The full transcript of my first academic seminar is now online: Microplexes. It's housed at urbagram.net, which will be the home of my research into urban systems.
The Rest is Silence is a project published as a booklet by Jeff Kinkle and Emanuel Almborg. As Jeff explains over at Dossier,
In the late 1970s a group of people living in the borough of Hackney in East London began building a structure on a derelict lot in their neighborhood and continued building until this January. The story of the project’s origins are shrouded in mystery. What is known is that because the residents couldn’t decide on what they wanted to build, they made three rules. The first was that not only would they build without any plan or blueprint, they would not discuss the direction of the project at all. Second, when they were on the building site, no one was allowed to speak. Third, the building would never be completed in that anyone at any point could decide to take it in a new direction. So the structure was built for thirty years until last autumn when the council sold the land to a developer who tore it down in January.
The book is published by andperseand. You can pick it up at Artwords on Rivington St.
I've posted some background on the research I'm just embarking on, to provide a little more detail for all those of you who have been asking and as an embellishment to the many conversations I've had with friends on the subject. You can read it here.
In short the research involves using computational methods to help increase the energy efficiency of transport networks in cities. The research draws on complexity science and network theory, and the output is a set of tools & techniques that allow policy makers to design more efficient transport systems.
Last month I left Last.fm after a little over three unforgettable years. We did some good work. I got to hang out with a group of people with immense talent and grew in all kind of ways that can't be quantified, charted or spreadshot. So much remarkable stuff took place in such little time I wouldn't even know where to begin telling. So I'll spare you.
A week after my voluntary unemployment kicked in I walked into an interview at the multi-disciplinary research unit, CASA, for a funded PhD in the application of complex systems & network theory to matters of urbanism. These matters interest me.
My presentation contained three quotations that served to illustrate why I was sitting in front of the project leads. They clinched me the PhD,
I have confirmed Pascal’s observation that imagination tires before Nature.
- Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature
The fact is, that the creation of a town... is fundamentally a genetic process. This conclusion, simple though it is, calls for a shattering revision of our attitude to architecture and planning.
- Christopher Alexander, The Timeless way of Building
The key systemic property of a city is nodality rather than centrality... Since network cities easily exercise control at a distance, the influence of a town has little to do with propinquity...
- Manuel De Landa, A Thousand Years of Non-linear History
Girl Chewing Gum by John Smith. He shot this in 1976 on Stamford Road, looking across to what is now the bike shop opposite the Oxfam on Kingsland Road. It was one of about 30 films on the subject of East London screened last weekend in the Rio as part of the East End Film Festival.
Wall mounting system using clips and hooks from the 98p shop. The hooks are temporary and don't appear to leave a mark, which is great because I have a landlord for the first time in my life.
Who wants to cuddle Charles the hardest? Let Edwige and Alberte fight it out.
The film (re-)discovery of the year for me - Bresson's The Devil, Probably (clip). Not knowing whether you want to lamp Charles in the chops or embrace him is half the fun (and a mark of its complexity). It's got such a memorable tone and remarkable performances that it left a big impression second time around - especially the church scenes. It's still my favourite suicide film ahead of Taste of Cherry and Japon. Other films I stumbled across this year: Apichatpong Weerasethakul's mesmerizing Syndromes & A Century, Carlos Reygadas' breathtaking Mexican Mennonite film Silent Light, the totally wonderful Zizek! (clip) and one of the only good biogs I've ever seen - Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell (clip) as well as UK screenings of Godard's Histoire(s) du Cinema (clip) and Marker's A Grin Without a Cat (clip); both epic in length, scope and purpose and well worth the wait.
Siobhan consumed by our merciless ball-pit at work (it's great for naps, breaks, meetings and fights).
Hackney Coat of Arms (source: Wikipedia)
The border of blue and white wavy lines represents the water of the rivers and canals on or near the borough's boundaries. The red and white Maltese Cross and the black and white background, like that in the arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney, commemorates the Orders of the Knights Templar and Knights of St. John. The Knights Templar wore a red Maltese Cross on white surcoats and mantles and the Knights of St. John wore black surcoats and mantles with a white Maltese Cross on the left breast. In 1312 the Knights Templar were suppressed and their lands and rents, including those in Hackney, were transferred to the Knights of St. John. The two golden oak trees with red acorns derive from the arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington and recall the forest which once covered the northern part of the Borough. The three golden bells represent the Bells of St. Leonard's Church, Shoreditch, referred to in the nursery rhyme. "Oranges and Lemons". The Crest consists of a representation of the tower of the former Parish Church of St. Augustine, Hackney, which is the only part now standing and the only scheduled Ancient Monument within the Borough. The green mound, represents the island in the River Lea - "Hacon's Eyot" - from which the name "Hackney" is thought by some authorities to have been derived.
