Sound

In all kinds of daily activities we use musique to give a rhythm to life , musique is an important social component and social divider it divides people it generates fashion trends ,haircuts, images , and tipes of body movements or tipes of dances . In the urban culture cubbing and dancing has a strong role clubs becoming places that bring people together in somekind of communion driven by the musique and the tipe of musique that can be found in that place .But what happens musique goes beyond the club scene ,what when musique becomes more that just beat or rhythm and starts rezonateing with our visual imagination and it translates into spmekind of soundskape . Musique can be more than just “musique “ musique can become in a lot of cases a gate to an inner universe that in revolving around your imagination , musique in outher cases can create the same shared mental space that can induce the same feeing to more than one individual . This kind of expirice can make you transcend in anauther universe that is connected to an imaginative world that can be more or less considers a kind of sounddimesion of things . Clubbing is changing in more and more cases we see that musique is mixed with visual expirience that make the group that is inside this kind of enviroment to focus to one singular sound and image generator , that is the DJ and the Vj that is providing the visual platform for the things that are happening keeping a visual rhythm in according to the musical pattern . Musique is becoming more and more important in different social activities because of the fact that multiple events that are held and produced around a subject need to have ambient muqusique that is sourounding the event or presentation . Anauter interesting subject related to musique is the one that looks at the new trends in musique and more specific in electronic musique . In the last few years electronic musique in the clubbing scene .
At one point in a discuttion with one of my teachers from the studium generale ( multidisciplinary subject ) he told me that he vas writing a book on the spirituality found in the electronic musique . After a short discuttion that I had with him I started asking myself questions related to thios kind of approach , Is it real is it a real phenomenon or is just some sort of ilusion created by the buzz around this subject .
I started thinking about connecxions with previous things related to spirituality and musique , and i discoverd that these two subjects are quite related , and musique can produce a sort of mental common space between the people that are participateing to an event . This common mental space can generate a form of emphaty between the people taht are together and it can creeate a form of spirituality . In a lot of cases things can be argued because of the use of sitetichal instruments and sounds that from witch the musique is composed . The fact that musique is sintetich is not necesarily a bad thing humans are sorrounded by syntethic built enviroments that can be more or less cosidered in the same pattern of things but viewed as three dimensional . Auther connections that are quite important to make in this case are the connections related to outher spiritualy charded historical periods like the 60 and the 70'es that where periods that had strong connexions with musique and the link between musique and spirituality the singer in many cases becoming some sort of shaman that trough the concert was making the ritual to happen . In our days this role was taken by the dj that is the person that makes "things happen " and transmites to the croud the sound he takes the role of the shaman that gives people joy and some sort of bounding expirience making them bow in front of the medium not the singer like in the previous times . This kind of expiriece can be reached only trough the mix of human brain power and syntetic machine produced sound thus giving us the medium that is the musique .

Tag

Back to tags ; Why ? because three events had happened that made me to write about tags , the first one was the Tag exibition frm Today's art festival In Den Haag exibition that was focused on the work of C.E.B Reas from Los Angeles California where he is proffesor at the university of California at the design and media arts departament . his work revolves around defining processes and translating them into images .
The seccond Tag event is the one related to the Picnic )7 conference that was held in Amsterdam this week and had a strong discussion and events related to tagging . The conference brought together a series of interaction designers and hakers that played with a tagged group of people connecting theyr tags to thery social networking sites or just linking the 2000 tagged participants together with the help of a social network site . I find this quite interesting because a tagged person basicaly doulbes itseflf by beeing tagged , what i mean si tahat with the help of the tag an the social network that is connected to it you develop an onnline presence so you basicali statr having a virtual counterpart that is linked to everyone from the coference trough a digital network . Interesting concept for a conference and interesting way in witch you can hiperlink people and make a new tipe of social connecxion .
The third even that made think about tags is the fact that I had been tagged by a friend my blog was tagged and in this way conected to a network of outher tagged people .
Comunication is reaching a new level of interconectivity betveen people it becomes more and more important to have a virtual presence and an onnline avatar conected to the daily activity . An interesting thing related to onnline presence and virtual reality is what the ING financial group started doeing in the game Second Live that is a verry popular virtual comunity , They started building in second life and developing and onnline presence startin fron a virtual holland concept more about this here http://www.ingblogs.com/mycupofcha/?p=92.

Meeting

Sometimes by living in student places you can meet a lot of interesting people taht have interesting tastes in musique , art , film and outher social activities related to everydaylife. In an place like this I met a student that was writing his thesis ( he was a writer) and he was fascinated about post modern wriing and texts , modern and contemporary art and cinema , quite an intelectual person but not i the normal sens of the word , why I say that is because in a lot of cases people that tend to be intelectual or have intelectual ideeas or activities sometimes stop talking about literature or movies when they hit themselves to subjects related to anticipation or science fiction in general ,allthow this kind of culture is more or less part of our everyday life and in a lot of cases is a good way to play with oneself's imagination . hen I met him he was looking like a detective and was hiding in the corner of his room writing about all kinds of subjects that he found interesed in , We started talking short about his thesis and about all shorts of subjects . We became friends in a short time because of the big pile of books that where dislayed around the room , all of them where connected to subjects related to art and modern and contemporary culture , we started talking about our studies and all shosrts of subjects that connected us slovly we went trough some art history some literarture subject that he was fancying a lot and he was quite good in it , so we talked about all sorts of subjecst and we compared all sorts of things with all kind of tories , untyil we arrived at science fiction a subject that we found quite nice and we had in common . We started talking about popular teleision series beeing more specifica baout Star trek an we talked about the races that where presented in the movie the races that where inspired by history and where designed after historical characters , the Vulcans where designed after the ancient greeks , the Romuland where designed after the ancient Romans , The Klingons where designed after the former soviet empire so all kinds of caracters and empires where designed after a historical counterpart . So we talked about this marvelous unioverse that was created by the producesr and writers until the discution took abnauter turn and this happende when we started talking about one race that did not have any counterpart on a historical level that meant that it was purely imaginative as a character in the series , that race was the Borg race arace of cyborgs that combined biological tishue with sintethic components , they where functioning on a simple level , they where absorbing and asimilateing every race that was in theyr was interested only in the technology that race was bringing to theyr race . in theyr colective there where no individuals just the colective that was the most important "individual" . Quite an interesting race with a cold and utopian social structure that was the subject of our discution . the borgs where enteties thet were technologicaly improved by theyr counterparts that assimilated them . theyr culture was focused on the collective counciousness that was related to theyr race . The ineresting thig is the fact that each individual has a function in the collective beeing there with a purpose that serves the colective and implicit the individual so therefore we are faced with an utopic sistem that evolves around the individual and the collective in witch the both entities are bound by the common collective values in the borg sistem .
interesting discuttion about social order technology and evoultion , with this occasion I discovered two important things the first one is the fact that science fiction culture is not only a thing that has to be absorbed by our intelect but it can be discussed and used in different situation like the one in witch I was , science fiction worked as a bridce uniting and making two people that outherwise would not comunicate to talk on a high level about a subject that is pure imagination ; and the seccond thing that is important are the words of Marshall Mcluhan that said that the next theritory that will be explored by humans will be" spaceship earth " not the cosmic space and not new universes the "new "is write in front of our eyes and is happening in different forms globalization , companies , turism , culture .

