ZouZou

Found an amazing French book on ZouZou in Powells bookstore today...unfortunately my finances & 'no more shit that weighs a lot' policy prevented me from getting it..but it was Amazing.

Carri Mundane

Wearing our Nike Colab Bomber Jacket at Glastonbury

I'M MOVING BACK TO EUROPE.

NO MORE:
Nepotistic Corporations.
Winning Friends and Influencing People.
Keeping Up Appearances.
Culturally Ingrained 'Nice' Façade so many people can't see (& exists even though it's an Individualistic nation?!).
Centralised Power.

I've met some amazing people in my time here, but this place will never feel like home. I don't want to drive everywhere. I don't want to think money is important above all else. I don't want to value appearance above intelligence. I don't want to pretend I'm happy when I'm not. I don't want to people-please. I don't want to be told how I can 'change' and 'grow' into being like everyone else or someone elses' concept of how people 'should be'. I don't want people to think it's acceptable to judge other people. I don't want to be part of the Group. Really. Sorry. It's not about Americans, I have a plethora of cultured, amazing friends here.
It's about the Dominant Ideology of a Nation.
Gimme my tube pass back.

Art Production Fund Ed Ruscha Towel

"the study of friction and wear on mating surfaces"

I missed this on Friday

I'd never seen it on the big screen.
Agnes Varda Cleo from 5-7
Trying to catch the rest of her retrospective at the NW Film Center.

Escher @ PAM

I don't like the final image but his sketches of it, the way he planned it out, are amazing. It's so fascinating to see someone's process.


This was fantastic in person. Metamorphosis. It was so interesting to read how long it took for scientists and mathmeticians to see the value in his work, how it related to them.

Snoopy

The aim of the game is this: draw a cartoon character from memory. I remember the Stewards at Ally Pally Ice Rink used to call me Snoopy. I have no idea why.
Courtesy of ML

The Erotic House Peter Saville

http://showstudio.com/project/softfurnishings/

Neville Brody

Pitch for Wallpaper August issue cover:

And the one that made it:

Recent Reading

An ability to work autonomously

Part of the job description I'm interviewing for on Tuesday. One of the major reasons I'm interested.
au·ton·o·mous
Pronunciation:
\ȯ-ˈtä-nə-məs\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
Greek autonomos independent, from aut- + nomos law — more at nimble
Date:
1800
1: of, relating to, or marked by autonomy
2 a: having the right or power of self-government b: undertaken or carried on without outside control : self-contained
3 a: existing or capable of existing independently b: responding, reacting, or developing independently of the whole

Bob Nickas Book

Finally read half of this. Great stuff.

Stripes

Congress signed this document on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4.

F minus

Not A magazine anymore

Un-noted Deaths of 2009

And Gabriel Bailey.

Teeth.

I still love them. I decided this a few years ago when I had my root canal. I'd never spent long in a dentist's office. It opened up a whole new world of ex-rays and plaster casts. I once knew a girl in school who had a phobia of brushing her teeth because they were embedded in her skull.

Vincent Van Duysen for Tribù

Belgian architect and designer Vincent Van Duysen. His firm has produced some really great products, and their approach to architecture, albeit stringently Belgian at times (which is no bad thing in my book), is beautiful.

(Except maybe those fluoro lights)

Army Officer Oxfords

Steel Toe Traditional Leather Service Dress Oxford
Top Quality Full Grain Leather
Steel Safety Toe: Meets ASTM F2413 Standard for Protective Footwear
Cambrelle® Moisture Wicking Lining
Removable DRYZ® Moisture / Odor Controll Shock Absorbing Cushioned Insole
Fiberglass Shank
Oil Resistant Alpine Outsole And Heel
Made in the USA

Real humans reason as cats swim: They can do it, but they avoid it whenever possible.

Reasoning requires effort and discipline; it certainly isn't automatic. Therefore, instead of using their advanced brain to cultivate their gift of abstract thought, typical humans use their primitive brain to think, believe, behave, and vocalize. Because this makes them slaves to their primal drives, humans prefer shouting to debating, fisticuffs to philosophy, and physical fitness to mental fitness.

As a species, humanity expresses its undeveloped mentality through its political behavior, which does not differ significantly from the social behavior of other animals. That is, human political behavior is driven by the same instincts that guide the behavior of sheep, wildebeests, and other herding animals. For example, the majority of humans stampede to join the herds, or "bandwagons," of charismatic leaders. There, they delight in winning decisive victories, though it isn't always clear exactly what they win. Nevertheless, having won, the majority regards minorities as losers, unfit to participate in the activities of the herd. That's democracy as we know it.
Included with the instincts to follow leaders is the warning that straggling invites predators. Yet, a minority of humans do straggle, preferring to override their instincts with their own thinking. In the history of humankind, a few such non-herd individuals have produced the ideas and inventions that account for what is romantically, but unrealistically, termed the "ascent of man." Naturally, members of the herd shun these stragglers as pariahs.

When humans gather in large herds, they think with one mind, and this mind assures them that their numbers secure them from predators. The irony is, many leaders are themselves predators, leisurely feasting on the minds, bodies, and property of their followers. Many other leaders are simply compelled to lead, regardless of their mental fitness to do so. Thus, as pods of whales beach themselves by following their surrogate thinkers, humans obliviously, but fashionably, flock to their deaths.
Humans are herded by strong personalities because instinct merely requires following leaders; it does not compel evaluating their abilities and motives. Cliques organize human behavior by relieving their members of reasoning for themselves: The group's dominant members determine the beliefs, values, and behaviors of all the members. This is agreeably efficient, for each clique requires only one mind.
Autistic certainty is supported solely by self-reference: "I would not believe something that is not true. I believe [this]. Therefore, [this] must be true." Though self-reference is absurd, its nonsense is lost on persons locked into pre-operational thinking. If they don't outgrow this method of thinking, adults perceive themselves to be the models for ideal humanity. In this way, their self-reference produces the standards for "good" (like themselves) and "evil" (different from themselves). They say, "If only everyone were like me, the world would be perfect." Even if they don't say this aloud, they think it privately, and act accordingly--that is, self-righteously.
Enformy

Stuart Crosset

Brett Lloyd

Screw Posts

I love them

If Night Is A Weed And Day Grows Less

Featuring Thomas Bangsted, Erik Frydenborg, Stand Up Comedy, David Hartt
July 2 - August 1, 2009
Howard House, Seattle

The show "posits a shift in balance: of the natural order, of the built environment, of the body politic, of perception. The result is a creeping entropy that can either be embraced or redirected."
(Not the Mitchell Akiyama song)

Friend Type

The term 'clique' may be used pejoratively

Something Childish But Very Natural

Take as an example the contrast between British and American customs: In Britain, people queue for everything and apply strictly the norm of :first come first served". In the US, the price is much more used as a selection mechanism, thus wealth matters more.

