Welcome to Unit A blog | School of Architecture | Oxford Brookes University

Monday 27 October 2008

FIESTA



SOUNDTRACK

Sunday 26 October 2008

CERO 9 LECTURE - MUST SEE!


The Bartlett have regular lectures on Wednesday nights with some really interesting characters - this is one on Wednesday 29th October. Cristina Diaz Moreno and Efran Garcia Grinda, working as Amid [Cero 9], examine the capacity for architectural programs to produce new forms of nature - Breatheable! Get there early if you can it gets busy - so see you there!

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - CERO 9
RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - LECTURE SERIES

FARBE


A random website with some very clear and concise diagrams - check it out.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK - FARBE
RIGHT CLICK ANOTHER ONE HERE

Thursday 23 October 2008

KAIJU


RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - BLOG

MEGASTRUCTURES RELOADED


A derelict old German mint in Berlin has been taken over until November 2 by Megastructure Reloaded an exhibit of 1960’s visionary architecture drawings, models, and films. Descending into the mint’s basement/bunker Archigrammer Dennis Crompton has created an installation that includes Yona Friedman’s la Ville Spatiale, a film of the Archigram guys walking around The Centre Pompidou with Cedric Price, and a toy-like model of a Constant Nieuwenhuijs skyscraper. The dilapidated ground floor has series of interpretations of the themes by young megatsructuralists like New Yorkers Tobias Putrih and Katrin Sigurdardottir.

One for later perhaps?

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - EXHIBITION

ANISH


From an early stage in his career Anish Kapoor has worked closely with architects and engineers on a number of major works. Get a rare and fascinating insight into many of these key projects with an exhibition of his architectural models, many of which have never been displayed to the public before.
Included in the exhibition are models for projects such as Taratantara at the Baltic with Neil Thomas of Atelier One (1999), the Salvation Army Visitor Centre with John McAslan and Partners (unbuilt, 2001), the entrances for the Naples Subway with Jan Kaplicky and Future Systems (2008) and an as yet unrealized project with Cecil Balmond. Don't miss the accompanying Gallery Talk and Late Night View on Tuesday 4 November.

The models are really well done - something to check out if you can!

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - RIBA

Wednesday 15 October 2008

DRIFT


26th September - 19th October 2008
DRIFT 08 is London's first annual art exhibition on the Thames. This unique and ground-breaking contemporary art show will see seven installations being placed in the river and along its banks between Blackfriars Bridge and Tower Bridge and one work at Canary Wharf.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - DRIFT 08
RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - MAP

BRADFORD


Mark Bradford: Evoking aerial maps of urban areas, this abstract collage includes materials found by Bradford on the streets around his Los Angeles studio.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - TATE
RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - SAATCHI

Saturday 11 October 2008

KRAFTWERK


The signature Kraftwerk sound combines driving, repetitive electronically-generated rhythms with catchy synthesizer-generated melodies; mainly following a Western classical style of harmony, in a minimalistic arrangement. The group's simplified lyrics are at times sung through a vocoder or generated by computer-speech software.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - KRAFTWERK

STRANGEMAPS


This is a good blog with maps from random places - some good - some not so good - but lots of content.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK FOR STRANGEMAP BLOG

EDDEN



RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - ARTISTS WEBSITE

BATTLES

SOL LE WITT


The words that come to mind when describing the work of Sol LeWitt resonate with essential aesthetic and intellectual values. His works are straightforward and legible. Yet, upon closer observation and consideration, even those that initially appear direct and obvious reveal complex subtlety in decision-making. Intellectual substance is paired with visual delight, both of which seep into one's consciousness.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - TATE
RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - DIA BEACON

UVA

12 SHINING MEN



RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - MOVIE
RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - ARTISTS WEBSITE

Thursday 9 October 2008

MEMORY CLOUD


8 - 10 Oct 2008
For three evenings in October, a new interactive smoky communication will be underway in central London - one that combines a very modern medium with a 5,000-year-old one. In Memory Cloud, visitors can text any message they like to the artists' creation, and that phone message will be made into light-and-air smoke signals and huge in Trafalgar Square. This new exploration of personal expression in public spaces is from Minimaforms, founded in 2002 by brothers Stephen and Theodore Spyropoulos as an experimental architecture and design practice that explores projects that provoke and facilitate new means of communication.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - ICA

KUSAMA


Yayoi Kusama at the Liverpool Biennale.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - ARTISTS WEBSITE

Wednesday 8 October 2008

EXHIBITION - FUTURE NON-FUTURE


One for the models and for those early thoughts about what to do in London. Check it out - there is a lot of variety and content - something for every one and its free.