characters , visual language

Working at den Haag Today"s art festival was quite an expirience first because you get into the Rush that an festival can generate second because you get to know the artists that are producing the works that are presented in the estival , and the third reason is related to the concept of the art works you can understand thing much better by beeing in a close touch with the artists that are produceing the exibited works . After seeing and building , partigipateing , taking directions from the artist that is exibiting you get in sight the ideea of what he wants to transmitt with the work that he is produceing and showing . In a lot of cases the explanations are not enough to describe an art work , you have to get in contact with the person that is making the things , why I think that this is important is because a huge question is related to the understanding of works that are showed in modern and contemporary museums by the visitor , sometimes people do not know what they see as viewer and in a lot of cases they get a totaly different ideea about what things really supposed to be or mean .
At the festival I worked closely with the Pictoplasma team from Berlin (http://www.pictoplasma.com/) that are focused on characters and animations , colecting and publishing material about characters that are found generaly in graffity art , street art , stencils and short animations . What was interesting about this group is the fact that they are bassicaly collectors and are colecting characters from the urban counciosness that is refleceted in the graffiti and street art in general . This collection that was published under the form of a book with the character colection arranged according to the tipes of caracters and their place of belonging .
I think that this kind of collection is pretty important especialy in a moment when culture in general is shifting from a classical tipe of culture where things where regarded in a traditional way to a new tipe of culture that has as a core the visual .
The new way in witch the street artists or designers are experssing themselves is related to advertising , color , motion and abstract . These elements enforce the fact that more and more the tipicla of an urban enviroment is related to visual language and culture , i see this colection as a colection of characters that are part of an language that is known only in certain groups of artists , theyr meaning is hidden from the normal cityzen , this fact transforming graffity and street art in a sort of a subclture that strives towoards free expresion and not necesarily adverising .
visual language is slowly taking over the classical culture , the information that we recive as viewers , citizentz or shoppers are much more structured in the latest years that is because the overlap that has happened in the last few years connected to the transition fron a consumer society to an informational society , so information is given to us bigger and bigger quantities so the speed of comprehation is becomming faster . This fact forces things to be transmitted in a new way that is the visual way , the visual language that is speciffic from city to city in the case of street art and graffity , in the case of media things become different media beeing a broad thing that is happening everywhere so the impact is on a different level .
pictoplasma enciclopey is analizing these characters trough a postmodern lens focusing on things that outherviese would escape from the untraind eye .

Internet - Paul Otlet

I just visited the interactive design departament from my school where one fellow student presented some theoryes related to the internet , one interesting part of the presentation was about paul Otlet that envisioned an utopic ideea of the Internet one hunderd years before it had happened .

Shigeru Ban

Advertising

Amsterdam design fair 2007

Amsterdam design fair 2007 , design exibition mainly focused on interiour design and object design , the fair was impresive it was held in 4 huge halls and a lot of funiture and interiour deisgn companies had pavilions in witch they presented theyr concepts for a better living and a better lifestyle . The fair hosted design companies that ranged from conceptual design to simple furniture .

Fashion

paper dress that was folded in an "origami way " .The dress was created by Zoe Bradley a london based fashion designer that worked previously for Alexander Mcqueen . The exibition was related to origami art and folding structures . The dress is quite impressive and at one level it takes sculptural proportions , The exibition was also helpful it was the case of perfect blending between fashion and architecture .he exibition was held at Platform 21 . Amsterdam

THX 2007

What else to say ... It was amazing two days of visuals , Dj's and incredible interactive art work from worlf famous artists and artist associations .
The mail focus was a hibrydone it was a festivel where the main level of interaction between the viewer and the "art " was on an audio-visual taking the role of a person that is just passing trough the main streets of The Hague ( a city that at firts glimpse is small and govermental but as soon you start walking trough it you realize that things are fresh , young and international , lot of places where you can hang out and have a good time with interesting people ) you are bombarded by projections with all sort of images , light instalation and sounds that are in rithm with the light , the whole center area of the city became a big urban event that gatherd people from all around the city .
As a feeling was intense things happende at the same time in a lot of venues so you where obliged to make a personal program for every evning . Anauther interesting thing was the space ship feeling that I got from walking trough the venues , the cables the computers that where put in some places radomly , the improvised spaces , were all factors that contributed for the creation of this paralel and underground universe that was created every night by the artists that where performing .
This universe made me think about the will and the need of artist and humans in generakl to experss themselfes , a lot of people see the technological part of things but what if an event like this is an expression of something that lies in us what if an animation can be more than an animation for the viewer and the festival is the invisible frame that surrounds and borders events ?
The organizational enviroment was hypercolaborative with a lot of people that prioritized all the event .
I had worked in a pavilon that hosted work by the Berlin based artists http://www.pictoplasma.com/ , that presented two wors one instalation that implied the transormation af an popular obect into an art instalation that is interacting with the public ( the transoformation was made withe the help of the japanese Nagoya based designer Aki ) and a sreening of an series of animations that where quite interesting as ideea , color , characters and concept. The animations where screen in an unusual space that was the former vault of an bank so you had this inner sanctum feeling .
As a conclusion things where pretty nice and had a lot of fun at the venues .

I.D

Living in Holland can be quite quite hard sometimes , because of the influx of international students that is quite big there is a strong international mix ; Anyway I had been swaping places from aproximatley three to three mounts and it was quite a rush . The first thing that I felt because of moving was someting related to Romanian culture and Balkan culture in general , the gipsy phenomenon , beeing more specific I felt like a lost gipsy that is moving and searching for a new home with all the clichees that are atached to this kind of lifestyle , more to that Romania is in general associated with gipsy culture that is strongy known in the western society because after the fall of the comunism in 89 it was the only cultural eport that Romania had to give to the west so it is attached more or less to the Romanian identity . But identity is a bigger issue when it comes to living in an international space , you become a nomad a "gipsy" that has to change places you live an unstable life there are not to many certain things that can constant in your life , you start questioning the value of material belongings and the fact that they can stand in your way sometimes , in the same time because of the contact that you have with outer people that are from different cultures with different habbits and way of socializing . Afer a while you wake up from this rush and you start thyinking about who you are, and if you can consider yorself part of the population that you was part of and that gave you an identity ; things change in your thinking pattern and in some cases memes are taking over . Memes are culturaly replicant structures that take over in social situations , that means that subcociously we learn one from the outher things related to behaiour pattern , body movement and culture in general , So after a long contact with people that are from different parts of the world have different skin , language and behaviour you wake up and realise that you are a mix of things and in that mix you have to find your own identity and state of mind . In a lot of cases things can go smooth and become somekind of evolution , fases trough witch you cross and that change you , in outher cases you can realise the biggness of the world and the multiracial space witch surrounds you . In some cases isolation can occur and for some people things go opposite , things tend to go towards a traditional direction features of theyr home culture becomming more and more important and accentuated ,and the integration is produced only on a professional level. This tipe of behaviour I think can't be jujjed because traditions can be impoartant and can generate arround them comunities that trough theyr tradition can transmit historical values forward in time . This kind of traditional thinking can generate vernacular architecture or some tipe of visual language . In a lot of cases there can be made connexions between fashion creations and traditional culture , in a lot of cases fashion designers are inspired by traditional creations that are translated afterwords into fashion that is appealing to a broad public, Traditional pattersn in a lot of cases have some kind of basic visual language that can be metamorfed into fashion . In urban enviroments fashion can come from the street but in many cases the things that are weared on the street can be inspired by the things that are showed on the catwalks .
Identity can be represented trough many forms , the identity of one individual can be dictated by a group that shares the same values or has the same tipe of dressing code , In urban culture the things that generate a group or identity are related to fashion , musique, visual preferences or the coolnes factor that is more or less important . We live in a free world where things are dominated by brands , cool hunters , trendsetters and outher things that bare related to morfing and conitinuosly changing and unstable .
becoming an observer for a short period of time I see things sometimes labeled and with a product like aura this observation or remark makes me think that this is the new urban traditionalism .

