Gizmogs




UHER.C. Photo Guido Costa Projects

LABoral, the art center we have come to associated with new media art, has recently opened an exhibition dedicated to new, audacious and thought-provoking forms of design. Curated by Roberto Feo and Rosario Hurtado (El Último Grito), Nowhere/Now/Here aims to challenge the perception of design by questioning our relationship with the environment. Taking the viewpoint that our environment has become part of us rather than us being part of it, as its point of departure, Nowhere/Now/ Here encourages us to see design as an integral component of the world-shaping process.

Sorry for the long silence, i was a bit dazed by the 2 fantastic days i spent at the School of Architecture of Alicante. Thanks a lot to Paco Mejias, Jose Maria Torres Nadal and a virtual Edgar Gonzalez who have made my stay over there so memorable and fun.

Theo Jansen, Strandbeest

Then 19th edition of Art Futura, the Barcelona-based festival of Digital Culture and Creativity, closed on Sunday with the Prize Giving Ceremony. Awards were handed to the creators of best pieces in 3D and digital animation and of the best Spanish videogames. Not one single girl climbed on the podium to receive a prize (that's ok, ladies, i'm not into 3D either) but most of the awardees thanked either their girlfriend or their mum for their support. There was even one 'gracias a mi abuela/thanks to my granny'. How sweet!

The Estonian pavilion is on many 'must see' lists. I wouldn't bother to write that you 'must' see it. Truth is you just can't miss it. It's that lemon yellow section of a natural gas pipe that snakes down the Giardini from the German to the Russian pavilion. The sixty-three meters long of real scale elevated gas pipe draws attention to Nord Stream, the controversial Gazprom project to construct a direct pipeline between Russia and Germany. The pipe would run along the Baltic seabed, which could have major political and ecological implications for neighboring countries.

Aristote believed that laughter is what separates us from the beasts. Today, scientists argue that non-human species, such as primates and even rats, do giggle, guffaw and burst into laugher.

The Arsenale section of the Venice Biennale of Architecture has many characteristics that makes it stand out from other architecture exhibitions. One of them is that you won't get to see cardboard models and plans. In fact, you can even walk around and inside the 1:1 scale replica of an apartment building with sharing spaces.

The Evening Line is the result of a three year collaboration between artist Matthew Ritchie, architects Benjamin Aranda et Chris Lasch and engineers at Arup AGU.

As i mentioned a couple of days ago, the Heartland exhibition on view until January 25 at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (NL) is one of the best shows i've visited this year.

I just spent a couple of eventful days in Eindhoven, NL. Endless thankyouverymuch to my lucky star (in this case the MU art space) who brought me there as the Van Abbemuseum had just opened a fascinating and very timely exhibition dedicated to contemporary art and culture of the central and southern states of America. I'll come back with more details on Heartland but here's the appetizer:

A couple days ago, Eyebeam in New York City opened what by some has been called their best show so far. It is titled Untethered, and was curated by visiting fellow Sarah Cook to be "a sculpture garden of everyday objects deprogrammed of their original function, embedded with new intelligence and transformed into surrealist and surprising readymades". Many pieces are from Eyebeam's fellows, residents or affiliated artists while a few external people were invited to participate as well.

Dead Star

The excuse for my visit to Paris was SmartCity, a conference organized in the frame of the festival Emergences. Emergences is an 'international festival of electronic cultures and new art forms'. However, one must accept that in a city like Paris the word 'international' doesn't necessarily that tacit rules will be respected and that the activities and conferences will be held in any other language than french. That's probably why i enjoyed the event so much.

Long overdue.... A follow-up on media_city Seoul, a media art biennale hosted until November 5, 2008 at the Seoul Museum of Art.

Finally some time to put order in my brain and write a few lines about the 5th edition of Seoul International Media Art Biennale, aka media_city Seoul.