#architectonics world

[abby118]

barracks

(from the Thor: The Dark World movie storybook)

[jessaerys]

remember the world pre-pandemic. i'm high and it's scrambling my brain. we lived through a shift in human history. a fundamental part of the past has ended permanently. there is no going back octavia butler was so so right when she said god is change. and in the end god prevails

[milksockets]

'the inflatable sprach pavilion by veech media architecture outlines a new niche for tensile architectonic materials' in ultra materials: how materials innovation is changing the world - bradley quinn (2007)

[bangobeep]

Retro-futuristic espionage, a love letter to the vintage, and living music: JAZZPUNK

It's almost impossible not to find something new every time you replay Jazzpunk. Saxophonist pies, corporate espionage, comedy and cybercrime: few videogames—if there's more than just one—gather these characteristics and make them dance in a way as harmonious as it does. This adventure game transports whoever touches it to the late 1950s during an alternate Cold War, where the north of America has become the United Prefectures of Japanada and robots are a common sight on Earth.

Its developers, Luis Hernandez and Jess Brouse, initially released the game in 2014 with a total of 10 chapters. Posterior to that, in 2016, they released another edition of the game, both for PC and PlayStation 4 consoles, with content never seen before. While it didn't add more chapters to the game, it did add a DLC 'level' and amplified the preexisting ones.

The mute protagonist of this exhilarating experience, Polyblank, serves as a vessel for the player to be transported to this strange world. His adventure begins in an abandoned subway station where he meets with his coworker, Secretary IX; and boss, The Director. The latter assigns him missions, like infiltrating the Soviet Consulate, extracting a bio-engineer cowboy's artificial kidney, going on vacation and fighting against his nemesis, The Editor.

It's only to be expected that in each of these sections you can find side quests—I mean, would it really be as good a game if you couldn't eat a pigeon or travel in space and time?—. Though, different to other games, these are made to distract the player from the main task at hand and force it to explore the (almost) open world. There's no logic games, or puzzles, but there are weird gadgets and exotic stores that, without any doubt, make whoever sees them stop for a moment to laugh at them.

It's a game plagued with references to its epoch, as can be appreciated in its art and the architectonic style of its scenes, perfectly fit for vintage enthusiasts; though it is also full of references to the 21st century's earliest years, like its videogame scene and popular culture.

Leaving this aside, there's another crucial aspect that would be a crime not to point to: its music. If the Jazzpunk soundtrack could be described as anything, it would be a loving fusion of the two eras mentioned earlier. Luis Hernandez, one of its developers, gave himself the task to create it. He used old tape recorders and analogic homemade synthesizers; not using a computer for anything but to introduce the music into the game. It's loud, out of tune and, instead of following the player, it's stuck to objects. It perfectly complements the vibrant graphics and makes the wacky world you find it in alive and tangible.

Nowadays, almost three years of knowing Jazzpunk, I'm still surprised by tiny details I hadn't seen before (and that's considering I always think that then, finally, I'll have seen it all). If you are looking to spend a good three hours—or more, if that's how bored you are—; the comical plot, interesting references and peculiar soundtrack of this game might be your solution.

[firewalkzwit]

runt // jonathan crane x reader. (10)

Chapter 10

cross-posted on AO3

masterlist

Bloodshot eyes tried to stay open at the expense of aching tear ducts. Bruce Wayne had documented his night on his journal before his sleepless memory erased important details. Though he knew he wouldn't forget her, he still wrote down his close encounter with the unfortunate victim of Scarecrow. He felt greatly irresponsible to leave her to her fortune where he did, in his irrational impulsivity forgetting to even make sure she could drive her way out. From his screen stared back at him the same captivating face that he'd seen before, remembering why he was stunned stupid beyond the standard ID procedure. Bruce was hardly the type to be unethical during his rather unorthodox nightly activities, yet he was overwhelmed by guilt. It soon clicked as he scanned through her connections that she was the younger sister of a low category goon that used to work for Carmine Falcone, who had recently died. The same guilt washed over him, she was alone and surrounded by misfortune. Dates coincided with the ambush on Falcone's men at the dock, it was like two plus two for him to deduce the cause of death, which he chose not to bother to check. Guilt.

His record failed to provide any information on where she worked, which only made his prying more difficult to serve his ultimate goal; locating her. The last time she had worked officially was as a janitor in Gotham University four months ago. Although one is innocent until proven otherwise, the Batman often needs to resort to expecting the worst out of everyone, but Bruce Wayne wasn't allowing the mere idea to cross his mind. Guilt kept washing over him followed by a wave of empathy, feeling oddly connected to her. She was just a kid, alone in the world. Her brother had been her caretaker legally for as long as he'd been an adult, and it was all the family she had, or used to. Both Bruce and her were lone runts, losing the people most important to him to matters of fate, yet he felt the familiar feeling from his childhood of having blood on his hands lingered. Batman on the other hand, held the belief that compromising oneself for money had its consequences, and her brother got the worst end of the lottery of unfortunate outcomes. It felt unfair to think she had to pay the consequences of God's gamble on her life. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.