Philosophical connexions

Sometimes I ask myself if philosophy is really usefull , Is itreally that important to have some sort of philosophical approach to things or to a subject in debate . In this case the things can be divided easily in two directions , the first direction is a complete rational one that does not imply any kind of philosophical discourse , in this approach there are only two constants , the first one is the set of rules on witch the system is based , the outher things are related to the way things happen and can be put and judged trough the rational rules dominated system . In many cases philosophy can be quite useful making connexions between themes ond all kinds of themes that are related to different subjects like order disorder society , teaching , etc .
In many cases philosophy is related to all kinds of subjects like film , architecture , art and outher mediums , philosophy becoming more or less a filter trough things have to pass in order to aquire some sort of conceptual purity as ideas . Many architectural ideas have a strong philosophical related backround that is more or less the fundamnet of the concept , but in some cases the philosophical current that is present in time is the main ideea generator .
In the film world the things are the same on some sort of level philosophical points of view are used in one way or anauther in the film world , for example the Lynch movies are exploring this kind of concepts on a strong level making interesting relations between characters and concepts related to time space and life .
So philosphy can be a backround or some sort of starting place for subjects concearning creativity or the creative realm .This "definition" takes me to anauther ideea about the relation between philosophy and artistic mediums that in the same time watching the problem backwords philosophi cretes somekind of interaction ground for the outher cretive realms .
The purpose of philosophy in some cases is questionable , sometimes a non philosophical aproach to things in general can be more efective than an philosophical based strategy of making things happen .
in the same time philosophi went trough a lot of stages developing trough ages . Anauther thing that is important and strong related to philosophy is politics and cultural movements that are implied in the process .
An a different level is can philosophy be concept in the same time can a philosophical way of seeing things be in the same time ideea and explanation for an end result . In this case things tend to linkthemselfes one by one .
In our days there are multiple ways of looking at things subjectivity and objectivity beeing words and concepts that are in musch of a debate . The outher side of things is related to the postmodern way of looking at the world ; by that i mean a radial way of looking at things ( you can look at one object from multiple radial points or positions )
The main conclusion that can be drawn is the fact that culture is becoming homogene multiple layers that did not had any connexions are becoming more and more related and conected by all kind of elements that where invisible until now , multidisciplinarity is becoming more and more important .

Minimal living

Minimal living , sometimes I ask myself about the way a future house or a future lifestile will be and one of the major conclusions that I always get is that things tend in one form or anauther to go towards somekind of minimal design; starting from the bottom there is no more need for fancy carpets and strong decoration things are blending in a sort of one lifestile in a way , we are living in a global world new and culture is becoming more and more homogene , people are starting to consume the same products and start to have the same aspiration.the min imal approach to things is quite logic , for example in my personal case and in the age of digital informationa is becoming more and more important to have space a lot of things tend to become after a while just stuff that you start putting and depositing in different places . The importance of space and lght in the place where you live and work is more and more important because of the need of movement. What is interesting and becoming more and more of a reality is the fact that a lot of things that are used in an office situation are becoming digitized because of technology and the way we can stock information , so this phenomenon will have a strong impact on the way things look and develop in our daily lives . Maybe we will not see the mutations on a great scale or in popular culture , maybe things will evolve from up to down or reverse , starting as an experiment or as a sustainable design solution related environmental problems .
I see the house of tomorrow as a minimal place with a strong technological part that improves the man machine functions and the general ergonomics of the house or the office . from voice activated commands to wireless networks that go trough the house Lcd monitors that improve the information flow are the new decorations of the future living and working .

BRUCE STERLING RANT SXSW 2007

Implants and tags

Implants and tags

Is it important to know where things realy are , what if we would live in a world that has everything marked and attached to some sort of virtual map ? It is an attractive idea to give an ID to every object that is part of the part of the real . This kind of process trough witch you mark with an Id that functions in the virtual world objects from the real world is called tagging . Tagging can be quite useful in the everyday live in this way you can mark a number of ogjects and give them real internet IP adreses and place them on the net , what else you can do is read them , every object that has attached to it a tag can be read with a reader and that is an important next step because this kind of making af an object ca be quite helpful in a comercuial world where things have to be priced and read in a fast way . Tagging was an ideea that developed under Bruce Sterling an American science fiction writer , deign critic and theorist that is part of the cyberpunk 80es movement .
Tagging is an invention that is related to design because of the ability of the readers to be read by anauther device that has a reader and because of the future that these kind of tagging devices promise . They function with an Rfid tipe of thag that is a low frecvecie radio emitter so they function on the base of radio waves . Ther was a conference at witch Bruce Starrling had a speech and at that cinference all the participants have been tagged and ID ‘d with and Ip number so they had an avatar couterpart . The thing is that this kind of sintem on a more veloluted shale coul easily work as an implant under the skin and it could monitor all kinds of activities related to the body and to the movement of one person . Anauther tipe of objec t tagging is geo tagging that can offer a three dimensional view of the placement of an object in the space one of the questions that appear is why do we need this kind of tagging and all these informations about one simple object ?
The answer to the question is simple for positioning and for reading one or multiple objects , products, you name it from the same class , In this way you can know for sure what is the place of the place of one object and where can be found in a maze of objects .
. In the same time in this way you can individualize all the objects from the same cathegory making theyr avatars different even if they belong to the same class of objects . the cobination of the way in witch tags can be used is multiple what is an interesting scenario is the way it would functionon a small sized schale and how it ould work under the form of an implant or a microchip attached to the human body . this could be a live and social revolution because of the use of this kind of technology we could know about eachouther and in the same time hav a continuous virtual avatar on the internet that is coonected to our daily life all the time making communication more easy . It would function as an “I’m mobile function| from the commune yahoo messenger we would be connected all the time to some sort of online system . Off coures that from this level question related to the private public relationship start to pop out plus the way we can be traced all the time by anauther person , It is a vicious circle that seems that has no exit but goeing straight .
Small things can sometimes make differece between things but an optimistic view over the things can come from the use of the mobile phone that we carry all the time with us and that had become in the last few years part of our daily life , scepticisma was related to the use of phones but after some time people stated being abapted to them and facet the change that this kind of technology brought .