In the context of the Titanic, this would mean: among Brits, a larger proportion of women and children than men should have survived; among Americans, the survivors should be more frequent in first class than third class.

Male aggressiveness leaves females only two choices in subhuman politics: Stay on the sidelines to cheer, or blend in as a mock male. Don't dare to be a complex individual.

Cannes

FFL Paris won the press Grand Prix for its Wrangler campaign

Joel's New Blog

http://velojol.blogspot.com/

Recent Project

Margot Louise Hemingway

Margot Louise Hemingway was born in Portland, Oregon, and was the granddaughter of writer Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was named for the wine, Château Margaux, which her parents, Puck and Jack Hemingway (eldest son of Ernest), were drinking the night she was conceived.
Reminder courtesy of Cozette

Conceptual Substance

Curated by Tina Roeder

New Freudenthal Verhagen

June 6 - Aug 23. 2009 on exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in Arnhem, Netherlands (Museum van Moderne Kunst Arnhem)
the exhibition is part of the Arnhem Mode Biennale.
Works:
Klavers en van Engelen
Jil Sander
Michael van der ham
Collections: A/W 2009-10

D&AD

Das Comitee from Germany won in Photography for its Faces of Evil book in which the faces of despots were created using portraits of ordinary people.

Girl Fishing

Shoot: A/W 05 Collection

Shot by: Chad Kula
Model: MacKenzie Courtney
2009

HS

HS

Paul Arden Remembered

Yes, he wrote those books. Yes, we're all sick of them, however, ex Art Director of Creative Review Paul Arden was remembered as part of the CR Portfolios events in London.

Creative Review article on five key things and people that influenced his work: HERE.
Another great lecture I missed because I live in Portland, not London.

FASCISTS IN EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: SAD DAY FOR BRITAIN

The far-right British National Party(BNP) on Monday won two seats in the European Parliament for the first time in its history, to the astonishment of the country's mainstream political parties. The BNP is regarded as a "racist" and "fascist" party which propagates against immigration and ethnic minorities in Britain.
After winning the seats, Griffin hailed it as a "great victory," adding that his party stood up for "indigenous people" who were victims of racial discrimination. Idiot.
Labor is expected to garner about 15 percent of the vote in the European elections, the lowest for it since the First World War, while the Conservative could get twice as many.
Great. Bloody Tories again. Lib Dem's need to step it up.

Space study

Space Settlements: A Design Study

Old Work

White Chess Set

Was reading an article in Artforum and it reminded me of this Yoko Ono piece, Play It By Trust (1966). Although not a big fan of her work, I appreciate her part in Fluxus.
The idea with this piece was that the players lose track of their pieces as the game progresses; ideally this leads to a shared understanding of their mutual concerns and a new relationship based on empathy rather than opposition.
I've always liked this piece. Maybe I'm just fed up of opposition right now.

David Barringer: There's nothing Funny about Design

I enjoy tracing the meanings of symbols, icons, and ideas as they have changed over time. Design takes from the world, transforms what it takes, and sends a new, transformed thing back out into the world. That process can be beautifully complex and endlessly fascinating. Chickens, skulls, the letter X: these have been used for thousands of years. What does it mean for a designer to use that symbol today? How might people interpret that symbol today? Shouldn’t designers know a little history of the symbol they’re using? I like writing about that kind of stuff. An object, icon or idea (like evolution, criticism, creativity, desire, success) gives me a way in to design culture, but I write in personal, literary, and digressive ways in order to keep the subject alive for myself as well as for the reader. This is how I end up writing about my grandfather’s business cards, the skin patterns of snakes, the branding of drugs, and the future of surgical self-modification.

Hybrid writing forms are perfect for design, because design itself is a hybrid of art, business and culture. Design is an eye of many storms. So it’s because of design’s great connectedness to art, business and culture that I have in mind a reader who might be a designer but could be any creative person, an artist, photographer, or writer, or someone who, like me, can’t help having fun thinking about what the world means. I’m working on a play, a screenplay, a novel, and more essays, and they all have designers as characters or design as a subject. Designers are always pushing forms, so I try to push the forms of writing about design. It seems fitting.

Utility Furniture Scheme

NYC
Francis Cape
MURRAY GUY
453 West 17th Street
April 25–June 6
From 1942 to 1952, the war-battered British government ran something called the Utility Furniture Scheme. It issued plans intended to encourage “quality” furniture-making that would also conserve natural resources––with success on both counts to be guaranteed by the plans’ modernist designs. In his compelling, complex show at this gallery, Francis Cape, who once earned his living as a carpenter, re-creates some of those designs. Working in unfinished poplar, Cape provides pared-down versions of Utility beds, chairs, and wardrobes that look like they could be prototypes for the original pieces. Cape’s furniture comes juxtaposed with four square photographs from our own time that document examples of demotic design destroyed, or gone wrong, in post-Katrina New Orleans and impoverished sites in upstate New York, where the artist lives.

Reshape & Reconfigure Space

Stockholm
Rummaging
BONNIERS KONSTHALL
Torsgatan 19
April 29–June 14
The third installment of this art center’s yearly salon de jeunesse, “Rummaging” focuses on artworks that reshape and reconfigure space. With the stated ambition of linking the work of an emerging generation of Swedish artists to certain practices in the country’s art world of the 1980s, this exhibition offers installations, sculptures, and interactive pieces that propose disparate spatial experiences and relations. The idea of basing an exhibition of contemporary practices on a locally defined historiography certainly has great potential and could be used to examine new perspectives on the present and trace new genealogies through the past.