From civicheraldry.co.uk
1950 Encephaloscript EP 502 – 4 to 16 channel EEG, From the forthcoming 'Sleeping & Dreams' exhibition at the Wellcome Trust building
Henry Wellcome's esoteric personal collection of artefacts from the history of medicine is housed inside the renovated Wellcome Trust building on Euston Road (Euston Square station). The Trust has a huge public exhibition space alongside the permanent collection, currently exhibiting 'The Heart'. It's a great trawl through the history of medical science with outstanding exhibits displayed with care and attention. Included in the collection are objects as disparate as Ayurvedic anatomical drawings, centuries old Japanese dildos, collections of artifical eyes, a Bosch painting, 19th century medical chairs, a fully functioning modern heart/lung machine and a collection of prosthetic limbs through the ages. They have an exhibition on 'Sleeping & Dreams' coming up. Don't miss.
→ More on the permanent collection
→ More on The Heart exhibition
Probably the most important British architectural undertaking of the post-war period, Cedric Price and Joan Littlewood's (never realised) Fun Palace would have changed the complexion of East London, at least for a decade (Price didn't believe in 'permanent' architecture) but I suspect far longer.
Essentially a re-programmable cultural space built on the principle of work as 'play', Fun Palace was 20-30 years ahead of its time, displaying an attitude towards technology that has since faded from a lot of architectural practice.
Fun Palace was composed essentially of a scaffolding housing massive rotatable walkways and movable wall components (two cranes presided over the building). Cybernetic regulation systems were planned (perhaps naively) to control everything from scheduling to programming to flow of people.
All images are from the Architecture Association.
Ironically, one of the sites earmarked for the Fun Palace in 1964 is now part of the Olympic Masterplan in the Lea Valley - an aquatic center will sit on the site. A plan whose 'cultural legacy' promises seem both vague and lacking in conviction.
Fun Palace, for all its utopian principles, was a project pursued with conviction and designed in detail. Its legacy lives on in various Fun Palaces since realized, including the Pompidou and Toyo Ito's Sendai Media Center (video torrent).
Above: Olympic Planning Authority's Hackney resident consultation document (I'm a homeowner here) alongside the new publication 'From Agit-Prop to Free Space: The Architecture of Cedric Price'
Duracell plays Bubble Bobble at the Spitz (video by sharevari)
"incredibly noticable, brave and confrontational" - Peter Saville
"a solid gold stinker" - Adrian Shaugnessy
"Don't pay the designers" - Ken Livingstone
Now and again an event thrusts graphic design into the nation's spotlight. This Olympics Logo has got everyone talking about graphics. I welcome that. I don't think the means justify the end here though. In a city so teeming with graphics talent, this is one major fuck up.
Exercise for the reader: Contrast this to, say, Otl Aicher's work on Munich '72.
Organized freedom is compulsory. Woe betide you if you have no hobby, no pastime.
- Theodor Adorno, "Free Time"
As you may have noticed by the activity around here, i've taken a few days off work to catch up with myself. Most of my time off has been taken up with a crash course on DSP using my shiny new copy of MAX/MSP.
Last night i even ventured to North West London (gasp) to catch Junior Boys for their first (overdue) London show. The photos are here. Really ace to see everyone again. I should stumble out of East London more often...
All sorts of crazy good stuff going on at the Serpentine Pavilion in Hyde Park this weekend - like Cory Doctorow hanging out with Cecil Balmond and Rem Koolhaas chatting to Zaha Hadid and Ken Loach and Liam Gillick and a Thomas Demand show and open air screenings to cap it all off. More here.
Be there!
A weekend retreat for a classical musician in Japan. Girl plays the violin for Alain de Botton (a popular philosopher with a receding hairline) while he looks out on the forest. This is the scene.
De Botton's main observation in this TV program is that the trite aesthetic traditionalism of the British means most of us aren't living in homes that reflect the age we live in. We seem averse as a society to the idea of modern architecture, whereas the japanese effortlessly blend age-old religious values with modern materials and structures. For the Brits, when it comes to architecture, traditional is good and modern is ugly by default. Potential mass scale post-industrial fallout with design, subjugation to our nation's Most Great History or just plain apprehension. Not sure.
De Botton's TV series - The Perfect Home - is based on his essay, The Architecture of Happiness.
Anyway, this kind of geometric pastoral gets me every time.
I'm joining social music service last.fm as a full-time developer in a couple of weeks over at their new office in old st (it still looks like a mess - story + pics). As those who know me will confirm, i have views on social software and how culture can suck less under new classification, distribution and publishing models, so i'm really looking forward to getting stuck into moderation strategies, web services, folksonomy and data mining. Particularly psyched to find individuals i respect (e.g. Joi Ito) among the investors.
It should be a tremendous year for last.fm. Hopefully i can play my part in that.