Metahaven, 'Signal (Murcia)', installation, 2010. (posted on 13/7/12)

Metahaven, 'Signal Murcia', installation at the former Post Office, Murcia
(ACAF), Manifesta 8, 2010. Original photo by Ilya Rabinovich. Print screen.

Metahaven is a studio ''for design and research'' based in Amsterdam. Founded in 2007 by Vinca Kruk and Daniel van der Velden, their work -both commissioned and self-directed- focuses on identity while reflecting political and social issues through its provocative graphic design schemes. Amongst the studio's research projects are the Sealand Identity Project as well as the celebrated Uncorporate Identity (Lars Müller, 2010), a self-initiated book on politics and visual identity.

In 2010, Metahaven were invited to participate in Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain. Perhaps, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the concept that Metahaven came up with for their Manifesta project we should take into consideration that Murcia is a very important region for the European fruit and vegetable market. Having said that though, some of the production -eg. lemons- has moved to Northern Africa or even to other places outside Europe. The issue of Manifesta 8 was suggestively titled to be “in dialogue with Northern Africa.”

Through an interview taken by the Highlights, an online art journal, Metahaven observe that ''... fruit has an origin. From that origin it travels in a network, between nodes of distribution, until it ends up at the place where it is eaten.''[1] The designers came up with a fruit-market installation -with fresh fruit provided by a cooperative of organic farmers who run a self-managed business, exporting throughout Spain and to some other European countries.  As a project, Signal (Murcia) is considered to be an alternative labeling system for the fruits; one that is based less on the characteristics of the product but more on the sociopolitical situation of the place they have been produced at. Through the same interview, Metahaven pointed out that they ''.. love fruit labels as devices that contain information, ideas, and dreams... Unlike packaging, fruit labels do not overshadow the product. Often, all they do is convey the origin or name of the fruit, as well as a certain atmosphere... ''.[2]

To sum up, Kruk and van der Velden ''.. are interested to voluntarily approach the constraints of commissioned design, while operating in an art context...''.[3] And I suppose that by now, the seemingly weird title  -Signal (Murcia)- just started to make some sense. 

Metahaven, 'Signal Murcia', installation at the former Post Office, Murcia
(ACAF), Manifesta 8, 2010. Original photo by Ilya Rabinovich. Print screen.

Notes:
1, 2, 3. The Highlights.org ‘Interview with Metahaven’
< http://thehighlights.org/wp/interview-with-metahaven> [Accessed on 25.07.12]


Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
July 12

Jens Brockmeier on the narrative fabric of autobiographical memory; the elective affinity of film and memory (posted on 22/2/12)

Orson Welles, print screen from Wikipedia.

Jens Brockmeier is a Senior Scientist based at the Free University Berlin, with a background in psychology and philosophy. He also is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Manitoba, a Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Innsbruck, and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Narrative Research of the University of East London.

This afternoon he gave a talk under the title The art of remembering and forgetting at Chelsea's lecture theatre about the narrative fabric of autobiographical memory and what gives narrative, visual, and performative artists privileged access in exploring it. In particular, he mentioned that 'the reason why we remember or forget is not in psychology, nor in neuroscience, but in narrative art'. Acknowledging that many contemporary artists use film in their research of autobiographic memories[1], he talked about films as forms of narrative[2].

Brockmeier divided his presentation in 3 chapters. The first one was called Remembering (a) film, the second one Filming memory and concluded with the last chapter of Films as remembering and forgetting.

Nikos Georgopoulos

-----
Notes
1. The killing maschine, installation, 2007. Jannet Cadiff & Burres Miler.
2. 'A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet', Orson Welles.

Eternity is ephemeral (posted on 1/1/12, happy new year!)

'Eternity', 2010 / 78" x 96" x 3" / by Alicia Eggert & Mike Flening. Screen shot.

Eternity is an installation created by artists Alicia Eggert & Mike Flening in 2010 consisting of 30 electric clocks rear-mounted to a large sheet of white acrylic. The black hour and minute hands of the clocks are aligned to spell the word ‘eternity’, and the clocks are plugged in to a series of power strips on the floor. As soon as they begin moving, the word almost immediately becomes a jumble of moving black lines.

'Eternity', 2010 / 78" x 96" x 3" / by Alicia Eggert & Mike Flening. Screen shot.

'Eternity', 2010 / 78" x 96" x 3" / by Alicia Eggert & Mike Flening. Screen shot.

