Random Amsterdam I

Been walking around Amsterdam for the past 3 days, and here's some things that tickled my fancy, like this stripped building somewhere close to Leitze Pleijn
Ballons on Lijnbaansgracht
random urban agglomeration close to Post CS
A candy stripe by Felix Gonzales-Torres at Stedeljik CS
Urs Fischer at Stedeljik CS
Somebody's hippy meditation flotilla

A Neen Evening

So last saturday in Amsterdam we had a Neen evening, which Rafael put together, as part of White Nights, a night in the year where all museums + art centers stay open late.

Rafael and Chihiro walking amongst the towels at Club11

The Neen Evening took place at Club11, on the 11th floor of the soon-to-be-gone Post CS building in a mini urban wasteland next to the Central Station. Angelo showed recent works, Nikola recited some of his new poems inside his MeetInANiceRestaurant, Rafael made really great Neen towels that people took home on their way out and Aux Raus gave a really sexy performance. Later on AuxRaus took us to a Pub that played only music related to weather (Purple Rain etc) and later-er over to Studio 80 which a gay night and where we bumped into the Boys of Butt. All in all a very neen evening.

Angelo Plessas' MereExposureEffect.com

I showed the ScreenTree animation and some others Andy Simionato from ThisIsaMagazine.com with Isabelle Arvers
Karen ann Donnachie from this is a magzine inside my wineglass
Gert Jonkers and Rob Meerman at Studio80
afterhours

Anonymous is Famous

The most famous blogger is of course Anonymous. S/HE manages to be everywhere all the time in every language all over the place disco non stop. And finally an exhibition dedicated to this most contemporary of concepts: "ANONYMOUS In the Future No One Will Be Famous" runs at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt until 14 January 2007 with works by 11 international artists who – like the curator – will remain unnamed. In their Notes toward a Manifesto, the initiators of the exhibition proclaim: “Anonymous artists wish to wriggle the status quo into a status incognitus. Their aim is to remove the increasing barbarization of thought via short circuits and fast lanes created by the marketing of artists as brands whose works have become masterpieces in ignorance of philosophy.” How absolutely cool.

Golden Brown

Dont really know what to post today and not up to too much. I thought about writing something on WIRED's extensive Second Life Article (Wired 10-06 Lets Go: Second Life) but then they havent put it online yet so who am I to start photographing magazines etc, its all very first life. Typically Second Life was doing maintenance at EXACTLY the time I was giving my "second life" lecture last week in Milan, so I couldnt take the audience for a walk, but anyway the title was more symbolic than anything

So anyway I was shopping for land and found myself on some beach as usual and there was a raft and you could lie down on it in different ways, and it was early morning because the servers are in San Francisco I think, and I just decided to relax and just spend time there, looking at the waves and listening to The Stranglers' "Golden Brown".

3 cute houses from a while back

I took these photos ages ago Thessaloniki. At the time I was using a video camera to off of which I copied still because digital cameras didnt really exist (yes this far back) 1/2 building 1/2 tree

little black garage maybe?

oh and this doesnt fit in here but the Philosophy Hut was just dismantled from Thissio, I guess that could have been a "goodbye summer vol III" or whatever

A Book-Shaped building and a Hand monument

Rafael sent me this article on a Book-Shaped building. It's the House of Free Creativity in Turkmenistan, inaugurated by their totally crazy dictator Saparmurat Niyazov, who says that if you read his book of poetry you will definetly go to heaven. And propably that heaven will be shaped like him or maybe like this hand monument that Jonathan sent me a while ago. I guess there's an argument about figurative architecture and I've definetly been on this track for some time now though I have no idea where it leads.

And Voltnoi sent me this graffiti about schools in neverland

Casa Vogue: Milano to Athens

Here's a little piece I wrote in this months' Casa Vogue, about the architecture scene in Athens. I featured some of the heroic modernist buildings of the 60's, when it seemed that architecture mattered in Greece, and some of the very few public buildings of note today. The most interesting work happening in Greece though is private houses but Vogue had asked strictly for public buildings, so houses maybe next time. Casa Vogue is a quarterly supplement to Vogue Italia.

If you're in Milan tonight

come see me
NABA
Nuoava Accademia di Belle Arti Milano
Via Darwin 20
20143 Milano, Italy
tel. + 39 02 973721
www.naba.it

Goodbye Summer vol II

just some pics to keep the blog awake, had to make a rather big post on the Athens9 blog today so I'm all blogged out (if you read greek, check it out)
These meanwhile are from Laggeri in Paros, the gay/nudist beach that by itself is a reason to visit this crowded place (paros).



I really tried (a little bit) to place a google earth bookmark thingie but it's sooo complicated I gave up after 30 seconds - its a busy day)

God Damned Athens

Angelo Plessas "Angelo" ascii drawing

Last night was total !Panic at the Deste Foundation for the opening of the Anathena exhibition and party for the Panic Room show. Anathena was curated by The Marinas (Fokidis + Gioti) and features a short history of greek alternative art. Here's some of the works around Deste, from both shows.

David ShrigleyFoivos Papadopoulos

Angelo's OneAfterTheOther.com thatI always wanted to own but finally it went to some Spanish collector

Marios Perakis

Andreas Kasapis

and my own little incognito contribution, the house with the chimney column. For more juicy pics and stuff got to Dafni's and Angelo's blogs

Another Mark

This blogs' fave architecture mag is now bi-monthly, and out with a fabulous new issue that doesnt seem to be designed by the lovely people at Machine but it's still good. The issue includes an extensive article on the utterly wacky Eugene Tsui which must rank as the weirdest piece of work seen on mainstream architecture press, some cute tube apartments by the fantastic Arakawa + Gins, earthquake-proof housing in Mexico, a hotel made of concrete cylinders thrown in the park (!)
and oh, a piece on Cloud House along with a quote from "Worlds" a text I wrote in Textfield 2 years ago, and seemed to fit nicely with their piece on virtual communities like second life et al.

Subscribe to MARK here!

Frederic Chaubin: Soviet SF Style

Frederic Chaubin, who was born in Cambodia of a French father and Spanish mother, is chief editor of the French magazine Citizen K, and also a photographer who has been attracted by strange architecture in the former Soviet Union. The photos he takes in countries like Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Georgia, reveal an extraordinary, almost sci-fi world. Today, PingMag takes you to the world of Soviet style architecture with Frederic Chaubin himself. via BLDGBLOG

Goodbye Summer

I'm totally in a goodbye summer mood but not yet in the Hello Winter Season. Here's some pics taken some time ago around this time of year, very GS:

A sunken palm tree somewhere in Krete

The Sunken Forest, Fire Island NY, September 2001

the unreal view from Richard and Todd's house in West Cornwall, NY state

Journey towards the End of Architecture

Seems I can't stop looking at Superstudio these days, and propably because their work is just so bloggable. Here's some excerpts from their "Life without Objects" book. These images come from the "Superexistence" project, which was their participation in the 1972 MOMA exhibition "The New Domestic Landscape, Achivements and Problems in Italian Design" curated by Emilio Ambasz. SUPEREXISTENCE was supposed to be 5 films (Life, Education, Ceremony, Love and Death) 2 of which were realised and shown, while the others exist as storyboards. In these films architecture is replaced by a SUPERSURFACE, a mirrored grid that extends all over the planet and upon which everything takes place. The iconic stills show a super relevant techno hippie but also cute existence, a party and life and death and kids type of thing. I guess they were just predicting the future, and this SUPERSURFACE where everything takes places is just the INTERNET.