‘Identity Crisis’ is an upcoming exhibition at the Barras Centre. There are a lot of interesting angles to this, and some difficult questions embodied in the project. Some of that can be accessed via here.
Archive for the 'Architecture' Category
This post on manystuff.org — a research project of the Jan Van Eyck Academie — seemed like good cover to link a couple of other recent finds regarding type, the city and the citizen.
Image: Another Shadow Fight — David Osbaldeston (2008).
Digital prints in Vorticist mannerism originated from woodcuts based on
Sidney Noland’s Ned Kelly series (1946-7). Newspaper kiosk design by Herbert Bayer, 1924 (unrealised). Variable dimensions. 3rd installation
If you’re in Edinburgh or the general Scottish environs on monday ‘Investigating Premodern Futures’™ : 9th August 2010 will investigate the following questions:
Is Edinburgh a ghost city? What future awaits its ‘new‘ quarters (Quartermile, Fountainbridge, Edinburgh Waterfront) areas that have no past and that are yet to be occupied? What fate awaits older buildings that have fallen empty? An Unco Site! is focused on the way in which a fantastic neomedieval ‘history’ is routinely injected into Edinburgh’s Old Town (e.g. Auld Jock’s Pie Shoppe, Frankenstein’s, Armstrongs, etc.) Is there a space for the ‘new’ in Edinburgh? As the future shuts down does the past become all that’s left to sell? ‘Zombie capitalism’ and hauntology are key themes that our panel of experts will explore here.
Part of the ongoing works of the Confraternity of Neoflagellants.
If you’re in Glasgow over the summer, you might be interested in Futureproof at Streetlevel. It’d also be worth taking in Fields, Factories and Workshops by Simon Yuill at the CCA and other venues. Lucy Duncombe (grad vis com 2010) will be performing as part of a sound/music event on the 16th September, alongside a whole range of interesting discussions, film showings and other cultural and political events. In a slightly tangentially linked article (space, politics, sustainability, urbanism etc), other vis com person Alec Farmer and his ‘Nomadic Redux‘ were featured recently in treehugger.
Article on Terreform One, a project about cities of the future…
GSA’s second most prolific bloggers have launched a great new blog with the distinct theme of the Treasures of GSA Library, to highlight the special and rare book collections.
Photographer Joel Sternfeld talks about his project documenting the Highline in New York. The HIghline has recently been reclaimed from being a disused elevated railway to being developed as a park in the middle of Manhattan. You can find out more about the project here. Or follow the project on the blog here. It has also become the focus for arts related projects in NYC.
Apartamento is an Interiors magaazine that looks for inspiration from everyday environments and the objects people choose to surround themselves with rather than an idealised aspirational model of traditional interiors magazines.
With the support of Uninstal, as part of a two day exploration of critical urban praxis with radical sound art collective Ultra-Red, The Strickland Distribution are hosting a public walk on Sunday 9th May. The walk is intended as a means to investigate contemporary urban dispossession as a consequence of gentrification in light of historical forms of primitive accumulation in the city. Led by independent writer and researcher Neil Gray, in collaboration with a range of activists and artists and housing and community groups, the walk will take a digressive route through George Square, the branded ‘Merchant City’, Glasgow Green, and the Barras Market. In a form of live critical praxis, the walk will aim to illuminate such shadowed areas as the ‘Cancer of Empire’ and the dead hand of Victoriana; the secret of primitive accumulation, past and present; ‘the Selfridges effect’ and the rent-gap; the ‘arts-led property strategy’ and affective labour; slums, tower blocks and penthouses, and the continuing crisis in housing; and the neoliberal pulverisation and commodification of social spaces.
The title of the walk refers to ‘Shadow’ and his ‘Midnight scenes and social photographs’, a paternalist Victorian account of Glasgow slums written in 1858. In the Shadow of Shadow, we propose instead an investigative ‘history from below’; a critical exploration of gentrification set in the historical contexts of the ‘second city of Empire’ and contemporary city-building. While Victorian paternalists like Shadow promoted top-down, moralistic solutions to mitigate the problems of the urban poor, we know that social change only ever comes with broad-based organising from below. Participating groups such as the Scottish Tenants Organisation, Glasgow Games Monitor 2014, and the Glasgow Residents Network are already active in Glasgow, and this walk aims to provide the means for critical self-reflection and collaborative exchange, as well as instigating and sustaining wider solidarity and activity between anti-gentrification researchers, activists, community groups, planners and artists in Glasgow. We welcome all those with an interest in this project.
Please note that the walk will be audio recorded by Ultra-Red. Recordings from the event will then be used the following Sunday 16th May in sound workshops that explore the issues raised on the walk and the possibilities for new and ongoing forms of organisation and resistance to gentrification in Glasgow.
Day 1: Sunday 9th May. Meet 1pm at Queen Victoria statue (with horse) George Square.
A public walk from George Square to the Barras market, bringing in contributions from researchers, activists and artists in a form of live critical praxis (time: 1-4pm approx.).
Followed by a screening from Document’s archive of ‘Drumchapel – The Frustration Game’ (20 mins, de-classed elements, 1989) and discussion (time: 4-7pm approx.) in Laurie’s Bar, 34-36 King Street, Glasgow, G1 5QT Map: http://tinyurl.com/34v9n8z
Day 2: Sunday 16th May, 1-5pm, Kinning Park Complex, 40 Cornwall Street, Glasgow, G41 1AQ Map: http://tinyurl.com/32×7y2h
A practical sound workshop with Ultra-Red bringing together walk participants to discuss the issues raised during the walk. The aim of these workshops is to facilitate a deeper understanding of gentrification, and to instigate and sustain wider solidarity and activity between anti-gentrification researchers, activists, community groups and artists in Glasgow.