Some of the projects included in the exhibition were conceived as deliberately speculative, visionary and provocative; openly experimental, they are radical and nearly unimaginable. Others are more commercial or speculative in a city largely built this way since Georgian times. Some have been initiated with every expectation that they will be built in coming years, and are still in planning stages. Others, however, are now nearly forgotten, having been surpassed by their designers’ subsequent careers. Some of these building projects have been conceived as massive urban extensions to the city; others as small, private and intimate structures. Taken together, this collection of architectural drawings, models, sketches and statements builds a surprising, alternative vision of a well-known city and shows how London has served to provoke urban and architectural imagination.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - AA

EXHIBITION - RICHTER


4900 Colours comprises 196 square panels of 25 coloured squares that can be reconfigured in a number of variations, from one large-scale piece to multiple, smaller paintings. Richter has developed a new version especially for the Serpentine Gallery exhibition: 4900 Colours: Version II, formed of 49 paintings of 100 squares - one for the matrix makers?

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - SERPENTINE GALLERY

Tuesday 7 October 2008

AM-SESSION 1


Joseph Beuys, The Sublimation of the Ordinary_Sonja Stoffels, Frei Otto, Elephant - Le Machine, Carolin Hinne - AA diploma, Dom Sylvester Houedard, Climbing map, Kevin Rhowbotham, Lunar calendar, Notation’_Edward Tufte, FinnAir 1975, Graffiti Prints, Milk Map, Made in Tokyo drawing, Multiplicity_Stefano Boeri, Atsuko Tanaka, Dom Housard, Arrows_Gordon Matta-Clark, Eadweard J. Muybridge + Etienne-Jules Marey, Descending the stair for the main piece_Duchamp, Airplane paths, Cheong Kwang Ho, David Hockney, Peeling Studies, Pigeons in flight, Toyo Ito, EV Day, Umberto Broccioni, Lebbeus Woods, Papercuts_CJ Lim, Paris_Brassai, AMO_Rem Koolhaas, Cross country tracks documentation Austria, Guardian Diagram, EP8:Loops_Barrio + Alonso + Valencia, David Carson, Gifu Kitagata Apartments_Kazuyo Sejima, Made in Tokyo_Kajima+Kuroda+Tsukamoto, Pet Architecture_Atelier Bow—Wow, Urban Flotsam_Chora, AS in DS_Alison Smithson

Monday 6 October 2008

ENO


The Subjektbeschleuniger (subject accelerator) mimics signatures subatomic particles leave in collision detectors such as installed at the CERN in Geneva. I have always been fascinated by the beauty and simplicity of these signatures as opposed to their invisible meaningfulness. I use these shapes to create an image that still carries the symbolic reference of these signatures but that is dispensed from scientific interpretability at the same time. The drawing becomes a mere symbol for a very fundamental search. What we do at institutions like the CERN is the cutting edge of contemporary enlightenment - with all the debatable implications of this term … So the drawing is not a scientific evidence, but rather an aesthetic evidence for our search for the absolute, for the fact that we want to know the rules that define the way our world works at its core.

Laser drawing on 32 panels of photo-coated wood, 68 x 68 cm each.
2,80 m x 5,60 m total.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - ENO HENZE

BALLS



"When you step into Liquid Sky, you've set your mind and body free from the weight of the urban environment and are submerged into an atmosphere of soothing exhilaration, subtle stimulation, and inspirational calm. As the installation changes from day-to-day, even hour-to-hour, your expectations create your own unique experience."

