Earth: Art of a Changing Planet Exhibition

The Earth: Art of a Changing Planet exhibition has now opened at the Royal Academy (6 Burlington Gardens, gallery). See the link for further details.

Royal Academy: Earth Exhibition

Aqualta by Studio Lindfor

Francis found this work by Studio Lindfors depicting New York and Tokyo in the future following a rise in sea level.

see Dezeen article

Peter Zumthor

See the link to listen to a podcast of an interview with Peter Zumthor.
Peter Zumthor interview

Algae and CO2 precedent

UCLA's cityLAB Working Public Architecture (WPA2) design competition has been won by organized PORT: Architecture Urbanism's “Carbon T.A.P.// Tunnel Algae Park” in the above video. Well worth watching, especially for those targeting CO2 or using algae. The other shortlisted entries along with the winner of the student competition can be found on the following links.

WPA design competition and symposium site with the other entrants work
PORT Architects website
UCLA's cityLAB website

Jorge Otero-Pailos

Jorge Otero-Pailos is an architect / artist / conservationist mentioned in the Ugly Beauty programme on an earlier post. The above video discusses his work The Ethics of Dust: Doges Palace, Venice 2009 where he removed and therefore revealed pollution on a wall of the Doges Palace in Venice.

"Pollution is our most important product of modern civilisation...but we don't have a history of pollution." Jorge Otero-Pailos

Seeing Beauty in Venice's Pollution article

Michael Landy's Weed Etchings

"Landy has been botanising in little urban margins, looking for their earliest colonising flora as well as the longerstanding floral residents. Collecting weeds from urban brownfields, from cracks in pavements and the corners and verges of car parks, he has kept them fed and watered and has spent hours drawing each one, first on paper then on copper plates. The result is a series of etchings .... these images play out a contemporary vernacular aesthetic that is Landy's own distinctive contrivance....

Much of Landy's work broaches a dialectic of history and the present, of politics and art. ... Landy's work asks questions about consumerism, entitlement and capitalism, as well as about the role of artists and their productions." Tate

Landy
Tate on Landy

Anish Kapoor

Excellent programme about Anish Kapoor's work.

BBC iplayer Imagine: Anish Kapoor

Beauty and Aging

'Old things have a beauty that new things can never have. It is a beauty that has been earned.'
Ugly Beauty programme, now on BBC iplayer is well worth seeing. There are two particular parts of specific relevance the beauty of texture (33.45 in) talking about the beauty in aging, and then about life being change from 52.50 on.

'My fear is permanence, no change anymore, as .... permanence is death.' Tatsuo Miyajima
'Permanent change is what life is about.'

iplayer from 33.45 to 43.20 and 52.50 onwards

Adam Fuss

Adam Fuss is a photographer who works without a camera. Using some of the earliest photographic techniques he captures fleeting moments in highly evocative images.
explanation of process

Countdown to Copenhagen

Current and past articles concerning the issues to be discussed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December.
Countdown to Copenhagen

Robert Smithson - decay, renewal, chaos and order

Robert Smithson was one of the founders of the discipline of Land Art.
"Embodied in all of Smithson's endeavors was his interest in entropy, mapping, paradox, language, landscape, popular culture, anthropology, and natural history... Entropy, was a theme that consistently ran throughout Smithson's art and writings. He explored his ideas involving decay and renewal, chaos and order with what came to be known as his Nonsites and Earthworks. Smithson spoke at great length in interviews and essays on entropy and his notion of time. .... Partially Buried Woodshed, 1970, Kent State University, Kent State, was a piece Smithson created on site during an invitational arts festival. He located an abandoned woodshed and poured earth on to the structure until it cracked. This work is a prime example of Smithson's visualization of entropy and time, leaving it to be "subject to weathering, which should be considered part of the piece."
web site

Nancy Holt

Nancy Holt is an environmental artist, Francis found these images about one of her most famous pieces, Sun Tunnels in Utah. These simple pipes have been placed so that they have specific solar alignments and are also pierced to align with stars.

