Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Scary Santorini

Santorini is one of those greek islands that have become so polular its actually scary. The whole island is built up in a totally random and uncaring way, full of buildings that are actually garbage. The view towards the volacano is of course fantastic blah blah blah, and funnily enough the most beautifull spot on the island is a garbage dump with a spactacular view. Part of the dump is used as a moto-cross training track and there seems to be an abandoned factory on the side. The slopes towards the dump look like giant earthwoks, sort of like Michael Heizers' Double Negative in Grand Canyon but with a fabulous view of the Aegean. The vernacular architecture is a kind of tubular-dome thing which I think was originally derived from the excavated houses that were easy to build inside the lava. Now they just copy the tubular dome in concrete, in a kind of pre-fabricated architecture that is cast in place but pre-designed. Some good examples of this exist in the National Bank complex in the main city, a relic from the 60's when Greece invented it's own brand of vernacular modernism otherwise know as critical regionalism. If I wasnt on vacation and in a crappy little internet cafe, I'd write tons more on this, but this funny photo of a too-thin-to-inhabit tubular domino will have to say the rest.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Multiple Myconos



My last post got totally lost. I was in the Geneva airport and I bought some internet time (why isnt it free Geneva?) and I was preparing a post about nothing inparticular and then the plane started boarding and my pics were still uploading and then I just had to prioritise. The next morning at 7AM we left for Myconos and been here since. Myconos is a greek island famous for being a famous greek island. It used to be super beautiful, and if you squint you can see traces of that beauty, though most of the island is very constructed. The main consensus is that everybody tries to recreate a kind of island/village architecture with very mixed results. It is most interesting in rich peoples' homes because they use rough materials like huge wodden boards au naturel but then to make it look expensive, everything is totally manicured and basically all varnished with a transparent coat of euros. The result is pure Disneyland, full of extremely artificial looking nature. The rest of the island is full of half finished concrete mini-dominos' that become boring when finished. Still the light and the sea is very pretty blah blah blah and also I got a cold and that's why I'm posting.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

The Post That Got Lost

Back to civilization and to my trusted laptop. Here's the post that got lost when I had to make a choice between blogging and flying 3 weeks ago in Geneva

Fat House, Bad Christmas and an Ominous Light
I'm sitting n the Geneva airport and I think I just payed CHF5 for half an hour of internet and then found a free network. Why oh why dont they just make internet free forever? everywhere? c'mon people...
Anyway, I noticed a 2blog-random folder on the desktop, must have been going through photos as usual.
Erwin Wurms' amazing Fat House from an exhibition somewhere,

A poor christmas decoration
and an ominous looking light at a generic expo center in whateverville.

Yeah yeah yeah

Cheated Hearts is totally my favorite yeah yeah yeahs song and in this video you get to see tons of people did their best Karen-o impression and ended up replasing her on the video.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Hazy Horizon

I missed a lot of really great Golden Mirror buildings on the way from the airport. I've seen these tons of times but yesterday they looked extra good, and I had my camera in the trunk of the taxi because I'm too lazy to carry anything. There were some hazy horizons after that, and a nice skylight this morning.

Circular Geneva

I'm back in Geneva after quite some time, and I had totally forgotten how crisp is the light and how many things are circular.

Monday, July 31, 2006

Leaving Piraeus

Taking a boat from Piraeus to the islands is the ultimate summer signifier. This weekend we went to hydra though it is not vacation time yet. Anyway, when you leave from the port of Piraeus, on the rightside of the port there is a huge abandoned area, a kind of post industial wasteland that looks like it could be on some remote industial island. It looks much more interesting than these photos and it's so hot right now that I cannot think properly or say something interesting about it. But it looks like a good place to potentialy hang out or maybe get lost.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Around Town


Thanks to the Grand Promenade I walked all over Athens this past weekend. It was definetly worth it and I even saw two cute buildings. The first one looks like a 70's modernism with a touch of byzantine whatnot about it. and this is the typical athenian office building from the 60's, the facade full of airconditioners, which is interesting but not too much.

and a great plant canopy, so horizontal...

