Came back from Venice last night. Feels like I was there for a week, though it was only 3,5 days. That city is so amazing, incredible, unique... I'm in lack of words... You can expect a couple of posts the next few weeks about my mind-boggling experiences there. Meanwhile an appetizer can be seen HERE - the photos I've uploaded so far.
... and if you miss me or just get bored while I'm gone, don't despair, for here is a somewhere for you to explore in the meantime:
UbuWeb have wonderful things stashed for anyone to watch, hear, read and/or download. They have several categories, fx:
Film - you could for instance start with Un Chien Andalou by Bunuel, or this absurd german 80'ies reggae pop with Joseph Beuys. They recommend you download rather than watch online.
Sound, yes it's true, free mp3s, imagine - I find Giacomo Ballas stuff, fx. Discussione sul futurismo di due critici sudanesi, real funny. But there's also John Cage, Burroughs and lots more.
Ok, that should keep you occupied then. See you.
A sneak preview of the Travelcompanion™, that's all you gonna get for now and then I'm off to Venice, oh yes :) Pretty exited about going back there. And also to just be in Italy in general and all the benefits that comes with it... like the food... and the drinks... hehe... Gonna bring a few things back from there: 2.5 kg of sweet, sweet tomatos and a bottle of pure alchochol for making limoncello and snaps.
Wooohoooooooo....
Here's a quick one while working late and since I'm gonna be gone for a long, long weekend. Closing in (out) on a more urban scale:
Ellen Harvey have been out joining the fun on the graffiti-covered walls of New York - in the style of miniature classical landscape painting. She's placing them only on existing graffiti, calling it New York Beautification Project - which makes me wonder if she is one of those rare and elusive reactionary activists.
For people who might come by New York, or already be there, she's even mapped them. So there's a chance to get some fresh air.
And now I'll be off to sweet dreams with a good conscience since, going to and from this post, I managed to finish the first prototype of my "travel companion" - yippiyahu. Pictures can be expected later.
This link will take you to some of the most beautiful animations I've seen on the net. Mixing real film and computer animation they display a world of very intriguing lifeforms - thus fitting nicely with todays theme :)
Click "projects". I think my favorite is the top one -"sixes last" - but they're all good.
via Blue Tea
Lately I've been looking into an old facination of mine: Bodies. It's time for me to make a new one. A travelling companion whom I can bring along on walks through the city. So, today I have to very nice, and rather different, examples of bodies for you:
Firstly Patricia Piccinini who makes rather disturbing sculptures of some of the creatures she imagines genetic technology will bring us, some time in the bright future.
Secondly: Cloaca by Wim Delvoye - a mechanical version of the human digestive system. Well, it does probably lack some of the original finesse - like getting energy out of the food. But the end result is supposedly exactly the same. Shit.
Bon appetit :)
Sweet Dubi send me this:
"In the morning paper, I can read the weather report as well as the stock quotes. But when I look out of my window I only get a weather update and no stock exchange info. Could someone please fix this bug in my environmental system? Thanks."
DATAFOUNTAIN
Goodmorning everyone. I'm a big fan of google and all their innovative side projects, gmail, google earth and -maps, blogger, etc... Yesterday there were even rumours that they are to release a Google Office today and thereby start the battle with Microsoft for real.
As much as I love Google I can easily see certain problematic sides of fx personalized advertisements and their general allknowingness. Some people actually do an effort to stay out of Googles search engines - the socalled unGoogleables.
But to really get your paranoia running today I suggest you watch this nice little film: epic 2014, 8 minutes long and rather interesting.
Dave Mckean is one of my absolutely favorite comicbook artist. He's been doing short movies for many years, which I have only seen stillpictures of. But now his first feature film is coming up, Mirror Mask, written in collaboration with Neil Gaiman and produced on a low budget with a small crew of 15 freshly graduated animators. Damn I hop this will come to Denmark. Otherwise I'll simply have to get the dvd. By the looks of it I'm already drooling with expectation.
On a sidenote - I'll be going sailing this weekend. Going with my dad from Vedbæk, near Copenhagen to Als in southern Jutland. That'll add up to about 30 hours of sailing in relatively cold and rainy weather. I'll bring my camera, so expect to see amazing photos of real men taking their turns with mother nature. Coming up next week :)
Utopian ideas should always fill one with deep suspicion. A clear vision obscures other possibilities. In the essay I found today, Jeremy Adam Smith brings to attention the violence inherent in any utopia. Very literally exemplified in his description of the book "Utopia" by Thomas More:
"The violence of More's historical period is never far from the surface of More's island Utopia, where a single act of adultery is punishable by slavery and serial adulterers are punished with death. If More's narrator had looked past the happy smiling faces of Utopia, what fear and violence might he have seen?"
"The Ten Stupidest Utopias" is a very interesting little essay, going from Platos "Republic", over Elisabeth Nietzches Nueva Germania, Le Corbusiers Radiant City, Constants New Babylon, ending with the internet. Read, read.
Today I've really dug up something for for the young readers who hunger for action, blood and nude people. The visible human project has it all.
Very basically they've taken a (nude) dead body, frozen it and cut it in very, very thin slices. Finally all the slices have been scanned, opening up numerous new possibilities for visualizing the human body. For instance this movie.
For more pictures from the project there's the facinating site with the interesting full name "Introduction to Introduction to Cross-Sectional Anatomy" from Harvard University.
And have a nice day : )
The intriguing mrs. Suzanne of Wurzeltod has recently posted a lovely collection of links to little bizarre movies. And I'm not gonna cheat you of those.
Here's my favorites amongst them:
Strindberg & Helium - 4 episodes about the famous Swedish writer and his lesser known friend - Helium the pink balloon.
The Hole - A very pro animation about what can happen if you eat to many little coloured pills. I think.
The Cat With Hands - woohoooo, clasically scaaary...
Enjoy.
I found a real piece of online quality: an online gallery of princeton universitys Collection of deathmasks. Strange to look into these tired, bony faces. Frozen moments - not of living body, but of a dead and decaying one. And even though they are casts of empty shells they seem to convey so much emotion, having caught the charaters in a most intimate situation - their own deathbed.