David Lynch: Interview Project

In a feat of self-explanatory titling, David Lynch has just launched Interview Project. It is, as the filmmaker states in his video intro, "a road trip where people have been found and interviewed." Taking in 20,000 miles across the US, a new film will be up online every three days...

Oil lamp for Bernardaud

Designer: Rappa Anne-Cécile
Material: Porcelain, Steel & Gold

Susan MacWilliam: Remote Viewing

Through the use of video, photography and sculptural installation, Susan MacWilliam has created pieces of work on wide scoping aspects of the paranormal including accounts of materializing mediums and clairvoyants, optograms, trance, x-ray vision and dermo-optical perception, exploring specific myths and histories, challenging ideas about presentation and the credibility of an image.

Susan MacWilliam: Remote Viewing features the artist’s most recent work and her research into mediums, hysteria and psychology. Organised into three main sections the book looks extensively at her recent work including the three pieces being put forward for the Venice Biennale 2009; F-L-A-M-M-A-R-I-O-N, Eileen and Dermo Optics.

With supporting essays from a collection of prestigious writers and experts in the field, including poet Ciaran Carson, Venice Biennale curator Karen Downey, art writer Slavka Sverakova, Brian Dillon and Martha Langford, and excerpts from correspondences with parapsychologists, Remote Viewing is an extensive, in-depth look into MacWilliam’s artistic practice and the inspiration behind these major projects.

Painting Planes

Two of my favourite things: Airplanes & Time Lapse Video

Jarvis Cocker's Residency at Galerie Chappe

Cocker took over the Galerie Chappe, a small space on a quiet street in touristy Montmartre, for a weeklong residency that "split the difference between conceptual-art experiment and neighborhood cultural salon".

Explicitly at the heart of Cocker’s gallery residency was a question that could be considered in both existential and economic terms: “What is music?” “There’s this idea that music doesn’t really exist as a business anymore,” Cocker said. “The whole pop-music phenomenon is based on the fact that teenagers liked it and bought it. And if they’re not doing that anymore, or if they’re not paying for it, it turns into something else. Does that mean then you could put it in a gallery? Does it mean bands are going to need patrons who can finance their work?”.

Courtesy of Artforum.

Ben X

Dir: Nic Balthazar.
Belgium, 2007.
Greg Timmermans is absolutely brilliant as Ben. The best portrayal of autism I've ever seen by an actor.


There's a reason it won awards at the Montréal World Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Sedona International Film Festival and was nominated as European film of the year.

Vacuus Numb by Ann Demeulemeester

Director: Gray Scott
Designer: Ann Demeulemeester
Assistant Producer: Andra Parente

Anders Krisár / Sonja

I love Krisár's work. I recall seeing it at the photographers gallery a year or so ago, these 10 foot high photographs of really beautiful collections of clothing not on the form. Impeccable repro of the human figure. It was his first solo show, Bomb Suit.

Sonja (2008) is the perfect inversion to Bomb Suit, featuring the female rather than the male- the act of accumulation rather than destruction. Sonja is a life-size doll of sorts; constructed only of clothing, built up of layers through time. She is the vivid rearrangement of a single wardrobe that belonged to a woman who saved all of her clothes, from infancy to old age. Sonja is stuffed and stiff; an architectural triumph – the antithesis to the ruins of Bomb Suit. I'm sad not to see this in person, because it doesn't look as impressive on paper, but in real life I wonder if it has a different feel.


Union Gallery, London.

Black Market Type

Black Market Type, PNCA, Portland.
The Black Market Type & Print Shop starts with a collection of 30 type-fonts extracted from the artwork of well-known of artists. Scanned and converted into working computer fonts, these letter forms are available for use by visitors to the exhibition via a free print shop.
Utilizing the Black Market Type, a group of 15 artists have been invited to make a text-only poster, to be posted in the public areas surrounding the gallery. These include a small line of text at the bottom that quietly points back to the gallery. In the gallery these posters serve to incite the imagination of the visitor, offering possible formats and outcomes for their own ideas to take shape in the print shop.
Artist types included in the project: John Baldessari, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mel Bochner, R. Crumb, John Cage, Henry Darger, Julie Doucet, Jimmie Durham, Marcel Dzama, Tracey Emin, General Idea, Thomas Hirschhorn, Chris Johanson, Jasper Johns, Ray Johnson, Mike Kelley, Margaret Kilgallen, Kathe Kollwitz, Annette Messanger, Duane Michals, Chris Ofili, Laura Owens, Gary Panter, Raymond Pettibon, Adrian Piper, William Pope.L, Richard Prince, Ad Reinhardt, Dieter Roth, David Shrigley.

LibertyXA.P.C. released

Not the tightest concept, although Hamilton was English & based in St Tropez, so there you have the English/French thing I guess. He doesn't remind me of SF, he reminds me of French girls in sundresses & floppy hats. Nothing new from the images they released in March.

I forgot about David Hamilton. Some really good erotic photography, and I remember watching his films in media studies, til they got banned from the curriculum. To be fair, he is a bit Roman Polanski, if you know what I mean.

Books v. Cigarettes

The new budget has been announced and my local newsagent now charges £3 for a pack of 10 cigarettes.
This seems like an appropriate time to introduce a collection of essays and articles by George Orwell published as part of Penguin's Great Ideas series under the title Books v. cigarettes. In an article written for the Tribune in 1946, Orwell estimates the financial cost of reading and concludes that it "...does not amount to the combined cost of smoking and drinking".
That may all be good and well for 1946, but is it still true of twenty-first century Britain?
"Working on the same calculations used by Orwell in his piece, I estimate that I have spent approximately £7,000 on books over the last 15 years. (I have used an average price of £9.99 - though some of my books cost considerably more than this, a great deal more would have been far less). This works out at about £480 per year and if I include subscriptions to magazines and the amount I have spent on shelving and storage this figure rises to within the region of £550. Comparatively, if I were to smoke a pack of 10 cigarettes a day every day for a year, the cost would be roughly double at £1,095 - and that does not include drink, the thought of which sends my head spinning.
What do these figures actually tell us? Well for one thing, if you are a reader and a smoker, giving up cigarettes would allow you to by a hell of a lot of books, while the converse isn't necessarily true." ICA

Ann-Sofie Back: Head Designer Cheap Monday

Just posted on her blog. Could be interesting. A lot more low-level than her usual stuff, although she's done Topshop so this may be a step up.