Source: Design boom
Read more here. 

Nikos Georgopoulos

'The Interview', Paraguay press, Paris 2009 (posted on 31/12/11)

Photo by Nikos Georgopoulos

The interview is a very interesting written and thought-provoking story by Guillaume Leblon and Thomas Boutoux.  It's one of those books you are not sure what they are trying to say, or maybe you are, but eventually you realize that it's not rocket science and you can't tolerate that. It has to be kind of conceptual and it has to be kind of weird, employing hidden meanings and extensions, in-depth symbolisms and a sarcastic approach towards its own format.

The book is a translation into English of the transcript of the play The Interview, as performed on January 17, 2007 at the Credac, Contemporary Art Centre, Ivry-sur-Seine. It is a dialogue between an artist and a writer. The first one wants to publish a monograph on his work and to employ the second one to write it; in a non-conventional way though. So, the play is featuring this kind of surreal dialogue between the two men which progressively is taking the form of an interview. The writer is the interviewer, trying to figure out what is it that the artist has in mind.

Either way, that kind of books are always very inspiring, not so much because of their own content; but because of their ability to intrigue our appetite for personal interpretations and attachment of meaning to them.


Nikos Georgopoulos

'Safe or not, we should turn more billboards into swingsets' (re-posted on 26/12/11)

Didier Faustino, Double Happiness, 2009, Billboard and swings mix, steel ladder, steel lattice platform, protective nets on steel structure 6.4 x 3.7 x 6.6 m. Screen shot.

Parisian architect Didier Faustino's sculpture called 'urban furniture' is one of the best and to-the-point examples of art installations towards the re-appropriation of public spaces. He turned the skeleton of an advertising billboard into a swingset for the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Bi-City Biennial of Urbanism and Architecture.

Source: Ad Week. Read more here.

Nikos

Work in progress (posted on 13/12/11)

'Who works the longest hours in Europe?' Screen shot.

Find out how many hours people work in different jobs and across the EU. As Europe's leaders gather to discuss how to rescue the mediterranean economies and safeguard the single currency, it's tempting to resort to crude national stereotypes of prudent, hard-working Germans and lazy Greeks.

Re-posted from the Guardian.
Read more here.


Nikos Georgopoulos

Archizines (posted on 11/12/11)

I always thought that books about Architecture -Architectural practice as well as Architectural journals- are examples of excellent design -Graphic Design.

Archizines is an exhibition curated by Curator and Writer Elias Redstone which showcases new architecture fanzines, journals and magazines from around the world that provide an alternative to the established architectural press.

Title / Issue number: Another Pamphlet 02 - "Repetition"
Publication date: August 2011
Location: New York City, USA
Language: English
Format: A4 photocopied, folded and stapled
Size: A5

Title / Issue number: mono.kultur #18 / MVRDV: On Statics and Statistics
Publication date: Autumn 2008
Location: Berlin, Germany
Language: English
Format: softcover, staplebound
Size: 15x20cm

PIDGIN #10
April 2011
Princeton, New Jersey, USA
170 x 240 mm

The exhibition is hosted by the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London (AA) from 5/11/11 - 14/12/11. Not to be missed! 

Nikos Georgopoulos

Inspiring disasters (posted on 10/12/11)

The Cloud is  a pair of residential highrises reaching 260 and 300 meters in Seoul, Korea by Rotterdam-based architecture practice MVRDV. They should be finished by 2015.

In my view, the aforementioned towers look like they are inspired by the 9/11 disaster. Having said that though, they are impressive. After all a disaster can be inspiring.

http://www.mvrdv.nl/#/news
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/18051/mvrdv-the-cloud.html

 

It's like a pixel explosion. Conceptual and semiological extensions!

Nikos Georgopoulos 

'You got to love it; if you don't why should anybody else?' (posted on 25/11/11)

Sir John Hegarty's talk at the London College of Communication on 6/10/11. Screen shot.

John Hegarty is one of the world’s most awarded and respected creative directors. And one of the more influential people as well. He gave this brilliant talk at the London College of Communication. He closed his speech by saying: 'What you do, you do it for you. You got to love it; if you don't why should anybody else?

Watch the video here.

Nikos Georgopoulos

Spring & summer 1985 (posted on 22/11/11)

Vintage British Argos 1985 Catalogue. Screen shot.