The deathmask of Jonathan Swift
Also highly useful is the Web Gallery of Art which I refound looking for this particular picture: The Death of Marat by David. I always liked it very much.
And here is his actual deathmask.
And have a merry sunday.
A nice essay about Japan, formalism the concept of ostranenie, estrangement - as described in this post. Makes the familiar unfamiliar, to prolong the process of perception and is thus a tool to take posession of the place/space in new ways.
Here it is: "Cute Formalism"
Here's a little treat for you - the music video for the song "Jed's Other Poem
(Beautiful Ground)" by the band Granddaddy.
"So, what's so special 'bout this video" you ask yourself. Well, I'll tell you: It's programmed in Applesoft II on a 1979 Apple ][+ with 48K of RAM. Pretty cool, eh. And apart from that it's a pretty nice song and a real nice video...
"Jeddy-3 the humanoid was assembled in the kitchen out of spare parts. Before Jed's system died he wrote poetry. This is one of his poems."
Enjoy
As I've told about before the overlying theme of the projects this year is the city seen as duration (over time) rather than as a geographical area. This made me think about a book called "urban songlines", I strongly recommend the first chapter to all Danish Speakers, which in turn made me read "The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin - one of the best books I've ever read. It's about the nomadic nature of man in general and the way the australian aborigines map the land in particular.
The land is sung. First time by the ancestors, who created the songs and the land by walking through it. Before it was sung it did not exist. Unsung land is dead land. And as the songs describe routs, criss-crossing the entire continent, land is not experienced as twodimensional area. It is seen as a web. Words for "land" are the same as the words for "line".
Inspired by this I went on my own little walkabout through Copenhagen last thursday. Starting 16.30 I travelled through the city and suburbs untill 8 next morning, getting 2,5 hours of sleep in a hidden corner of the harbour late at night. The criteria for my route was my own curiosity, moving away from boredom and towards places unknown.
To register the trip I brought a notebook and some small plates of wax to make prints of places where my own ephemeral being in the space at the time had been significant in some way. I specifically did not bring a camera - to maintain the images and memories only in my mind, helped by the wax prints.
T hese photos of the wax, was taken while they were placed on a light table. See the rest HERE. I'm gonna put some more as soon as I have photoshop reinstalled. Also of the casts I'm making from them now... so, stay tuned.
I've learned a wonderful term today - ostranenie. It's russian. Translated to english it becomes estranging and Danish (very funny translation) it's underliggørelse (more like weirdning, lol).
"This Russian term of literary analysis refers to the experience of having the familiar and commonplace made strange or alien. Such a process of estranging those experiences which are ordinarily taken for granted, challenges the perceiver to re-engage their significance and perhaps discover new or unexpected meanings."
This term will include a lot of the art, film and books that I find most interesting and entertaining - Duchamp, Jeunet (Delicatessen, Amelie...), Vonnegut and Kafka... A fascination I've untill now explained, calling it "reality with a twist".
This ostranenie-thing seem to be a very powerfull tool for any kind of artistic practice.
"One of the interesting corollaries of Shklovskii's idea is that of the invisibility of the commonplace: "they do not appear in cognition." Familiarity breeds a particular form of contempt in his mind. It is the contempt of not seeing ... Common perception, it might be inferred, is a kind of blindness. It is the poet's or the artist's role to open eyes."
So, it has everything to do with perception and memory - mmmm... iiinterresting...
Read all about it
Here's a fast little update, just 'cause I'm sort of in a hurry but have a bad conscience for not updating for several days ;)
The site of the day contains images from 2 photoalbums bought at a fleamarket in Beijing. "The albums are amazing artifacts of a time and place that most Westerners have no connection to". Old pictures are always nice, but these offer an inside view of the cultural revolution - a rather terrible point in history, where Mao did what he could to erase all traces of knowledge from the past, history and traditions. Quite interesting to get a different view of this if you ask me.
Scrapbook of the Revolution
from money not art
During a little bit of project-relevant research on the net i have I've come across a very nice place on the net, from which you will now all benefit. It is "THE SCHØYEN COLLECTION, a checklist of 650 manuscripts spanning 5000 years" - infact it spans much further.
Below you see the item that led me there. If it indeed is a map, it is quite possibly the oldest in the world. It is a so called cylcon, depicting river Darling with tributaries Warrego and Culgao, New South Wales, Australia, 20,000-3000 BC.
The collection has pictures of such categories as: History, Weights & Measures, Architecture And lets not forget Middle Scots Languages.
Link can from now be found in the fancy and rapidly expanding links section to your left (filed under "image banks & other libraries".
Ok - I've just been reading some Deleuze (& Guattari, but who cares about him). Not that I haven't tried it before, but I just thought I'd give it a little go, since it was sweet Dubi who'd put out a link and it was an interesting subject. But, and I know, based on earlier experience, I should have known, what load of complete bullshit!
"The appearance of a central power is thus a function of a threshold or degree beyond which what is conjured away ceases to be so and arrives." - what is this, don't he know grammer, are they on acid... numerous questions like that pops up... and this was even just the 2. sentence..
"Both the melodic line of the towns and the harmonic cross-sections of the States are necessary to effect the striation of space." - mhmm, ok... Just a few questions to clarify here, fx: Why are towns melodic and states harmonic. What on earth is "striation" supposed to mean. Is he stoned...
All in all - what a load of French bellybuttonpicking academic masturbation....whhheeeeuuw (sorry 'bout that).
As my brothers professor so wisely said:"Read it and if you don't understand it, read it again. If you still don't understand, read it one more time. And if you still don't understand - then it's probably because it's incomprehensible" - Oh yes, smart guy good old Niels Viggo Steensgaard.
Here's just a fast little goodnight-link for the faith readers who return again and again in the hope something new has shown up.... well, tonight you are lucky:
Flowcharts & Diagrams (now, if that doesn't sound entertaining...)
Goodnight
First real day of school yesterday, one new teacher, quite a few new classmates and a new project. So far it all looks really promising.