Bruce Conner: In Memorium

Bombhead, 1989/2002 by Bruce Conner

A pioneer in the art of sculptural assemblage and found footage collage filmmaking, Bruce Conner was one of the most influential artists of our times. For over 40 years he pushed the boundaries of American avant-garde film, exhibiting his work in museums, festivals, and galleries. This past July Bruce Conner passed away at 74 years of age.

"Taking what was at hand he reached into the human subconscious into the heartland into the dreamland into the dark and made a meticulous visionary irreverent metaphysical art. Erotic, mysterious, astute. He is the first filmmaker I would think about and would show when wanting to demonstrate how editing can make, should make, meaning, poetic, consequential meaning." -Mark McElhatten


May 5 - Program I

Cosmic Ray [1961, 16mm, b&w/so, 4min.]
A Movie [1958, 16mm, b&w/so, 12min.]
Breakaway [1966, 16mm, b&w/so, 5min.]
Marilyn Times Five [1968-1973, 16mm, b&w/so, 13.5min.]
Report [1963-1967, 16mm, b&w/so, 13min.]
The White Rose [19667,16mm, b&w/so, 7min.]
His Eye Is On The Sparrow [2006, DVD, b&w and color/so. 4min.]
Saw this tonight. Awesome. Next & last showing is tomorrow night.


still from A Movie, 1958 by Bruce Conner

Une Part Du Ciel

A Piece of Sky is about women who try to resist their environment and take advantage of it. Bénédicte Liénard describes two mirror universes: the prison and the factory. In both cases confinement, submission to an iniquitous hierarchy and the exploitation of work prevail. Belgium, 2002. Trying to find this.

Old Camden Crawl pics

Just found these. One Night Only event.

Films this week

Welcome to the Dollhouse

The Doors

Slums of Beverly Hills

Beauvoir & Sartre: The Riddle of Influence

Reading this at the moment. I loved Beauvoir's metaphysical novels but I loved The Second Sex (1949), her intro:
"For a long time I have hesitated to write a book on women. The subject is irritating, especially to women; and it is not new,"
she wasn't a self righteous feminist, but held a true humanist philosophy. Dorothy Parker:
"I cannot be just to books which treat women as women ... My idea is that all of us, men as well as women, should be regarded as human beings"
De Beauvoir again:
"In truth, to go for a walk with one’s eyes open is enough to demonstrate that humanity is divided into two classes of individuals whose clothes, faces, bodies, smiles, gaits, interests, and occupations are manifestly different".
I love the work of both Parker & de Beauvoir. I am getting off the point. But they're both good points.

(I love this image of the two of them, they were seen as such serious French scholars, it's great this moment was captured)
It is a really succinct study into how Beauvoir & Sartre shared ideas in a literary & philosophical sense, but what is interesting & harks back to my last point about the Second Sex is that SImone professed that "Sartre was the philosopher & I was the follower", personally and professionally. This new book explores that relationship. I'm not far in, not far enough to muse on it here yet.
So here's one of my favourite de Beauvoir quotes from her biography by Deirdre Bair, it's her ending sentence:
''Well I just don't give a damn. It's my life, and I lived it the way I wanted. I'm sorry to disappoint all the feminists, but you can say that it's too bad so many of them live only in theory instead of in real life. It's very messy in the real world."
She was awesome.

Stephen Slappe at NAAU

Shelter in Place is the culmination of five years of research, including a trip to the West Virginia State Archives to gather video footage. Freely combining fiction and nonfiction, this three-channel video
installation focuses on two teenagers in West Virginia in the mid-1980s. The characters exist in a media
environment that imposes and magnifies their worst fears. Yet even in such a hopeless world, they
discover a miraculous way to share subcultural infl uences. While referencing a specifi c time and place,
“Shelter in Place” presents a thematically timeless allegory of connectivity and cultural exchange.

1 May - 14 June, 2009
Reception: Friday the 1st of May, 6-9PM
New American Art Union 922 SE Ankeny. Portland, OR.

London Pitbull & Staff Girls

Sharmadean muses that the dog "acts as a source of both protection and companionship, providing a new found freedom to explore the city". Courtesy of WAH mag.

Ollie

This is my friend Ollie biting a skeleton hand.

Le fils de l'épicier

Watched this last night. Liked it. Was trying to figure out who the actress was.
Clotilde Hesme. Ironic since she is so talked about. Getting out of touch with the European film industry.

Hesme in Regular Lovers, one of my favourite recent French films.

Kiltie

The concept of these was to offer extra protection on work boots to stop dirt from getting under the tongue and lacing stand.

Scottish iteration

American iteration

Martin D'orgeval

Deyrolle.

On 1 February 2008 at 5.00 a.m., a fire ripped through Deyrolle, the famous old entomology and taxidermy store in the heart of Paris.

Its historic collections of thousands of butterflies and rare insects, stuffed animals and minerals, built up since it opened in 1831, burnt.

Martin d’Orgeval’s photographs show the animals and insects that survived the disaster in situ, against a background of charred woodwork in the shop that had been their habitat since their natural death.

Book published by Steidl.

A.P.C. x K-Way Blouson

I like that they colaborated with a company with a history. K-Way made the cheapo pack-a-mac's my parents used to dress me up in when I was a kid. This is the latest release from their colab.

D&AD 2009

Weiden's Travel Oregon is in there. As well as a huge influx in Music vid nominations. & Graphic design entries are well up on last year, making up for the poor show.

Matt Dent's nominated. I tried to collect all of these (except the pound, that one's a bit shit) when I was back but I just kept getting 20p's.

Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, Tate Modern

Saw this when I was back home in London this last weekend.