Bureaucracy is not exempted to the multimillionaire Bruce Wayne, especially because all the privileges he could potentially favor from were revoked when he moonlighted as the protector of Gotham. He wasn't a fan of making calls and use of his contacts anyway, as Bruce was considerably detached from Wayne Enterprises and all its stakeholders. When Batman had to explain to Gordon why he needed the help of the police influence to contact Gotham University about Y/N, it bothered Bruce to lie to Gordon about her being a suspect on the fresh case they had on Crane. In a way, he had the necessary arguments to back it up, but the innocence of his lie was cleared by the motive of his sin.

Two nights passed since he last saw her before he met with Gordon again to receive the information he needed. The last record of her home pointed to a small condominium in the outskirts of Park Row. Ouch, dark memories for Bruce which he'd rather not approach unless necessary, but everything was too close to home for Bruce to let himself turn the blind eye on the young runt. Besides, he insisted to himself on it having nothing to do with Batman, believing firmly that he responded to his duties.

The place was dreadful, one of the most unapproachable places in all of Gotham, and for a city like it, awarding it the 'most unapproachable' title was a big deal. The Batman prowled looking down at the dismal building where she had her home. The condo was small and cramped, three buildings stuck together with the architectonic style of a working class London flat, only smaller, and hers in the left corner. The three buildings had for pillars convenience stores and under hers a humble Chinese laundry shop. As he approached, it was more Bruce than Batman hoping that he'd find her safe, and clear his conscience.

Y/N hadn't heard of Dr. Crane for the past two days since he'd been in her apartment, and while at some hours of her days she'd feel her disdain for him dissipate, it would occasionally come back to strongly strike in her a desire to drown him in the water she boiled to serve him tea. It was unpredictable, and she knew she needed to pull herself together before her feelings took over her decisions. Engaging with Dr. Crane shouldn't be any different from her job as a waitress in the 44 Below. It all served a greater purpose, she'd tell herself. She simply had to smile and take it easy and repeat the phrase in her head. Her eyes were immerse in the television as she watched from afar, seated on the small kitchen table as she chopped tomatoes for an insipid salad she'd eat with the chicken breasts she had recently grilled, a frugal meal it was. The last time she had delighted her taste buds with good food felt longer than it was, but in reality it had been roughly about four months ago, dates she'd rather not think about unless it was to remember how much she hated Batman.

The kitchen knife in her hands suddenly trembled in her grip, stabbing the cutting board as a noise outside her balcony startled her. The window was open, letting out the nauseating and invasive smell of the chicken on the griddle pan. The silence of expectation, waiting for another sound to invite her curiosity to look outside, was composed of long seconds, and it took no more than a minute before the lack of discretion of whatever lurked in her debatable portion of property practically begged her to look. She placed the knife on an approachable distance as her slow walk, similar to that of a hunter, approached the window with growing terror as the suspense prolonged itself. She sprinted and rested her weight on the wall beside the window, her arms glued to the wall as her neck and head peeped to the side to look outside the open window.

It was easier to expect a unicorn to fly into her apartment than what (or who) did. He was discrete, unlike when he was outside her apartment. Shocking to see someone with the stealth of a feline move, as usually those with such a talent for discretion were not seen, as they would hide under the shadows. The shock was too much for Y/N to bare, she couldn't dare to breathe, paused on a sharp inhale and frozen against her wall with her eyes wide open. Her nostrils flared as she debated on whether to jump and reach for the knife on the edge of her table, or stay where she was, but before she could gather the courage to do anything at all, the vigilante turned as he perceived the presence he suspected, confirming her fear once their eyes met; it was the Batman.

"I'm not here to hurt you." The familiar soft yet raspy voice scratched her eardrums unpleasantly. She hated that voice, clandestine and almost inhuman. Although her body battered on her chest to yell at him to get out, she was petrified. What could she do? It was too much to process, and she was glued to the wall still without a limb moving, shocking he was able to see her in the shadows despite her immense secrecy product of her fear. Seeing she was still immobile, he slowly began to approach trying to not scare her, but then again one can approach slowly trying to calm the opposite party, or approach slowly like a hunter prowls furtively on its prey before pounding. Her senses suspecting the latter, she slowly began to walk as well, semi-crouching as her head tilted trying to discern if it really was him. As she finally reached a safe proximity to the table, her impulses got the best of her, and she got a rapid but clumsy grip of the kitchen knife which she held onto the tightest she could. Her tense muscles and flexed arm pointed the weapon at him, and her agitated breathing hesitated.

He remained still, displaying no signs of being startled at the threat.

