Thursday, February 28, 2008

informational infrastructure .

The communicational networks are different from place to place so are the networks that are formed and the way people interact trough communicational tools . In the last twenty years much debate had been connected to the concept of informational society ; there is still a lack of ideas and information that are surrounding this idea of a new type of society that is no more oriented and based upon the normal rules of market economy but upon the rules of information exchange , information traffic , vizualization and flow . These concepts that play with the notion of information are strongly connected to the computer word and to the invention of computer and the first problems that where related to it and to the use of this machine . One of the first problems was related to the way a machine would stock and measure quantities of information and how will this information become distribute into a network that is formed from more than one computational unit . In this way the information became divided in units and a notion that was considered immaterial and virtual became divided into units and became measured in quantities . Information is part of the daily life and in the last few years things became speeded up because of the development of the personal computer and the network that can sustain huge flows of information , the world wide web . In the past few years if we look at the evolution of the web as starting point the web 1.0 , 2.0 and the discussions that are related to the third generation of platform for communication that is considered the world wide web . Everyone has more or less access to a tool with witch an avatar of a virtual self representation image can be build in the digital realm . there are many options , possibilities and networks from witch one can be part or take part . Even the social networks are slowly moving of the internet with the help of avatars and sites that can host personal content and information . Because of the fact that the web is hosting a great amount of information and it is already part of the communicational network the expansion of means of communications i becoming more and more important so technology developed in the direction that is related to it in one way or the outer . In the idea of producing accesibility to information and to the ways it is distributed . These requirements made possible the invention and the development of wireless networks that work in the major cities forming an invisible layer in the city grid a layer that deals with communication and the way it works and it is maintained . These invisible and immaterial communicational layers are part of a city a much as the material buildings , streets and circulation infrastructure . These layers for communication can be considered as informational highways that form the networks of communication of an area or a city that needs this kind of infrastructure to function properly on a daily basis . These networks had started to expand because of the technological development and the way wireless networks had expanded and morphed in much more strong and larger networks that are not any more dependent on an public network broadcast . In this way we can look at the wimax network that had been launched in the united states and it had become an phenomenon both on in private and public space . Now everyone that has Wimax can become an antenna and broadcast the wireless signal and set up a network that can expand as number of users and functions hosting information on a server the user can be in a large radius from the centers that where considered until now as poles of distributions for wireless networks .

Roles ,

The landscape of art is a continuous and chaotic change because of factors that are related to the unlimited interaction that the art world and environment and sub universes related to it provides for the artist . The way we look at art is changing to the artist in morphing into a new type of person that is connected to the social live of the art world and instead of producing art work as build object , performance , happening or work that is expressed trough material mediums the contemporary artist is becoming a person that is much more focused on producing the space for things to happen ; he is becoming a social engineer that makes connections between people places and events conceptualizing things thus creating new mediums where art can stay under the form of experiment without being subjected to any form of ideology . A good example for this in the way curators work or look at things in this way bringing things together and making them connect and interact . Such a curator is Hans Ulrich Obrist the swiss curator that is organising each year events such the Sepentine pavilion event end meeting that is held in England with the purpose of creating the space for artists , designers and architects to meet and exchange ideas. each year the pavilion and the space are transformed and build from scratch to accommodate this chain or events . The event and the people that participate to it are related to this part of culture and the pavilion is constructed each year by a different designer that makes the concept for the space and for things to happen . In this way artists or curators become coordinators of events and specific and they are not any more part of the production or an work of art that can start having any material value or that can be stored in a specific space . This way of looking at art can be relate as a concept with the fact that one artist can create in this way space ; a virtual space that exists trough the participants that are taking place at the event and because of this environment they interact and give birth to new ideas and new directions . A place or a meeting at this scale can bring theories that are related to design ,architecture , art and outer fields that have connections with the world culture .
If we take a closer look to things we can realize that in this case the product that comes out of the hands of the maker that in this specific case is the curator or in outer cases the artist . A person like this that is manufacturing these virtual spaces that do not exist only as parts of an project or event can be looked as persons that play with the strings of networks and use their knowledge in a way that is related to the main ideas or trends of a network . In this way thins can connect and happen in a way that was not considered to be part of the art practice previously . The person that makes the connection has skills in both worlds the world of art and the world that is related to organizational structures and the characterization of different parts of what is considered to be design world or design related issues . As a conclusion we can look at things from a new angles . The artist is becoming more and more implied in crating networks of people that share the same desire for interconnection in one specific field or space can be created in an way that interconnects different disciplines and ways of thinking . The artist is no longer part of the world of build work or work that can be palpable as an material object ; the ideas are materializing in a different way they take shape under the form of meetings and new created networks that can be considered the result of idea plus intention and a different view or perspective on the world . In this way we ca look at artists and at the curators that make this kinds of concepts to become real can be considered as people that are producing trough their work a sort of social sculpture that functions for a period of time and gives birth to interrelated networks .