Nancy Holt sun tunnels
images
more images
See this link for further land art

algae, artificial trees and geoengineering

"Artificial trees and tubes of algae on the sides of buildings could absorb most of the UK's annual carbon dioxide emissions"
Some really interesting articles about geo-engineering strategies to absorb CO2 emissions. The Institute of Mechanical Engineers are advocating growing algae in tubes on the sides of buildings and the use of artificial 'trees'.
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers' 'battle plan' for climate change includes geo-engineering
Fake trees, algae tubes and white roofs
Ambitious plan to breed microalgae in greenhouse with the potential to absorb carbon emissions

The Beauty of Detail lecture Thursday 12th at Brookes

Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva is giving a lecture on The Beauty of Detail Thursday 12th November at 12.15 till 1pm in Willow 10, Headington Hill Campus
'She exposes the relationships between human and naturally occurring
landscapes. She develops works which resonate with a particular place, interior or exterior, often using unusual materials linked to the specific environment (butter, fish skins, chicken skins, rice, trees, fir cones, watercress). Research plays an important part in the development of her projects and she creates new methods and procedures for each work.' web site

RCA: Wake Up, Freak Out then Get a Grip

A short film by Leo Murray made at the Royal College of Art about the feedback loops likely to lead to catastrophic climate change.

film script with live links to detailed information

v2 Institute for Unstable Media

'Instead of providing us with an orderly, homogeneous worldview, unstable media present an image of a world that is inconsistent, heterogeneous, complex and variable.'
Some very relevant ideas and fascinating work - particularly interesting transagriculture project.
v2
transagriculture

Christian Moeller

Christian Moeller is an architect and artist working with different technologies to produce interactive pieces.
kinetic Light Sculpture - adaptive facade
audio park
Nosy

Andrea Polli and Joe Gilmore Airlight Taipei

'Airlight is the name given to a visible white smog caused by the illumination of fine dust particles in the air. Airlight Taipei is a networked real-time sound and visual installation using updated data from an EPA air-quality monitoring station in central Taipei indicating various air pollutant levels including sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and ozone. This data is translated into sound and imagery in real time. The result is a rhythmic pulse that transforms throughout the day.'

N. (2005) by Andrea Polli and Joe Gilmore, with weather data modeled by Dr. Patrick Market - weather data translated into sound

ecoLogic Studio

Ned Kahn

Kielder Installations

Kielder reservoir in Northumberland plays host to a growing series of installations by both artists and architects. Some new works have now been completed including David Adjaye's Specere. See the links for more details.
article
audio slides

Edwin van der Heide & sound art

'Edwin Van der Heide makes installations centering on sound-time-space parameters, composing with sound and with spatial experiences.' John also came across this sound artist. web page

Also see: Faster than sound
Lumin
Felix's Machines

semiconductor

'Semiconductor make moving image works which reveal our physical world in flux; cities in motion, shifting landscapes and systems in chaos. Since 1999 UK artists Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt have worked with digital animation to transcend the constraints of time, scale and natural forces; they explore the world beyond human experience, questioning our very existence.'
John came across these artists whose work is very relevant to the unit.
semiconductor films
Time Out of Place

City of Illusions

Ned Kahn

SANAA Serpentine Pavilion

SANAA's pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery in London is open until 18th October.
Details.