The 1st time I heard about Argos was in 2009, when my brother was doing his Masters in England. British people though are very much familiar with Argos for decades now. 'Before the days of internet shopping, Argos' catalogues were probably found in every household in Britain'.

Vintage British Argos 1985 Catalogue. Screen shot.

 See more here.

Nikos Georgopoulos

What it feels like to live now (posted on 19/11/11)

Robert Montgomery, 'Words in the city at night' project, Billboard piece No2. Screen shot.

Read more here.

'Robert Montgomery works in a poetic and melancholic Post-situationist tradition'. He hijacks advertising space in the city, often illegally. His work is intended to be encountered by commuters who don't know it's art, and an attempt to describe in public space what it feels like to live now.

Now this is what I call street 'art' as opposed to hilarious; naive and egoistic pointless graffiti pieces.

Nikos Georgopoulos

Hi mom (posted on 15/11/11)

Laurie Anderson, performance, New York, Soho, 1982. Screen shot.

Watch this performance here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8LquNy3fd8 

Personally, my favorite part of this performance is when Laurie Anderson's clarity and accuracy of communication -through her facial expressions and transformations- are being captured and isolated through the close up shot. Probably, one of the highlights of the V&A's Post Modernism.


Nikos Georgopoulos

'Boys will be boys' (posted on 8/11/11)

Malcolm McLaren interview on creating the Sex Pistols. Screen shot.

You can check this interview here.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nds8KOUTy4&feature=related

Nikos

'' We don’t need new fonts… '' (posted on 25/10/11)

Typotheque's office, The Hague, NL. Photo taken by http://www.typotheque.com

Typotheque is a type foundry and design studio formed by Peter and Johanna Bil'ak who believe that ' design should happen at a more fundamental level than just playing with layout. '

I am re-posting a Peter Bil'ak's article -published on the editorial of 8 FACES magazine, Issue 3, 2011, that challenge designers to think about ' why we design type, not just how we design it. '

We don't need new fonts...

(by Peter Bil'ak)

Is there any reason to make new fonts when there are so many already available for downloading? It's time to reflect on motivation to draw new type. While there is no reason to make uninspired new fonts, still, there are typefaces which haven’t been made yet and which we do need.

It seems to be a golden age of type design—not only are there more type foundries now than ever before, not only is distribution easier and more direct, not only is type a hot topic for numerous specialised blogs and magazines, but even the general interest media are in on the conversation, (if only occasionally). New type design courses are opening regularly, churning out legions of type designers. And there are now over 150,000 fonts available for direct download.

In spite of all the attention to type and the unprecedented conditions for type designers, the vast majority of new fonts desperately lack originality. Just as in the music industry, where cover versions and remixes are often more popular than new music, font designers seemingly prefer to exploit successful models from the past rather than strive for new solutions. Scant decades ago, new typefaces underwent a rigorous review procedure to ensure that they met the publisher’s artistic and technical criteria. Today, self-publishing has eliminated such processes, and there is little critical review, little effort to add something new to the evolution of the profession. Mediocrity abounds as quality control dwindles. Dozens of blogs (as well as the print media) simply republish press releases without distinguishing between marketing and independent reviews, praising uninspired fonts and institutionalising the average. Many design awards do the same, perpetuating a false idea of what constitutes superior quality. We don’t need new fonts like this.

In my decade of experience teaching at Type & Media I have seen many students enter the course with no previous experience in type design. Over the eight months of the course they learn the structure of letterforms and the principles of construction that allow them to create well-designed typefaces, (not always terribly original, but convincing executions without obvious mistakes). Having mastered the formal execution of type, they can then move on to think about how to apply their skills. Obviously, creating type that is too closely related to existing models doesn’t justify the effort involved. Or as my Type & Media colleague Erik van Blokland says: “If an existing typeface does the job, there is no reason to make a new one.”

Many people drawing type today have solid drawing skills, but no desire to advance the field (let alone rebel against it) by creating original solutions. Can we call them type designers? I think not, at least not any more than we can call every fast, accurate typist a writer. Content is at least as important as form, the ideas we express as important as how we express them.

Still, there are typefaces which haven’t been made yet and which we need. Type that reacts to our present reality rather than being constrained by past conventions; type for non-Latin scripts that gives its users more choices; type that brings readers from previous media to new ones. It is time to think about why we design type, not just how we design it.

http://www.typotheque.com
http://www.typotheque.com/articles/we_dont_need_new_fonts