Little known River reference

A lesser known reference to River Phoenix was Final Fantasty VIII's main protagonist Squall Leonhart.

The Macguffin Library

Just viewed this at the Design Museum. It struck me as one of the more interesting projects I've seen there in a long time. Perhaps it was the literary aspect and the use of technology. It just struck a cord.
The following is an article from We Make Money Not Art that questions & explains the project more concisely than I could.





A few weeks ago we read a short interview with Vito Acconci where he was asked a similar question regarding the design/art argument and he was saying that a big part of the problem came from the fact that 'art' is the only discipline that is defined by a qualitative appreciation. We share that point of view and we think that the word art would have to be left for any kind of work that excels in whatever area of human activity. Who is to say that the work of Ferran Adria is less art than that of Jeff Koons? Or that a Frank Lloyd Wright building is less or art than an Andreas Gurski photograph? Or that Leonardo's flying machines is less art than his Monalisa?... What are the grounds for comparison and how or why would you do it? This is the eternal argument, from our point of view is easier as we see no boundaries. Maybe this interpretation of design might be confusing or unacceptable for some people who do have a very clear idea of the boundaries of between the two.




The 'McGuffin Library Collection' by Noam Toran and Onkar Kular obviously lives in the edges of what is traditionally accepted as design, and I guess it raise questions in both directions. As they explain, McGuffin is a term invented by Alfred Hitchcock to define an object within a film, which somehow acts as a devise to carry the narrative of the story. In terms of the story, the design of this object becomes, so its conception is a design exercise on its own. For Onkar and Noam this works perfectly well to explore further their ideas around the use of design as a medium that is central to their work. In this case they wrote 14 synopsis for imaginary films for which they designed an object. These objects are primarily talking about the role of objects as mediators in our understanding of the world (in this case of the story). In a second layer, they are talking about the world of technology, production and design. The objects are produced in rapid form directly from 3D computer models. The objects are not unique necessarily unique as they are printed very much like you would do with a computer document. Is that a banal use of technology, design and engineering just because thy are not pursuing 'the grater good' or the commercial enterprise? Would that make it art? For us what makes them good design and good art is exactly the same thing, they are able to broaden and challenge our preconceived ideas of what things are, while being moving and engaging.

Reprint of Denis Diderot

I'm a massive fan of the Faber Finds project. This is next on my list.

Author of that inexhaustibly strange masterpiece Rameau’s Nephew, Denis Diderot (1713-84) was also a dramatist, a speculative philosopher, the founder of modern art criticism and a tireless correspondent; he has also been called the most talkative man of his generation.

His genius was profoundly subversive, and he spent much of his working life under the threat of exile. The son of a cutler, Diderot had an empathy with trades, tools and machinery that flowered magnificently in some of his contributions to the great Encyclopédie, which he edited with d’Alembert and published over a period of some twenty years.

Diderot’s range of contacts was prodigious: a close friend of Rousseau, Grimm and d’Alembert, a familiar figure in the literary salons of Paris, he also met and corresponded with Hume, Garrick and Laurence Sterne. It was the support of Catherine the Great (as her agent, Diderot in effect laid the foundations of the Hermitage collection) that led to the most extraordinary episode in an astonishing life: at the age of sixty Diderot travelled to St Petersburg where he drew up outline plans for the conversion of Russia into an ideal republic.

P. N. Furbank's sympathetic and probing analysis of Diderot’s work and influence was first published in 1992 and won a Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism.

http://www.faber.co.uk/faberfinds/

Mi-Ni

The Face October 2001
Mini Anden photographed by Pierre Bailly

Ken Briggs, Pump House Gallery London

Early graphic design work for the National Theatre.

Doug Fir

Went to see Sebastien Tellier last night.
Been going here a lot recently. I have a newfound love for it.
The guy who works reception at night is a bit of a cock though.

New Paris interiors

Then Channel 5 came along and ruined it all

Channel 1

Channel 2

Channel 3

Channel 4

Prada Transformer

www.pradatransformer.co.kr

2wice magazine

Abbott Miller's 2wice magazine covers are on exhibit at AIGA in New York along with Dance Ink

Kenji Ikeda

Kenji Ikeda first launched his namesake brand "KENJIIKEDA" in A/W 2003 at Premiere Classe. He was born into a family that specialized in high-end handbag manufacturing utilizing leathers and reptile skins in their production. He traveled to Europe attending English School at the age of 14 by himself and returned home to Japan from Paris at the age of 29.

Chelsea Space, London

#25
Mick Jones:
The Rock & Roll Public Library
18.03.09 – 18.04.09
Jones has amassed an impressive collection of the paraphernalia of performance and marketing materials of the bands he has worked with. This archive sits alongside a parallel general collection of books, magazines, videos, ephemera, toys and games which mark out his life, times, and influences.
& I'm happy my old Art school has moved to a better location & is actually showing real exhibitions.

White #254

It took me hours to relocate this colour.
If I'm in my house, I'm painting it.

Sauvie Island Bike Ride.

Sunshine.

Films this week

The Outsiders

Milk, Gus Van Sant

Epicly Later'd: John Cardiel

The Love Guru. Yes. Shut up.

Thumbsucker, Mike Mills (hadn't seen this in ages)

Pineapple Express

Buffalo 66 (again, it'd been a long time)

& I saw Freaks & Geeks for the first time too.
Apparently I have been temporarily converted to American cinema. We'll see how long that lasts...

SSWTRxSUC

Science Diet

MATT KING
Science Diet
April 3 - 25, 2009
1430 gallery, PDX

Mark Borthwick

Journal Gallery, Brooklyn

Jil Sander Pant

A.P.C. x Supreme

Revolving around the slogan “Fuck’ EM".
Fuck’ EM?
With a slogan like that, the product better be good.

Shore at MoMA

MoMA's Into The Sunset show charts the persistent role of photography as commentator on the West and Stephen Shore's photograph taken outside Klammath Falls (OR) is the poster child. It opens Sunday.