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - BALL NOGUES

TAKE YOUR TIME



RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - MOMA

_graphics _and_more//


found this website and thought it would be useful in many ways: http://www.studiokxx.com/

HEIGHT & WEIGHT


During the Presidential campaign, much has been made of Barack Obama’s slender physique, with some commentators going so far as to argue that he is too thin for most Americans to relate to him. Does candidate height and weight play a role in electoral success? With Mr. Obama and John McCain set to square off in the second of three presidential debates tomorrow, it seemed worth taking a look through recent history.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - NYTIMES

SECOND NATURE


While some works make one imagine the strange landscapes that have surrounded people, others incorporate phenomena that occur by chance. In addition to these works, there is a cloud-like installation that envelops the entire exhibit space, allowing visitors to view a range of experimental pieces.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - DEZEEN

Sunday 5 October 2008

DOROTHY


Described as one of the most experimental Indigenous painters of Central Australia, Dorothy Napangardi has enjoyed an exponential rise to prominence in recent years. Early paintings, employing a delicate use of feathery brushstrokes and luxuriant colours are exhibited alongside more recent works characterised by their subtle palette and network of dotted lines. These recent, refined works reflect the artist’s strong cultural and ancestral ties to the land.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - FIREWORK
RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - WIKI

HOW WE ARE



This was the first major exhibition of photography ever to be held at Tate Britain. It takes a unique look at the journey of British photography, from the pioneers of the early medium to today’s photographers who use new technology to make and display their imagery. (Top: Badgerland, Bottom: Mosh)

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - TATE
RIGHT CLICK HERE - THE CATALOGUE

HORSES FEET


Eadweard Muybridge is most famous for his split-second studies of motion which began in 1872 with an attempt to capture the movement of a galloping horse. By 1877 he had developed a technique to place 12 cameras in a row to capture each stage of the horse’s movement. His books Animal Locomotion and The Human Figure in Motion made systematic studies of movement, and inspired artists in the twentieth century such as Francis Bacon. Later Muybridge experimented with a device to create moving images from still photographs, making him a pioneer of cinematography.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - WIKI

RA SUMMER SHOW 09


We are keen for you guys to enter this - we will discuss soon. Keep it in mind!

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - RA

ROTHKO @ TATE


Black-Form Paintings: Although not related to a commission, Rothko clearly recognised the Black-Form paintings as a coherent series and numbered them sequentially No. 1 to No. 8, with No. 5 curiously appearing twice. Yet they were never shown as a series during his lifetime. These works mark a complete break with his colour field paintings of the 1950s, not only for their radically different deployment of colour – or non-colour as some may argue – but also because they did away with the hovering fields and soft feathered edges that had become Rothko's trademark. Unlike some of his peers though, Rothko did not use tape to achieve these new, much more defined edges.
At first glance, these paintings may appear solid black. However, prolonged contemplation reveals the slow build-up of the surface through multiple layers and the close attention Rothko paid to gradations in tone and texture. Rather than annihilating colour and light, the Black-Form paintings appear almost luminous as their surfaces absorb and reflect light. The paintings invite the viewer to look more closely, introducing an element of duration and physical self-awareness into the process of perception. This is further strengthened by the arrangement of the paintings surrounding the viewer, a notion that became increasingly important to Rothko and others during the late 1950s and 1960s.

RIGHT CLCK THE LINK HERE - TATE

LUCY & BART



With that collection he did not try to mimic real animal kingdoms... animals that could be genetically manipulated, part robot, part organic, how they would move in their environment and what they felt like to touch.

RIGHT CLICK THE LINK HERE - BART

Thursday 2 October 2008

BEUYS AND THE COYOTE


Beuys’s most famous Action took place in May 1974, when he spent three days in a room with a coyote. After flying into New York, he was swathed in felt and loaded into an ambulance, then driven to the gallery where the Action took place, without having once touched American soil. As Beuys later explained: ‘I wanted to isolate myself, insulate myself, see nothing of America other than the coyote.’ Beuys regularly performed the same series of actions with his eyes continuously fixed on the coyote. At other times he would rest or gather the felt around him to suggest the figure of a shepherd with his crook. The coyote’s behaviour shifted throughout the three days, becoming cautious, detached, aggressive and sometimes companionable. At the end of the Action, Beuys was again wrapped in felt and returned to the airport.