Participants include:
Neil Gray (writer and researcher)
Leigh French (co-editor, Variant magazine)
Simon Yuill (artist and writer)
Libby Porter (University of Glasgow, Department of Urban Studies; Planners Network UK)
John Cousins (radical researcher and historian)
Links/Groups:
The Strickland Distribution: http://www.strickdistro.org
Uninstal: http://www.arika.org.uk
Ultra-Red: http://www.ultrared.org/directory.html
Document – International Documentary Film Festival : http://www.docfilmfest.org.uk
Variant: http://www.variant.org.uk
PNUK: http://www.pnuk.org.uk
Scottish Tenants Organisation: http://www.scottishtenants.org.uk/about_us.htm
Glasgow Games Monitor 2014: http://gamesmonitor2014.wordpress.com
Glasgow Residents Network: http://glasgowresidents.wordpress.com
The Burgh Angel: http://burghangel.wordpress.com
East End Eye: http://gamesmonitor2014.wordpress.com/east-end-eye-paper/
South Side Crane: http://southsidecrane.wordpress.com/category/events/
Some background research by Neil Gray from Variant magazine:
‘Constructing Neoliberal Glasgow: The Privatisation of Space’
http://www.variant.org.uk/25texts/neolib25.html
‘The Clyde Gateway: A New Urban Frontier?’
http://www.variant.org.uk/33texts/3_V33gray.html
‘Glasgow’s Merchant City: An Artist-Led Property Strategy’
http://www.variant.org.uk/34texts/mechantcity34.html
‘The Tyranny of Rent’
http://www.variant.org.uk/37texts/13RentTyranny.html
If you’re interested in Networked/Digital design, art or architecture, sign up to this group for no apparent reason. Something interesting may come of it in the future.
(image ©: Melanie Bonajo)
Some recent trips, rounded up:
Berlin, hosted by baxpax kreuzberg:
The moral of the story is don’t take pictures at 5 in the morning. The motto of the story is a very good bookshop, making an exhibition of itself, and Yale. Do you read me ?! You might now be too late to visit the kiosk, but we also visited Node, Berlin Haushoch and Carolin Kurz. Many thanks to them for their generous hospitality. The Bauhaus isn’t open on tuesdays it transpires, (but it is on wednesdays).
The thing linking Rotterdam and Berlin is that they’re both full of Kunst.
A compelling if slightly strange city, permanently grey and very modern/corporate/industrial. The biggest port in Europe by a long stretch, Portscapes was an exhibition at museum boijmans van beuningen, reflecting on this expansion, featuring Glasgow artist Ilana Halperin amongst others. Fucking Good Art. Another great exhibition and venue: Quickscan at the Dutch National Photographic Museum. Diverse and exhilarating. Included Melanie Bonajo (image above), Club Donny and many more. Track down the accompanying publication if you can (or lend it from me).
And Max, this is because I feel bad about putting that video up, even though you do rock the shop:
Visual Communication, Class of ‘03, Rotterdam 2010 (biker names, left to right: Joomla, Dreamweaver, Firefox, Drupal, Flash)
This post highlights a few events coming up. Of particular note are the Polyark II events at Strathclyde, continuing the work of Cedric Price, (work pictured), operating in his preferred conditions of ‘calculated uncertainty’. Which we like.
Did we mention that Edwin has a badge-maker?
Missed David McKendricks talk at GSA (Art Director of Esquire, previously AD of Wallpaper). Wallpaper is part of Winkreative run by Tyler Brülé (FT writer) who also produce one of my favourite magazines Monocle. Definitely worth a look.
Monocle website
Central Station, (a community for art, film and design), launches (in beta, but aren’t we all) today. Log-on, look around, sign-up, tune-out. GSA Visual Communication is on there, so you could even become friends with the course.
As a student or staff member of GSA, you can view and comment on the proposal for the GSA Campus Redevelopment submitted by the 7 shortlisted architectural practises.
The Art School has published the shortlist of architect-led design teams for the next stage of the pitching process to redevelop Phase 1 of our Garnethill estate – the site opposite the Mackintosh Building.
They are, in alphabetical order:-
Benson and Forsyth (London, UK); Elder and Cannon (Glasgow, UK); Francisco Mangado Architects (Pamplona, Spain); Grafton Architects (Dublin, Ireland); Hopkins (London, UK); John McAslan and Partners with Nord Architects (London and Glasgow partnership); Steven Holl Architects with JM Architects (New York and Glasgow partnership).
The brief which they responded to can be viewed here.
The shortlisted practices have been asked to develop their submissions over the next eight weeks at which point staff and students will be given the opportunity to view the visual submissions on a dedicated website and to post comments. Details of the website will be posted when they become available
As a follow up to recent ‘architectural and planning’ posts, this film by Mike Mills might be of interest. His recent ‘Graphics Films’ Book is also very much worth a look.
Several people are currently investigating aspects of planning, politics and architecture through their projects. If you’re interested in any of these issues, Glasgow Games Monitor 2014’s Urban Frontier walking tour of Glasgow’s East End, (starting at Mono, Kings Court, this Saturday 9th May at 1.30pm, and which looks at the impact on local communities of mega-event regeneration-booster activities such as the Commonwealth Games), should be interesting.
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