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Spectacle

Design and architecture in general are fields that go beyond what is in general seen or material , they integrate elements that are related to the world of entertainment . Architecture can transmits more than just the concept of a building or a construction to the people architecture can offer spectacle of forms , concepts and theories that interconnect the virtual realm of ideas with the real world of build materiality . There are many trends that are part of the architectural system that constitute future concepts or come in opposition one with the outer and form trough their clash new or different ways of looking at design . The facts that connect things and concepts make the trend or the current in architecture and in today's contemporary architectural world there are many and completely different ways of looking at things and ideas . The world of contemporary architecture is dominated by the infuzion of the desire of being different amongst architects and designers . A lot of architects because of the fact that in the last twenty years the way architecture is generated trough technology and the new types of tools that can visualize architecture are becoming accessible to more and more designers created a gap between architectural theory and build architecture . This gap is filled with what is considered experiment in contemporary architectural thinking . Because of the diversity that technology allows on a conceptual level trends have become more relevant than considering a main architectural current as a direction for present times . This diversity has concentrated upon what is considered in many cases formal gestures or what is considered architectural statement or gesture . Architecture is more experimental than it was before and this contributes to the normal spectacle that it brings with its mere presence in the real world . Visiting an architectural edifice that was carefully planed and build can create a visual and spatial spectacle for the person that is experiencing it and moving trough the space of the building . The design can incorporate ideas that are related to the zeithgeisth of the moment or to the way one architect or designer filters his with the help of architecture . As an example there can be seen the way Le Corbusier designed architecture that was connected to the social and technological evolution of machines and mechanical infrastructure of the time ; he saw the house as a machine for living and his designs where inspired by the way automobiles , boats and trains where looking at that time . In this case architecture can be seen as a translation from object to space and idea . In contemporary architecture the designs that are considered as marking points and avantguarde architectural objects translate the ideas of sculpture , pure form and technology play into their designs ; in this way controversy is created both in the critics world and as a spectacle for the person who is experiencing the object .
If we deconstruct the ideas that are related to entertainment and what is real as theory and what is fake in architecture we arrive at the obvious conclusion of looking at what can be the next big idea or architectural spectacle that will have to be translated in the build environment both as concept and as expression . The hypothetical answer is to this trend related question is motion . The next trend in architecture will be related to the idea of motion and how can motion be translated into space and how does the space generated by the architect will be influenced by the increased flow of people .The translation of motion into space can become quite a big question both on a theoretical level and as build space because of the fact that it has to mold on the physical principles of what motion and movement is thus it translates virtual notions into material and spatial forms . Some of the worlds leading architects have acknowledge this fact and started translating and playing as experiment and build design . Notions related to movement can be seen in the latest designs of architects such as Zaha Hadid and on a theoretical level in the ideas of Greg Lynn that starts to think about the skin of a building as an intelligent system that can bring motion into the static row of buildings and constructions . Zaha Hadid started concepts from deconstruction and
new ways of articulating space to more recent concepts that bring together ideas related to circulation flows and the way groups of people move and understand space . This way of practicing architecture brought new approaches to design theories as we can see in the written work of Patrik Schumacher that thinks about new ways of representing the movement into architecture . The new theoretical system that is build around the concept of movement has to blend laws that are related to the physics or mechanics of movement with the concepts related to functions and modern interpretations of space .