Hanna Wilke

S.O.S Starification object series: an adult game of mastication (Mastication box), 1974-75. The public was invited to chew gum and stick them on specific places on Hannah’s body. A new acquisition of The Centre George Pompidou which will be exhibited from May 6

Dan Graham: Rock My Religion

"Rock My Religion is a provocative thesis on the relation between religion and rock music in contemporary culture. Graham formulates a history that begins with the Shakers, an early religious community who practiced self-denial and ecstatic trance dances. With the "reeling and rocking" of religious revivals as his point of departure, Graham analyzes the emergence of rock music as religion with the teenage consumer in the isolated suburban milieu of the 1950s, locating rock's sexual and ideological context in post-World War II America. The music and philosophies of Patti Smith, who made explicit the trope that rock is religion, are his focus. This complex collage of text, film footage and performance forms a compelling theoretical essay on the ideological codes and historical contexts that inform the cultural phenomenon of rock `n' roll music.

Original Music: Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth. Sound: Ian Murray, Wharton Tiers. Narrators: Johanna Cypis, Dan Graham. Editors: Matt Danowski, Derek Graham, Ian Murray, Tony Oursler. Produced by Dan Graham and the Moderna Museet."

Parting Glances

Buscemi's first film appearance.
First film to truly grapple with HIV.

Detective, Jean Luc Godard

Actual still from the film (& represents my feelings about it).
Not feeling this one. A bit arduous, it was hard to find a point in any of it.

Renault 4

My dad had this car when I was growing up.
I always see them when I watch 70's French films and it reminds me of the time I slammed the door and the windows fell out.

First Name: Carmen

I'd never seen this Godard. It's from 1983 and I'm far more into his earlier films, although I like Passion.
What's interesting in this one is the total lack of political dogma.. in its place there's a kind of re-examination of the values of Western civilization. About what's important to us, about commercialisation to a degree, but somehow this film marks a change in Godard's thinking. Perhaps to remain original and to move with the times..I'm on the fence, but it's beautiful, as always.

I saw 52 mins of this. It's crap.

Bush Compulsion – A Primitive Breakthrough in the Modern Mind

Book by Dutch artists Emmeline de Mooij & Melanie Bonajo.
“In this photo series the artists explore man’s primitive and violent human instincts, and the performing of certain rites in order to channel this severe force.”
The photo series is shortlisted for the Hyères Festival 2009.
56 pages – 120 x 180 mm. Printed in full color offset. Silver foil print on cover. Each book comes with a dried and pressed leaf. Signed and numbered edition of 300.

New Åbäke

Shez Dawood

Shane Bradford

And
LA CHIFFRE A LA LETTRE: CODE COUNTDOWN
Åbäke et Aurélien Froment
2009, sérigraphie
80 x 125 cm
édition de 100 exemplaires signés
www.motivegallery.nl

Les Freres Soeur

Latest background music for work.

Giuliano Fujiwara

Drop the Tough video for Groove Armada, directed by A+W

Watch it til the end.
This is the result if you can't:

Woolrich Woolen Mills SP/SU09

Thanks Pete

More Holsters

Holsters

USB holster

Handcuff holster

BLESS lighter/ipod holder

Asprey Polo

So I worked on this line in 2002, when Hussein Chalayan had just been hired as Creative Director for Asprey, they had split from Garrard, and Jade Jagger had been hired as Cr Dir for them. Jade worked out, Hussein did not. Worked with Cass Dicker, the most amazing woman - she used to be Hussein's pattern cutter at St Martins and left to help him set up his range (& as far as I know is still managing his studio).
None of Hussein's work went to market, but our polo range lived, I just found out. It's only sold in the Asprey store in Windsor so far as I know but still, I'm glad to see it's out there.

Evertt Beidler

Evertt Beidler at PSU's Autzen gallery.

Beidler is touted as a real force to watch. His latest show, "I hope this finds you fearless in the wilderness", I saw this weekend.

The cross like schematic belies Beidler's interest in locational signifiers and each of the four wings of the crux sports a different absurdist object like a foot or my favorite, a motorcycle helmet that looks like a boulder. As a helmet a great precautionary measure for any traveler's head, especially if they have no real idea where they are going. Or maybe it signifies a rock-like imperviousness to new ideas?

In the center of the crux is an array of four sticks reaching for a microphone. It feels like a series of ridiculous competing voices and a fitting and topical monument to this moment in history's unease.

Though Beidler's influences like Kippenberger, Beuys and Louise Bourgeois are pretty obvious… this show's restraint and broad interests in location, absurdism and competing ideologies with impressive execution signals this is one artist to watch.
PA

Auf der anderen Seite / Yaşamın Kıyısında

Directed by Fatih Akin, 2007, German-Turkish production.
Won the Prix du scénario at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
Slow to unfold but pretty good. Flits between Turkey and Germany. Good comment on immigration/asylum seeking as Turkey is on the verge of joining the EU.

Urban Gallery, 1 Grafton St

Art work from students at the Royal Academy Schools is being used to give the exterior of a building currently under renovation a new look. It's right next to the Asprey/ex-Tom Ford offices on Grafton st. I stood underneath this to interview Chris Laszlo (Chalayan's right hand man, all round awesome guy) for a business studies project once.

An art student who won an online poll has seen a giant print of one of his pieces hung from the side of a building in central London. Alex Knell, who is studying for an MA in Fine Arts at the Royal Academy Schools, submitted his digital print We Are Our Future to an online competition organised by property developer Hines. His work was chosen by voters and is now displayed on the side of One Grafton Street, a building that is currently being renovated by Hines.

oki-ni x Raf Simons x Linda Farrow Sunglasses

Other Farrow colabs this season include Yohji Yamamoto, Berhard Willhelm and Damir Doma.
Two sunglasses posts in a week, I promise this is to be my last. But Summer is coming..

BLESS

The presentation of the latest collection "No.37 New Sheheit" was a drum performance

But I'm a Cheerleader

Much better than the title suggests.

Clea Duvall is as brilliant as always. Julie Delpy has a cameo
One of the first modern American films I've watched in a really long time.
Directed by Jamie Babbit. 1999.

New Barbour

Interior print on the bomber is awful but rib is clever.

