Peter Zumthor to design 2011 Serpentine Pavilion

BD report

What is Reality?

Horizon "What is reality?' is on Monday 17th Jan (& then on BBC iPlayer). Worth watching.
'There is a strange and mysterious world that surrounds us, a world largely hidden from our senses. The quest to explain the true nature of reality is one of the great scientific detective stories. Clues have been pieced together from deep within the atom, from the event horizon of black holes, and from the far reaches of the cosmos. It may be that that we are part of a cosmic hologram, projected from the edge of the universe. Or that we exist in an infinity of parallel worlds. Your reality may never look quite the same again.' programme web site

Tine Bech - lecture at Brookes

Tine Bech, an interactive artist, is giving a lecture on Tues 8 Mar 12 noon – 1pm, Tine Bech: Playful Interactions, Venue: Willow Lecture Theatre, Oxford Brookes University Headington Hill Hall Campus
'Tine Bech is a visual artist and researcher who works with interactive artwork and public art. Her work is concerned with audiences’ engagement using interactions and play. The work is intentionally accessible and aims to create experiences of play and participation, using interactive electronics and location tracking technology, a notion of play, urban spaces and environmental elements such as gravity, water, sound and light.' Tine Bech's web site

Studio Roosegaarde

'Studio Roosegaarde creates interactive artworks which explore the dynamic relation between space, people and technology. As artistic laboratory for interactive projects it won the Dutch Design Award 2009 and is internationally known for its artworks such as 'Dune' and 'Sustainable Dance Floor'. Studio Roosegaarde is the home of artist Daan Roosegaarde and his team of designers & engineers. By designing interactive landscapes that instinctively respond to sound and movement, artist and architect Daan Roosegaarde explores the dawn of a new nature that is evolving from technological innovations.' SR
Above is a video of interactive installation in Rotterdam we hope to see on the field course. Studio Roosegaarde web site,
and interview with Daan Roosegaarde. Some other interesting projects (all have videos):
Interactive walls:
Flow
Wind
Lotus and Energy generating dance floor,

Hans Danuser

The Swiss photographer and artist Hans Danuser was commissioned by Peter Zumthor to photograph his work for its first publication in 1988. Zumthor was apparently inspired to commission Danuser by the IN VIVO project (one photograph from IN VIVO is above). Danuser photographed Zumthor's buildings in the fog, gave equal weight to the surrounding landscape and showed partial images, beginning to capture atmosphere. Its worth having a look through the way Danuser captures atmosphere in his other work: Hans Danuser's web site. A book of his photographs of Zumthor's work was published in 2009, 'Seeing Zumthor'.

Peter Zumthor

Alan de Botton presents the latest conceptual images and models of Peter Zumthor's first UK based project.
An interesting AJ interview by Patrick Lynch with Zumthor from 2009: here, and an extract below.
'In Search of a Lost Architecture” begins: ‘When I think of architecture, images come into my mind… Sometimes I can almost feel a particular door handle in my hand, a piece of metal shaped like the back of a spoon …. When I went into my aunt’s garden… I remember the sound of the ravel under my feet… memories like these contain the deepest architectural experience that I know. They are the reservoirs of the architectural atmospheres and images that I explore in my work as an architect’. [Thinking Architecture, Birkhäuser 1998].... Peter Zumthor: 'Basically I’ve come to think that I work like an author. There was a time when I thought that all architects work like authors, but when I looked around I saw that they were implementers and service providers. This is not my world. So I work like a composer writes his music, a writer writes his book and a painter… and so on...In your case and in any other case it is a matter of “what we know” and what is inside us. Most things that are inside us we don’t know! So, we have all these many sayings of artists, like Picasso, who said that: “art is not about inventing, art is about discovering”. This is nothing new. Everybody says this in different fields. It’s obvious that what is inside you ... – this is the stuff that you are working with as an author if you “create”....If you make something new, this is where everything comes from. It does not come from following ideologies. It is great if you become part of the church, Modernism or whatever, then of course it consoles you and it supports you and makes part of a group. You are a Chelsea fan….' Patrick Lynch: 'Or a Zumthor fan….' Peter Zumthor: 'Ha Ha! Yeah, true. This is also human. But in order to create something this is not a good thing. Better to be yourself.' AJ

RIBA Presidents Medals Exhibition

The RIBA Presidents Medals exhibition is on at the RIBA in London until 28th January. All entries can however also be seen online here. Jonathan Schofield's project shown above won the Silver Medal.
RIBA Presidents Medals Exhibition details

Shadow Catchers Exhibition

Floris Neususs 'Gewitterbild, Kassel, 1984' shown here is amongst the work exhibited at teh Shadow Catchers exhibition. The image was formed by placing a piece of photographic paper on the ground in a garden during a thunderstorm. The lighting exposed the paper and made the print. Floris Neususs at Shadow Catchers

Susan Derges ('River Taw (Ice), 4 fenrary 1997' above) 'used the landscape at night as her darkroom, submerging large sheets of photographic paper in rivers and using the moon and flashlight to create the exposure. Within seeming chaos, Derges conveys a sense of wonder at the underlying orderliness. She examines the threshold between two interconnected worlds: an internal, imaginative or contemplative space and the external, dynamic, magical world of nature. Her works can be seen as alchemical, transformative acts that test the threshold between matter and spirit.' V & A
Susan Derges video and Susan Derges work
The Shadow Catchers exhibition is on at the Victoria and Albert Museum until 20th February. The exhibiton explores camerless photography through the work of Adam Fuss, Floris Neususs, Suan Derges, Pierre Cordier and Gary Fabian Miller.
exhibition information

Adam Fuss

'Having worked as a commercial photographer, Adam Fuss is conscious of what he calls "the pervasive technological-consumerist culture". In response to this, along with other artists of his generation such as Garry Fabian Miller and Susan Derges, he has returned to the simplest photographic means: photography without the use of a camera. Such procedures recall the earliest photographs of the 1830's and 1840's. In Fuss’s work, light is used as a metaphor to illuminate the processes and stages of human life.' V & A The photogram above is from the series 'My Ghost, 1999 (Birds in Flight).'

His work is currently being exhibited at the V&A in London as part of the Shadow Catchers exhibition (on until 20th February). His work 'deals with time and energy rather than material form.... Through outward sensory vision, they explore metaphysical ideas of non-sensory insight.' V & A
video and for images from the exihibition

Daniela Di Maro and Roberto Pugliese

Joe came across this interactive sound installation by Daniela Di Maro and Roberto Pugliese.
'Some of the speakers play an audio soundscape, while other make sounds that are improvised on the spot based on human interaction. Noise in the environment is captured through microphones and small samples of this are altered and played back. The resulting synthesis of sound creates a soundscape that is both natural and artificial, a fact that is true of the physical installation as well.' Design Boom
Design Boom