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Lost

Shopping and it's affects on the social life in the contemporary society had become debate factor that links different fields of interests and activity like design , architecture , art and social theory . The debates that are generated out of this subject are the ones that are related to the way e look at shopping and how it influences the daily life and what can be called daily activities . Shopping has been infiltrating in a lot of social activities and in a city that is big and has a an increased flow of people and cultural diversity shopping becomes more that just a ordinary activity that is related to the act of buying and the need for having material possessions.Shopping can be is some cases and intereting activity because of the abundance that one person have to face in it's case ; on a different level this abundance can make things thrilling because of the fact that one can get lost into the sea of products that appears in its way and getting lost can become a fun experience . Shopping is connected to the way people socialize and in most cases can be an activity that is not necessarily connected to the act of buying and consuming different types of products .Social behavior can be influenced by the way the spaces dedicated to the activity of shopping function and are connected . For example the way people interact in a situation like the situation a shopping street is quite different from the situation of one mall space . In a lot of cities because of the lack of space and because of the fact that in manny cases shopping is connected to the center of a city and in a big percent of these cases the center is part of the historic inheritage of the city thus bringing together the modern element of shopping with the" historical" and memory of the city . In this case shopping is build in an urban tissue where in the complex grid of the street the stores are inserted in the spaces that are connected to the street level ; making in this way shopping an activity that is happening as movement 50 percent on the outside and 50 percent on the inside . In the example of a mall that is build around the idea of shopping as a contemporary activity that requires a fluid and unitary space in witch all the functions are gathered under one " roof " . Shopping is connected to the daily life in multiple ways and as a concept the shopping activity is a complex activity that can become part of a much more larger interpretation than the interpretation in witch the activity is connected to one meaning or conceptual understanding . If we think about shopping as a day to day activity then things can be thought in a larger way and shopping can be seen as a basic human activity . In this way shopping become an evolutionary component that is added to the urban life . Going to the local supermarket an buying food and outer things that are needed in the daily life reinforces the concept of shopping as a concept that is related to basic lifestyle . In this way there is no difference (conceptually) between an normal shopping day in a store from the way shopping goes on in a supermarket , the things that make the difference is the product and the space . Space elevates shopping to different levels and can transform this activity in a fundamental way from the way we are used to look at it . Space and the way it is designed makes out of shopping an activity that is blended with entertainment , art , performance and technology . The space is the stage and shopping is the action that takes place with the help of architecture . The shopping activity requires a space that is artificial , without it it would not exist and it could not happen as a mass and individual phenomenon . This artificiality is brought by design and the creation of an environment that can accommodate from the technology that is required to mantain the proper functioning of the space and the system that goes in parallel with it . Shopping is an artificial manufactured activity that could not take place and that would not have any logic without the human factor that generates the interaction needed for it to take place . The place where the activity takes place is the starting point for a new and different way of looking at program based architecture and to what mixed used program means .The shopping activity has infiltrated in many fields and it transformed because of it's require public space in a new breed of space that is multifunctional and cannot be defined in a stabile way as program and theory . The fact that shopping brings together multiple activities makes buildings that have spaces that are dedicated to it to become mixed used buildings that accommodate multiple types of programs that have different and hybrid functions that all form the context for things to happen and become possible . Because of this simple activity that has basic trade rules the programs that have to sustain it have to morph in new types of programs that can be looked at as conclusions to pervious models . In the case of shopping hosting the morphing of programs into new or hybrid types goes faster as a conceptual phenomenon than the usual way of architectural program evolution . The need for space and new functions for the activity of shopping has increased the speed of architectural thinking an theory giving birth to new branches or satellites to already existing companies . The fact that programs that are related to shopping embed in some cases transdisciplinary theories and facts make architectural thinking become more complex and different from what it was as a program oriented platform . In this case the concept stage is divided into multiple parts that come together in the final stage of the concept . These parts are steps that have to be made by the designers or the architects in order to create what can be looked at or considered as an outcome for the whole process . The first step that has to be made is a research stage in witch the constraints and the demands of the project have to be analyzed and looked at with different eyes than the classical way of looking at an architectural process . This way of looking at problems has to embed a transdiscilinary way of thinking and leave space for multiple possibilities and ways of relating to solutions . In this faze of the concept the important part is to focus on leaving space for arguments and not to start with a precise direction because shopping or the architecture that is related to this class of public activities relates to people both in an mass and individual private way ; the architecture has to integrate elements that make in the same time a larger number of consumers and an individual consumer to feel different and special . So the concept has to appeal both to the public and to the private in the same way with the same means that have different interpretations for different scales of looking at things . Shopping in manny cases is a brand oriented activity in witch the design of the space has to reflect the ideas behind the brand and the personality of the brand . The way in witch a concept that is related to shopping has to be materialized resembles with making a song or music in general ; it is a combination of layers with hard tunes and soft detail oriented accurate fine tuning . This way of building a concept for a store has to be as a thinking system somewhere in between the micro world of the details that are found inside and that relate to the human scale of the project and the macro world of the brand concept and expression .

