Longplayer - Jem Finer

Longplayer is a thousand year long piece composed by Jem Finer which began playing on the first January 2000 and will run on until 31st December 2999. This will be the first full cycle of the competition will then will restart. It can be heard at Trinity Buoy Wharf and also at the Science Museum in London along with a number of other locations around the world and it is also streamed live on the internet.

On Monday 18th April 2011 James Lovelock and John Gray will be discussing long time at the RIBA as part of the Longplayer project.
More information and live audio feed here.
Longplayer site here.

Peter Zumthor Serpentine Pavilion

Speaking about the design for this years Serpentine Pavilion Peter Zumthor said ‘the concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. The building acts as a stage, a backdrop for the interior garden of flowers and light. Through blackness and shadow one enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. This experience will be intense and memorable, as will the materials themselves – full of memory and time.’ The pavilion ‘aims to help its audience take the time to relax, to observe and then, perhaps, start to talk again - maybe not.’
More images and information here.
Good article from Independent summing up Zumthor's approach here. 'Zumthor is Mr Atmosphere, the unchallenged master in creating spaces of sensual, pregnant stillness: the vibe is utterly anti-free market, anti-bling. He is a modernist, but his obsessions with memory, shifts of ambience, and meticulously crafted surfaces and details are timeless. Zumthor's Kolumba Museum in Cologne, for example, lacks only the overlapping chants of plainsong to make it a monastery of art.' Jay Merrick, Independent.

Man Made

Fed found information on Stephen Burks’ exhibition Man Made at The Studio Museum in New York... 'makes us reconsider both the conceptual and the aesthetical value of a handmade object, or design product.'
Article here.