PingMag
Once again PingMag is writing about some very interesting stuff:
http://pingmag.jp/2008/08/25/audium-see-with-your-ears/
Excerpt:
And when composing, how do you feel mixing synthetic with human sounds?
I really don’t hear the difference anymore. I’m just interested in a sound and if it happens to be produced electronically or maybe played by an accoustic instrument, it’s just all one. It’s how it shapes that matters. You could have a door slam, it might be just a door slamming and mean nothing more than that. On the other hand, if it slams at the right moment at the right time, it can be very profound if the setting is right and that’s how I feel about all sounds. Depending on how a sound emerges it can be a jewel or nothing.
PLUS!http://pingmag.jp/2008/07/07/crossbreeding-shipbuilding-with-architecture/
AAHAH..I love Klein Dytham:
Filed under: Architecture | Leave a Comment
sigur rós, westminster
Fantastic gig the other night (24th june). Great set list, happy Jonsi, brilliant audience, nice stage stuff, amazing acoustics… standing in the front row, 2/3 metres from jonsi and kjartan…hearing the vocals half through the amps, half directly through the air…it was brilliant. stand outs have to be Gobbledigook for being just FUN FUN FUN, and then Hafsol and Pop.. for sheer epic brilliance. However, Fljotavik is my favourite from the new album and hearing it was just beautiful…. understated, perfect and so emotional.Inni mer syngur vitletsinkur was the other new song to really shine. The new style of Med Sud works really well live, the more upbeat songs bounce really well off the sadder material. We were treated to three bows, two encores…and the final song All Alright was just haunting, heartbreaking.
Filed under: Music Reviews | Leave a Comment
Tags: central hall, june 2008, sigur ros, westminster
Rubiks Reality
So I while back I posted about moving, rotating buildings and urban environments, which was really interesting. A little while after I came across some more posts about some potential projects and today I found out Dynamic Architecture has designed an actual rotating tower, together with some of the environmental, power generation, and user friendly benefits I suggested might be offered by this type of design.
So, Inhabitat has a nice post about the project and some great pics. Unsurprisingly Dubai is the base for the first of these towers, construction is to begin soon. And whilst I am against a lot of what Dubai is about – the superficiality, the environmental negligence, ostentatious luxury, worker exploitation and so on – it is an incredible opportunity to test out experimental, unique designs and ideas.
I really feel that this could be the start of something really exciting. This building is self sufficient too, in terms of energy requirements! Sure it’s in Dubai, but with the exponential improvement of voltaic cell efficiency it surely won’t be long before more innovative solar techniques are applied to everyday builds. There’s so much further to go before the Rubiks City I imagine could become reality, but I feel like this is a massive step forward and can’t wait to see the results. It’s the natural evolution of the merry -go-round via the Dymaxion House.
The next step might be an integration of flexible transport systems into city – lane alteration, for example for rush hour seeing 4 lanes of a 6 lane motorway allocated to the influx or exodus of workers in morning and evening respectively, retractable drainage systems and pedestrian crossings, roads turning to walkways and so on.
However, Dubai is also the land of the architectural gimmick. (Take your pic…)
World largest, biggest, tallest, shiniest…world’s first, world’s only, world’s most expensive…..And this all means there’s a threat of genuinely interesting ideas like this being cast in the mould of the Palm islands – pretty pointless in reality, all show and no tell. I guess we’ll see in the next few years if this building is a success, if it works. The architects/developers have gone for a big first development – it’s Dubai after all.
I’ve got a feeling though that working out new ideas on a smaller scale might be more useful. 7 smaller projects, but still larger than the several rotating homes already built, each completed in a fraction of the time of the Rotating Tower (Despite it’s relatively fast construction time) could offer 7 experimental approaches and then those outcomes could be factored into a really well thought out, more ideologically and technically sound buidling.
Anyway, i’m really excited just to see this being built. This is experimentation…and I love it!
Funnily enough there is a new car advert out, which is all about adjustable features/customization.
What is it about car adverts and rubiks like city environments?
Filed under: Architecture | Leave a Comment
Tags: dubai, dynamic architecture, rotating tower
…this.
which is just genius.
Creator James Houston explains:
Radiohead held an online contest to remix “Nude” from their album – “In Rainbows” This was quite a difficult task for all the electronic musicians that entered, as Nude is in 6/8 timing, and 63bpm. Most music that’s played in clubs is around 120bpm and usually 4/4 timing. It’s near impossible to mix a waltz beat into a DJ set.
This resulted in lots of generic entries consisting of a typical 4/4 beat, but with arbitrary clips from “Nude” thrown in so that they qualified for the contest.
Thom Yorke joked at the ridiculousness of it in an interview for NPR radio, hinting that they set the competition “for a laugh” and to find out what would come out of such an impossible task.