"Move and I'll cut you... Real ugly." She threatened, yet her voice lacked conviction. Her tone trembled and sounded insecure, but both knew that fear was bound to impulsivity, and impulsivity was bound to disaster. The vital parts of his body were protected, and she was no fool to omit this. Yet the gesture her fingers did drawing a circle around her chin seemed to indicate the obvious; if she were to feel threatened by any movement on his behalf she'd cut his face. Or that's what she thought, since it took only a second before his unmatched speed caught a grip of her wrist and spun her around, pressing her back against his chest and her own wrist under his control, the knife was close enough to her own face to cause her to gasp. She winced at his manoeuvre, the tightening on the muscle under her scapula caused by the sudden stretching of her arm that moved her entire body still felt sore after being released from the tension. His forearm was significatively stronger than hers, and she couldn't battle against him even if she tried, she felt foolish to have even attempted to point a knife at Batman himself, known to take down men with guns unarmed many times.

"Let go of me!" She squirmed under his grip, which only tightened her body against his cold, shielded chest. Her head against his neck, she could feel the sharp bone of his jawline against the top of her head.

"I needed to make sure you were alright."

"I don't want you checking on me, pervert." Batman needed only the grip on her wrist to move her around like a puppet, as he spun her around again using his other arm to tighten her chest around his, her arm flexed so tightly against itself her forearm ached at the tension. Her hand held the knife still, the bottom of the weapon grazing Batman's hand wrapped around her wrist. The keen edge of the knife had a dangerous proximity to the Bat's cheek, and in his physical power he rested an immense trust in that she wouldn't do anything, she was too afraid to. In a way, the knife was also terrifyingly close to her as well, as her face was close enough to his to feel his hot breath on her nose and mouth. Her derisive response was followed by a long silence which was staled by the sound of the television, and their fast-paced breathing, almost synchronised.

"It's dangerous, you here on your own." His voice finally spoke with its usual severity, it felt like he was scolding her rather than looking out for her. Frankly, she wanted neither from him, she only wanted to cry, feeling overpowered and surrendered to the man she wanted to unmask and force to face public condemnation, although at that very moment she just wanted to choke him to death. Realistically, she only got her way on one of her many irrational desires; and it was to cry. She broke down, impotent, her grip on her knife weakening as the weapon dropped down on the floor. Her whole body softened, and she only remained standing thanks to Batman's hold on her. She weeped like an infant, and she felt like one, a runt.

He hesitated. He hardly ever hesitated, but display of emotion was not his usual pick from the deck of options he had when he chose to react. His hand travelled from her back to her face, his gloved thumb caressing her humid cheek in an attempt to comfort her. She flinched at his touch, a soft caress from the Batman, to her, felt like whiplash. She recoiled and struggled, trying to free herself from his grip.

"I said let go of me you murderer!" Y/N screamed as her head shook uncontrollably, she was displaying an authentic tantrum and was out of control. Having Batman so close and under complete sobriety, unlike their first encounter, didn't get from her the heroic response she expected from her own emotions. She had hoped that if she ever encountered the Batman, she could trick him into surrendering his identity, and that under his own dread he'd beg for her to kill him, and she'd comply. The scene in her apartment was nothing like she pictured, seeing the man she blamed for her brother's death only triggered in her erratic responses and an utter display of surrender to her terror and trauma. Despite her state, he complied to her urges, her body collapsing on the floor as she sobbed on the verge of hyperventilating.

"You're not safe here." He repeated like she was slow, which only irked her further.

"I don't need you telling me to know that. Why do you care?" Her voice trembled, exacerbated. "Why do you care!?"

He didn't answer, he couldn't. She knew, and she knew he knew she knew. She could tell he felt guilt, and wanted to wallow on how his emotions leaked from him, she wanted to hear him say it to give her pride satisfaction, and her ache a partial fulfillment. He had killed her brother, and as if he was trying to torture her, invaded her space. Laid on the ground like she did when the police gave her the news, her tears dropping on the cold wooden floor.

He longed to hold her and comfort her, and in a way, comfort himself. It was Bruce who longed to hold her, he wanted to find solace in feeling understood by her, even if she hated him for it. He felt selfish, guilty. Yet he wanted to hold her in his arms like he hadn't wanted something in so long, hold himself. To see her sobbing as her arms wrapped around her knees, trying to find the contact of something warm in her own body felt like seeing himself, and it anguished him.

He failed to tell she didn't just hate him, he was fuelling her dread even more.

[zipper-neck]

Think I found an art anatomy teacher, Gottfried Bammes, who will be highly influential to my drawing: He's already tearing apart other anatomy teachers' books, notably Loomis' "Figure Drawing for All It's Worth." Like listen to what he wrote about it:

"Essentially -- and quite indefensibly, even from the point of view of providing usefully simplified teaching materials -- these are formulas for skeleton and musculature studies, intended to allow figures of all kinds to be drawn easily and quickly, for all occasions a quick glance at this 'cookbook' of formulas is all that is needed to find recipes for how the seams and folds of jackets and trousers arrange themselves, for how to deploy light and dark areas, how to use chalk and pen, and how to 'do' sitting, lying, standing and erotic images of undressed girls in high heels stretching, or sprawled out on, or sliding off, divans. The net gain? Facile execution, a slick routine -- and money!" [Bammes, Anatomy for Artists: Past and Present, pg. 37]

Loomis was SO influential to the way anatomy is taught that you don't realize until you study it a lot that Loomis was like the Bob Ross of life drawing: his methods taught simplifications that helped demystify the process of observation, but he left out a lot of detail which would cause confusion for students when their figures don't look quite alive. (And yes, I'm saying Bob Ross isn't really that good of a painter, fight me.)