Unit B in Building Design

Joel's work was selected for publication by Building Design.
see the online version here

Unit B in RIBA Journal

Some of Unit B's work has been included in the RIBA Journal's online review of the summer shows.
see RIBA Journal here

Unit B in Architects Journal

Neil and Joel's work has been selected for publication by the Architects Journal in its end of year show review.
see AJ here

Unit B 2008-09 Exhibition

Radical Nature

Radical Nature - Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969–2009 exhibition is on at the Barbican Art Gallery until the 18th October 2009.
'Radical Nature draws on ideas that have emerged out of Land Art, environmental activism, experimental architecture and utopianism. The exhibition is designed as one fantastical landscape, with each piece introducing into the gallery space a dramatic portion of nature. Work by pioneering figures such as the architectural collective Ant Farm and visionary architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, artists Joseph Beuys, Agnes Denes, Hans Haacke and Robert Smithson are shown alongside pieces by a younger generation of practitioners including Heather and Ivan Morison, R&Sie(n), Philippe Rahm architects and Simon Starling. Radical Nature also features specially commissioned and restaged historical installations, some of which are located in the outdoor spaces around the Barbican while a satellite project by the architectural collective EXYZT is situated off site.' Barbican
Details
There are some free tickets available - see this link for details

Richard Long

Heaven and Earth, an exhibition of Richard Long's work is presently on at Tate Britain until 6th September. Well worth a visit.
Details
Richard Long's site

Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor's C Curve is presently set within the Downs at the Chattri on the edge of Brighton. Really well worth a visit. The Brighton Festival also has his Sky Mirror within the Pavilion gardens and installation Imagined Monochrome to visit until Sunday 24th May.
Festival site

Peter Zumthor

Peter Zumthor has just been awarded the 2009 Pritzker Prize. "The panel praised his detachment from current trends, saying his buildings were "untouched by fad or fashion ... humility resides alongside strength." Guardian
New York Times article
Dezeen article
Photos
More photos

dRMM Sliding House

Video showing how the Sliding House by dRMM works, and talking about the ideas behind it.
Wallpaper video
dRMM video
Download PDF on the project from dRMM's site

Glenn Murcott

Glenn Murcott on how to site a building within the landscape
video
good article on Glenn Murcott

Theo Jansen

Video of Theo Jansen explaining the way his wind powered walking sculptures work.
video
Theo Jansen's website

Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Liz Diller (Diller Scofidio + Renfro) talks about the practice's work including the Blur Building.
video
DS+R web site

As Slow as Possible

A piece of music composed by John Cage that will take 639 years to play. ORGAN2/ASLSP As Slow aS Possible.

Clock of the Long Now

"When I was a child, people used to talk about what would happen by the year 2000. For the next thirty years they kept talking about what would happen by the year 2000, and now no one mentions a future date at all. The future has been shrinking by one year per year for my entire life. I think it is time for us to start a long-term project that gets people thinking past the mental barrier of an ever-shortening future. I would like to propose a large (think Stonehenge) mechanical clock, powered by seasonal temperature changes. It ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium." Daniel Hillis - The Long Now Foundation.
More info here.

Figuring Landscapes

Tate Modern are showing a series of short films (around 5mins) on the theme of landscape from Friday 6 February – Sunday 8 February. TATE link. The overall series relates to a link between UK and Australia, however taken individually the films deal with very relevant issues, such as time, place and being in the landscape. Programme 3 'Surroundings' seems particularly relevant as a set of films. More info here.
Others of interest:
All the Time in the World, Semiconductor, 2005, 5 min, UK 'A geological time frame is rendered in human seconds and minutes while the convolutions of the earth are enacted in ‘reel’ time.' more info
Static No. 10 (falling as a means of rising)Daniel Crooks, 2007, 3:55 min, Australia 'unravels our notion of the time-space continuum and hints at hidden rhythms in the landscape' more info
Lake George (after Mark Rothko) John Conomos, 2008, 7 min extract, Australia more info
Tidemills Nick Collins, 2002, 10 min, UK more info

For info on the individual films see these four links: 1 2 3 4

Some interesting and relevant ideas from a conference on walking and place which took place a few years ago, but the none less relevant for that. Have a look through the site: link here

Chameleon Material

Scientists at Toronto University have developed a material that can change to any colour of the spectrum by applying a electric current. See more at New Scientist and
Opalux the company they have set up to market it.