Monday, February 25, 2008

Urban demands ,

City's are the main subject in the urban architecture and outer fields that are more or lass related to what architecture is and how it connects to the world . In the last few years in international exhibitions as the architecture Biennale from Venice and the architecture biennale from Rotterdam had their main focus oriented towards the subject of the city and on how do they function . The next century will be a century of the urban where most people will live in an urban context . This context is widely analyzed by architects designers and urbanists . The way a city develops , expands , mutates and becomes more than just a simple living space ;it becomes a context for living and an expression of the aspirations of the people that inhabit them . a city is a complex entity that can be part of a bigger structure , context , infrastructure or city networks. The city is becoming a complex and layered place that is formed out of different places , platforms and public and private functions . The context of the city is putting the man as a social animal in the position of interacting with all sorts of cultural forms that can be looked at as different types of cultural behavior and manifestation .The landscape of the city can be a place of happening where the layers of subcultures mix or observe each other generating in this way the social life that keeps a city on it's "tracks". The layers that interact in the city context make different groups of people become part of one type of culture or the outer . In this way things become more or less distinct on a socio-cultural level . Some cities can have their own identity especially in a branding context in witch manny cities are found and part of . In the search of common elements within the city and what can it mean as an entity and as representation for the external world the city brand concept is a strong one in witch representation and identity merge becoming the headline of expectation for the person that is considered an "outsider" or a newcomer . A city can function and morph in different direction but the constant element that keeps the layers that are formed in time together is the flow of people and the fluctuations related to the diversity both cultural and economical on some sort of level .
The people that come and interact in the context of the city are shaped by the factors that are related to the cultural life ( and what is considered culture in a specific time and place ) and the economical values and exchanges that are happening in an given area . If we look at things in a postmodern way and try to make parallels between different historical time periods we can see common or repetitive elements that can be considered more or less a functional pattern that can be applied on different scales in some cases . If we take this pattern way of thinking and try to apply it to the present context we can observe or discover a sort of urban tribalism or local tribalism as an trend and as a group statement . The social and cultural layers of a city strive to have common elements and that is how in present times in the urban context we can see that haircuts , piercings, tattoos and fashion can have a sort of meaning . In this way one can observe the fact that in the modern , urban and 21 century city life tribalism and the individual desire of belonging to one group is manifested trough details that represent the features of an urban "tribe" .
Going out in town for clubbing or outer activities that imply socializing in different forms can make one person observe these "small " details that are encoded in the individuals and in the individual behavior of one person or more . A city is a big place and a night out or the social scene of one place can have codes that are related to self representation . In these cases the macro to micro ( detail scale ) view is important and can make the difference between understanding certain types of social behavior . In the short history of the urban environment certain groups of people that had uniques ways of self representation had to become outsiders to a conservative society that started making rules regarded to self representation and how should people look . On a personal level I encountered the same way of thinking from the conservative minds of the college teachers that where shaping "open minded "education that appeared overnight together with the new trasitionary democratic and capitalistic new society of my home country Romania .
So back to the way we se the contemporary city and people within it ; the main conclusion is that cultures or trends within a cityscape are important both as details that show the individual belonging to a social recognized group or as pure personal decoration that is accepted in a social context . This way of ornamenting oneself has a visual and conceptual relation with the way people stick together in a tribal way .

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Expression ,








In some cases images can express a different set of ideas than words . The information that is found in a photo is structured in a different way that the information that can be found in a text . The content is different both as means of expression and as means of generating a specific outcome and reaction from a certain public . Writing creates a mental space that is mirrored in the mind of the reader from the surface of the paper of screen ; making in this way the person who reads the information to think and to use imagination as a tool for interpreting the text and to generate some sort of idea that relates in a visual way to it .
The medium of photography works in a different way ; the information is already there and the viewer interacts with the given framed information . This medium is quite complex and full of interesting approaches that can blur the boundaries between what can be called imaginary and real . Photography is obvious in most cases but it can hide secret messages or meanings that usually are not seen at a first look .

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Afternoon ,





Party















It started soft , good mood and a crowd of people after the visuals started and got wormed up on the sounds of Dj Oslo Hilton .Around three o clock Dj Vitamin K (http://www.myspace.com/kadelburg) started with electro techno sounds and the crowd went crazzzzy . Visuals where provided by Vj Ginta Tinta and where a mix of dvd and live footage . Vitamin K played for two hours and the music elevated everyone on a higher state of consciousness. The party people managed to resist until morning so the party went smooth .

