Virtual Museum Zuidas Amsterdam

Museums can take may shapes , and in the case of Zuidas things tend to go beyond material ,and reach for the virtual , teh opening of the museum was an nice event bringing together people from all kinds of areas like art , buissnies , teaching , students , new media and performance . A lot of student from different parts of the world became part of the event . The museum is an urban screen that is the new canvas for the artist that goes beyond static and enters the realm of moving images and video art . The presentation of the museum was a one hour warm up in witch small one minute films where presented , the works wher from students that just graduated and this was an important aspect the fact that the "museum " is hosting works that are not known and that are fresh fronm the viewer's point of view . After the warmup that was held in the outdoor World trade center plaza a short introduction from the director of the project that presented the crew developed the production , grafic and visual museum identity ; things continued with a performance that was the highlight of the event ; the performance was related to a big ball that had a camera mounted on it , people started plaing with the ball that was quite big and the camera was brocasting the real time images on the screen that was mounted in the plaza . Interesting performance first because of the real time images bradcast and seccond that the ball brought people together making them act unnoficial and playfull at the opening , this activity made the atmosfere of the event to lightenup . Afterwords ther was a presentation about the new urban Zuidas area that is an international finacial center with buildings designed by international architects like Toyo Ito and Erik van Eggerat . Why a museum in a finacial center ? because " If buildings and roads are the city’s hardware, then culture is the software that brings the city to life."

One culture

This idea started from some people that made statements regarding the actual state of culture at this moment in time , factors like globalization , maket economy , imigration and labour market made possible the blending of cutures in a sort of new american culture . American culture that is considered quite new in comparisonts with outer tipes of world cultures , that all have roots that go usualy at least one milenium back in time . American culture is considered young in historical time and the important factors that characterize historicaly is the struggle that happened in four centuriess to find an american identity . This happened trough the mix population and cultures that had an identity of their own . So from this point of view american culture should become a sort of model for today's world that is in mutation and under the influence of globalization , emerging markets and new labour markets that all make more or less the need for a new kind of common culture and identity . I often hear from all kinds of people that live in places with a strong mix of population that they are world citizentz, but is that easy to be a world citizen is it that simple ? . I think that the world citizen does not exist yet only for people that have global activities or that are working in enviroments where they adress themselves to people from all over the world and these kind of peole are quite rare , beeing a world citizen is not that simple because in a lot of cases things can go slightly wrong not because colaboration is not possible but because there is no common identity and in a lot of cases people that start working together can easity go back and try to stick to theyr traditions and culture in the search for somekind of identity .
Tradition is not that important anymore more important is the openedmindness with witch we can accept new thinks that cross our path and that in a lot of cases people can missinterpret , maybe things that are not common and that at the first glimpse we do not understand can be a new way of expressing a multifaced ideea that can be adressed to a mixed public . In a lot of cases Art has become this kind of common language in witch the artist that can be the representation of himself or of a country ( like in the art bienalle case ) presents work that reflects the culture related to a place or to a population of people , the artist has to be like an antena that signals changes , new trends or alarms trough the tools of culture things related to society , people or politics . The artist from a Socratian point of view does not have any kind of social function but his existence can be a decisiv factor in a lot of social-political situations . The artist can discover things that are hidden from the normal citizen , he has the power to bing things that are in the underground to the surface of society . This can come out in a lot of forms and tipes of work in the same time the artist can become a person that wlaks trough all kinds of social clases and that searches for new tipologies of social behaviour . So art has become a language that transmits and that has the power to gather people from different mediums , enviroments and social calses together . This makes things to blend and intercat the artist becoming for a short while some kind of interaction designer . Culture is important especialy in a period where many individuals are searchisng for an identity new "traditions " or the apartenance to a group where the core rules that stick people together are tolerant and fluid . The search for this kind of grups can be political, cultural , self interese oriented or fun and style based . In a lot of cases the bubles of certainty can go off in any moment but in a lot of times things that are part of the daily routine can be articulated in a sort of cultural language , the coffe brand from the morning , the tipe of cloathing , the newspaper or the informational cannal that we use to keep ourselves updated with news and events that occur around can become the texture that form our life and identity . Things that shape us are important because they can create a social image that express personal values and level of interest in certain social areas .
Identity can becaome traditional if thre is no need to refresh things or it can become a buredn and the need for a new affiliation becoming more and more important on an individual level . What is interesting is the preimage that everyone has regarding an individual that is connected to some sort of culture , becasue of the place where he comes in a lot of cases people can judge things in a wrong way and one individual can bare the burden of having an entire history put in his back so starting from scratch is important in a place where there is a srtong mix of cultures. the search for one general tipe of culture has to start on an individual level and afterwords on bigger scale the need of one is becoming more important than the need of many even if details connect things .