Bammes does however speak highly of Burne Hogarth's "Dynamic Anatomy," which is the book my professors liked best too. Bammes says, "Hogarth has made the most momentous contribution of any author in the English-speaking world to constructive figurative drawing, including the arrangement of the body's masses. His efforts to find architectonic solutions deserve our full attention." [pg 38]

[longlistshort]

Lucas Arruda’s paintings for Assum Preto at David Zwirner capture moments in time that beckon you to look closer. On his Instagram is a photo of Agnes Varda with a quote that reads “If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes”. Standing in front of these paintings allows the viewer to contemplate Arruda’s inner landscapes as well as their own.

From the gallery-

“Assum Preto” continues Arruda’s investigations into the painted medium and its ability to serve as an evocative and transcendental conduit for the unveiling of light, memory, and emotion. The exhibition is titled after a species of blackbird native to eastern Brazil—whose mundane birdsong, according to local tradition, is said to transform into a beautiful melody if the bird’s eyesight has been shaded. As the artist explains: “It’s as if, when the bird has everything in sight, and is full of information and distractions, it can’t organize itself. Only when it’s no longer surrounded by images, can it organize everything in its head. In a certain way, I think this has to do with light.… For me, light is related to remembering.” In the works on view, light takes on a multitude of forms, surfacing in various physical, ideographical, and affective manifestations.

The exhibition is primarily composed of new paintings from Arruda’s established body of seascapes, junglescapes, and abstract monochromes; together, these works bring about a complex understanding of landscape as a product of a state of mind rather than a depiction of reality. The works on view are notable for their fogged colors—exploring subtle but intricate variations within a single hue—that range from dense reds to ethereal and almost intangible veils of white. For the monochromes, Arruda adds layer upon layer of pigment to pre-dyed raw canvas in an attempt to replicate its tinted hue in paint, methodically returning to each work for weeks or even months on end until the composition slowly builds into a hazy and ever-shifting wall of light.

The seascapes and junglescapes, on the other hand, are made on prepared surfaces using a reductive process whereby the impression of light is attained through the subtraction of pigment. Devoid of specific reference points, Arruda’s seascapes are all grounded only by their thin horizon lines. Above and below this border, charged atmospheric conditions engage further dichotomies between sky and earth, the nebulous and the solid, the psychic and the visual. The jungles, by contrast, dwell in verticality; their genesis lies in the artist’s formative memories of the verdant foliage outside his bedroom window. For Arruda, the quasi-mythical scenery of the Brazilian rainforest coaxes out tensions between reality and human imagination. Towering and impenetrable, yet containing a sense of the infinite that surpasses its physical bounds, in Arruda’s work the jungle becomes a site of power and enlightenment as much as it is a harbinger of darkness and uncertainty—a place where one can be lost to the world and find themselves again.

As curator Lilian Tone writes: “[Arruda’s] paintings suggest a tenuous, fugitive, and mediated relation to nature as that which informs an aesthetic language. As viewers, we tend to make sense of the slightest mark within an open field, to immediately perceive a horizontal line as a horizon line, to create clouds from a change in direction of brushstrokes, and to perceive ground from a thick impasto. Arruda makes paintings we experience as at once beyond abstraction and yet before representation.”

In “Assum Preto”, Arruda debuts a group of small-scale, semi-abstract paintings that are constructed from a lexicon of symbolist motifs, marking a new turn in the artist’s practice while also harking back to the planar and architectonic forms that characterize his early oeuvre. In these works, he takes visual cues from the geometries and rich colorscapes found in the Brazilian modernist paintings of José Pancetti (1902–1958), Alfredo Volpi (1896–1988), and Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato (1900–1995). Arruda handles his brush lightly but with intense control, creating clouds and thickets of markings that delicately carve through the painted surface of the canvas in a manner recalling the textures and physicality of intaglio printmaking processes. Potent and open-ended, the symbols and motifs that populate these compositions—darkly brewing storms, empty canoes, and strings of outdoor lights—visualize the themes that permeate Arruda’s body of paintings, including the artist’s own dreams, experiences, and intuitions, through the lens of the sacred and the surreal. The images shift in and out of focus, as if hovering at the precipice of memory itself.

Additionally featured is an example of Arruda’s site-specific light installations. These works comprise a pair of vertically balanced rectangles rendered directly on the gallery wall—the top one created through a light projection and the bottom one physically applied with paint—thus translating the genre of landscape into its most elemental form.