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Technology Influence ,

Technological changes where always felt in fields that are related to creativity and the way things can function or be improved by these changes . In the architectural design field things are happening in a similar way the process of creation being strongly influenced by the technological advances of the time . There are multiple approaches for a project but two main directions can be observed in the way things get made . The first type of approach can be considered as a classical one in witch the designer tries to use elements and rules that are part of the classical or traditional architectural theory and approach towards a specific subject .
The second type of approach is connected to the way one designer uses technology and how that technology can be embedded in the design process , more and more designers and architects are using technology for giving or compensating functions in the design and making the design more appealing to the public or the viewer in this way . The fact that technology can become an design element that can have an entertainment function can bring a lot of new types of features to the design . In the design process that is related to designs that have a commercial use or purpose designers use media installations to make projections on the walls or in the space . With the help of this equipment the information can be transmitted in an easy way to the viewer and
the space can become more interactive and elements that where static in the beginning ( walls , furniture or ads ) can become interacting pieces of space and the place will start having some sort of visual dynamics . This type of architecture that makes a connection between the realm of media and technology with a build environment can be considered as a hybrid type of design , a composition that is made out of elements that are both architectural and artistic in this way architectural design mutates into a multidisciplinary discipline . The fact that technology allows manny "tricks" with witch there can be produced some kind of foreplay between the person that is experiencing the space and the creator/owner . The effects of technology can be seen on a conceptual level too, architectural design and design in general trough these methods starts to become a new type of discipline one that is more flexible and the persons that are implied in the design process have to look at things with in an opened minded way and use strategies that are connected to more that one category of discipline . All the team members or the singular designer has to look at things as aesthetic representation with an abstract oriented mind and part of the design outcome has to be considered as some sort of work of art or at least to be related to the art realm .
Media and the fact that more and more entrepreneurs and designers have access to media video production and softwares that can generate media content for a design makes this a new realm that is still in a sort of experimental or lab like conceptual space . There are no specific rules and no theory that constructs a relation between design and new media .

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Dealing with memory ,

Being connected to the computer has a lot of side effects that can be related to it's use and the applications that come together with it . In the age of information and digital interaction the use of personal avatars in establishing networks related to the field where people work . These avatars can come to us as users in different forms and with different types of functions but one thing that they all share in common is the social networking aspect that they have ; in this way putting and making people or different users to interact and to communicate or to attach themselves to all kinds of different pre-existing networks that are constructed around different types of interests . These avatars guarantee an constant presence in different networks or online communities and on a different level can be considered as information accumulators that are depositing exterior and interior given type of information . They accumulate personal information such as photos , interests , friends , personal data and things that we like ( music , videos etc ) the information that is accumulated in these network knots can be erased but it will follow us every time because of the fact that there is no escape and everyone can find a specific user and become" friends "in this virtual place . In this way all the users that are part of these social networks that interconnect people and places drag after them all the outer users that are [part of the network , in this way wen going online there is always this illusion of being in a continuous present because of the fact that in the electronic age because of al the interconnections that are produced trough different types of apparatus and networks everything happens in a continuous now , a continuos present . So the online media does not allow us to escape the past because any person that had interacted with us can find our avatar . The issue now can be turned towards the meaning of an avatar and towards the importance that it can have in the daily life . Another question that pops up is the one related to the way an avatar can represent a user and ethics related to the possibility of creating multiple personalities and different avatars by the same user are also an important part of the equation .
An interesting way to look at memory was created by the science fiction writer Phillip K Dick that was part of the cyberpunk movement but envisioned the future way that is different from what we are used to when referring to this kind of genre . He saw the future ruled by humans and not by machines as outer writers envisioned . For him the machines that are part of the society do not have such an importance as for outer writers give them, he sees them part of the daily with normal fictions that are related to them . People use them and are users and the place where he goes as far as possible is to play with the imagination and transform technology into androids that are made after the human model . Phillip K dick does not play in his writings and novels with a future that is controlled by machines and people are enslaved or part of a larger system ruled by these entities ; instead he plays with outer parts of our human nature and that is the memory and the parallel universe that can be created out of it or trough the prism of the imagination . Phillip K dick plays with the main characters puts them in situations that cannot be explained for them and in some cases parallel universes can take an important role in the action of a novel . The writer plays with the mind of the characters more then with the technology that surrounds them he does not look at technology as such an important factor in the main plot of it's novels . The pattern that is created trough his work in a memory related pattern in witch Phillip K Dick presents different futures with different problems and different main characters that all have in common the memory loss problem .A majority of it's novels are build around this pattern , the pattern of memory ; Total Recall , Minority report , Paycheck and outer novels deal with the problem of memory , past , present and the consequences on the future that these gaps can generate . K Dick gives a different view on the future than his contemporary writers give he sees the future as a place with technological innovation that does not stand in our way as humans but the intrigues and the chain of events that is described make the story and gives it the element of excitement. This cyber punk future that is fount in the universes created by Phillip K Dick has a stronger logic than what is presented to us by different authors in their writings . The characters from his novels are faced with the problem of memory and a continuous loop between part and future , the present is the time when things have to be solved . These kind of problems that are related to memory and memories from different or parallel universes can be considered metaphysical and give birth to a series of questions that are more related to scenarios that incorporate ideas that are related to quantum mechanics and not necesarily the idea in witch society becomes hypertechnologized and we as humans and inhabitants become the captives of our own creations .
The future as seen by P. K. Dick is charged by the feeling of borderom and some kind of routine that is found in the air , The parallel universes that he envisions are alternatives and spaces where the daily life action happens in the same time in these parallel spaces . He deals with memory loss and sees it as a trigger for the upcoming parts of the story in this way the past is always present in the present and it's lack an important factor in creating the future . So as a conclusion and going back to the beginnings we as avatar users because of this interconnection we carry with us forward past information that in a lot of cases has nothing to do with who we are as persons and characters , the past can become an corruption element for the future that is why when having an online avatar we have to look more at the aesthetics that can be implemented into it's use and the functions that it has as and online object or as Bruce Sterling was describing these avatars , spimes.