Taken from this years program of the XAP studio:
"We are ... no longer tied to the same geographical locality. Private cars and efficient public transport makes it possible that we no longer have our home, our work and spend our free time in the same place (same city). The city as a phenomenon as well as the hierachical division between city suburb and landscape is being dissolved and replaced by an urbanity who's range is measured and defined by the radius of action of the individual.
...
The general discussion of the year is the connection between and the consequence of an architecture and urbanity understood as a duration over time rather than a physical/geographical extent"
So, we're gonna deal with the exiting fact that historical city centres are loosing importance as people has become more mobile. The city is no longer the large village it used to be, where you lived and worked in the same neighbourhood as your friends and family.
Rather than defining oneself through a geographical area, you create and constantly evolve a web of particular places, physical and virtual, and the routes and connections between them. Thus time comes into play - time from place to place, time of day when you go where, to work, on the net, time of year...
I'm really looking forward to work with time, a really difficult subject imho, and very relevant. If any of you dear readers have some suggestions for litterature or websites that might be interesting in this context, please don't hesitate to put them in a comment.
One of the new sections in the sidebar I've called "image banks & other libraries". This is where I'm gonna put links to digitized litterature and other texts. And images in high resolution.
The latest link I've added will take you directly to "a collection of 30,000 digitized images from books, magazines and newspapers as well as original photographs, prints and postcards, mostly created before 1923" - oh yeah. I found it at wurzeltod, where the intriguing miss Suzanne recides. It is the New York Public Library Online Picture Collection.
And as a special extra bonus, only today, I will, ruthlessly handpicked from Suzanne most recent update, pass this on to you: Japanese Girls
On a study tour 3 years ago to L.A. one of the most both interesting and fun places we went to was the Museum of Jurassic Technology. A wonderfully eccentric and eclectic institution with the most amazing things on display. Most of their exibitions would be filed under the term "lie", but, as so many things in this world, some of the most outrageous claims are in fact true. A truly mindprovocing museum, an exhibition of parallel realities... some of them even real.
So, ladiiiies and gentlemen... Museum of Jurassic Technology (whatever "jurassic technology" is supposed to mean!?).
Photograph copyright Shaun O'Boyle
As returning visitors should allready have noticed I have been fiddling around a bit to improve YOUR blog experience. And attract more young readers.
The changes, in the sidebar, includes, from the top:
°To increase the general feeling of drama on the blog "Previous Posts" is now called "Recent Headlines" .
°Even more action, pictures, things that move - a flickr-badge, giving glimpses and fast, direct acces to my fotos there.
°Finally for the more mature reader, the long ago promised and equally long awaited new improved links section(s). Yes, we have now no less than 4 (four) different categories of links. These will be changed tweaked and expanded in the future to greatly enhance adam in the world as your main portal to the world wide web. Now, go explore.
More info might follow later.
Comments and advice, as well as suggestions for links, will be very happily received.
Goodverysundaymorning and puha what a party yesterday... meaning this is the most sunday I've felt in a long time.
And what is a nicer activity on a sunday than watching movies... luckily for us the good people over at money not art have found some really nice ones for us. The wonderful micro films of Akinori Oishi. They are so nice I wanna do some myself. Simple and yet very intriguing and quite surrealistic. And funny. Really inspiring.
So, lean back, drink coke with ice, and enjoy todays feature: Linky linky.
This is one of the projects that was made during our "curious suitcase incident" workshop at easa two weeks back. The Amazing Butter Experience was made by one of our most hardworking and talented participants, Kaspars Endols of Latvia. One of the few to really understand what we were talking about. Especially the part about experimenting rather than just illustrating preconcieved ideas. Experiment can be a very frustrating working method for an architect - to work on something without having a clear idea of the end result. But this way can really open up the world for you and take you beyond your own imagination.
After 8 days of hardcore experiments with butter Kaspars had created beautifull pictures and short animations discussing the ephemeral nature of memories in a very poetic way and creating wonderful colors, shapes, structures and textures as he went along. And a bit of smoke too.
See more of the pics HERE
Today I've been up a bit earlier than usual, spending the time looking through and editing the absurd amount of pictures and other stuff produced during our workshop at easa.
While doing this I'm miraculously also able to squeeze in a bit of web surfing, and guess what I found over at money-not-art!! An architectural blog, woohooo.... it looks really nice. So here's the link of the day:
A Daily Dose of Architecture
Enjoy...
Here I am, back and fresh from a long summer pause, ready to start blogging again. So let's see how it goes.
Lots have happened since my last post - and first af all I think I owe old readers to tell that my girlfriend passed and is now a real architect. She even got a job. And she's even still my girlfriend, hehe. And I even managed to finish mu own (not final) project.
The past two weeks I've spend at EASA - 450 students of arch. from 35-40 european (+ a few other) countries, gathered in Bergün in the swiss alps. Oh jeez, it gets cold up in them mountains when the sun goes down. Well, at least we got out of there before all the roads and bridges started to get rained away. And the workshop the Curious Suitcase Incident, was quite a succes. 14 participants from 11 countries generating around 3 Gb (have no idea how and what, got a lt of seeing through and editing to do) digital material in 8,5 days.
Read all about it in "THE FOLLOWING POSTS" where I'll return with lots of pics, links and stuff to read - this was just me sort of sneaking unnoticed back in through the back door.
love
A
Since I'm stuck, working like crazy on my girlfriends final project, due friday - there'll be NO UPDATES untill saturday....
We have just reached the point where prayers might come in handy, so if there's any believers reading this, please include us in yours ... for atheists - if you could just cross your fingers it would be much appreciated.
Thank you
It's my brothers birthday today, imagine - 26, not bad for a little boy his age...
TILLYKKE Frede, hip hip hurra for dig. Weather is not to bad today and although you coul've done better, you've generally been a good boy this past year of yours :D
That's him - ain't he pretty....
You can all congratulate him now ...
Have you seen - I got some new linkfish... they swim and swim. I think I'll still have to change them a bit, but who knows when I'll get around to that. So, why are they there, you ask yourself. Well, to be honest - that's what the young people want. Action. As a blogger one simply has to stay on the beat at all times... Furthermore - it's because I'm planning a new improved and enlarged links-section... but, who knows when I'll... in few days, okay...