This exhibition closes 6/15/24.

[enkisstories]

The guests take seats at a long table on a terrace. Much of the palace consists of terraces and balconies, and the whole structure probably wouldn’t have looked out of place on Naboo, the homeplanet of Ben’s grandmother. But here and there architectonic elements also reference the Trilon sector and there Batuu, Daniel’s homeplanet. Him now knowing that it hasn’t been his birth world doesn’t change anything.

Hank Sonderan enters, greeting Daniel with a short uttering of “Daniel” and Hux with an even shorter nod.

Daniel: "Hank - meet Armitage Hux, Grand-Marshall of the First Order. Hux - meet Hank Sonderan, formerly of the First Order, now Chief of Police on Mua Pel'am on Batuu."

Hank: "As if I'd forgotten the who bastard who said I was "down with a rare blood disease" when referring to my midichlorian count!"

Armitage: “I was fifteen! And I always viewed the Force more practical than mystical. Still do.”

Hank: “Well, when my Connor was fifteen, he didn’t...”

Armitage: “Chief Sonderan... I’ve committed war crimes. Terrible ones. Can you maybe hold those against me?"

Hank: “Not before I’ve also talked about the stew! Ah, I see I don’t have to specify any details. You remember.”

Armitage: “Ugh... in my defense, I had to eat that, too.”

Hank: “Right, I remember now. Brendol made you eat it all up. Your old man was an asshole. Good thing he died so suddenly, although that must have been a terrible blow to you.”

Armitage: “Oh, yes. Terrible! I often think back to those final moments...”

Rey: "It doesn't feel right to sit here and eat ice cream, when there's still fighting in the galaxy."

Markus: "You returned from solving the Ryloth-crisis less than three days ago, Lady Palpatine, but would deny yourself some respite? Even my instructors knew that downtime keeps an army functional, and that's coming from one who was raised as a battle slave from toddler age."

Amilyn: "Believe it or not, many members of the Old Republic were monarchies. In such a society the people live vicariously through their royalty. If you need an assignment to make you feel better about "wasting time", then that would be to shine in your new role."

Ben: "We'll be in the thick of things again soon enough."

[grandhotelabyss]

I've read the Baffler review, the competing LARB reviews, and the Nation interview, and even after all that, I still barely understand what Anna Kornbluh means by "immediacy." From your previous answer, I know you haven't read the book, but can you help us morons understand what she means? You have such a good way of explaining art and ideas (not that art can be "explained") that open up possibilities of thought for the budding belle-lettrist. (I should probably just read it myself...)

Thank you! I think she means that in a host of domains from communications technology to economic transactions to artistic styles to modes of philosophy there were more barriers or relays a thought had to cross on its way to materialization in the world. This allowed thought a greater purchase, in the form of critical distance, upon what the world really is.

Here's a thought: "I would like to make an economic transaction." You once had to go to bank and talk to someone to withdraw cash; then you had to go to a machine to get cash, and now you don't need cash at all but can just tap your card or use your phone to pay for something. In terms of communication, your feed is constantly refreshing on your screen as you're in instant contact with people all around the world. (How would you, specifically, have asked me, specifically, a question like this 30 years ago?) In the world of art, we no longer value novels, for example, that are complex verbal artifacts densely recording a complete fictional heterocosm, but instead we have speed-written records of the author's personal life. Not to mention streaming TV directly reflecting present conditions as we binge-watch them without critical reflection, etc.

As a Marxist, she's probably interested in the way these developments are an intensified form of ideology qua false consciousness, concealing from us in the blur of the world's increasing speed the material economic and political facts subtending these trends: the labor exploited, the forests cleared, the minerals mined in hellish conditions to bring the high and low bourgeoisie of the imperial core its immediate pleasures. When thought was slower and more "mediated" through real experiences—when we held cash in our hand, when we had to sit through the complexities of a Balzac or even a Pynchon novel if we wanted to be entertained—then even this cosseted bourgeoisie found it harder to deny, harder to avoid comprehending and criticizing, the blood and fire the world of capital is actually made of.

That's the best spin I can put on it. I didn't read the whole book, so I'm making assumptions about where she's coming from theoretically and politically. I agree with some of her critiques on an aesthetic level—I don't love Knausgård or Maggie Nelson either—but, as I said on Substack, I think she's observing an autonomous cultural dialectic, as well as paying too much attention to meaningless pop culture and fashionable pseudo-intellectual nonsense ("climate grief," please), and not really peering into the essence of the current economic order, which, as today's bad review in Compact suggests, she doesn't even really grasp. I don't either, but then I don't pretend to. Plus, her own prose style, as several reviewers pointed out and as anyone might notice, abjures the formal corollary of mediated thought in the Marxist critical theory tradition, i.e., Jameson's Anglicizing of the magisterial world-digesting architectonic sentences of Kant and Hegel and Adorno, and instead itself indulges in a certain vulgar and staccato burble.