Surfing ,

The daily routine of surfing on the internet is becoming an more and more personal experience that is developing in the direction of personal interest and the specific field . The normal way of finding information and being informed is changing . More and more the news that we get are part of the structure of the world wide web and is is formed out of websites and all kinds of mediums that are web related and non traditional as interviews and the compact way of sending out news trough television broadcast .
People are starting to surf for information and connect to the internet to get their daily dosage of information and news . The news that you get is the news that you find not as in the case of television news where the information is arranged by an person that works as an editor or information entrepreneur that decides what is important and how can things be presented in a specific time spam that is the time spam of the news . Going with the things more deep and trying to apply the principle of selfanalisis on the way I surf the net everyday made me realize that there is a strong connection between the working field interests and the way I search for information . Surfing is generated trough search engines , websites and hyperlinks these are the main components that take part in the action of search for information of the need of being up to date . A normal “news “ day incorporates for me the search on websites that are related to design , architecture and art , a browse trough blogs that can be quite chaotic because of the way information is organized in the blog examples . In the case of a blog browsing one can find from hyperlinks, that can take you in a completely new direction to video , audio or personal content . What is an interesting phenomenon that occurs in the majority of cases in witch users browse trough the internet is the fact that more and more creative people spend time on the world wide web instead following their normal life and jobs . This phenomenon was discussed by Bruce Sterling the science fiction author and one of the persons that is part of the cyberpunk movement together with William Gibson and outer science fiction authors . Bruce Sterling said about this that it is an interesting way in witch people spend more and more time in the virtual environment searching for information , browsing trough websites , videos , mails or simply just going from link to link and browsing with the help of hyperlinks . People that are working in the creative field are surfing and using their creative capacities to find new ways of surfing and going trough the complex informational structures of the world wide web . These people ( i identify myself with this group ) are not searching for a specific subject and are not looking for information that is related to a specific subject instead they
are just browsing trough the web reading and prosuming every type of information that comes and cresses their path ; they are not spending time on the computer to improve their personal working skills or to learn new types of softwares and to look for a subject related type of information , they just hang out in “outer “ reality , the virtual space and go from link to link with the drive of a detective without a case . The search for information is chaotic and does not have and pre planned ways of approach the user is just jumping from hyperlink to hyperlink going in this way trough all kinds of sites and content that is found on the web . Some people with a stronger experience related to web surfing developed a certain pattern of personal surfing and and style of looking , searching and finding information that is needed in their daily activities . They use an analytical way of looking at the content that is combined with a rational connection logic . In this way they let themselves guided by the content that they find in
a non chaotic way that can be balanced with concepts that are found in their daily life and work ethics .
Browsing can be an addictive process and after a while the need for information can grow exponentially with the time and the quantity of information that one person uses and prosumes . There is a small connection between what Bruce Sterling is describing in is speech that is related to the internet and the users that are browsing it and the theories of Joshua Davis that are related to the internet and his views on what it is as a medium . Joshua Davis is puts up the hypothesis in witch he describes the world wide web as black hole that is ruled by the chaos theories ; a black hole is a cosmic phenomenon that sucks all the planets and the space that is found in it's way inside so here is the connection between the theories of Joshua Davis and Bruce Sterling that is saying about it that it is a medium where people are spending more and more time in this way they get sucked inside it by the continuous flow of information .So the “black hole “ from the theories of Joshua Davis can be considered and seen synonymous with a black hole that is accumulating information and dragging users in this place that is governed by different laws as the laws that are applied in reality . This kind of “new addiction “ can be experienced on an individual level each day when we gat lost in searching on one subject and suddenly we find ourselves with a complete different end result or in the position that we adopt wen we stay at the computer and we search for the most commode body position so we can spend as much time as we want in the reality of the web . The position witch can be adopted by the user depends on the type of computer that is in use but in the case of a laptop users can start staying in a position that resembles to the position of the body that was used i the matrix movie in with the human computer interface was direct and such terminals as keyboard or mouse or monitors where not used anymore everything was interconnected and the connection with the brain of the user was direct and physical .The world wide web is a place full of information that has a huge range or hyperlinks that can “teleport “ one user from one site or address to a new location in no time , it seems that time and speed in this space is measured within the number of clicks that one user makes with the mouse ; but things can be relative and different from how we understand movement , one user can be in multiple places in the same time in this way being connected trough different avatars to different sites that contain the required information . The web can be a place that is animated and that takes one user from ato b in a chaotic way , in some cases there is no a and b .