If there's anybody whos idea of a good party includes a bottle of slivovitza in one hand and some very loud crazy balkan gipsy music in the other hand and a bunch of very drunk Croatian girls jumping around - THEN I strongly suggest this New Yorker "gipsy punk" band Gogol Bordello ... I saw them quite a few years ago on the Roskilde festival and, surprise, surprise it was an awesome concert...
They have some tracks available for FREE downloading HERE... mp3
And they have some tracks available for listening (and download if you know how) HERE and HERE. I especially recommend "Passport" and "A Bordello Kind Of Guy"
I think we need a picture...click to enlarge
This is a facade of Kowloon Walled city in Hong Kong, 35.000 people living on 100x200 m. Demolished ten years ago. Amazing place. LINK
Two years back or so, I bumped in to the term "Transhuman" for the first time, it happened at the site of Natasha Vita More (that name, lol) Here's a quote from her site that sums up what it's all about:
"Consider a body that features:
A Sensorial Mix
Assured Performance
Motion in Concert with Physique
Seamless Fusion of Body and Technology
Equilibrium of Logic and Passion
— It's the choice of a future generation."
Even though these transhumanists believe in things like aliens, people returning from the future (there ARE several known examples) and cryonic life extension, they are full of good ideas, and intriguing thoughts about possible futures. And they are not without humor "I have a deep nostalgia for the future." - FM-2030 (again, what a name)
The reason I thought of it now, is that I just came across a quite interesting article about a guy who got a magnetic piercing in his finger - giving him the ability to "sense" electromagnetic fields! LINK
My secret plan is already working... I've had 11 visitors coming through the blogger bar since my last post, in these very moments I'm experiencing a veritable flood of visitors and you, my dear reader is one of them.
WELCOME :)
You might wonder why you got here when you clicked "next blog" - if you read the previous post you'll know. Hahaa - I'm a genious.... it's all about frequency....
udate: and it goes on and on, I belive we can now safely talk about a tsunami of visitors. They're coming from India, Spain, Singapore, U.S of A, Japan, England....
Ok everybody - I have a secret plan, so, shhhhh... ;)
Two times since I installed statcounter I've noticed a massive wave of visitors coming from the blogger-bar (the one at the top of the page with a button saying "next page")... and It seem to have happened when I've posted three times in one day... so, this was post number two... later I'll update again, and then we'll see, hehe... don't tell anyone.
Today we're just gonna have fun.... Nooo highbrowed pseudo intelligent artyfarty stuff. No, no. Just a few nice advertisements that involves ROBOTS!
Paper
Citroën boogie
Citroën boogie part II
and finally - this is not an ad. This is just a refurbished cooper mini, wooow, believe it or not hehe... LINK
We got a very positive email from the EASA-organizers the other day regarding our workshop, so I'm more than optimistic. I will however not reveal anything about the project yet, though I know you're all just about to burst with exitement.
For now you'll simply have to do with a couple of projects that we've come to have some similarities with, in the sense that we're also gonna be two Danes wearing suits and bringing some luggage, containing alternative realities, with us.
Danish artists Nielsen and Rasmussen decides shortly after the american invasion, to bring democracy to Iraq.
"...Nielsen & Rasmussen decides to transform The Democracy to a smaller, portable aluminium flight container, thereby adapting the utopian, universal space of The Democracy to the conditions of the particular."
This is not just a mocking satire - it is carried by a sensere concern and it brings them in contact with people, discussions and events. All very relevant and interesting. LINK
The ID-sniper rifle designed by Jakob S. Boeskov, is cabable of shooting a microchip, tracable by sattelite, into fx people at a demonstrotion. As a representative of fictive weapons company Empire North, he went to the Cina Police 2002 weapons exhibition in beijing. Bringing along just a suit and some renderings - the only place the rifle actually existed. LINK
"Danes fo Bush", also by Jakob S. Boeskov and Mads Cortzen, is a bit more light hearted. They went on a tour through the U.S. during the elction campaign - pretending to represent the organisation "Danes fo Bush". Although basically just a satirical hoax, this really got peoples emotions running wild. LINK
What they all have in common, also with our workshop, on a more interesting level, is the method - by putting on suits and carrying certain props, they build up an alternative reality around them, through which they can explore and interfere with "the game" from within.
This weekend I have been busy, together with Mikkel, finishing our proposal for a workshop, which will, hopefully, take place at EASA - European Architecture Student Assembly - this summer in Bergün in Schwitzerland. It will be called:
The Curious Suitcase Incident
- realities in transition
The work will be based on the contents of three suitcases. This the participants must use to construct three narratives and from these, three spacial models. More about this later when/if it has been accepted by the organizers.
In the meantime you can enjoy this site, The Tulse Luper Suitcases, a project by Peter Greenaway, which Mikkel came across while researching. This is also about constructing realities from suitcase contents (he bloody stole our idea). Note that soundtrack and pictures on the frontpage is changes everytime you open it.
ATTENTION ... The traditional spring competition is running at full steam, BUT you still have time to participate. There has been some confusion as to what the competition actually was. It's very simple - just give a short explanation of THIS diagram and post it in the comments HERE.
Since it's a traditional spring competition the deadline for answering is: when summer begins (here in Denmark, so you have some time yet).
Happy explaining.
I think it's about time I advertise this relly nice, eccentric and eclectic arty farty site - wurzeltod.ch, homepage of the adorable Suzanne... lots of good stuff to see, read and be passed on to there. And it's even got it's own forum of psychic blah - good source for interesting and funny stuff on the web and in the outer world... I strongly recommend it :)
Of special interst to all easians I should mention that the forums also include the section swiss myths.
Were you also dissapointed that the papal election were done with so fast - mere two days gathering of the conclave before the black smoke miraculously turned white... yes, I could have wished that bunch of elderly magicians be locked up in a room for longer. And who did they choose then? None other than the chief of the noble institution which untill 1910 had been known by the name of the inquisition!
So why did they choose such a reactionary as the panzer cardinal. Well, he was apparently a compromise. He satisfied the conservative hardliners of the church by being an immensely conservative hardliner himself. And the more liberal can live with him too because at 78 he can not be expected to hang around for too many years. What excellent qualifications.