Posthuman society

Posthuman,

In the last few years I started hearing an interesting term and word posthuman from the manson album mechanical animals that contains this word to peter Sloterdijk”s magnus opus and rem Koolhas’s texts . What exactly is posthuman ? is it a direction or a different tipe of lifestyle?
Rem Koolhaas describes posthumanity in a rather interesting way he sees tomorrow’s society traveling from one poket of civilization to anauther , from one airport to anauther and he gives them the name of the kinetic elite , a completely indoor species of people that travel almost all the time and theyr main purops in ther life is buissnies .
This kind of class of p[eople is completely different from all the outher classes that are normaly found in every society they cannot be put in layer of the society they are different they life in hubs and airport terminals , being global and traveling a big part of they time in all sort of places where they are needed . They are people that have a purpose and that have a function, being a sort of buissnies avatgarde, and they have to live under the rules of the purpose.
These facts explain why they are posthuman they have a function and they are kinetic (they depend on movement ) they are not static . and the fact thet they have the main purpose relates them .
So goeinf further this elite inhabits airports that as we see in many cases and it sarts becoming a major trend in architectural programs the airport ins becoming a mixed used building that offers multiple kind of functions to satisfy the traveler’s needs , in some cases they become small cityes containing complex functions and all kinds of services.
This is a tipe of posthumanity but I think that there are outher Tipes of posthumanity that can be traced in aall over the world .For example subcultures that are developing in cityes from Japan , people that live in an urban area and stert to be sufocated by the urban congestion and stert to respond to this by isolateing and forming their own imaginary universe. In many cases the urban can be seen as a producer of this tipe of people that are not living in the real world of everyay cliché life, developing skils for living an alternative life and becoming more and more immersed in it. This tipe of behaviour is and it is not labeled as posthuman , I think that in some cases the selfisolation and the creation of these individuals can be viewd as posthuman but in the same time this kind of lifestyle is not necesaryli connected to somekind of purpose .
The 21 century is the beginning of a new tipe of industrial revolution that has man as an entity as the forefront character ; We can see that in today’s world there are two main trends witch makes the competition between individuals interesting , The firs tipe of individuals tend to become professionals and in a lot of cases this can become a sort of stress and way of achiving success not trough an escalation process but trough an dwelling ione in withch the individual goes deep into a problem , the outher way of seeing things is by mixing knowledge , by knowink a lot of things and sometimes the relations or connexions between them but withouth being a professional I consider this as a flat way of expanding one’s individual knowledge , the people that have this kind of ability sometimes open gates and establish relations between fields of work that where not related before . So where is the “posthuman “ factor ? This factor can be found in the new tipe of caracther , the inustrial man , Everyone is becomenin at one point or nauther industrial has a purpose not that clar like in the Kinetic elite case but has a purpose belonging in one way or anauther to a plce or field of work . For example a designer that looks at society and culture in general way triing to sence a major trend and triing to incorporate the zeithgeist of that moment in time in his work , looks at society with a multidisciplinary eye and he still is a designer . This kind of approach we see in the work of tom ford that seced a lot of contemporary trends before that they even occurred .
On a personal I cant say that I enjopy fashion I’m a casual person but I can say that I admire the strategy and the way he interconnected things generating fashion trend and completlley new lifestyle for the clients relating trough adveising campaigns and comunicateing trough this kind of medium the major tendence of each season .
I would like to finnish with anauther way of seeing posthumanity, The term of posthumanity implies a sort of constace in of the term human to be able to function, so that means that to be human is bound to a set of rules that mark and generate a sort of definition of the word and the image of human . But what does realy mean t obe human ? In many cases this question is provoking a big question mark , in this case is can posthumanity describe a sort of spiritual war in witch in our interiour world we try to surperss animal instincts , maybe we are humans but we are still captives in an animal body that is still evolving . Anauther debate about posthumanity is related to the fact that genetics as siece and general phenomenon is becoming more and more discussed in different academic and science mediums . the question of ethics in an genetical human experiment is becoming blured and the evolution that can be reacherd trough genetics is more and moer tempting .Enhancing the Human may be the next big thing as all sicentests agree on the fact that the 20 th century was the centuri of phisics and the 21 th century will be the century of genetics.

Branding moment

Together with some former coleaguse from the architecture school where I had previously studied we started a project that has the main theme connected to city branding .
this ideea is quire up to date and the reason why I'm saing his is because this year some of the world architecture bienalles had this subject , related to the purpose of a city . Why branding the city , because every city has some sort of identity and that makes that city on an international or national level be known in a sort of way , what are the fetures that describe the city an that together can offer an perspective view on the main activities of one entity .
every brand has some main features , related to quality image group of people that are interconected by that brand , preferece etc. A brand related to the image of one city can be discussed under the same criterials but on a different level because of the fact that now we are dealing ith population and not with some sort of product . So the city as a brand ideea has to express the comune couciousness of the population of that city at a moment in time . It has to express in the same time that all cultural products that are comming out of that city are at one level marqued by the fact that they whwre formed there out of the vernacular of the city . The brand has to have some appeal to the people in general and to the outher visitors ( turists) that come to visit the city , the brand becoming after a while a simbol for that city , and in many cases can be so apealing that it can gat an iconic statuls like tha I love NY campaign and logo by Milton Glaser , a logo that resists in time without the need of being changed or modified in time , but that is a popular campaighn with a strng impact because of New York city .
In outher cases cityes are branded trough movies and because of the movie industrie that in many cases without intention defines in the viewer counciosness the waqy that city is and what is its purpose for example Zurich that is almoust all the time choose for the fact that is related to banking .
there are many main fetures that define a city but in the same time when building a campaign like this it is verry important to be careful about the way things can go and what direction can they have after such a campaign .
so branding can be an important event for a city and for the rest of the climate , all kind of forces are contributing to the final image , poliyical forces , economical , personal ,cultural and historical forces that shape the brand. This is one direction in witch the things cand be seen and developed , anauther way of looking at this process or transforamation is the way in witch you "erase" the past and make a brand from scratch defining the image of that city or that place at the time beeing , this kind of operation can affect the city in two ways it can make the citizentz of the city rethink their own identity and give a direction to the future of that city , A siple gesture and a simple process like the process of branding can make a big difference in the way that city evolves and the tursts and outher travelers can see the city .

