Andreas Angelidakis

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Two Talks

Here's two talks I gave *recently*

One was a chat with ROLU's Matt Olson, as part of their Walker Art Center residency

The other an intentionally interrupted talk on Suburbia, in our suburban guest-room

for the symposium Vies Mobile at the Maison Rouge in Paris

I was a White Slave in Brooklyn (Long Island version)

recently we visited PS1MOMA and like many museums they dont let you take pictures

whats the point of going to a show if you cant blog about it?

at PS1 they at least let you take pictures of the wall texts and labels

and the white walls too

so here is my PS1 visit in wall labels

and I only put the labels of the works that attracted my attantion

or I was intrigued enough to go look at the label

and actually read what the thing was

sometimes I just liked the nanopuff

or I liked pieces as room decoration

or as over the top extravagant follies

videos I had seen before but still like

titles

more titles

Drag Queen Shoulders in Dawn

and works that were not works but attempts to remember.

But how can you remember if there are no pics?

Friday, November 09, 2012

Illuminating Väsby

In the ongoing Vasby Labs experiment, where we are testing ideas on how development can occur with the participation of the community, we began with workshops held in the areas' shopping mall.

after a series of these public workshops, we began identifying the project as a series of questions, interspersed with temporary public installations, which would measure and test the participation of the public. In the summer and early fall sessions,

these included a pop-up grocery store,
a temporary urban lab,

a propaganda stand, a cafe and a carousel for kids.

As darkness becomes a larger part of the day, we slowly begin to illuminate the area of Torget

Illuminations happens on two levels

one is a set of mobile street lights and lit objects,

that will brighten the area during the dark winter months

Parallel to the light objects, a series of signs introduce and advertise a questionaire

on the ways that the city can develop.

a set of string lights suggest a celebration or gathering. Benches are there to sit, and a sign asks whether people prefer public or private parks. These are perhaps questions with multiple answers, because privatising public space leads to better development but also more control on the part of investors.

(invitation to the switching-on of Lights, on Monday 12th of November 2012)

So the questions are there simply to introduce the subject,

and to make sure that decisions are well thought through.

later on, an ice-skating rink will operate with free entrance for the citizens of Vasby.

The area of Torget, which we are illuminating, is in fact a construction site, that we are temporarily using to test urban planing ideas before construction begins,

the time before construction is traditionally spent inside boardrooms and municipal offices high above the city

instead, we are placing the discussion

on the site where its results

will materialize.

www.vasbylabs.se

facebook.com/vasbylabs

Project Manager: Mia Lundstrom

Construction: Patrik Olin for www.olinevent.se

Graphic identity: Petter Johanson www.pjadad.com

Newspaper: Jan Aman, Petter Johanson, Anton Wigbrand

Design: Andreas Angelidakis
Images: Sotiris Vasiliou, Alexandra Syriou www.angelidakis.com

The End of Design

Recently I've been teaching a class on "The End of Design"

or how design practices are affected by our copy-paste+google-search mentality.

The class is based on a series of reading that trace the shift from old school capitalism

i.e. Modernism

We started by looking into the state of objects in a desire driven landscape

and move to the post modern condition and how it affects the citizen

but then comes the internet, and slowly becomes the simulation of the simulation

some tiny books are there as a historical re-think

Tom Holerts' excellent proposal for alternatives to current production modes

Social public space as opposed to consumer driven public space

a precise reading on how we shifted from the modern to the postmodern to the now

with some questions on modernity and identity along the way

an interview with Denise Scott Brown, just to re-trace postmodernism back to where it began and where it made sense

a study on the idea of crisis and resuscitation as a contemporary capitalist system (Crisis capitalism? Copy Capitalism?)

more questioning of how cultural production actually works

and yet some more words from DSB. And all along trying to pin down the class subject with a continuously updated set of questions

full texts here TheEndOfDesign

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Chronology of Gold

In the summer of 2007, on commission from Casa Vogue, I began researching the life of legendary gallerist Alexander Iolas, and his amazing Villa in the suburb of Agia Paraskevi.

the house was a surreal mix of contemporary art with moder with surrealism with minimalism with antiquities, baroque, fashion, furs, paraphernalia and eccentricities

as a conclusion to the Iolas research, I decided to sneak into the villa

, only to find a golden ruin

ripped gold wallpaper everywhere

gold stair leading nowhere

gold bathrooms

After the forensic photos of the ruined villa, one of the first things I made was a golden ghost of a chair, a frame wrapped in the gold wallpaper Iolas used throughout the villa, 2008