To entertain you in the meantime here is a really well made russian flash site: Conclave Obscurum with lots of very nice little movies... hope you can find your way around there...
As my mother allways says when moments of unrecognized genious hits her: "we're sourrounded by idiots". And while that is true, there are different degrees of idiocy. From plain dumb (which will apply to any of us now and then ) to scaringly mindless and ignorant...
To the second group I will include all the young men and women with more hair than brains, namely neo nazis. But as we all know nothing comes out of nothing, except the fluffy stuff we find in our bellybuttons, and nazis too were once neglected children who peed in bed and had wellmeaning but brutal parents. As they grow up they find themselves in a confusing world, members of just one minority group amongst thousands, all with special needs and problems integrating with regular society - as this informative video tells us!
I posted some back in november . But now I've uploaded more and in high resolution. Of my crossbreed project...
So here you have a direct link to the slideshow on my flickr account.
Here comes your daily link from us.... a real nice music video. The talented young artist is Emelie Simon (never heard of her), the song is "Floweres" and the animations are very very nice - a weird and scary version of "Nightmare Before Christmas".
CLICK HERE
Ladies and Gentlemen, we present to you, for the first time on adamintheworld.blogspot.com - theeeeee FISH DI-A-GRRAAAAAAAaaamm, or in same words - fish diagram
Which will form the basis of the traditional spring competition with big, priceless and amazing prizes - if somebody please could explain me what it's all about. And please keep it short.
You can now explain in the comments section....thank you
Edit: Woooo ... it contains references to Fucoult! hadn't seen that, I thought it was something religious...oh well
"New analysis of a famously cryptic medieval document suggests that it contains nothing but gibberish"
Through the forums at this wonderful site I came across an article about a mysterious medieval cipher manuscript. I've taken the liberty to rewrite the beginning to give you a general idea of the problems and interests at hand:
"In 1912 Wilfrid Voynich made the find of a lifetime: a manuscript some 230 pages long, written in an unusual script and richly illustrated with bizarre images of plants, heavenly spheres and bathing women. Voynich immediately recognized its importance.
During the 1600s, at least two scholars tried to decipher the manuscript, and then it disappeared for nearly 250 years until Voynich unearthed it.
But despite 90 years of effort by some of the world's best code breakers, no one has been able to decipher the script.
The failure of the code-breaking attempts has raised the suspicion that there may not be any message at all, and the manuscript may simply be an elaborate hoax."
I find this both entertaining and interesting. Particularly the conclusion: That the reason we have not cracked the code is because it does not exist - AHAa!! Brilliant. It might even be right.
Also this part is brilliant:
"Most people who have studied it agreed that the text was too complex to be a hoax. I found, however, that this assessment was based on opinion rather than firm evidence. There is no body of expertise on how to mimic a long medieval ciphertext, because there are hardly any examples of such texts, let alone hoaxes of this genre."
From this I will conclude that the reading of medieval ciphertexts is a highly difficult matter to move about in. And quite amusing. Hours of fun. So, dear reader, there's just one thing to it - go explore...
Here's a little link to a real, vaskeægte, online sound installation, tadaaa, where you by playing with various letters can make music!!
And in contrast to other projects like this which I've tried - it actually sounds quite nice. And the flash animation looks quite nice to. So go get it...
Linkydinkylink
Here is an old project of mine that caused me many sorrows and never really came to a satisfying conclusion. But least I got some very nice pictures out of it... and the basic idea still holds a lot of potential...hmmm...
It was an idea of having a flexible/movable pictureplane. So while the viewpoint, the lense of the camera is fixed, you can still see the motif from different angles so to speak. And instead of having just the motif moving about, the movement and change over time is created by the pictureplane moving inside the camera. And caught in one still picture.
This is me with the camera working on site in New York. Those pictures didn't come out very well though. The picture you see here is from a studiosession working with a 1:50 model of the site, some very powerfull photolamps and a 1600 iso film.
For more pictures click HERE
Some might remember this post from november about the heap of abandoned toys I came across in Osijek in Croatia. Well, just uploaded some more pictures of that to my (brand new) flickr (pro) account, see the slideshow here.
(btw flickr just lowered the price for a pro account more : 2 Gb upload per month for 24$ a year - that's pretty cheap imo)
To celebrate the recent lack of succes for the Italian government - may it go far, far away and never come back - we bring you THIS, a song :)
And if you liked it here's two more with some friends of his: Gorgie & Tony and Jean-Marie. They're actually even better...
Brought to you by atmo.se/read my lipss
UPDATE: Wow, now he really resigned. Which means that he managed to tell the rest of the governmetn he would resign, then change his mind and then resigning anyway - in just a few days! That man sure's something special.
Here's an interesting and entertaining site Look at me - collection of photos people have found. From pretty much all over the world. A lot of them very old. It's somehow quite nice when you don't know anything about the background of these pictures - it leaves a lot for your own imagination so you tend to see them with different eyes.
In 2003 EASA was held near Kalø in the Danish countryside and Kasper, Mikkel and I had been Hijacked to tutor the Magic Village-workshop. We wanted to have "time" as an underlying theme in our task of making the campsite more "magical" and to introduce this to our participants we made this little installation in advance. An almost classical "still life", "nature morte" - a wonderfully selfcontradictory subject.
The decay is far from "still", though time takes it's toll differently on different matters. It was there for the 14 days EASA lasted, a nice little study in life and death, the passing of time and the longevity of some modern agricultural products and the opposite.
There's two weeks between these pictures. We'd wanted to keep and dry the tablecloth - as an auto-drawing, a recording of the EASA-time which had elapsed. Unfortunately it turned out to be so extremely discusting, especially as a result of the maggots which had eaten the chicken from within, that our hangovers the last day couldn't cope with it.
Also unfortunately - we weren't prepared for how difficult it was for our participants to understand the greatness of our idea. What a shame, but now we know that you can't leave anything to chance (allmost). But we liked it.
More photos can be found here.
