Listening Posts

Listening Post by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin ' A MONUMENT TO THE PRESENT:THE SOUND OF 100,000 PEOPLE CHATTING'
The display has 200 small electronic screens that display moving words at different speeds that connect the computer-synthesised sounds coming out of the speakers. The words are from thousands of Internet chatrooms in real time. The display is bazaar with mixed up words that don't make sense and strange synthesised voices. The display was in the Science Museum and lasted a couple of minutes.

Decode at the V&A

The Decode:Digital Design Sensation exhibition at the V&A was an eyeopener to how quickly technology develops and how soon the technology in the exhib will be in our everyday lives, answer not long. As you walk around the exhib it's always changing with interactive works of art where you paint a canvas, blow the seeds off a dandelion head with a hairdryer, other works were being constantly updated with live footage i.e. Tree by Simon Heijdens. The works in the exhibition where split into three categories;
CODE: exploring algorithms and the artistic potential of computational systems
INTERACTIVITY: relationships between the work and the viewer
NETWORK: sing networks for production, interrogation and dissemination

www.soundcities.com

Design Real, Serpentine Exhibition

The Serpentine Exhibition, 'Design Real' was a presentation of ground breaking design. All the designs in the exhibition are mass produced and used in everyday life. Konstantin Grcic the curator of the exhibition says 'good design admits to the deeper insight that beyond performing a purpose in a good way, the purpose itself has to be good. All 43 items in the exhibition fulfil this idea in their own way. The relevance a product has to our life lies not only in its use, but also in how far we identify with it. A good product becomes part of our culture.'
What was really good about the exhibition was that fact that you recognised some of the objects and could buy them, also there was a central database where you could look into each design in depth and explore how they where created.

http://www.serpentinegallery.org/exhibitions/

http://www.design-real.com/

Tate Modern: John Baldessari

John Baldessari:Pure Beauty exhibition was really good, different to Pop Life, but his work had traces of pop art in it i.e. bold colours highlighting certain areas, arms, faces. What I really liked about his work was how he placed different photos together linking them by connecting a frame, and these two very separate pictures became one, with a very interesting affect like glimpsing into two worlds connected by an object. I also loved the way he made some of his images continuous i.e. 'Alignment series: Palm Tree with Girl 1975'.

Tate Modern - Pop Life

'Pop Life: Art in a material world' was a really good exhibition. It started by looking at the work of Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami who followed in Andy Warhols footsteps. As you continue to walk through the exhibition you explore Andy's work through uv rooms, view his legendary prints and then the exhib. starts exploring different artists i.e Keith Haring's: Pop Shop, Almost infamous: young british artist and Takashi Murakami: Collaboration Addiction.

Keith Haring's, Pop Shop

Whitechapel Gallery: Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle: 'Talking to strangers' exhibition explored the Whitechapel gallery taking over rooms on different floors. Sophie Calle's work reports on encounters and situations that she has set in motion and the exhibition was broken into parts.
Part one: situations set in motion was a really interesting incite into how people from different backgrounds and different jobs replied to a brake up email.
Part two: reports on encounters, was how people interacted with her on journeys and set up encounters in a phone booth in NY.
The exhib. was very different to what I've seen before and it was compelling. Her work drew you in so you read every word from the different answers to the email to her documentation of what happened when she created her enjoy Phone Booth in the Bronx and her journey in a train.

MOMA: Two designers

Matthias Megyeri:Has created a 'Sweet Dreams Security System'. He recreated objects you would relate to protection and security i.e. chains and glass objects into cute, lovable objects. His designs mess with the cold, harsh ways we restrict people i.e. glass embedded into walls and pad locks and creating a new way to represent these defensive objects in a sensitive way.




Jordi Canudas: Created the 'Less Lamp'. A beautiful lamp that is unique to every owner. The lamp is an plaster egg with a hammer so you crack the egg thus, creating a lamp that suits its specific location by controlling how much light and direction it's cast.

P.S.1

P.S.1 is the Institute of Contemporary Art. It's an exhibition space for experimental art and emerging artists.
When I arrived, the courtyard was displaying 'afterparty' by MOS, the winner of the 2009 young architects' program. The design was basically a series of hairy shelters that keep people cool by induction. I'm not sure about the design, I like the idea of keeping people cool using chimneys and induction by creating breezes but I don't understand why it's hairy...


Another piece that was really fun was Leandro Erlich's 'Swimming pool'. A piece that allowed you to go under the surface of a pool whilst staying dry. It was a bazaar experience.

MOMA: Ron Arad exhibition

Ron Arad's exhibition 'No Discipline' was a huge collection of his work from models of architecture to lighting and chairs. The space was so dynamic with a central undulating form that created different themes and spaces to categorise his works and give the space an order/flow. His works are very dramatic either in shape/form or materials used, but all of his work is very natural with no sharp corners and is very curvy, representing movement.
Zion Square Sculpture was one of my favs in the exhibition. It looks really simplistically beautiful as a structure, but comes alive with the sun's movement.
The design's canopy is based upon 400 rectangular cells representing the different materials used to create paths. The structure is transformed with the sun's movement across the sky creating changing shadows throughout the day and year. The video below shows a model of the canopy and how the sun's movement casts dramatic shadows.



http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2009/ronarad/#/2/-1

Walking in my mind - Hayward Gallery

I love the summer exhibitions in the Hayward Gallery, they're never just about viewing art, they're about getting down and dirty in art, being part of it, physically exploring it, which is so much better than being restricted by a white line in front of a canvas.
The exhib. was all about walking in the mind of the artist, each piece is meant to represent 'the mysterious mental processes of creativity' inside the artists head.
Each piece was radically different, from Keith Tyson's images on the wall to a cardboard cave representing the mind by Thomas Hirschhorn.
The exhibition was really interesting because each artist represented the theme in such a radically different way. Some pieces drew you in, captivated you to read every word, whilst others made you feel uneasy, and some were completely bizarre to the point that I didn't understand. Overall though it was a really good exhib. that gave me a mental work out.

http://walkinginmymind.southbankcentre.co.uk/index

Richard Long - Tate Britain

Richard Long: Heaven and Earth exhibition took place at the Tate Britain. It was interesting but I'm still unsure whether I enjoyed it.
I felt that the exhibition was based around him walking through nature and documenting it but not affecting it. So when I was walking around looking at his photographs some of the scenes looked very man made i.e. rocks standing upright in a line. Putting that aside all of his photos were really good and some of his written diagrams about what he came across on his travels were surprising but I was a bit nonplussed by the whole exhib.

Radical Nature

When I heard about the Radical Nature Exhibition I thought this could be really good and it didn't let me down. It was all about ways in which we can reverse or cope with issues of our ever changing planet i.e. climate change, concrete jungles, deforestation.
The exhib. was really interesting. It covered extremes (underwater city), abstract work and work that had been realised i.e. Agnes Denes' 'Wheatfield-A Confrontation' 1982. I loved how Denes takes a farm into the city, how Wolf Hilbertz created the Biorock and is now re-establishing coral reefs, and Thomas Saraceno's idea of putting gardens in the sky.


Wheatfield-A Confrontation 1982 - Agnes Denes


Flying Garden - Thomas Saraceno