local media general media , underground performance

Four hours ago i opened the yahoo messenger and a messenger friend had on his status display the name of a song ..i did not knew that so i asked him what's with your status and he answerd me back " it's the name of a song , what you do not know it ?"
that was the moment that i realized that it is importatt to make a post about media and media content in different parts of the EU ; with media I understand the broadkast that is happening in an area of the world usualy this kind of broadkast is related to language questions and identity . From here we can start arguiung about identity and what is identity . I think that at this point identity is seen trough the lens of globalization and identity becomes at one point a sort of trend why i say that is because the acceleration of the culture that is happening because of globalization and outher factors . The rifts between generations are becoming bigger and bigger making comunication possible under the form of events , fashion , musique and outher things related to trends in general . media is a broad thing that is happeneing all over the place becoming part of our daily lives , it is happening everiwhere and information has a fast flow and it is different from place to place this taking me back top the question related to the track that i did not know and that has a short of popularity in that specific place . media is not a compicated thing it is a thing related to the brokasting of an event , news politics or what ever . The media is in the same time in a short of a transition process because of the shift that is happening from television to you tube and google video that are the new transmition sistems , the computer becoming instrument with dual purpose because of the abiliti to upload that the former set of television did not had . You can consume information and distribute information in with the same instrument .The acceleration that the use of this kind of instrument made is changing and reshaping society at a certain level . For example the fact that computers are more and more part of our lives is making phenomenons such as fashion of outher cultural and estetic facts to be radicaly transformed . Techoseduction is having a bigger and bigger apeal to the mases , an urban person is becoming more and more interestde about what kind of coputer cover should he buy or what is the latest tipe of Ipod .
Instead of the magasines that were until now full of models with perfect skin and outher features of this kind , the magazine market started to have in the last 8 years a strong magazine marked directed towards the virtual realm more exactly the gaming market and magazines that report on how technology affects society and on what level .
So media is in a sort of change im shore about that from the moment that I started my studyes in Amsterdam . At the art academie where I study I met a guy that was somehow part of the underground art life of Amsterdam he was an inteligent person that had a friday small radio show one of his main passions was musique ; one of his projects was related to television he tried to launch a website dedicated to the history of television It was quite an interestin subject that remained on a project level . His plan was too inprove the Radio Ritveld a school Radio and to launch a web televison chanel , he had anuther project that was quite interesting , a simple webpage with a music layer and some photos that whwre connected to the undergound scene , and was called" reports from the undergound " It was a way of events transmission to the "big " public that is interested in one way or anauther in the undergound squatting scene or in the underground lifestile musique or tipes of art generated by this enviroment . I consider that his projects where quite interesting first of all becasue what he did was a sort of self generatde media in a way , he was the person that made the decisions connected to posting and distribution of information that came out from the undergound musique scene . Anauther thing that he made was related to performance especialey performance with cheap computer and electronic gadgets . One of his performance was held at Overtom 301 a subcultural squad from Amsterdam "no culture without subculture" http://squat.net/overtoom301/pages/home.html . The performance was more of a soundscape with some visuals . The artsist that where part of the performance where mostly in some sort of noise musique field ; the norwegian duo called Bjerga/Iversen explored trough their performence the grey areas of "ghost sounds" af the experimetal drone , the performance was largely improvised but this was the main fact that made it interesting ,http://www.myspace.com/bjergaiversen/ the second duo formed out from radboud mens (visuals) and Matthijs Vincent Krouw performed microsounds clicks 'n ' cuts and intervined in nonritmic sound pieces that vary from soundscapes , drones microsounds , to minimal techno, Michael Beijer the artist that I was talking about presedted In said City an interesting instalation bouth visual and audio that consisted of drones noise and cheap casio keyboard and high frequecy experiments .
Interseting night with people that enjoy this kind of tipe of event . the performance was more of a general imersion in ourselfes and in the soudscape that was produced by the artists each one of them with theyr own rythm and style .
i do not think about It as an adstarct experimet , It was made , generated with a purpose and It had a clear direction . The ambiance was quiet and dark witch enhaced the mental comunication between the individuals that participated at the event .
1. BJERGA/IVERSEN
Norwegian duo exploring the grey areas or "ghost sounds" of the
experimental drone. Largely based on improvisation the duo has been
exploring dense but somehow calm fields of sound both live and in the
studio.

2. RADBOUD MENS + MATTHIJS VINCENT KOUW
Microsound, clicks 'n cuts, and noise are intertwined in rhythmic
and non-rhythmic pieces, which vary from soundscapes that use
microscopic particles to drones and minimal techno.

3. MICHAEL BEIJER
A performance of "In Said City", an illustrated book accompanied by a
soundtrack that consists of drones, noise, a cheap Casio keyboard and
high frequency experiments.

4. SPURIOUS
Collective of sound and video artists that attempts to create
isomorphisms of sound and vision. Persistent cross- fertilizations of
these realms are established in a live set which will emphasise
improvisation and the intertwining of sight and sound.

Sound and urbanism

The city became in the last few years subject of many architectural debates , from grafic explanations translated into numbers and figures to hipotesis of how the next urban enviroment will look what function and what scale will it have . The 21 century is clearly the century of the city as a lot of architecture events made tahat clear transforming the subjects related to cityes in big subjects with endeless speculations on the urban field and the city identity in a world dominated by the globalization phenomenon.
A lot of architects and people in general think about cityes as lanscapes of architecture , advetising social activities like shopping and cultural activities connected to the city scene . But sometimes is more than a mix of architecture and socila networks , a city is shaped by its visual scape and by the audio scape too by that I ean that a city contains a certain ammount of urban sounds that are caracteristical to every city in the world . The city sound has a grat importance in the way a person that moves around the urban web can percive the city , in some cases the necesity for urban sound bariers is obvious and in many cases sound can have strong contribution to our daily stress charge . I 'm talking about this because leaving appart the urban questions related to the way a city should look or be organised on a planing level , functionality , good infrastructure, purpose, grid , organic developement are important factors in an urbanistic discourse , but sometimes things have to shrink to a human proportion of seeing and expiriencing things that happen on an individula point of view , anyway everyone expirieces the urban in a different way , theories about the city and about how shouldexpand or function are purely geometric describing a city on a scale that is becoming graffic at one point . I think that sometimes we have to think in an orizontal way more than a tree dimensional way or in the way things are percived by the person that explores the urban .
This way of seeing a city makes you think about a new tipe of factors that influence movement attention and behaviour .
The factors are visual and auditive , from the tram that makes a sepecifica sound and contributes at the waking of of the city to the metro enclosed sound , the fast food sound from the knots where lunch break are happening . The city has a rithm of its own that is not generatde by architecture that is static but by movement and intercation of the people , Is it infrastructure not as important as architecture ? In a high rise building a major role is atributed to the elevator that becomes a money making machine makig connexions between people faster and making the possibility of goeing higher with a cointruction more plausible . Back to horizontality the infrastructurte of the city the speed of connexions and the simplicity of changing from one mean of public transportation to anauther is more and more important in a society that is pressured by the enviromental problems and by the necesity of finding alternative means of saving resouces .
Insormation has to flow in the city and the best way to make this possible is adverising and urban screens that can transmit information in a non static way as traditional advetising does .So the city is more of an expirience made out of lesurire places , economical hubs and public transport .
As a conlusion the city i first of all a multilaiered place that combines all kind of activities defining in this way the main features of that specific place . the layers are both socialy , spatialy and historicaly because a city can not really function without memory or history the common couciosness can not work without somekind of memory of the past and progress cant be seen in an enviroment that is constantly modern ( example the city of Brasil by Oscar Niemeyer) . the citizens have to have a colective memory in this direction , a memory that bounds the old and new and that makes the connexion between generations beeing in the same time common daily discution for anyone that is interested in history ) . Architecture has a strong importance too defining the stature of that city and making it have a strong stand . Interesting enough is the fact that I personally consider that city architecture is goeing trough a major change because of the fact that urban fachades are starting to mix with advertising and that is morfing the lanscape in an interesting way . facades are becoming more and more the same building structure as the facade and slovley but surely the shift from facades to advertising walls will happen .
The city is a cople expirience and for sure is more than architecture and urbanism it is sound , visual , weather people and feeling .