Here's just a fast post for the evening... 99 Rooms is a beautifull world of empty industrial spaces inhabited by strange animated grafitti and scary soundeffects. You need to click on things to move on. Unfortunately it's impossible to get lost - there seem to be always just one way to proceed... but nice anyway... and German I think.
Very, very happy monday. Hope you've relaxed and enjoyed the weekend 'cause now it's over. And talking about the hustling and the bustling we've all got waiting this week - here's a fascinating link that should help you get stressed:
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AIR TRAFFIC OVER THE CONTINENTAL U.S.
I'll be right back
And now, here, Ladies and gentlemen, better late than never, finally - the results of the interesting christmas competition. Who could make the best translation of the Danish sentence "Glædelig jul Mikkel. Kom snart hjem, ik'. Tak for din juleanimationshilsen. Den er fantastisk". And here follows the correct translation:"Merry christmas Mikkel. Come home soon, right. Thanks for your christmas animation greeting. It's fantastic".
As all regular visitors to this blog will know there were 2 (two) people who participated, namely Alex "the German speaking Philipino Belgian" Bauer, and Libo "the Italian stallion" Cannici.....
The grand and impartial jury has taking it's time to consider and vote and has now come to a decision... And the winner iiiis - this calls for a fanfare: Tadadaaadadaaaaaaaaaaaa....
Here a picture of the Millington family - just to build up exitement.
ALEX BAUER - congratulations. the jury said "what an imagination"
AND as a close second, with a slightly more correct translation, BUT, he does live in the country, so...
LIBO CANNICI - congratulations to you too (and please stop double posting ;)
Both 1. and 2. will receive a unique egg, made by myself, and similar to the ones shown here. However, to be 100% fair, the material composition of the first prize egg will be more complex than the 2. prize.
Cheers to you both :D If you want to thank your parents or something you can do so in the comments. Readers may now congratulate winners also in the comments section.
Thank you for your participation. All winners will be contacted in the near future regarding delivery of your prizes.
Hurraaa for the winners
Francois Boucq - master of absurd surrealism in the art comics. Here you see his unlikely hero, lifeinsurance salesman Jerome Moucherot once again finding his way through the, potentially lethal, jungle that is modern society.
I've mentioned him before on this page, but the reason for bringing him up again is a couple of pictures of his, which I've come across... Some of them takes full use of one of the limitations of the internet - namely your screensize! Here they are:
pioneers
magician
people
and last but not least
elephant
wuhuuuu - an update, it happened :D
Once again back in business... this time with stuff from my project at school. I have cast around 25 of these as, mainly, thin shells, in different materials and compositions. My main interest with them, is their relation to the body. As you take one in your hand (they fit a hand well), you might be surprised by their light weight and become aware of their fragility (some are solid and robust though). As they all have the same form, variations in meaning are dependend on the materials they are composed of - soap, chocolate, lead, wool, wax... - and the tactile experiences and associations these might give you.
uJapan is an eternal source of wonder and amazement to me. It seem to be a parallel dimension and sometimes talking to a Japanese person I've felt I might as well have been talking to someone from mars - and I'm quite sure they've thought the same about me. I've had the same experience in china.
It's quite wonderful to know that the world is not just one homogenous, grey, westernized blur. That there are cultures so different from my own that can keep me confused and amused and load me with inspiration. Here's a link to a super nice set of photos, taken by some girl called Cherry Vega - she must be an artist with that name. So click the link and enjoy the strange street styles of tokyo.
Here's a quite interesting link - a glimpse into a strange world that apparently just goes on and on and on...or, rather, you zoom in and in and in... Have a look, it's nice.
Ok, ok, ok... here I am, back, again, the road to hell is paved with (unfulfilled) promises I guess... But now I'm here I'd like to draw your attention to a verry, verrry nice band MODER JORDS MASSIVA ("mother earths massive" for none scandinavian speakers). They are swedish. A big, loose, group of people, around 20, making cool kinda dancehall music. Singing and rapping in several languages... And with their own label "Flora & Fauna". So, remember to check out their mp3's on the site (upper right corner)...
(btw - the competition - decisions has been made and winners and prizes will (aaargh on my way to hell) will be announced shortly)
Oh yes, here it is, the long awaited grande finale of "ørestaden", the fiction. So, please, lean back and enjoy...
Tiny bubbles floated through the veins in the neck. The ear was pounding with an impossibly nervous rhythm that extended itself to the bottom of the throat. It took a turn against him and the body began to transform. A big bloody muscle was now appearing behind the furry surface. It continued the showing of the insides, involving bigger parts of body... A breathtaking hollowness planted itself in the lungs and a reflection of distant stars meet his eyes.
the wound from the razorblade has grown big again it must have
is it my watch lying in there?
do i wear cap today? i never wear cap my hair is so beautiful and my ass
is gone
please take the cap off please its so heavy it strangulates me please take it off
if i lie still there is no cap
it’s not a cap
I’m almost home
green why didn't i see it before two times now so fresh
the train has newer been so long will the sound never stop my head hurt please stop
i shouldn't lie here in the rain
lets go home
how stupid i am
those orange cushions so heavy forces down my body i cannot breathe
let me sleep yes hold me tight i'm so happy in your arms your big stomach heats my back
your wet breath in my face
my hair is so heavy
That was it. It's all over now. Hope you enjoyed reading. We sure enjoyed writing...
Yes, here I am... after completely neglecting my blog, and internet in general, all christmas I am now back on the track. So very, very happy new year to everyone who might wander by here, and let all your dreams come true...
I had a very super nice holiday and feel fresh and rejuvenated, the new and improved Adam, stronger than before, with more ram in my laptop and a brand new and fast internet connection at home. I even got up at 8 this morning!
Follow the site closely for updates will be coming up soon, including the fifth and final part of the exiting story "Ørestaden" ("Ear City") and the announcement of the winner of my christmas competetion (oooh, who will that be...).
