halsted bridge

1934

roman signer

i watched the documentary:"signer's suitcase" by peter liechti:
"a bizzare road movie" through europe; about the work of the swiss artist roman signer-also known as "the buster keaton of art".

typical ingredients: a beautiful landscape, explosives, dynamite, some objects, a super-8 and himself!

temporary sculpure? action sculpture? experiments?
definetely brief + humorous!

maybe this kind of art is not very relevant today, but this guy could be definetely my friend!

read about signer here.
read about the movie here.
watch an installation here.
2nd photo taken from here.
1st photo taken from here.

vl :: video

[under construction]

vl :: relocated

i was curious to visit the relocated favorite velvet lounge!
the atmosphere was definetely different inside this neat, smoke-free bar, but the music still amazing and so original!
in the photos you can see the preparation before the show and:

avreeayl ra:: drums + percussions player
ed wilkerson jt:: saxophone + clarinet player
savior faire:: violin / viola player
steve berry:: trombonist
rollo radford:: bassist


you can have a look to my previous post on velvet lounge before its relocation...

=[

*this is a place you definetely must visit, if you come to chicago

are you kidding?

_keating hall [ the g y m ] from som in iit campus
built: 1 9 6 6
photo: 2 0 0 6

[ f f f ]

i was very enthousiastic to see the bauhaus chess by josef hartwig in moma!
i love chess!

this idea that the figure shows the motion is very helpful for people with bad memory like me.
i do remember the movements in chess, but once i played shogi [japanese chess] i had some small difficulties to recognise the figures.
by the way those you like chess, you have to try shogi:
it's more complex with "promoted" possibilities!



*check the bauhaus chess box here.

you can not invent a new architecture every monday morning

have a nice week!

mies is not unmixed

k.michael hays has partly replied to some of my questions...

why 3410, m&M are not transparent?
why there is so much of the program on the basement of Crownhall?
and so on

...9 years ago in the "beyond Mies" symposium held in IIT related to the MTCC competition!

k.michael hays reveals the contradictory in mies's work- very relevant today*- by giving examples like the skyscraper project- illustrated in the "remix mies" text of eiconographia.com, IIT campus master plan, IIT buildings, crownhall and others.
he proves that in each case the work is not an autonomous object; its not "the utopia of the unmixed" that we might think so far.
the projects have the simultaneity of engaging and negating the context.

in the image of IIT campus (1940), taken from here, hays indicates how the grid of chicago (and the midwest) is apparent in the new IIT grid.
rem is also mentioning in his content book the quality of "ambiguous" urbanisme "between object and tissue" (on page 182).

*to propose how much architecture should engage-resist society today, he uses the metaphor of the "homeopathic poison": "just enough of it, in order to produce a way out of it".

"chicken-pox"

from today's visit to the massive change exhibition (+lecture) on mca of bruce mau.

no further comment since massive change is an old project recorded on its book.

mendes:: chicago

mendes da rocha is going to give a lecture in chicago on october 20th.
for details about the event clic here.

in the past i have devoted 6 posts to him with photos i took in brazil.
you can have a look to refresh your memory about his work:

mendes_pritzker
mendes_patriarch
mendes_MuBE
mendes_forma
mendes_leme
from no_35

om-or

_now that its forbidden to carry any liquids in the handbag on the plane, this om-or traveller shampoo of 80s-found in my moms drawer becomes too useful!
[last time i was flying from chicago to ny they allowed my toothpaste but not my creme, shampoo and parfum: they emptied all the muji traveller bottles to the garbage box!!!]

H-dM

:: "a kind of perception machine"








_i was little bit dissapointed not to see projects of H-dM, but its an interesting perspective on how to exhibit/ view art.

spiros staveris

_this image is irresistable...


*the photo of spiros staveris taken from here.

the aegean: a scattered city

_i am curious to see photos from the greek pavilion in venice biennale since i have also contributed my work. the inauguration was yesterday!
read in greek in "naftemporiki" about the greek participation.
read in english here and here.

*photo taken in the aegean archipelagos from alexandroupolis to samothraki

venice super blog

_keep updated!clic here.
[choose differnet categories to see more]

[some] ps1 finalists

_3/5 youngfinalists for the PS1, exhibited in MoMA-3rd floor
the photos are from the exhibition.
there was only one image per submission
i chose to shoot these 3, from top to down:
howeler + yoon,
kivi sotamaa,
obra [the winners].

i just realise that yoon from howeler + yoon/ mystudio is the author of the absence book related to the world trade center [very hot topic these days in ny]: i was reading a critique about it in this week's new yorker from peter schjeldahl [page 15].
check the website of howeler+yoon and you will see a very well presented project for ps1 without text and also the very famous interactive project white noise/ white light that took place in athens in 2004.
kivi sotamaa is coming form finland with a significant presence in usa. there is a a short text from him here. i think the project on the picture is inside the book digital tectonics.
check the obra website also to see the beatfuse! project [again]. =]

b-z is back to chicago

_snapshots on crown fountain:
waiting for friends in this standard meeting location is a lot of fun, like kamara* in thessaloniki

*check during greek evenings