I decided to take the piss a bit, as the contest seemed to be in that spirit.
Based on the lyric (and alternate title) “Big Ideas: Don’t get any” I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they’re trying their best to do something that they’re not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there.
It doesn’t sound great, as it’s not supposed to.
Sinclair ZX Spectrum – Guitars (rhythm & lead)
Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer – Drums
HP Scanjet 3c – Bass Guitar
Hard Drive array – Act as a collection of bad speakers – Vocals & FX
HD: Big Ideas (Don’t get any) from 1030 on Vimeo.
It’s such a great idea, and it’s amazingly well done. It makes me wonder about the sounds that some factory machine in Siberia might be making in the dead of night. How the hum of a supercomputer in Southern California could follow the melody of a swedish pop song, or how an industrial fryer in Grimsby could be chinking along to the drum beat of Arcade Fire’s Keep The Car Running.
Music is sort of one big collection and sampling process. We take the noises around us, filter them down. Select the ones we like, add them together and build our own sonic landscapes which are in reality a reworking of the ugly sounds, the beautiful sounds, and those background noises which we experience everyday.
Reminds me of Bjork’s starring role in Dancer In The Dark, which is a brilliant but absolutely devasting film.
This clip from the film was my first ever introduction to Bjork, broadcast on saturday morning Japanese TV, and I spent nearly 8 years looking for the film, or music video it came from. Seeing it for the second time the other day was an amazing experience.
Filed under: Music Reviews, Random | Leave a Comment
Tags: big ideas, Bjork, dancer in the dark, nude, radiohead, sounds
When words just won’t do…
sigur rós: festival
[image: Michael Wolf- The Architecture of Density]
There are times when it’s just better to let the music speak for itself.
This is one of them.
[Radio 1 radio rip, first play, 3rd June 2008]
Thanks to janhaw from Sigur-Ros.co.uk messageboard for uploading.
Filed under: AHH! | Leave a Comment
Tags: festival, mp3, sigur ros
Arcade Fire Play Obama Gig
As solace from UKK writes:
Win Butler, Will Butler, Regine Chassagne and Jeremy Gara of the Arcade Fire will be playing a free concert on Sunday, March 2nd at Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville, Ohio in support of Barack Obama’s bid for the Democratic nomination. The show is at 7 p.m., first come first serve.
They will also be playing a free show at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland on Monday, March 3rd. Doors are at 7 p.m., and the show is 18 and over, first come first serve.
Though the Arcade Fire is known as a Canadian band, Win and Will were born and raised in the U.S. (and spent their formative years in Texas), Regine is a dual citizen whose dad served in Vietnam, and Jeremy Gara is just a really nice Canadian who likes playing music and is sick of explaining to Americans what universal health care means
So, maybe they shouldn’t play Windowsill (I don’t wanna live in America no more), but Intervention’s anti-Bush subtext could be a likely choice….anyway, AF playing live has never been a bad thing for anyone so far.
Filed under: Random | 1 Comment
Tags: Arcade Fire, Barack Obama, Ohio
Rubiks City
Brilliant new advert at the moment for VW’s new Tiguan. But not because of the product, instead the brilliance of the CG urban landscape. Basically the city morphs, storeys of buildings rotate, pavement stones rearrange themselves, levels detach and reattach… It’s crazy metabolism gone mad. But just imagine how amazing it could be if there was such a level of flux in the real city environment. Natural environments are constantly in a period of change – cycles of seasons, erosion and so on. The city’s normally a fixed state, with solid add ons or demolitions – the (relatively) slow changes brought about by construction crews. But what if buildings could be made to interact with their environments a little more…dynamically?
Obviously a rotating apartment block would raise many a problem, but think about it. What if that rotation was a lot slower (i.e. tower observation desks) but allowed for equal sunlight to all sides of a building – that would potentially make solar energy production and urban farming a lot more successful, and allow everyone to see the nicest view and get a bit of sunlight. There would no longer be an extra cost for a south facing view.
Shifting windows and photo-voltaic panels would follow the sun round buildings, bringing the optimum light into buildings and generating the greatest amount of energy. Windows might move forward, pulling out of the building to catch those last rays of sunlight, or to provide a shelter from the rain when sensors detect the threat of precipitation. Building could be taught to sense, and adapt their form as required. What if roads changed to walkways as pedestrians approached them? Or drains appeared and disappeared as necessary?
And such buildings could react to more than just environmental factors. A child is born, a new module attaches itself, the whole building rearranges to suit the family’s needs a little better. If most residents are 9-5 workers then the building adapts depending on when it is “needed”. Balconies might retract for better safety. Health and Safety could relax: no more worrying about dangerous building and furniture layouts – the structure itself will do the work for you. Someone breaks a leg, their apartment moves down 5 floors.