Computer Games

Two main reasons for this post , the firs is the frustration that i felt when I tried to make an essay about new media and the gamers comunityes that are getting bigger and bigger around the world , and the seccond reason is because of the computer games and free accessible information .
The palce where the virtual reality is real is in the computrer clubs and gamers comunities from all around the world , personaly i had cntact for one summer with counter strike that is a #d shooter game witch can be quite real with simple rules and simple teams ( actualy two of them) . in the rest there are strategy games and all kind of outher games related to different subjects . what is inetresting about it is the fact that a lot of students , kids and outher people can get addicted to them because of theyr real phisics, weapons and mission complexity . Anauther example is a person frm Bucharest that was living by playnig the a strategy game where he acumulated points and bought weapons of different kinds just to sell them afterwards on the ebay for real money , interesting job.. more of a lifestyle maybe .. anauther addiction can be caused by internet and by the need of having fresh information on a daily basis . This will eventualy change the world in witch we live generateing a translation between an consumer based society to a society that has consumers of information as Philipp K Dick called the new tipe consumers, prosumers ) . On a different level this kind of games can blend two main addictive incredinets lice the onnline gaming comunity with witch you get accustomed beside the rules of the game . the latest game on the market that is quite popular is called Second life launched in 2003 is a 3d world entrirely bult by the virtual inhabitants , at this moment the game has 9. 376.628 inhabitants . In this completly virtualy generated world where there is virtal money and even a kind of exchange sistem between the real money and the virtual ones , talking about money I will switch from games and virtual world to the reality in witch we live ; almoust tree mounts ago there was a conference held in Amsterdam realted to the future of money in a world where things tend to change even some of the most powerful bussnies man in the world start talking about the digital age and things retated to comunication and the world wide web . Goeing back to the gamers comunities that are becoming more and more big in some cases people prefering the virtual instead of the real
maybe is an escape that the virtual offers your own utopic enviroment in witch you can do what you want guided only by rules of the game or the reality in witch you find yourself .
So with an gaming comunity increasing each year more and more people using virtual enviroments as a mean to relax makes this a strong phenomenon , the gaming comunities can be considered fom a p[oit of view a subculture vith rules of its own and virtual gaming popstars , members that have extra skils and that have a good talent at plaiyng are verry known in the virtual comunities . A lot of people that are in this kind o situation and that are spending a big ammout of time in this kind of realyties have interesting life styles trans=fiorming theyr own natural urban stlyle habitat in a sort of new enviroment that is visualy linked to the game or to the virtual reality in witch they spend their time . So it becomes just a mettre of time until these kind of subcultures will become a normal trend our daily life .

What is Imersion ?

More and more we are confronted in our daily licves with the so called imersion phenomenon , What is imersion and at what is is used ? Imersion can be the work stile that you adopt or the way you make an action because before dooing that action you have to be imerse yourself in the state of dooing that action .
In the same time the contemporary tools for comunication and for creeation , the main platform , the computer is more and more designed as a imersion gaget that you connect to your body and imerese yourself in the world of the virtual . The material is replaced by the virtual the computer screens becoming " windows to the world " , this quote raises a question about what the worl realy is , Is the world just the way we expiriece things trough movement ,socialization , sharing and feelings or is the world a row of information that you learn to read and process since you are a child . Humans have the ability to assimilate information all their lives so basicaly you laear al your live . The world is becomming more and more divided between pure informnation in abundance with witch you are bombarded by society , so your mind is pulled betveen all kinds of things and you start asking yourself if you really need all the thing that come right at you and bavard you at one level .
Sometimes we are imeresed without knowing by that I mean the feeling of liberation that you have when goeing in a vacantion you feel free of daily constraints even if you enjoy your job . Imersion is in teh same time a language generating activity .
Imersion has temporality and is a state of mind in the same time using resource that the body or the brain produce .
Imersion is everywhere and as a socila observer you can easily see when immersion is produced in a field of interess .
Marshall Macluhan was talking about imersion in his works but in an objective way . He had theory related to the medium and saw technolugical developements as extensions of the body for example the mouse extension of the human hand ; so my question comes related to imersion , isn't imersion an extension of the intelect because our brain tries to find all the time an imersive activity witch we enjoy.

White

Nice interior, nice view and nice atmosfere .

Scenarios

At a mediamatic workshop in witch I particpated some time ago I was confronted the task of making a scenario about the future and the blending of the cyberspace and the real world , tagging and speded up comunication networks .
The end result of the workshop was not a scenario but mor of an three day team generated solution to the ideea of tagging things and making them function in a logical and structured way .
before the workshop I started thinking about a future scenario , and my ideea was started as a sciencefiction movie , first I had in my mind robots cyborgs and virtual reality chat rooms urban landscapes and interesting architecture (bit surrealist) .
Anyway i think that the place where I should start to think about the interaction between the virtual real and the real world is from a personal and individual level , by that I mean what is the change that will happen in society from the individual that has acces to this kind of tool because internet and the cyberspace are in the first place tools for comunication . So i started thinking about a possible future ; my conclusion was not a classic one in witch we will all be conected to some sort of matrix or to some sort of virtual platform , I do not think that virtual space will be an option in the near future , i think that first allready the technology and the blending of comunication services is enough i do not think that there is a need for virtual reality . The onnline services that will evolve in the near future i think are related to health , banking and virtual markets . I see the blending of the two worlds not totaly virtual .
Some major transformations will ocur in the way that we deal with all kinds of services , The first major transformation will occur in the way we can self maintain ourseklfes with the avalieble information . Anauther change is the digitalization of the information and the fact that the things will move slowly on the web and in virtual libraries so things will get simplified . Tags will take over things and they will replace the normal barcode inscription of products : maybe the world will look a little bit more utopic on a certain social and infrastructural level .
Utopic can mean or a singular view of things that is dangerous because of the totalitarian way things can change or it will be utopic from a personal side of the things , technology pushing the interhuman relations on a new level; that is more of a colaboration between man and machine or man and technology for a new social ordering generated by these technological improvements .
hope that I did not jump from one Ideea to anauther and maybe a visual context could expalin better what future could look like because of the creation of this paralel informational universe of the virtual world .
Anauther interesting fact is what mr Philipp K Dick said about technology in general , The more we have the more we go backwords on the chain of natural evolution ..so maybe technology will take us in a new stone age structured society

Arjen Mulder media theory.