Monday, July 24, 2006

Random Images

These photos have been waiting for a reason to blog, and it's monday so thats reason enough
This was in Los Angeles, somewhere on Robertson Blvd. I think we were looking for a store. Maybe it was the plywood, maybe the plastic, I really am not sure why I took this.
The pink, hello. Downtown L.A. we took a semi scary walk around the chinese-latino market. This looks more latino than chinese though
It's not LA, this is the view from the hotel in Patras. I think I take this picture every single time I stay there. This tree really wanted to get in,
cute of course

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Something more to listen to on the beach

I'm never posting music again, it's just so much work. You send it, it doesnt get there blah bla blah
Here goes as much as I could bother uploading

Vetiver - Been So Long
Dear and the Headlights - Mother Make Me Golden
Violent Nine - Images of Me
Arcade Fire - Rebellion (lies)
This Mortal Coil - Kangaroo
Fujiya and Miyagi - Collarbone
M.Ward - Let's Dance (Bowie cover)
Franz Ferndinand feat. Jane Birkin - A Song for a Sorry Angel
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cheated Hearts
oh and
Andrew Bird - Sovay

Something to listen to on the beach


I always prefer downtempo and basically depressing music for the beach

Andreaw Bird : Sovay









from Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs

A Propaganda Structure and a Plant Stand

This is a maquette for a Radio-Announcer by Gustav Clucis, 1922, MOMA, a true propaganda structure. And this is a Plant Stand by Otto Prutscher 1903, Metropolitan. Maybe this could be a propaganda structure too?
I'm equally obssesed by both

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Philosophy Hut at Thisio Station (Neen Plateau)

Here's some pics of the Philosophy Hut. It's smaller than I originally planned but I actually thik it works better at this scale, its the perfect spot to relax in after you're been Baptised by August(In The Name of Neen, Miltos Manetas). Inside you can contemplate the light and shadow created by thg\e cut-out patterns or watch Angelo's walking face (TalkingAndWalking.com, Angelo Plessas).

Walking Building on FIX factory


The Walking Building was projected onto the facade of the Fix Factory on Monday 17th July, as part of the Grand Promenade exhibition.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Grande Promenade opens tonight in Athens

The Grand Promenade, curated by Anna Kafetsi and her fantastic team opens tonight in Athens.After 9 pm I'll be projecting the "Walking Building" onto the facade of the ex FIX factory, for one night only.

At the same time in front of the Thisio Metro station you can check out the Philosophy Hut which is part of the Neen Plateau, a project for the Grande Promenade that also includes Angelo Plessas' TalkingAndWalking.com (with a very unexpected accesoryfor a website ) and Miltos Manetas' Neen Baptism which will be taking place every afternoon this summer.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Miss Dior goes to War

Miss John Galliano blasted everybody's brain off with his utterly fabulous haute couture collection for Dior. enjoy

Friday, July 14, 2006

Urban Suburban


There is an area on the far west of Athens called Ασπρόπυργος which translates to White Tower, though there is nothing white in sight but smoke coming from all the factories. Aspropyrgos overlooks the bay of Eleysina and Salamina island, in what must have been a stunning landscape in ancient times. Now its an industrial wasteland but somehow it retains an elusive beauty. If you drive away from the factories you find a sparsely inhabited landscape of car cemeteries, weird ad-hoc shacks, stray dogs and ominous looking trees, all in an industrial haze that photographs really well. I was there to oversee the fabrication of my little Philosophy Hut for the Grand Promenade exhibition which opens this Monday in Athens. More on this soon...

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Whateverville

Today we were once again lost in Milan's outer suburbia, which actually looks like the outer suburbia of anywhere: you coulsd be in Los Angeles or Eindhoven or Paris or Whateverville, this place always looks the same and there's nothing to do. We were there looking for a tv/film studio where we could test some projectors. The Blue box space had a few leftover props which are always intersting, and the collection there was definetly hot: A winter tree, a part of a staircase, an ancient egyptian door, a cart with a stack of plastc chair, some large chess pieces and of course a styrofoam snowman. You could almost make your own Blair Witch Project meets the Mummy meets any movie that doesnt make any sense anyway, just like Milano Eindhoven Los Angeles Whateverville suburbia.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Gogol Bordello

Last night we got totally lost on the way to villa Arconati in Milano's Outer Suburbia. The place is totally amazing, a kind of fabulous falling down palazzo with extravagant topiary trees la la la. Gogol over performed as usual and though I was excited to see them the sound was so bad it all became rather unbearable. Still their logo is cool.