[fashionbooksmilano]

Brian Clarke Projects

Tony Shafrazi Gallery , New York 1998, 103 pages, 25x31cm, ISBN 978-1891475139

euro 40,00

email if you want to buy : booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

Brian Clarke Architectural artist and painter. Editor of ‘Architectural Stained Glass’ (1979)

Brian Clarke: Projects is a monograph and exhibition catalogue, published by Art Data and the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York, to  accompany the 1998 exhibition  of the monumental artwork The Glass Wall (Dedicated to Linda McCartney).

Illustrating eight recent large-scale stained glass projects by Brian Clarke, these works range from a commercial shopping space in Rio de Janeiro to the lobby for Pfizer corporate headquarters in Manhattan. This monograph features an introduction by architect Norman Foster, 'The Personal Story of a Gothic Modernist', by Clarke, and an essay by the Curator of 20th Century Stained Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass, Susanne Frantz.

Across his five decades long career, Clarke has consistently pushed the boundaries of stained glass as a medium, both in terms of technology and its visual potential.  Clarke’s vision for stained glass is fundamentally architectural, his impactful works the result of a dedicated respect for the buildings and surrounding contexts of his work. His reputation both as a painter and as an architectonic artist is based on major installation projects all over the world, as well as smaller scale, autonomous works and international exhibitions of paintings and drawings.

02/11/23

[fipindustries]

time and space

time

there is a concept that i always always always love which i call palimpsested layers of history. its when you can see clearly the stages of times clearly depicted in physical from in a seamless way.

one of the clearest examples is an archive of civic records, wherein the nearest shelves you can see modern, clear white paper in plastic folders printed with toner all prim and proper but as you go deeper into the shelves you start to see yellow paper typed by typewriter in manila folders and then you start to see old cracking parchment, written with florid quill and leather bound. and its all one continuous system, its living history.

my favourite execution of this is in portal 2, where you go back all the way to the very begginigns or aperture, arguably even before that when it was merely a salt mine. you get to walk down the old caverns and then into the very first lobby and then through all the different layers of offices above that and its all one continuous path! you can go from the highest headquarters of modern aperture and merely following stairs and hallways you can walk all the way down to the old installations (with the help of your portal gun, granted, but the spirit remains).

on the one hand because i like being able to see living history re-play before my very eyes. i like to see the evolution of things, to see how things become other things. it can be easy to forget that everything that exists didnt just spontanously appeared as it currently is, but that there was a long arduous process that brought it here and i love to see that process.

but also there is something magical about the linkage of time and space, about the way in which your own two feet can carry you to the past and its all one continuous path. the illusion that there is a thread, a powerful, unbroken chain running through the ages. its the same feeling i get when i see immortal flames or the oldest cities in the world still standing.

space

another concept that i love is that of the architectonic megastructures. but not the hollow ones. im talking about castles, mansions, palaces.

gormenghast is a great example of it. i love this idea that wether you are in the lowest dirtiest dungeon or the highest cleanest tower, you are still, in a sense, in the same place. within the same thing. that the small sideways bathroom in the servants wing is part of the same structure as the big banquet hall. that the tiny hidden away portcullis, tucked within the cliffside upon which the structure rests is just as valid a way to enter or exit as the giant 10 meter tall entrance for the carriages.

its something about transitions, again, continuity is key here. is about erasing the borders between two things that are very different. that there is a path from the lower kitchens to the north side library. i love this idea that every single stone belongs to the whole. that the moment you are touching one of the rocks in the giant wall surrounding the perimeter you are technically touching the place, all the place.

i love this image of a partly fallen wall, in the farthest corner of the perimeter, the one that is pushing against the forest, where the wall is merely two meters high and one of the branches is hanging over the terrain and you could just climb the tree and get to the branch and you would be inside the great beast.

this can also apply to great ships, to mazes, to universities, to really big machines.

i dont even know what my point is here. just trying to capture emotions

[cosmicanger]

LAUREN HALSEY

Untitled, 2023

inkjet print (framed)

70.24" x 45.24" x 2.01" (178.4 cm x 114.9 cm x 5.1 cm)

Edition of 6, with 2 AP

“In the collages, Halsey has gathered an overwhelming range of people and places into ecstatic and densely layered configurations of Black play, pleasure, and imagination. These works inundate and enliven the eye with a bricolage of images that Halsey has either captured on her own cellphone, solicited from friends and family, or clipped from magazines. Many of these images are sampled and recycled from previous works, thus becoming subtle references to the history of her own practice. The found images are spliced together and recontextualized alongside computer-generated imagery that plays on the visual landscape of South Central, as well as Egyptian and Afrofuturist symbology. This symbolic lexicon pays tribute to Afrocentric belief systems, which Halsey grew up observing among her elders in South Central and elsewhere.

While the collages are two-dimensional, they are—like many of Halsey’s works—invested in spatial and architectonic possibilities. For the artist, these works are not only visual worlds, but also psychic worlds, portals into expansive reconfigurations of space and time that allow her and others to dream into the beyond.”