Volkswagen Tiguan Advert
Uploaded by hamster1992
Filed under: Architecture | 3 Comments
Tags: Advert, City, Metabolism, Tiguan, VW
Home on ice
So, winter is here. The arctic ice is nearly back fully frozen after its record summer thaw. But I was thinking today about what more, and earlier, ice melt might mean in the immediate areas around glacier mouths. I’ve always been amazed by iceberg and their frozen river origins and a warming world means that ice break off will be more dramatic than ever before. The size of icebergs is likely to increase. Huge, bobbing offspring of a vanishing, diseased parent.
More icebergs, crashing off ice sheets and piling up against one another in the fjords and oceans of the north. Initially a mix of individual blocks, fused together as they form pack ice. Then breaking up and spreading out. Growing up and leaving home.
In themselves I imagine then as these modular habitable units where, in a parallel universe, people might live inside hollowed out bergs, initially fused together with their neighbours, a strong community where everyone is forced together. Then as the year progresses the break up of the ice occurs and people spread apart, are forced to separate and become independent. It would be like our lives on a hugely exaggerated scale, completely at the hands off the seasons.
But i’m still struck by the image of these habitable units. You’d be completely powerless as to where they take you. Reliant on ocean currents, storm systems and the tides. You’d be blind essentially. Trapped in a glassy mirrored interior. As the summer went on the walls would thin, the outside would become more visible. Eventually the berg would entirely melt. And then what?
The old maps of the Arctic chart out the northern landmasses like icebergs themselves. You can imagine the giant bergs which occasionally break off Antarctica and Greenland would be continental in their scope. Floating country sized slabs of ice. People would chisel their own homes out of the ice. Communities would form, societies would develop, there would be a whole civil system…just for a few months. Each individual mountain of ice would be weathered individually, shaped by its journey. A complete expression of the landscape and seascapes it encounters. Some stained grey by a journey along the petrochemical works around Arkangel, others clear, blue and shining as they glide past Svalbard. Battle wounds would show where collisions would have taken place. Waring iceberg inhabitants even resorting to conflict – invading passing floating communities. Other bergs would seek alliances.
But the sun would keep rising and the winds would shift and 2000 miles from where you started out that society would be shattered, broken up – floes the last melting remains, eventually recycled when the next freeze arrives.
Filed under: Architecture, Climate Change, Eco | 2 Comments
Tags: antarctic, arctic, home, houses, ice, icebergs, igloo, melting, snow, thaw
Seasons in Reverse
It’s November and it’s meant to be the end of autumn here in the UK. Earlier this week a surprise “sort of cold” snap hit the middle of the country between Manchester and the northern Home Counties, resulting in snowfall for a large part of the country. It soon melted and was only around for a few hours, but still a strangely early arrival of snowfall in a time when any snowfall in winter is a rarity.
But where I live that snow didn’t materialise. In fact there wasn’t a frost, but instead a slightly warmer than average November night. Tonight is another one of those slightly-warmer-than-average nights and tonight I was in for a REAL surprise. To me much more surprising than snow in November: flowers. And not just winter flowers, or early spring bloomers. Roses on two bushes on my road. In November not June. Perfect pale pink roses half uncurled like in a Disney cartoon. There were even more surprises: trees in bud, including a large Magnolia in full bud, a few had even flowered! And then there was the blossom. Not extremely impressive spells of lavish, cotton candy like eruptions of colour like recent warm springs have produced, instead a much more muted affair. But still, several trees in blossom, round about 4 months early. And that’s scary- that spring, a time of renewal and regeneration, is occuring when autumn in meant to be in full swing – a time of regression and repose.
And the effects spread through the ecosystem. At the bus stop last weekend I was surrounded by wasps still searching for nectar in a sole late bloomer, but with this new flowering will the few that have survived receive an unexpected reward??
Filed under: Climate Change | 1 Comment
Heima
Film of the year. It’s so beautiful. Every shot so meticulously delicate, so expertly coloured…or maybe it’s just that iceland really is that magical. that raw and powerful. The volcanic beauty of the rift valleys, mountains, cliffs and landslides sits beside a glacial, crystalline beauty of the river valleys and the warmth and harmony of the Icelandic people. The editing is brilliant, especially the beautiful fade from the bridge shot to the Von performance where the wooden slat of the bridge dissovle into the wooden panelling of the community centre interior.
And that opening. Water rushes backwards up cliff faces, up mountain gullies, up waterfalls, along glaciers, through slushy snowmelt. Back to the beginning. Back to the horizon.
The performances are as magical as the locations, ágætis byrjun, von and vaka in particular . The Djúpavík herring factory performance was hauntingly beautiful.
And the chromatic rock/stone marimba so alien, yet so effective and warmth in its sound…ahh…just wow.
The new double album Hvarf/Heim is brilliant too.
Why can’t all music be this special.
Filed under: Music Reviews | Leave a Comment