Transdisciplinarity

More and more companies , designers or outher people from creative realm are uinder the spell of multidisciplinarity and multidisciplinar thinking and strategies . The way we think shape the concept that we develop and in a lot of cases thinking in more directions at the same time can be benefic for a project or projects that in today's world are more and more connecterd to multitasking and the need of embedded functions . Design architecture and all sorts of creative fields are starting to be active in domains that did not had any connexions with . Architecture is becoming a way of thinking and a way of seeing the world that surrounds a person and in a lot of cases this kind of thinking can be applied to questions that are not necesarily related to architecture . The best exaple is the strategical thinking of Tom Ford in the questions related ot brand and image and the think tank created by Rem Koolhaas and that is the counterpart of Oma , the Amo company that works in fields that go beyond architecture , one of their last projects beeing a catwalk design and the fasion show related to it in witch the imagination of the AMO think tank created hypotetical products in the form of pills that will put you in different states of mind making you feel dutch , feel gay , have style or get laid . this kind or organizational thinking is quite interesting and the fact that the final product of the companie's imagination is a scenario that is not architecturaly related makes thinks more interesting . In this case is evident that the oppendmindness of the client and the imagination of the architect blendet together creating a crisscrossed catwalk and futuristic products that are presented and are decorating the fashion show . In this casee the need of out of the box thinking was more than necesary and important in makink this kind or direction that does not imply anymore the need of an architectural object but more of an architectural strategy that has to think in show production way . Architecture in many cases does not have to think about somekind of public that is part of the whole event architecture has a longer time spam then a fashion show that is a concise presentation that is coreographed .
In outher cases we can see concepts or sketches of things that started from an rganic image or proportions that are found in nature . In some outer places we can find ideeas that started from scientific elements aor elemnts that are found in different places or from different field . Transdisciplinarity is more and more used in all kinds of fields and in a lot of cases is treated as a normal phenomenon or aproach .

The value of concept

I often wonder about the value of the concept in a creation from where does it come and how it becomes reality . In many creational cases the concept is not considered important , the action or the part in witch the idea is translated into reality is in many cases more important than the core idea or the concept . The action or the process is cosiderd in many cases more strong and more important than the initial concept .
Is the initial sketch or statement less important than the dynamic part of the process . In many cases there is a debate between these two parts of the same process the concept and the construction of it . In history we have a lot of debates that concern the relationship between concept and “putting in action” . But how can u go to action withouth the ensurance that the idea that you are goeing to built or design is the right one . Maybe I’m going too far and not even the concept can guarantee the fact that the original idea is tha wright one but the concept is the idea and more or less it gives a sort of explanation to what idea means and how it is structured.
So the concept is an important part of the process and it is unique as entity in the process ; the taking action part sometimes can imply a strategical pattern or modes of operation that are more or less specific to tipes of situations .
Some of the greatest artists of the world started from scratch only guided by the idea or concept that made possible their artwork or products to reach the surface . An example of what concept means is the question that arised when the works of Mozart where discovered in a forgotten draver by a person that accidentally looked into it ; a lot op people wonderd at that time to whom should they give credits for the found musical works , to Mozart the composer that created them and had the idea for the compositions or to the person that found them and put had put them into the light and withouth his intervention the works ould never been found and Mozart would never have been Mozart . After some time and energy that was spend on this question the answer went in the direction of the person that invented and created the works ; Mozart and people where clear about the fact that Mozart would have been Mozart anyway and that the musique that he made was valuable in any type of circumstance. Anauter example is the one that concearns the relationship between artist Andy Warhol and French Dadaist Marcel Duchamp that after meeting Warhol and seeing his artwork he became interested not in the artwork but in “the man that has the Idea “ to make that kind of artwork , so Duchamp was clearly interested in the concept and in the mind of avantguard artist Andy Warhol .
These exaples prove that all thow in a lot of cases we are faced with the question regarding the value of the concept we are faced with exaples in witch clearly the concept has a strong place and it is appreciated at it’s real value . The concept sometimes can be considered a way to break patterns or preceses by generating a strong concept you can shorten the way to the goal of the process or in outer cases it can improve it .
So the initial sketch is important after all as a starting point and as a mean for creating variants of the same concept .

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