C ya'll soon
love
Adam
Welcome to the fourth and almost final part the pentology "Ørestaden". So... dive in while the plot thickens:
He slowly drew a quarter of a circle with his gun, hoping this directed confrontation would leave a suffering sensation on his opponent’s hierarchic belonging to the depth of that nature it consisted of. The wrinkling of its nose told him that he wasn't carrying the proper importance of being included in it's perceived existence, though he was the commander of the landscape. Only he had the quality of sending death to every single part of it...
the wound doesn't seem so bad
there is no wound
just a little scratch from the shave
my hair is sticky
heavy on my ear
The feeling of his elbow disappeared. A cold breeze had found it's way beneath the collar, describing a perfect curve connecting his neck with the left arm. He couldn't move...
It's getting deeper. He is sweating. The black tower is far behind him. He could crawl all the way up if he wanted. There are children reaching only the waist of their teacher. Standing on the edge, they have wind in their hair. They can hear the sound of metal entering soil. He is working hard. Removing the thick mud he is standing on. She comes down the stairs, following the flow of people. A woman says something to her. She steps off the curbstone, placing her foot on the asphalt. He stops and breathes heavily.
Its dark deep sight panned against the flatness of the view, ruling him out of his attempt on establishing a religious juxtaposition of life and death.
dark salty taste in the back of my mouth
really cold suddenly so cold
it doesn’t matter i breath better now
looking forward to go home
the tobacco smell from my father
i'm almost sleeping
the cold reach my ass
the ground is hard small stones mixed with water
it satisfies my thirst
so good to lay down
my heavy hair reaches my eye
the wind is hot
i love animals
the tongue feels so good touching my face big and hot the smell of dog
my dog
no a little more no too much
it was a cat eye
it is the same feeling now
The panning was over. He gently moved his right hand out of the sleeve and began negotiating power again. He regained the feeling in his left elbow. A smaller tip of the wrinkled skin was feeling good between the thumb and the middle finger.
heavy breath behind the ear to the pillow
also the orange cushions in the canapé
gooooodnigt gooooodnight gooooodnight
not more now
and the brown wristwatch i had to change the strap it made me sick
the bed is to short now
the legs are out in the cold wet
the cat has taken them
The slow motion of the elevator moving down. Nobody can see him. Muffled sounds enter from the outside, can't hear him. He could scream. He watches the world slide up and is compressed when the elevator stops. Nobody's out there. For half a second he's almost weightless, then the sound takes over again.
To have access to it's pain. I'm just one of the creatures in nature who is not capable of implying deadly fear upon others.
That was it for now, but stay alert for the fifth and final chapter, coming up very soon...
And don't forget the exiting christmas competition. There have already been one (1) entry - which makes Alex look like a strong possible winner so far. It might be suitable to mention the winners prize at this point: It is homemade and potentially very dangerous in the wrong hands (and shipped world wide if necessary).
So join in, you still have chance untill.... christmas eve (the Danish one off course - december 24. ).
Ho, ho... today you should go see my friend Mikkels christmas-animation at Futnani Chambers. It's verrry nice and I think he means it... soo, click it.
He is so nice. Glædelig jul Mikkel. Kom snart hjem, ik'. Tak for din juleanimationshilsen. Den er fantastisk.
Christmas competition for anyone who doesn't speak Danish: The best translation of the above sentences, posted as a comment to this post. To prove that you didn't just use a dictionary, asked a Danish person or secretly speak Danish, you have also to explain why you translated as you did... the winner will get a surprising prize(so, if I don't know you please leave your e-mail).
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, here is chapter 3 of the innovative shortstory "Ørestaden":
A slight disturbance in the texture of the landscape appeared. Something had moved. A new character had introduced itself to his surroundings.
Sour soil fell from the antlers...
shit my ankle it hurts
it was a bad idea wearing these shoes
now it’s broken
its ridiculous
i just need cigarettes
here you are
feet is slippery against the smooth floor
the heat in here makes me remember my wound
i could ask him to lick it
i love my ass
it was hot
it is cold under my knees
His boots left heavy traces in the mud. He thought of the shift of perception. Wasn't he in fact the one who made the disturbances in the area. He was the intruder in this huge scenery being the located one...
Now his boots began to consume the environment, slowly the cold water was trapped inside a narrow space, gasping, reaching for the right moment to collaborate. Maybe the fireplace would be the perfect background for his socks. It made him think of how his body would align with nature...
There are shovels hanging from the ceiling. Many. All kinds. The man watches him. He is walking slowly around, looking up. His gaze disappearing in the dark between the handles. "Can I help you". Some of the shovels turn slowly around their own axis. "Yes". He is still looking up. "I need a shovel". Behind the man a shelf is filled with little boxes. They are all full. He pays and leaves, down two steps. His feet are wet. Out of the alley, onto the square.
The glimpse of an eye took his view away from its muscles. Now he was in the position of navigating with fear. He took three firm steps forward showing his domination, but regretted immediately after. It responded with a gesture that stated an awareness of the situation, but at the same time made the decision of ignoring it.
Was he in the position of taking over the power? Was there a response to every action he would take from now? He took another three steps. Nothing happened. Its position in the deep snow had tied it to the vast landscape.
get out home
stupid to wear dress after fall
can they smell it
i should have shaved
where shall i go
i should visit my mother
i hate her
no
So there it was. The real face of nature. Was it through the eyes of this creature the true master would reveal? The actual boundaries.
Where the culture ends the nature begins. And in this nature our hands cannot reach.
To be continued...
Here comes the second chapter in our exciting sequel about love, life and death. In case you didn't read chapter 1, just scroll down. But now, let's hear it for.... chapter 2:
It's getting deeper. He is sweating. The black tower is far behind him. He could crawl all the way up if he wanted. There are children reaching only the waist of their teacher. Standing on the edge, they have wind in their hair. They can hear the sound of metal entering soil. He is working hard. Removing the thick mud he is standing on. She comes down the stairs, following the flow of people. A woman says something to her. She steps off the curbstone, placing her foot on the asphalt. He stops and breathes heavily.
