a transnational survival strategy, what Simmel was talking about, as well? Today Chinatowns all over the world turned into a promotion of commercial Chinese goods, but it still has the notion of hidden places and powers in twilight.
Friday, February 16, 2007
_dodgevilles
there are more than one, no? the one dodgeville is only a beginning. dodgeville is the place a conventional map cannot spot. dodgevilles are not stable values. dodgeville is a responsive narrative connected to other dodgevilles. their relations are not distance, but unforseen events. or maybe not unforseen and maybe not events, but hidden proximity. you have to move through that something to see what is really there. but you might not have to move that far. or you even have to move further that you can imagine. through a door or endless time zones. dodgeville is always there, but may appear as a condition you don't recognize. just until the momen you shift focal point...
Thursday, February 15, 2007
_on narratives and stalker
...Stalker was founded by a group of architecture students during an occupation of Rome University in 1990. That they describe that occupation as ‘an opportunity to get to know a lot of people’ provides a key to the architectural thinking behind much of their subsequent work. At the same time, Stalker (the name refers to Andrei Tarkowsky’s cult film) is a loose and open collective that consistently shies away from any conventional description as ‘architectural’: members and collaborators have included artists, art historians, theoreticians, an astro-physicist, a geologist and a dentist. The first Stalker project, a five-day dérive through the city of Rome, mapped the territory in which they would operate.
Yet to say that this project resulted in a map is to say nothing at all, for in essence this was a map of the unmapped and the unmappable. That the dérive should be such an apparently self-negating exercise is hardly surprising given its origins in the work of one of the most richly self-destructive avant-garde groups of the last century, the Situationist International (the various protagonists of which are obvious and important influences on Stalker’s work). Guy Debord, the chief theorist of the movement, describes the dérive as a passage through the ‘ambiences’ of a city, a search for and awareness of its ‘psychogeography’. It is an encounter with effect, with strange attractors and with the often unpredictable collision of various urban processes. In many respects it is the search for a narrative of the city. ...
(Rappolt, Mark, ARCHITECTURE: STALKER: BARBED WIRE AND WINDMILLS)
Yet to say that this project resulted in a map is to say nothing at all, for in essence this was a map of the unmapped and the unmappable. That the dérive should be such an apparently self-negating exercise is hardly surprising given its origins in the work of one of the most richly self-destructive avant-garde groups of the last century, the Situationist International (the various protagonists of which are obvious and important influences on Stalker’s work). Guy Debord, the chief theorist of the movement, describes the dérive as a passage through the ‘ambiences’ of a city, a search for and awareness of its ‘psychogeography’. It is an encounter with effect, with strange attractors and with the often unpredictable collision of various urban processes. In many respects it is the search for a narrative of the city. ...
(Rappolt, Mark, ARCHITECTURE: STALKER: BARBED WIRE AND WINDMILLS)
_les particules élementaires
"Griffiths's stories were introduced in 1984 to relate quantum measurements in plausible narrations. One of Griffiths's stories is based upon of a series of random measurements taken at different times. Each measurement express the fact that a certain physical quantity, possibly different from one measurement to another, is included, at a given moment, within a certain domain of values. For example, at time T1 an electrone has a certain velocity, determined by an approximation that depends on the type and mode of measurement; at T2 it is located a certain place in space; at T3, it has a certain spin value. Based upon a subset of measurements a logically consistent story can be defined, but which nonetheless cannot be said to be true; it can only be sustained without contradiction.
[In these stories] everything happens as if the world were made up of seperate objects, possessing intrinsic and stable properties. However, the number og Griffiths's conscious stories that could be rewritten based upon a series of measurements is, in general, far greater than one."
(Paraphrasing HOUELLEBECQ; MICHEL; The Elementary Particles)
_röd längtan
röd längtan means red longings. china is politically red. infrared? dragon red. neon red - pink. consum communism. red as in orientalism. hot red. hotter than india? red as in dangerous. the american way. red ducks. cities of fire (ringo lam) toshiba red. no red stop signs?
chinatowns are red longings. made in china.
a try to get a hook on the world out there
FIELD TRIP TO AMSTERDAM 070209
OCJECT: gambling house
SUBJECT: prostitute
nice topics to investigate in and pretty interesting but how to do this?
after a coffe and realizing that we are way to many people to have a normal conversation with a prostitute or a gambler, we decided to split up in groups and go by ourselves for a while to get an impression.
my first reaction was, entering the sex-shop right next to me, but on the other side of the canal, means not situated in chinatown anymore. the shop itself was terribly small and i got immediately confronted with the owner, and had to tell him my shopping target. well, there were this porno videos all over and everything else i could see and imagine myself buying was this gel, standing at the counter. so i got the whole instructions about using it while i was thinking very concentrated about what i could ask him about the red-light district, the prostitutes, the connections to chinatown. a few minutes later i found myself back on the street with an overpriced item in my pocket and the idea, i just have could asked him: "do you live here"? well, i kind of messed up my firts chance and wandered around for a while to clear my mind.
