Lebbeus Woods: Visionary Architect
"Lebbeus Woods, Architect", February 16 - June 02, 2013, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
"Architect Lebbeus Woods (1940-2012) dedicated his career to probing architecture's potential to transform the individual and the collective. His visionary drawings depict places of free thought, sometimes in identifiable locations destroyed by war or natural disaster, but often in future cities. Woods, who sadly passed away last year as planning for this exhibition was under way, had an enormous influence on the field of architecture over the past three decades, and yet the built structures to his name are few. The extensive drawings and models on view present an original perspective on the built environment - one that holds high regard for humanity's ability to resist, respond, and create in adverse conditions. 'Maybe I can show what could happen if we lived by a different set of rules,' he once said. SFMOMA has collected Woods's work since the mid-1990s, amassing the broadest collection of his work anywhere; the exhibition will feature these holdings, as well as a selection of loans from institutional and private collections."
(San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Let's not let new technology change our profession or our industry...
"This newscast from KRON in San Francisco in 1981 has been making the rounds recently. It's labeled 'primitive Internet report,' but what it presents is actually one example of the many pre-Internet efforts that the newspaper industry made to try to plan for an online future - and stake out its own turf in that forthcoming world. ...
In the video, you can hear [Dave] Cole say, of the 'Electronic Examiner' he was demonstrating, 'We're not in it to make money.' At the end, the announcer points out that an entire edition of the paper takes two hours to download, at a $5/hour cost - making this 'telepaper' little competition for the paper edition. 'For the moment at least,' the reporter declares, over the image of a sidewalk news vendor hawking the afternoon edition, 'this fellow isn't worried about being out of a job.'
Though the piece does say that 'Engineers now predict the day will come when we get all our newspapers and magazines by home computer,' its underlying message is - Don't worry. This crazy computer stuff isn't going to change anything much for now. And indeed it took 10 years for any sort of online service to become even remotely popular. Almost 30 years later, newspapers are still in business; some are even still sold by guys on sidewalks. It has taken this long for the technology to transform the newspaper biz in a big way. ...
But even as the downloads sped up and the connect-time costs dropped, the industry held onto that approach, instead of coming to grips with the fundamentally different dynamics of a new communications medium. What had made sense in the early days over time became a crippling set of blinders. The spirit of experimentation that the Examiner set out with in 1981 dried up, replaced by an industry-wide allergy to fundamental change.
'Let's use the new technology,' editors and executives would say, 'but let's not let the technology change our profession or our industry.' They largely succeeded in resisting change. Now it's catching up with them."
(Scott Rosenberg, 29 January 2009)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Machines replace humans: heavy metal robot 3-piece
"I'm impressed with Compressorhead - the three-piece robot band (three and a half if you count the little robot who drives one of the cymbals). I went to their website to see if I could discern the origins of the project, DIY, corporate, academic, or whatever and couldn't really find anything on the makers. Then I tracked down the drummer. Stickboy was created by Robocross Machines and a whimsical roboticist named Frank Barnes. ... Reminds me of the Survival Research Labs robot machines, built for public performance and disturbance."
(Maxwell Schnurer, 5 January 2013, Life of refinement)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Minority Report-style advertising billboards to target consumers
"Researchers at IBM have revealed they are working on technology which will lead to consumers being shown tailor made adverts that reflect their personal interests.
Digital advertising screens are already appearing in train stations, on bus stops and on the sides of buildings, but currently they only show generic adverts for a handful of products.
The new advertising hoardings will behave like those in the film Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise, in which Cruise's character is confronted with digital signs that call out his name as he walks through a futuristic shopping mall.
'John Anderton. You could use a Guinness right about now,' one billboard announces as he walks past.
IBM claims that its technology will help prevent consumers from being subjected to a barrage of irritating advertising because they will only be shown adverts for products that are relevant to them."
(Richard Gray, 01 August 2010, Science Correspondent for The Telegraph)
Fig.1 Uploaded by lucazambrelli on 9 Mar 2008
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
dOCUMENTA (13)
"dOCUMENTA (13) is dedicated to artistic research and forms of imagination that explore commitment, matter, things, embodiment, and active living in connection with, yet not subordinated to, theory. These are terrains where politics are inseparable from a sensual, energetic, and worldly alliance between current research in various scientific and artistic fields and other knowledges, both ancient and contemporary. dOCUMENTA (13) is driven by a holistic and non-logocentric vision that is skeptical of the persisting belief in economic growth. This vision is shared with, and recognizes, the shapes and practices of knowing of all the animate and inanimate makers of the world, including people. (C. Christov-Bakargiev)"
(dOCUMENTA)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