[tridentarius]

Racism, as George Mosse has emphasized, is above all “a visually centered ideology”: “Beauty and ugliness became . . . principles of human classification.” Thus the German philosopher Christian Meiners, later to be honored by the Nazis as a founder of racial theory, used color as a central aesthetic category in his 1785 Outline of the History of Mankind, and claimed that there were “two great human lineages—a race which was fair and beautiful and one which was dark and ugly.” The growing color-consciousness in Europe was linked, of course, to Europe’s widening contact with the non- European world, but it also signaled internal national and class differ- ences: “if Europeans were white, some were whiter than others.” These, of course, were the Aryans. Correspondingly, the entire architectonic of LTR is predicated on a fused aesthetic-ethical color polarity, in which white is beautiful and good and black is ugly and evil. And in this nor- mative framework, the elves are definitionally “the Fair Folk” (FR, 74), thus incarnating justice and beauty simultaneously. Not only is their transcendental (white) beauty (which characterizes all elves) stressed on every occasion they are introduced, but it is also made clear throughout LTR that they represent the unattainable aesthetic ideal of all the second- tier races, i.e., aesthetic standards are not discontinuous from one race to the next (FR, 117–21, 487, 490; RK, 312–13).

— THE WRETCHED OF MIDDLE-EARTH: AN ORKISH MANIFESTO by Charles W. Mills

LTR = Lord of the Rings

[kserpa23]

QCQ 1: One Place after Another

Q: “The modern gallery/museum space, for instance, with its stark white walls, artificial lighting (no windows), controlled climate, and pristine architectonics, was perceived not solely in terms of basic dimensions and proportion but as an institutional disguise, a normative exhibition convention serving an ideological function.”

C: The typical exhibition space is designed to neutralize the given area. It serves as blank slate for the art to be placed within in a way that the climate around the art becomes nothing. Minimalism leads to the establishment of these gallery spaces that are completely alien from any other typical situation, especially outside of the art world. I think that the neutrality of these spaces lends to the exposure of the artworks on their own, but they’re definitely not always the appropriate location for the artworks to be shown for what they are. Thinking about the idea of a blank white environment leads me to think about Tom Sach’s “White” exhibition, where all of the models in this neutral museum are also completely white with seam lines and dimensionality being the only contrasts.

Q: Does your art fit within the blank walls of the museum space, or does it need to be within its own site?  

[nimi05]

Explore the Magnificent Temples of Delhi

Introduction

Delhi, a city steeped in history and culture, boasts numerous magnificent temples that draw countless visitors from around the globe. You can also think of staying at the hourly hotels in Delhi for convenience and comfort while having the opportunity to visit these sacred places.

Akshardham Temple

Akshardham Temple in Delhi is a place you must visit, no matter what. It is not only a place for worship but also a piece of architectonic beauty at the village hosting the Commonwealth Games in NH 24. It is named after Swaminarayan Akshardham. This temple complex is also held on the gardens and includes light and sound shows that are held every evening. Apart from enjoying them, the visitors can also experience the Indian culture itself, as a rich collection is available for the purpose.

Bhairon Temple

In the backyard of the Old Fort situated in Pragati Maidan, Bhairon Temple, also named as Shri Kilkari Bhairav Temple, which is unique because it lets its devotees give drinks to Bhairon, is probably the temple in the world which allows the devotees to give Bhairon wine. The temple consists of two parts: Doodhiya Bhairav Temple that allows people to offer milk, as well as alcohol at Kilkari Bhairav Temple. Saying that Bheem, who was a member of the Pandavas, prayed here and gained spiritual strength.

Hanuman Mandir, Connaught Place

Hanuman Mandir, one of the five temples from the time of the Mahabharata, believed to be situated in Connaught Place. It is located on Baba Kharak Singh Marg, which is a very popular place for this temple, and the temple was one of the tourists' attractions built by Maharaja Jai Singh in 1724. Lord Hanuman is the reigning god of the temple and a great number of people gather here, especially on the days of Tuesday and Saturday.

Gauri Shankar Temple

Gauri Shankar Temple, an ancient and well-maintained temple in Delhi, is situated close to the Digambar Jain Temple on Chandni Chowk Road. According to legend, a soldier promised to build this temple if he recovered from a battle injury. Many devotees come to the temple to worship on Monday.

Hanuman Mandir, Jhandewalan

One more notable place of worship in Delhi is the Hanuman Mandir in Jhandewalan, home to a gigantic 108-foot higher-res statue of Lord Hanuman which can be seen from both the Jhandewalan and Karol Bagh Metro Stations. Besides the entrance that is shaped like the deity's mouth that is rarely found in temple entrances, people are attracted there.