back in chinatown i decided to have a break in a coffeeshop, the JOLLY JOKER. it was quiet and nice and warm in there, the air so thik that you could cut it and lonely men sitting at the bar dreaming in their own world. i installed myself between them, ordered an exotic tea and waited for reaction.
well, i didn't wait for long. the guy on my right side started to talk to me about art and was pointing out some nice design work in an art magazine, so there was something to start a conversation. he is american, fiction and scene writer, lives in amsterdam since ten years, married to a dutch woman and knows the place. quote: you came to the right place here! seems like JOLLY JOKER is a meeting point for intellectuals who like to chill out for a while. i am not mentioning real names here, so lets him call KARL.
after KARL told me that his main interest is to write about sex & art, i felt encouraged to tell him about our project. at this point i was not sure myself what exactely i was looking for and what the endproduct would be, so i was very careful in not limiting my approach from the beginning.
as you can imagine, there is some hesitation to go straight and interview a girl working there.
but i found out that KARL has connections to prostitutes to find the stories for his own work. so there he comes into the picture, telling me what kind of women he meets, about their life and motivation doing this. well at least the motivation is easy to figure out: money. as simple as that, and quite good money.
he told me about this girl he knows, who started business in the window when she was eighteen. and after her third month, she bought an AUDI TT. she is 24 now, still doing the same job. i have no idea how long i would have to work as an architect to afford this nice car. probably three years?
KARL adviced me to find a place in chinatown, where i see all the potentials and opportunities coming together; and just telling the truth to the people working there, and maybe offering a service vice versa, maybe a website? not a bad idea actually.
well, tomorrow i will write about this place i found, the HONNY BAR, and that everything is about the need to feed our aspirations, and that the gambling place and the girl in the window try to meet this longing. but why in chinatown?
OCJECT: gambling house
SUBJECT: prostitute
nice topics to investigate in and pretty interesting but how to do this?
after a coffe and realizing that we are way to many people to have a normal conversation with a prostitute or a gambler, we decided to split up in groups and go by ourselves for a while to get an impression.
my first reaction was, entering the sex-shop right next to me, but on the other side of the canal, means not situated in chinatown anymore. the shop itself was terribly small and i got immediately confronted with the owner, and had to tell him my shopping target. well, there were this porno videos all over and everything else i could see and imagine myself buying was this gel, standing at the counter. so i got the whole instructions about using it while i was thinking very concentrated about what i could ask him about the red-light district, the prostitutes, the connections to chinatown. a few minutes later i found myself back on the street with an overpriced item in my pocket and the idea, i just have could asked him: "do you live here"? well, i kind of messed up my firts chance and wandered around for a while to clear my mind.
back in chinatown i decided to have a break in a coffeeshop, the JOLLY JOKER. it was quiet and nice and warm in there, the air so thik that you could cut it and lonely men sitting at the bar dreaming in their own world. i installed myself between them, ordered an exotic tea and waited for reaction.
well, i didn't wait for long. the guy on my right side started to talk to me about art and was pointing out some nice design work in an art magazine, so there was something to start a conversation. he is american, fiction and scene writer, lives in amsterdam since ten years, married to a dutch woman and knows the place. quote: you came to the right place here! seems like JOLLY JOKER is a meeting point for intellectuals who like to chill out for a while. i am not mentioning real names here, so lets him call KARL.
after KARL told me that his main interest is to write about sex & art, i felt encouraged to tell him about our project. at this point i was not sure myself what exactely i was looking for and what the endproduct would be, so i was very careful in not limiting my approach from the beginning.
as you can imagine, there is some hesitation to go straight and interview a girl working there.
but i found out that KARL has connections to prostitutes to find the stories for his own work. so there he comes into the picture, telling me what kind of women he meets, about their life and motivation doing this. well at least the motivation is easy to figure out: money. as simple as that, and quite good money.
he told me about this girl he knows, who started business in the window when she was eighteen. and after her third month, she bought an AUDI TT. she is 24 now, still doing the same job. i have no idea how long i would have to work as an architect to afford this nice car. probably three years?
KARL adviced me to find a place in chinatown, where i see all the potentials and opportunities coming together; and just telling the truth to the people working there, and maybe offering a service vice versa, maybe a website? not a bad idea actually.
well, tomorrow i will write about this place i found, the HONNY BAR, and that everything is about the need to feed our aspirations, and that the gambling place and the girl in the window try to meet this longing. but why in chinatown?
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