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Sketches ,




Sketches are an important part of a project or concept , these pieces of paper , small models or interactive drawings are on the frontline of every project they are the first material objects that express the idea or what is in the imagination of the maker. sketches have a special place as a project phase and as proof of the first ideas and the way they evolved . In this part of a project the idea is in an incipient phase and the concept it is not altered by the factors that usually come in the next stages of the development .
Sketches are diverse and can express or be related to different subjects . An essay sketch can be the beginning of a book , a drawing on a piece of paper can be the concept for a bigger design or an interactive 2 D animation can be part of a more complex interactive design . In some cases the initial sketch is the one that transforms everything and gives an overview on how the elements that make the composition are put together , constructed and represented in a way that is not detailed but gives a specific and exact image of the way things should be build , how things should look or expressed .
The initial sketch is pure and always expresses what is important and what will come out of the final project that is why in the case of the great masters the initial sketches are preserved and have a great importance in the eyes of the people that what to get a better picture of the way an artist , designer , writer or composer worked and thought about his work and the surrounding universe . These small drawings incorporate the concept in a simple and understandable way for the viewers or the outer persons that work on the project ; the drawings are fast and have a quality that is chaotic but can transmit in a fast way the needed information .Some sketches made history , they become important parts of the art world and where collected as studies or starting ideas of the artists that made history trough their master pieces .
There are many debates that are related to the value of a sketch and how much consideration should it get from the public or the people that are working with the person that makes it and put's up the concept for it to become real . The debate is going in two main directions . The first one is connected to the way outer people see the creator of the master architect as one person that thinks about all the project and it is seen by the rest of the crew as the person that has the ability to think about the requirements and come up with an idea that is palpable and can cover all aspects of the project . In this case the master architect makes the genius sketch that will become the project after it will go trough multiple phases and trough multiple hands that will build all the project with all it's details . The second direction is the one where there is no sketch or the concept idea is build by a team that thinks together under some form of common consciousness that is the collaborative environment or the work space . In this way there is no master creator that thinks about the whole idea but instead there is a group of people that makes the realization of the project possible . In the second case things can become quite complicate because of the fact that the start idea can lose from it' s purity and become more complex . There are outer cases when a starting sketch can become synonymous with the final product because of the fact that the process of building and finalizing the project does not take place and does not become reality so in this case the ideas remain on a sort of a paper level and do not go forward but have a different value , a value that is related to the fact that the starting concept is unaltered and charged with the dramatic element that an unfinished piece of work can imprint in the viewer.
Sketches can have different values that is given by the hand or the person that makes them but still in the cases that are related to being a creative it is good to keep sketches and partial ideas documented so that one can come back and reuse them and morph them in something new .

Monday, February 11, 2008

High




Photos taken in the Zuid area Amsterdam with Peer (http://profile.myspace.com/140124764 )and Sofie .

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Accidents ,


via Daniel Dorobantu http://www.dorobantu.com/
Accidents are events that can come at any time and become part of the daily life changing in negative or positve way the way we see the world . These small or large events can change planed things and turn the way we look at history .Accidents can influence everything and make massive changes in one person's life or in it's chain of events .Accidents can become beneficial in the cases that related to creativity and to the consequences or the side effects that a accident can have one a specific subject . The subject of accident was studied quite a lot in the world of art by the artists that saw accidents in an interesting perspective and tried to see the benefits of these chaotic events that can change the meaning and the outcome of an art process . Picasso considered accidents some sort of test that can reveal things about a person; another contemporary artist with Picasso , the surrealist Salvador Dali said about accients , mistakes that it is no use to correct them rather we have to look at them analyze them and rationalize them for a better understanding of a specific incident. The fact that these accidents can be seen in a multi layered way can give a new perspective on things in general making them more relative . In taking the example of artists because in general artists and creative people have a different view on how things function the the daily life . They see the so called "normal " events that form the basis of what the artists trough the prism of their work see it differently and because of their work they can interpret the meaning of an event in a way that can be considered different from what is usually considered as "normal" , in some cases artist and creatives can see the world in a different way . Artists can be considered like antennas for the social world ,expressing trough their work . The creatives are people that can see in things that do not present any interest for outer people , value and intrigue that are elements that can trigger in one' mind the imagination that generates the works of art . These "antennas" see and transform the social mutations that they sense into work of art that can be considered as a comment or a reflection upon the things that are surrounding us.