Information is no longer a scarce commodity, but insignificance is. The
issue around which electronic art revolves is not how you can stuff as much
information as possible into an image, but how you can remove from it as
much information as possible. Electronic images distinguish themselves from
all previous images - from cave paintings to video - by their ability to
possess no significance at all. You can go on about how such and such an
image is made on a Web site or a CD-Rom, but you're not meant to have the
slightest idea of what it's actually about. This is a decisive criterium in
judging electronic art. An awful lot of strange-looking pictures are, with
a little bit of reflection, easy enough to understand but then they no
longer count. Electronic images are information filters, not because they
impose a particular pattern on the information available, as painting has
done since time immemorial, but because they actively reject information,
meaning or interpretation.
You could fill a whole book with interpretations about any electronic
image, but even then you would still know nothing, since every
interpretation is patently arbitrary. Electronic art is more than empty,
which makes it different from the works of artists from Warhol to Koons.
You can't even be sure whether these images or installations do have
nothing to say, since you can't penetrate them. They are completely
transparent, often built up from easily recognisable elements and obvious
manipulations, but what's the point of them being shown to us?
If electronic art wants to be convincing, then it has to increase its own
absurdity to the highest degree. An electronic artist should analyse his
own work to death again and again and then try it one more time. This
requires just as much love and knowledge as for making a beautiful
painting or a good video. Paintings, as well as photographs and
films, can make your life meaningful: coherent, personal, rich. But what
about images that are aimed at insignificance and the impersonal? If you
only read books all the time, you can lose your concentration and mentally
disintegrate as soon as you start consuming magazines. If you only look at
photographs and films, your world view can break down when you're exposed
to television. But as soon as you are accustomed to magazines or to
television, as we are at present, there is no longer any reason for panic,
anger or desperation. The mysteriousness or irritating triviality of
electronic images appears completely mild when you enter into the world
that they are part of. The more you see of them, the more pleasant their
company becomes. Electronic images make no claims on how the viewer is
meant to interpret the world, in other words on the way that you have to
see the world for it to be meaningful. Electronic art teaches us that all
images are meaningless. And in retrospect this liberating insight goes for
all pre-electronic images as well, from cave paintings and fine art to
photography, film and video. This is exactly what makes images so
interesting: for if they are not about the world or about us, what are they
about?
First published on the onnline magasine" why not snezze? "

What is content ?

Sometimes I"m faced with the word content and content management . What is content ?and what is content management .
First content can be found in different places and camn have different puropses the for example the content of an art work can be the the non-physical trace that that work of art can produce content can be a reflection of things can be the reaction that is produced in the public's eye or mind . Content can be the inner space of a book or one's channel broadcast for one week content is transmitted from a transmitter to a reciver content can be message and question . Content can be quantitative and just a dot it depends on the content provider and the tipe of reciver . Content is inside but it influence everything that is outside the shell makes the difference . Content can generate form bu can not shape things . Content can generate and be generated by the shell .
Content can be chaotic, linear or structured .
Content can be advertising and essay .

Minority Report

not all the time science fiction movies are totaly the product of our imagination . Sometimes directors that make such movies hire a consultancy office that predicts social and technological advancements in the furure to make the movie strongy real in the reality from tomorrow .
Such an exampel is teh movie Minority report feturing Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spilberg . The movie was made after a book of the science ficition writer Philipp K Dick ( Blade Runner , A scanner Darkly ) a controversial figure in the science fiction comunities .
The movie crew hired a consultacy office that had the job of predicting how the world will look in the year 2054 , what will the technologies will be , how will the city look like and how the urban will feel .
The movie has some interesting concepts regarding the ideea of the city of the future . the advertising sistem is more personal ( retina scanning sistems at every corner ) cars travel on vertical highways on super structures everythings looks more ergonomic and tactile ( design related subject ) . The Police is replaced by a sistem that guesses future crimes so they can be stopped in time , before the crimes can happen . The movie is a good combination between the world of tomorrow and the experimental concepts that are presented in the movie , even lexus designed a special car that was designed for the city of the year 2054 .
What is interesting as a concept is the dystopian world in withc the action takes place , but in the same time as a science fiction writer is hard not to fall in this kind of segmnent where you describe a series of events placed in the futiure , you have to create a world and sometimes you can be utopic or dystopic in your writings .

School

Is it school that important ? Is a traditional way o studying a subject the only way in witch you can get accepted by the comunity that has the same profession ? Marshall Mcluhan the canadian educator and theorist said at one point that every individual expiriences far more than he understands yet, expirience rather understanding that influences behaviour , back to my question expirience has an important place in the personal developement and in the confreontations that each of us has with practical problems on a daily basis . Afater studying architecture and more recently beeing part of an art school I start seeing the school as a place for dialoue where teoretical problems should be discussed or pushed to the limit of theyr nature . I do not see the school as a means of producing work because everyone has a work ritm or has the option to stop working on a specific subject ; schools are about experimet and theory and in many cases about forming a set of skils thet we will use further in our profession.
In a lot of cases expirience has priority in all shorts of situations . In many cases in the architectural field architects that did not study architecture became more succesfull than people that went on tu study architecture or arts in a traditional way .
More and more I see in a lot of cases somekind of anti academical aproach to the school and university sistem .
Two examples that seem inetersting on two different levels are the exaples of Ken Robinson that talked at the Ted Conference from Monterey Californian and the exaple of Peter Sloterdijk a german philosopher that combines an academic way os seeing philosophy with an antiacademic aproach to philosophical theory .
Ken Robinson from the Ted conference http://www.ted.com/talks?gclid=CKXprq2JrI4CFQwwlAoddDmySw spoke in the lecture that he gave about education and creativity in today's world and about the fact that children go to schol and are educated and thought but the future is uncertain , so how do we know if they are good prepared for the future ?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
On a different level Peter Sloterdijk that is an academic turns in his magnus opus entitled Sferes against the academic sistem of todays world and starts dveling in problems concearnig globalisation , greek cosmology and spirituality .
The conclusion af these two persons are related to inteligence , educational enviroment , and the way the problems are seen but I think that everyone has to agree with the fact that creativity do not depends on these factors and it is a total independend part of our beeing .

School

Death of culture and software culture

Culture is a word with witch I'm confronted in my study field quite often , what is culture where is the border between culture and identity what , words like locla or traditional culture universal culture , mainstream culture and outher variations on the same theme are in my everyday thoughts . When I started studiing architecture I saw culture as a new source of information and ways of making links betveen history events , politics art and live , goeing to school and meeting teachers that used a new kind of language i started seeing the things in a new way and I becomed as time has passed more and more critical on the word in witch I had lived because of the lack of the culture that was clearly visible .
After cooming to holland where there is a mix of cultures and Art is placed on a High level of the society ( the artist functions like an antena reciving and translating into his works what he assimilates and what he sees happening in the society ) I started asking myself questions about the real value of culture and the bagage of information that i had to assimilate in the architecture school where patterns from the modernist architecture and from the avatgardes from the beginning of the century where highly praised . Art has the role of making people think and comunicate on a new level but do people really understand the works from the museums ? . As a famous designer said from a point of view every generation has to put a sort f speed on the culture so that leads me to a conclusion , that makes me think about the fact that it is important on a level to start deciding what kind of information is valuabel for me on a individual level . So maybe I do not need in today's world to know or to depend on the opinion of one person that "has culture" I think that much more important is the new media culture and the software culture that had emerged in the last few years comming from a cuntry that after the 89 revolution ( before comunism was the sistem that lead all activityes ) and goeing trough 15 years of transition and two years where I started understanding what culture should be . In today's world everybody has unlimited acces to culture because of things like wikipedia and outher enciclopedias , that makes me wonder about the value of culture , is that important to be a cult person or is more important to chose what kind of information is useful .
Anyway culture as we know it is replaced by visual culture ( the culture of fashion , art , photography and stllyzed and idealized worlds of the visual industrie ) and by the software culture that thakes over , we are working m,ore and more from our computers phenomenon that gave birth to "the language of the new media" and to culture relatde to the internet and the open source policye of goolge and outher major companies in the virtual realm .
So software culture is taking over the normal way of seeing things . Maybe it is sometimes better to be a superficial about a problem and not to go to deep into it maybe it is more imprtant to go from A to B on the shortest way and uniting these points . In the real world that is ruled by corporations in a lot of cases this king of relating two points is in the favour of the company or the buissnies . In a visual culture ethics are replaced by aestetics and visual dominates the world maybe words are replaced with images that send the message in a faster and ore compact way to the person that wants to recive then , The consumerist society does not have time for culture sometimes because it is dominated by trend setters , cool hunters , brends , companyes , lifestyles , useful information , unuseful information , consulancy angencies that promise you improvement in every tipe of field .