Jane B par Agnes V

netflix ensuite à la ligne

Find me this & I'll marry you

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0163379/
Vivre Ensemble 1972
Truffaut praised this, her directorial debut, but it's impossible to find.

Persol Sunglasses

Persol is releasing a limited amount of these glasses Steve McQueen wore in the Thomas Crowne Affair.

All the Boys Are Called Patrick

All Boys Are Called Patrick, Godard, 1957 (1959 in some reports)
Short film written by Éric Rohmer and directed by Jean-Luc Godard and made before both achieved fame as French New Wave filmmakers.
Watched this last night.

Jil Sander Uniqlo

Sander just signed a "design consulting agreement" to oversee the men's and women's apparel at Japanese retail giant Uniqlo. Sander and executives from Uniqlo's parent company Fast Retailing Co. Ltd., held a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday to outline the terms of the deal.
"Some of you [have known] me since I have been engaged in fashion but I'm not interested in the past. Let us talk today about the future. I'm here in Tokyo for something completely different. The challenge for me is to establish a premium quality in a democratically-priced range."
Interested to see what comes out of it.

Andres Serrano / Damien Hirst last night

ANDRES SERRANO
US 2007
DIRECTOR: ADAM KAHAN
At a recent exhibition in Sweden, vandals attacked the artist's work with pick axes. From his formative years in New York to his retrospectives in Avignon and Paris (where he was commissioned to photograph the members of the Comédie-Française, France's oldest theatre troupe), Serrano has proven to be an artist undaunted by controversy.

It was good to learn more about Serrano's work, this was just the right length & most interesting was the fact he has huge popularity in Paris, yet in the US I feel he perhaps isn't as well known. Other than Piss Christ, that is.


DAMIEN HIRST: ADDICTED TO ART
GREAT BRITAIN 2007
DIRECTOR: LUCY ALLEN
When a small proportion of Damien Hirst's art collection went on display at the Serpentine Gallery in London, the South Bank Show's Melvyn Bragg profiled the artist as a collector and businessman—rather than as the enfant terrible of the British art world, as he has also been known. Sarah Lucas, Sadie Coles and Jeff Koons feature.

Despite the fact I find Hirst fairly vile (see pic), he comes across better than I expected. Actually the most annoying aspect was that he was wearing an oversized Libertine skull print shirt throughout. It was good to see his collection, his studios and his crazy estate. I appreciate his appreciation, and it was great to see the South Bank Show again.

FA09 RTW Louise Gray

Making waves, I'm not entirely sure why. It all just looks like an i-D shoot. Another designer who perhaps should have been a stylist.

Bass Weejuns

The term "Weejun" is derived from "Norwegian".

Barbour X To Ki To

Classic British outdoor clothing company Barbour has teamed up with Japanese designer Tokihito Yoshida to launch a new limited edition capsule collection for Autumn Winter '09. J. Barbour & Sons, known for their iconic waxed jackets, was founded in 1894 and holds Royal Warrants from HM Queen Elizabeth II, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, and HRH The Prince of Wales. A graduate of Kuwasawa Design School, Tokihito previously designed for companies including Blades Savile Row in Japan before founding his own brand, To Ki To, in 1997. Consisting of five waxed and three waterproof jackets for men, the inspiration for the new To Ki To range came from Barbour's rich archive, which goes as far back as 1908, along with technical innovations and a modern fit.

Tokihito is renowned for the detail that he adds to his garments and he has taken Barbour's distinctive style and added his own signature design to create a unique collection that includes a wax Trench Coat, Bicycle, Horse Riding (above), Motor Riding and Driving jackets. Special features include zip on/zip off detachable helmet-style hoods, detachable padded vests, water-resistant map pockets, and integral storm skirts. On the trench coat, the vent and the front of the jacket combine to make a pair of "culottes" with the button features.

LibertyXA.P.C

May release.

Saville on Design Education

Peter Saville Q&A: What's wrong with design education? from D&AD on Vimeo.

R.I.P Alain Bashung

There are 66668 anagrams for my name.

Here's 1 of them:
A Syllable Ha Icon

Deerskin Outseam Biker Gloves

By Fox Creek Leather

They were made to be comfortable and functional. The seams are on the outside and don’t bind against your fingers while flexing. I hate the aesthetic of outseaming, but these make sense.

Magazine Library

Courtesy of Lola

WHEN : From Friday 6th to Saturday 14th March 2009, from 11:00 to 21:00
WHERE : At "Space O", B3F of Omotesando Hills
WHAT : WE LOVE MAGAZINE LIBRARY, a magazine library/exhibit for magazines
will be open during a limited time and feature magazines from around the world.
Visitors will find fashion magazines, but also culture, interior design, lifestyle,
as well as independent magazines.
This is a project produced by :
Yasushi Fujimoto (CAP) & David Guarino/ A Zillion Ideas (AZI)

Rut Blees Luxemburg

Commonsensual: The Works of Rut Blees Luxemburg is the most authoritative survey of the photographer’s work to date. Drawing on such influences as Giambattista Vico’s notion of Sensus Communis (or collective sense), Luxemburg’s projects include A Modern Project (used on the CD cover for The Streets’ Original Pirate Material) and the opera Liebeslied/My Suicides, based on the photographic series Liebeslied, as well as To Delphi, Faust 2, pied-à-terre lumière, Phantom, ffolly, and
Piccadilly’s Peccadilloes.

With an introduction by Regis Durand, former director of the Jeu de Paume and the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris, and texts by poet Douglas Park, and philosopher Alexander Garcia Duttmann, Commonsensual deftly summarises the many nuances of Blees Luxemburg’s work.

To coincide with the release of the book, Black Dog Publishing have an exhibition of Rut Blees Luxemburg photographs.

Kaleidoscope Mag

Free to download. Despite the format being nicked from Dazed, it's got some great content. Focused towards architecture & art more than fashion. Praise.

Design Observer

A hundred years ago Loos told us to suspend the use of ornament so that design could catch up with modernizing culture. A half century before that, recoiling from the aesthetic horrors of the Great Exhibition, Morris told us to stop using machines so that design could return to its origins in craft and hand production.

Things are over-designed because new tools must be exploited; design that says “look what I can do!”

