Entries Tagged 'TECHNOLOGY, DESIGN' ↓

In 1983 some VPP (a Very Patient Person, a smoker, no doubt) set the target of recording his or her place in the world. Match art is more often associated with depression era and folk art. How surprising therefore is it to see it used to celebrate the space age? But now, I suspect, it is very much a thing of the past. (P.S. The location of the Giles Weather Station can be found on the bom radar map.) And coincidentally, see this, described as “prison art”! Now is that how the GWS staff saw it? I think not…

is about to suffer what is arguably a sacrilegious (grossly irreverent toward what is or is held to be sacred) design effect. Iconophilia here provides a preview – of a kind. This is a photograph of what I believe is a sample of the sparkly black “road metal” on which the 200 log coffins of The Aboriginal Memorial are now being arranged.  In the course of its history this famous work has experienced multiple variations on how its inspirational burial poles should be based, related, or sited in their various arrangements – from their best effect in the red dirt of the funky galleria of the 1988 Biennale of Sydney wharf to the troubling palatial setting of St Petersburg. Now, finally sited in a stand-alone pavilion in the about-to-be-opened newly redesigned National Gallery of Australia, The Aboriginal Memorial apparently suffers the indignity of an alien base material, which is as far removed from the bauxitic red of Arnhem Land as could be imagined. This is a design idea that has been around for some time – and yet one wonders how much consultation with its Yolngu originators has been undertaken. How to install the Memorial is not a new issue. How each hollow log relates to the whole, and to each other, especially in relation to the design of the base, has been exhaustively debated on the occasion of each of its numerous arrangements. If, as it has often been claimed, The Aboriginal Memorial is the National Gallery’s most significant contemporary work of art, will this permanent installation prove to be its least successful? One awaits with interest the reaction of its “conceptual producer”, Djon Mundine, to this latest turn. The thread continues here.

…and the weapons of war perished. (King James 1611 1.27) N.B. The first Blue Streak rocket was supposed to land in the Indian Ocean! And this first one went so far off the radar that it took 16 years to find it.

Let your eyes wander over the curvaceous 1949 Delahaye 175 S Roadster designed by the Russian/French Iakov (Jacques) Saoutchik, and you’ll understand why it was formerly owned by the British actress Diana Dors… read the story at ArtDaily. And, btw, what was that colour called? P.S. Yours for $3.3m.

For those who live in Canberra the other significance of August 21st will be that it will be THREE YEARS TO THE DAY since the ACT Government and/or the NCA gave up on their responsibility to do something better with the dead heart of Canberra. I admit, this is not a big picture issue. It’s not going to divert us from Our Forward Momentum. But in Tidy Town such things loom large in the Civic Psyche. Three years ago we started making sick jokes about these sad little readymades which occupy the potentially important – but currently dreadful – space between the Sydney and Melbourne Buildings on Northbourne Avenue. Apparently they’re the foundations for some kind of signage that never got finished. They remain as an accidental monument to civic despair. But wait! There’s something new! They’ve updated the bin! And what’s that in the background?

Signage! It’s a sign that (in the most elliptical way) tells us how important this site really is… Welcome to BUILDINGS OF COMPONENT PARTS. Crikey! Who composed that? And for whom?

Dear Chief Minister, when oh when are you going to ask someone to take control and do something FANTASTIC with this symbolic space? Suggestion: emulate the Serpentine Gallery’s annual Pavilion. See here and  here…

There. I’ve broken my RULE never to rely on italics or CAPS for emphasis…

Iconophilia predicts. Facebook will destroy Hotmail, and everything else, in seven easy steps. 1. If there are x million teenagers using Facebook. 2. Each, like my stepson, relays a copy of every Facebook murmur, comment, like, and share to his Hotmail account. 3. His Hotmail account fills up with thousands of pointless messages – what he acknowledges is useless data (so much so that he doesn’t even look for real email messages anymore). 4. Email networks progressively sink under the weight of useless copies of Facebook chatter. 5. Each message uses energy to send, store, and, hypothetically retrieve. 6. Facebook is still growing exponentially. 7. Msg to Dr. Who! Here’s the crack in The Universe…

is a great new expression! Listen to Shevonne Hunt’s Background Briefing on the ABC.

on The History Blog. Results here on ArtDaily

In Das Neue Augustinermuseum they’ve created an inside-out cathedral in the old Museum of the Augustin Monastery in Freiburg. Brilliantly designed by Christoph Mackler. This, to our surprise, turned out to be one of the great museum experiences anywhere. All of the gargoyles and sculptures that were under threat on the magnificent Munster, plus windows, plus the extraordinary treasures of the Museum, are on view under the old roof of the Monastery.

You see things from vantage points that were never meant to be, and the sculptures become animated in completely unpredictable ways. And then there’s the sculptures and paintings of the German Rennaissance (medieval, gothic, high gothic, baroque, etc.)…

Our nerves needed steadying.

St Vitus needed one too.

And the installation is itself a masterpiece of curatorial design. How beautifully challenging it is to show these two Pieta fragments together?

The Museum is full of such experiences. Bravo!

…we’re in that building that looks like the Hindenburg on stilts. The streamlined caterpillar. Zoom in…

But who’s the old geezer blowing smoke rings with his cigar? Zoom in…

He’s caught the attention of the sheila across the way…

Who’s going to be late for the train downstairs…

Shit! Wrong platform!