Sai Baba Mandir, Lodhi Road

The time-honored venue of spiritual worship to Sai Baba that is Sai Baba Mandir of Lodhi Road is a very simple, though, just as a marquee movie is majestic. Devotees often feel the divine presence of Sai Baba here. In the temple, the devotees pray and offer chadar and flowers to Sai Baba using the large idol that is right in front of them with the weekly event being especially on Thursdays.

Shri Jagannath Mandir, Hauz Khas

A duplicate of the Jagannath Temple in Puri, Shri Jagannath Mandir is a temple that is built in Hauz Khas. The ideal time to visit is during the Rath Yatra festival. Highly esteemed by the Oriya community, this temple is dedicated to the worship of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra, Maa Subhadra, and the Sudarshan Chakra.

Shri Sheetla Mata Mandir

Located near Gurgaon Railway Station, Shri Sheetla Mata Mandir is dedicated to Sheetla Mata, the revered mother of Guru Dronacharya. Although the temple happens to be in a crowded area, the abound of devotees that come there is unquestionable, they offer flowers and pray the goddess from a distance as touching the idol is not allowed.

ISKCON Temple, East of Kailash

Hare Krishna Hill at East of Kailash is the abode of the massive and wonderful ISKCON Temple, which is designed by Achyut Kanvinde. There is a large hall that has keertanas in the Mahabharata. A museum provides copies of the Bhagavad Gita in multiple languages.

Shri Digambar Jain Lal Mandir

The elegant redstone temple was built in the 17th century and its location is opposite the Red Fort. Lal Mandir Jaina Temple is one of the largest in Delhi where you can find a lot of foretold statues and representations of Tirthankars sitting in meditation postures, Mahavira and Adinath being the most prominent among them.

Chhatarpur Mandir

The Chhatarpur Temple is dedicated to Goddess Katyayani and is one of the known impressive complexes spread over 70 acres. It displays the fusion of Southern and Northern Indian architectural styles and boasts the other important 20 temples including cargo carriers of various Hindu deities, in addition to a 100-foot-tall statue of Hanuman.

Lakshmi Narayan Temple

Birla Mandir also popularly called Lakshmi Narayan Temple, is near Connaught Place on the west side of Mandir Marg. Funded by industrialist B.D. Birla in the 1930s, the temple is the house of Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Vishnu. The Temple’s elaborate designs, garden with artificial caves, waterfalls, and fountains are the principal attractions.

Conclusion

The temples in Delhi represent a unique and richly spiritual and cultural heritage of the city. Such divine sites, which are not only masterpieces of architectural elegance like Akshardham but are also a historical Gauri Shankar Temple, are very popular options for travellers. Your stay at Zip By Spree Hotels Delhi Greater Kailash will be a lovely time for you to cherish and recall.

[eliza-in-paris]

Iris van Herpen

Before our trip, my roommates and I did a presentation on Iris van Herpen— a Dutch fashion designer— and her extraordinary work. Her interest in fashion was rooted in dance (more specifically, her training in classical ballet) which is apparent in many of her clothing designs, which are clearly intended to be dynamic and graceful. The Musée des Arts Décoratifs was displaying a van Herpen exhibit during the time that we visited. This was certainly one of the highlights of my trip. Seeing van Herpen’s brilliant designs in person was truly mesmerizing. Photos do not do her work justice! Her work is captivating to look at, with all of her designs deviating strongly from typical day-to-day wear. They aren’t necessarily intended for pedestrian use and are closer in structure and appearance to works of art or sculptures. She primarily uses 3D printing to create her clothing, often additionally incorporating other innovative techniques. She describes her own work as: “Ethereal garments that are radically future-facing and exquisitely feminine” (Iris van Herpen). She frequently collaborates with architects, scientists, and artists to incorporate their expertise into her designs. Van Herpen’s work speaks volumes. It communicates her obsession with the natural world as well as her desire to preserve it. Her clothing designs are primarily inspired by a wide range of various natural phenomena. She has created collections inspired by fungi, sea life, hypnosis, crows, astrology, and so much more. The exhibit itself was also expertly constructed, utilizing stunning visual elements to complement van Herpen’s work such as projections, framed artwork, sculptures, lighting, etc. These additional elements of the exhibit not only highlighted the beauty of van Herpen’s work but also helped convey the messages of her different collections. The display was set up so that we could see the progression of her work over time, from her first collection— Chemical Crows (2008)— to her most recent— Architectonics (2023). Each of her collections is imbued with a different message. I would argue that van Herpen’s work carries a distinct language that I haven’t seen in any other type of fashion, perhaps due to the extremely unique nature of her work and inspirations. They are thought-provoking, inspired, and inspiring. They are based on the mundane and yet are too eccentric to be considered so. They are both grounded in reality and otherworldly all at once. Exploring her work in this exhibit was surreal and gave me a whole new appreciation for her craft. Below are photos of some of my favorite works on display. It was so difficult to choose which pictures to include here because all of her designs are spectacular!

Sources: Iris van Herpen, www.irisvanherpen.com/. Accessed 6 May 2024. My own memory, my own photos.