Comments

The highway as the ultinmated form of architecture ( Is architecture infrastructure in the same time ?)
Advertising as the final for of art ( form follows function ( modernism ) Form follows fun ( postmodernism ) advertising is bidimensional ( for now))
The medium si the message ( I see this as a contradiction in the case of form follows fun)
Good taste is the first refuge of the non creative . It is the last ditch-stand of the artist (True)
For the tribal man space was uncontrollable mistery for the technological man it is time that occupies the same place .

I love techno

In an earlier post I talked about the electronic musique culture from Holland and Belgium , about the I love techno festival from Gent thet is one of the areas most expected festival each year , famous names like Ellen Alien from berlin and apparat , Dr lektroluv and outhers gather for a a short but intense peroid of time in Gent a city close to Amsterdam . It is a crazy festival lost of crazy techno and lots of crazy clotes and people in different coloured rooms . What is interesting about it is the fact that last semester I had participated at a lecture in the Overtoom 301 http://squat.net/overtoom301/pages/home.html from Amsterdam about the so called Techno-Genessis, a lecture that followed and studied the technological advaces that had happende from the beginning of the 90'es until our days . The main ideea of the presentation was related related to the "technological primordial soup " in witch we are situated today as society , all the hyperlinks that had emerged with the invetion of the mobile phone everything speded up in a way and the impact on our lives is quite strong . Tons of services related to the mobile phone industrie had emerged after a short period after the mobile phone was launched ; and as a Ideea this is the first step we entered in teh mnew milenium with sms , mms and digital cameras and internet . Some companyes are triing to blend all the things is one gaget with witch a broad range of styles of comunication is possible . A lot of fields as advertising , photography and social networking started to fell the full campacitie of this tipe of blending between powerful tehnologies and sevices that are attached to them . In the same time our brain has to find new ways to filter information because of the overload of information with witch we are everyday bombarded . On a different level advertising and outher marketing tools are moving from the tv sets and the street level to the comunication field and are mutated more and more by new technologies , in this way postmodern teories are becomming more and more real years after theyr apperance . A lot of things are becoming polivalent and an a day to day basis the normal individual is required to have multiple opinions in different cultural fields .Every individual can be reached with this kind of technology . In japan for example the mobile phone technology changes the way people shop in everyday life . the shopping system became speded up by the fact that the mobile phones like Nokia have attached and embleded rfid reader that can read things that are tagged and trough a software systam can make the payment for different products from the market . This kind of way of paymernt links the banking sistel with the mobile and rfid products making shopping a more personal and individual expirience .
These are a few examples related to general things and sometimes common thaings that can make a difference .
Some quotes that can be mentioned in a context laike this are teh words of the media theorist Marshall Macluhan that said about adverising that is the" cave art" of the twenty first century and at the present is the gratest art form theory that was proven for a short perid of time by Andy Warhol's aproach to art and high life .

As the country borders are becoming more and more thin and vague because of imigration , work markets , and the main reason of globalization the city is becoming the new landskape of events and in the same time the generatig engine of events , market economi trough rapid formed networks (real or virtual ) , what seems interesting from my personal expirience as a student in the multifaced city of Amsterdam is the squading fenomenon that is a general fenomenon related not only to the city of Amsterdam , there are squads in a lot of major europeean cities. These squads are semi legal human comunities placed in buildings that are not used dameged of had a former industrial purpose . the inhabitants of thse kind of places are people that ca not affoard a big rent or that are using the palces for a temporary perioud of time .
In the same time what comes into my mind when I think about the squading concept is a manifesto that Rem Koolhaas wrote in his student years at the architectureal asociation in London and that he gave to people on the streets of London ; the manifesto was about the option of living in the city , about the option of chooseing a side where to live . This "manifesto " was related to the project Exodus or the willing captives of our architecture , where conecpts related to the contemporary urban condition where discussed and redesigned in a conceptual and philosophical way . the city is again the subject of anauther event in withc the same archirtect Rem Koolhaas is implied , in a zeithgeist way he put the bases for an exibition held in London called Cities on the Move where the condition of populaton races and immigration is analised .
The connexion that im triing to make is related to a few concepts like immigration adaptability , squads and new urban conditions that are changing in the cities around the world , I do not want to think about presrvation and about architecture but I want to think of the city as the new terryory for war , by that i mean that wars between countryes will dissapear and things will turn inside out in the urban landskape , the police force is becoming more and more militarized and the suburban tissue is becoming a new teritory for ilegal actions .
The cities are dividing in a layerd surfaces with multiple networks that function in one way or the outher .
on a europeean level i think that the most interesting and divided citie as landscape and event is Paris , in paris some maine events took place in the suburban areas and the police used military force against the north african immigrat comunities .
The things are linked because of the new century that is the century of the city and the urban (2/3 of the world population is living in the city ) .
using the postmodern a postmodern lens we can see that on a detailed way things are not so different from one place to the outher we can find the same expectations or the same desiref of the people in two different place in the same time , what is the difference between things is the purpose of the city or the main activity that is generatde trough the people living in that urban area , From a point of view things are not verry different from outher historical periods this is not the first time in human history that we see cities developing around a main activity or with a main target , that is why a smeculative aproca and a scenario like hipotesis is alvays welcomed .
Sometimes history has something to say , as Malcom McCullough associate professor of architecture and design from the university of Michigan( presented in the workshop at witch I had participated last year ) said and presented about the cities , how infrastruture is shaping the city and trough examples like Chicago and New York he explained that infrastructure and history can reshape the city . one interesting exaple was new york that had become in the las few years like a giant global antena for activities ranging from enertaiment ( see MTV headquorters) to shopping , art , and bussnies , the city becoming a ground stone in multiple fields conecerning western civilization . the city itself is a brand that generates new trends and transmites the last waves in al sorts of field including culture . In a Charlie Rose brokast 2003 with tom Tom ford as aguest they talked about the influence of NY in the world and the competition between the city of New York and the the movie industrie from LA that is anauther city that is completley historicaly situatted in the 21 century .
Anauther examople that was shown at the workshop was the example of the city if Chicago that had a major booming period when electricity was introduced in the city and everything changed in a rapid way .
The main ideea is that cityes can be influenced by outher cityes and that some major global industrie can be found in cityes around the world , transforming the citye in a microcosmos for culture enetrtaiment and experiment .