Infrastructure ,







Infrastructure is a term that is usually associated with the city and the annexe functions that are connected to the way a city of a part of an urban tissue . infrastructure has a huge importance that is reflected into the way one city or an area develops and becomes more animated and more connected on social , economical and cultural level. the infrastructure of a city is the space that moves and that hosts all the functions related to motion , kinetic and interactive spaces that gather, move and make people to come together . The scace that is dedicated to infrastructure is a common and shared space in the cityscape. The infrastructure space in a public space and a space that trough it's existence produces pubic motion or the motion of the public .
The infrastructure of a city can morph and is a space that can easily change aspect because it is a space that is not connected to a static way of thinking so the work of maintenance can become work of transformation for a specific hub . The bigness of a city can be read in the infrastructure ; the way public transport is connected and works can give an overview on the size of the area .An important element of the infrastructure of a city are the knots or the points where more than one type of public transport intersects one with the outer . These knots or points of convergence are places that have a high density of public functions and are hubs that host the people that change the means of transportation . These places can be seen as small interporto's for people , places where a lot of functions that are related to the urban life in general converge and connect .The infrastructure of a city , area or in general can be an interesting subject to study because it is the form of architecture that deals with a sort of mechanical movement that allows people, citizens and groups to move and to interact in a larger space that is the space of the city . The architecture of the infrastructure needs a different system of thinking and the solutions to infrastructural problems have to take in their mathematics factors that are different from the normal way of thinking about architectural design . When designing infrastructure the designer has to think about functionality in the first place and afterwards there are the elements related to the aesthetics of the constructions . The space has to be fluid and with morphing abilities that are related to the fact that in these spaces auxiliary functions can overlap or can change in a short time so the static space has to be flexible and has to be able to host any kind of function . The way we think about infrastructure can be abstract and in some cases entire cities can become infrastructure for outer cities thus transforming the notion of a city into a platform dedicated to mobility and circulation elevating in this way certain functions and concepts to a higher level of importance . Hierarchy is an important component in the way things are seen and developed in a project that relates and deals with the problem of infrastructure .

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Architectural elements






Architecture is a composition that consists from different forms, spaces , ideas, concepts and functions. The space as an created object is a composition that hosts functions that have a broad range of usage . The elements that make the architectural composition are not the floors or the way functions are distributed trough the space of the construction but on the contrary the composition is made out of elements like positive spaces and negative , circulation percentage , light enclosure , junk space and outer kinds of things that all put together make the space functional and with and esthetic feel . architecture is made out of systems and subsystems that all generate together the outcome that is the building with it's functions . In a lot of cases circulation hubs and signaling signs that are found in the building can be considered useless elements that do not require a specific attention but these theories might be wrong because of the fact that architecture is experienced trough the eyes of the viewer and the viewer has human proportions that make all these details to have a different value . The proportions of a space can be a factor that changes the strategy of construction and makes the process become slightly different and things that might seem at first hand unimportant can acquire a signifiant importance in the upcoming phases of the process of building .
Mies van de Rohe said that " god is in the details " and that can be considered quite an important quote because of the way we can look at architecture trough the prism of this quote that elevates the detail to a new level . Thinking about this quote we can imagine the fact that architecture is a puzzle of details and in a composition where there is an abundance of details they have strong position on the priority list that is connected to the project.
A building or a group of buildings is constructed step by step with a rhythm that varies from one stage to the outer , making in this way the the process of producing architecture a chaotic one . Architecture is a collaborative environment that requires in some cases a person or a group of people that can have an overview over all the stages and the actions that are taken , this situation makes things to be looked at as they are process like and that process a complex construction that is made out of small steps . The fact that architecture is made out of small steps and it can be a slow process takes us back to what Mies said and the way he looked at things in general putting the" detail " on the first live of the construction front . The complexity of the architectural process made this craft to change and ti become something new that is composed out of different categories of architectural designers . Starting from one side with the visualization architects and the architects that construct the interior layers of a building and going until the person that gives the final approval for the project . The main way in witch people relate one to the outer is the fact that they are all designers or architects and this makes things to be under the same umbrella and in this way everyone talks the same language both technically and aesthetically.

Density,




















Living in Amsterdam can become easily a chaotic experience, not because of the density of cultures and the multicultural space that amsterdam offers but because of the density of events that happens around the city space . in one day from morning until evening and night there one person can go and participate to a lot of types of events related to all sorts of creative fields and with a multicultural vibe . I started counting 24 hours of life in this city and all the places where I can go and interact with people and events . So i started making a photo essay with places and people and personal activities that happened in one day .