Things are poorly-designed because new tools provide templates and shortcuts that are mistakenly substituted for design itself; design that says “look how easy it is!”

Armoured Trench Watch

Lance M65/Firefly

Lance Armstrong 'Stages' Collection was revealed Saturday night at the Ricardo Montalban Theater in Hollywood. The unveiling will be followed up by an exhibition, 20 artists have created works that will be displayed beginning July 16 at the Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery in Paris and will be sold with the proceeds going to Armstrong’s foundation. Artists include Tom Sachs, Eric White, Marc Newson, Os Gemeos and Taryn Simon.

"Rounding out the extensive footwear collection under the “Hope Rides Again” theme are two jackets, the Livestrong M65 and Livestrong Firefly Jacket. The sale of these items will benefit the cause at hand via the Lance Armstrong Foundation."HB.
Amazing turnover time on this project, quickest quick strike I've ever worked on.

iD Mag andre painting Uffie

E. Tautz on The Art of Wardrobe Building

"as carefully selected as any collection of paintings"

Once a Runner

Found it in a thrift store in Sacramento. Thought it sounded good.
"Once a Runner is a novel by American author John L. Parker Jr. and was first published in 1978 by Cedarwinds. Once a Runner illustrates the hard work and dedication that is required of an elite runner.
Since its publication, the novel has become a cult classic for competitive runners of all abilities.
A sequel was recently published titled Again to Carthage. This book was printed in a limited supply and will be reprinted in April 2009."
I've been reading this a lot lately, and although my running ability is never going to touch on these guys, it's still a motivating book. & my first fiction find in years.

Run Dem Crew

London

New Bathroom Light

30k Race at Champoeg Park, Oregon

Check.
How my feet feel right now:

Mervo Tech

Baltimore, Maryland.
Varied Varsity Jackets.

Films

Bad Education, Pedro Almodovar.
No complaints.

Romance & Cigarettes, John Turturo.
Annoying impromptu singing. A bit shit. Christopher Walken's good though.

Boy by Band of Outsiders

Kind of lame that they have Michele Williams & Kirsten Dunst as their models but they're getting better & better.

Mau/Dunne&Raby

"Although not driven by any explicit theme, today’s opening series of lectures at the 12th Design Indaba in Cape Town proved to have a common thread in invoking the human being at the centre of the creative process. In his closing address earlier this evening, Bruce Mau extended this pervasive thought with an impassioned talk on how our core senses of “love and ambition” will be critical in helping inspire change through design: change that, Mau believes, is encouragingly already beginning to take root…" CR



Head of the Design Interactions department at the RCA, Anthony Dunne andhis RCA colleague Fiona Raby design as Dunne & Raby and so, for their presentation, they showed a mixture of work from students and practitioners working within nano and bio-tech design and their own investigations into technological advances.
They opened with some arresting images from a project called Victimless Meat, developed by Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr and Guy Ben Ary, a meat product that can be grown in a laboratory from cells obtained from animals.
And as consumers, it’s in our relationship to these kinds of scientific developments that various design-related questions inevitably arise. What shape should this victimless meat be if it was produced? How would it be marketed? If no animals were killed in its formation, then could vegetarians eat it too?

Or could you take cells from humans – from popstars or politicians? – consuming their meat as an act of love, or hate, even.
This act of “putting these ideas into a consumer consciousness”, explained Dunne, “doesn’t belittle them, but activates a different part of our thinking.”

Design is essentially functioning as a language with which to open up discussions of how these technologies might open up our lives.

Another interesting project they discussed was their own Evidence Dolls commission for the Pompidou Center in Paris which, again, was a way of investigating how biotechnologies might impact on society.
“We focused on young single women and their love lives as this provided a number of interesting perspectives on genetics: designer babies, desirable genes, mating logic, DNA theft. It is not intended to be scientific, but more a way of unlocking their imaginations and generating stories that once made public, trigger thoughts and discussions in other people.”

“One hundred special dolls were produced to contain material from a male lover from which DNA could be extracted at a later date. The dolls were made from white plastic (which could be annotated) and came in three penis sizes, S, M, and L.”

www.dunneandraby.co.uk

Nike Free 3.0

Best Running Shoe

I've run 2 half marathons and a full marathon in this shoe. I love it.

Two-panel mesh upper for a spike-like fit
Compression molded EVA midsole with Nike Free for increased flexibility and advanced foot strengthening
BRS1000 carbon rubber strategically placed at outsole for durability

Wood Wood A/W 09/10

Pizza Pizza Daddy-O

Nanamica Helmet Pack

Of all the US military bags, helmet bags are my favorite. I like this plain canvas version from Nanamica:

(yes, total head porter rip off)

Holly Crawford

Through an unconventional use of the catalogue from the Amory International Art Fair, "Outsourced Critics" challenges conventional aesthetics, explores the preconceived concept of an authentic experience in viewing artwork as well delves into the inherently polemic nature of art fairs.

The premise behind "Outsourced Critics" consisted of recruiting 9 people including artists, critics, curators and museum directors from around the world (Europe, India, Hong Kong, Thailand and the Middle East) to review the Armory Fair. Each participant was asked to be an "out"sourced critic-meaning that they were not present in New York City while it took place. The participants were asked to experience and critically reflect on, and respond to, the fair solely through the Armory catalogue.

The submitted texts consist of essays, lists, stories, email correspondences and critical commentaries by Claude Closky, Eitan Buganim, Hemda Rosenbaum, Jerome Sans, Josette Balsa, Brian Curtin, Yonatan Amir, Vasif Kortun and Sven Lutticken. The overall piece reflects the commodification and objectification of art within the market and fairs. Once again a comment on art collectors as 'investors'.

Exactitudes

The impossibility of Individuality.

Films

Jeremiah Johnson is the best Western I think I've ever seen. I didn't fall asleep. This is a miracle.


Watched Wild Ocean at the Imax. Almost fell asleep but the beginning is good.

Wood Wood Tamara Jacket

SP/SU 09

Product in Nylon Mag

Kristen Stewart, that girl from Twilight.

Science Tattoo Emporium

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/science-tattoo-emporium/