The wind changed its direction and the smell of Sweden came to his nose and aroused a distant feeling of a melancholy sea view. A firm grip dug deeper into his item and the sensation of locating the unseen made him think of the breasts of his childhood dentist. He moved on into the group of trees and lowered his body creating a transformation to the next level of hunting activity.
the breasts are hard in this cold
it is cold
the wound has grown bigger it seems
it was just a little scratch from razorblade
last month
my finger fits in now
it feels good now scratching it
i like the wound
i like my ass
i smell heavy earth
He is walking across the square. Two cats playing in his flat. At the center of the square, in between all the people, a little girl comes up to him. "Where are you going". "Out". "Out, where", a woman bumps in to him. She is hurrying, running towards the station. Disappearing up the escalators. He answers the girl.
"You didn't go down with the elevator. When you came up, you were smiling and the sun came sharply through the window. And it fell on your face. You were looking out and I saw you on a background of the city
with all the bridges and the power plant in the distance. In the cold, crisp air the smoke from the chimneys became thick and soft and white as snow. We went through the opening under the tracks, letting the world unfold in front of us as we took the last steps. You moved through the crowd in your own fast pace. Let your mind get lost in the landscape of the city. We got something to eat in a little cheap place. Thai or Norwegian. And we sat on a café drinking something hot, with bicycles swarming around us. Then we took the metro and got off at the harbor, that day the water was almost green. We walked past the old ships lying there and a boy tried to sell me some of that Indian plastic crap. The wind got stronger. You were getting cold and wanted to go home. So we went home. And you were still smiling."
...has a slight sense of meaning begun to take shape yet? Well, maybe it's not even there to be found. Comments are happily received. And more thrilling action is soon to follow...
The past week I've been doing a workshop, we had to write texts, preferably fiction. But that was not all we did. Oh no. We also went out to Ørestaden, late night. And we took some damn nice pictures there that I've been trying to upload like a crazy. But it friggin keeps not working... SO, instead you're gonna get the exciting little piece of text Kasper, Jens and I have written. We had a lot of fun. Ladies and Gentlemen, we give to you... "ØRESTADEN", chapter 1:
When it's raining in the summer, the square is covered in colored umbrellas. All colors and patterns. From the window it doesn't look like anything else. It's raining so much that the square is completely empty. The girls are standing in the doorways showing only their legs. It will be over soon.
cigarettes down at the corner
its cold out there
the banister
the forefinger fits under
fresh air
back leg aching
stairs go down must be there soon
mulvad jensen
it’s no longer fall
A group of naked young elms appeared through an exaggerated clear air and a rather extensive gust of wind had sneaked between the trees and now hit his pores with suffercating frost particles. He drove them out through his mouth.
stupid to wear white high heels
but feels good against the legs
is soon back
the wound under my arm is itching
i feel cheap i hate it
a new advertisement for apples has appeared its strong green light hurts in the eyes makes somehow the wound tickle in an other way
it feels soft
it is wet out here
The bottle-green trousers suited him well, as they fell in long soft folds. The shoelaces were precisely pressing the leather against his ankle so that it both could breath and got the compressed heat the skin has when it gets in contact with a larger area of furry material.
this shit wind
always the same
i don’t remember when my fingers didn’t stink of imitated leather
this red skin at the root of my thumb
it taste bitter
good
hooray
i am so happy
i feel good with my ass in this dress
cigarettes fit me
chapter 2 will follow very soon - that's a promise, not a threat, it's written and ready,so better come back soon...
"Dr. Bob" "I feel a pain" "a pain" "where" "in... my chest" "and, and lower back" "well, you probably better come up and see me right away then" "oh, Dr. Bob".
She'd been waiting for this day for days. Picturing herself in the strong tanned arms of dr. Bob. Imagining his smile reflecting in her eyes. Impatiently awaiting him grabbing her by the neck and pulling her head back. And up, violently pressing her lips against his. Her piercing against his shiny white teeth. She loved him. Of all her hart and all her soul, and every inch of her body. He smiled at her and it reflected in her eyes. A deep, satisfied sigh escaped her, as she whispered his name to herself. While she rang the doorbell her thoughts kept circling around him.
Came across this nice project the other day. They have supplied a number of people in Amsterdam with little GPS transmitters and tracked their movements in the city over a 2 month period. In this way they draw a living, constantly changing, map of the city. Not showing where people could go, or where there's an important historical landmark. Only where people actually are going, or has been, where they spend their time...
I like comics a lot. Mostly European comics, though. I prefer the European style. Not particularly for the drawings, but for the stories. From fantasy and sci-fi to spy and gangster thrillers, epic stories in historic settings or social realism from the present day... Naturalistic or surreal. Some of my favorite artists are Moebious, Boucq, Bilal, McKean and Schuiten/Peeters. The endless numbers of muscular superheroes that comes out of the states is not very interesting to me, although stories like "Sandman" and "Sin City" has pulled up the average quite a bit...
Anyways, yesterday I came across a super site - GLOBAL COMIC JAM - where artist from all over the world work together on stories, drawing one or two pages each before the next takes over. The ones I've read so far have been awesome, so please have a look. There's days of entertainment on that site...days, i tell you...
I've spend the past few days covering fruits and vegetables in plaster and latex - and then crushing them with my hands. "Why the fuck...?" you might ask, and to be honest, I'm not really sure... or rather - I'm not really sure what will come out of it. But I do have some idea why I'm doing it.
I'm interested in the sensation you get when you touch some thing. Is it soft or hard. How much force do you need to apply to crush it.
But more subtle than that. The feeling of holding something round and cold in your hand. Hard. How hard? You start squeezing. Very hard. The sensation of it beginning to crackle, the surface' shift in texture as it breaks. The objects shift from hard to soft as the fruit inside start to smash. The sensation of the crushed plaster bits and pieces mixed with smashed fruit and juice, inside the latex skin that that has still not broken. With the tip of your fingers you penetrate the latex and feel the wet, sticky inside...
It's like the delight of popping the air bubbles from those envelopes. Or the surprising and weird feeling of candyfloss in your mouth.
I try to use materials that are very different. Organic things like apples, tomatoes and mandarins, put together with mineral plaster and the completely synthetic latex. Materials you wouldn't expect to be together. That doesn't really fit together, so they create some kind of tension between them.
And I'm interested in the similarity to a body. It's soft and hard. It's got skin and hidden internal "organs". And perhaps even some kind of character...
We'll see what happens.
