Crown Casino: ‘A snarling, digitised mutilation’
“The consumer society is a kind of soft police state. We think we have choice, but everything is compulsory. We have to keep buying or we fail as citizens. Consumerism creates huge unconscious needs that only fascism can satisfy. If anything, fascism is the form that consumerism takes when it opts for elective madness.” -- J.G. Ballard, Kingdom Come (2006). "But →
More on architecture, sci-fi and the virtual.
A sort of reply to Nicholas's post on the Lucas Arts: Fracture terra-forming computer game. There's been a lot of talk about how much video games and cinema (especially science fiction) have influenced wider design culture. With advancements in our ability to represent 'reality' digitally, the games and animation industry has also influenced the development of many of the →
“the slippage of contemporary life into sci-fi”
In yet another onto-it post (from 2006) by Geoff Manaugh on his BLDGBLOG he throws up some enticing potentials about future aeroplanes printed out of plastic and the imagined potential of bio-printing. But where it gets really interesting for me, is where he starts to discuss how contemporary life is slipping into sci-fi, and "Science-fiction and social realism will become one →
Related to today’s session: Brian Massumi interview
An interview with Brian Massumi at Intelligent Agent discusses questions of flux and change, responsiveness and plasticity which seemed relevant in terms of autopoiesis and PALS - especially relevant to Peter's line of investigation. Not too long or even especially jargony. "The active emergence of form does not automatically carry over from the design process into the life of the building →
Warming via cremation + BLDGBLOG
This blog, BLDGBLOG by Geoff Manaugh, is very good. I suspect his book may be worth getting. He will be speaking at the Parallax conference in Melbourne in late April/early May. I was particularly warmed by this post on heating via cremation.
future of design
John Thackara asks: What would architects design, if they did not design buildings? What would designers design, if they did not design products, or posters? He is not convinced that architects and other designers should limit their capacities to design-for-production, or for individual expression.
Performing Urban Futures
If any of you thought we were a little off-beam reading Stanislavski and building characters, here is an example of some others doing something similar: Urban Futures: a performance based approach to residential design
skin & bones
somehow there was so much discussions on the idea of 'skins', reminded me of this exhibition - 'skins and bones' which I had attended a few years back. Really inspired me a fair bit; the relation between the process of fashion and architecture. did a summery of it a while back.
Rhinoplasty.
The first line of the algorithm streamed through his brain and he felt a burning sensation in his sinuses as the pattern formed itself in his mind’s eye. The job wasn’t going to pay, and it wasn’t particularly challenging in itself, but he felt it was a worthwhile thing to be helping these refugees. They were from London this lot. →