LA # Palm Tree : Wrong, Fake

Local Wisdom # 1

" You can tell what kind of neighbourhood you're in by the way

the cellphone trees look - super plain or very sophisticated"

John Baldessari, Wrong, 1967.

LA / Drive-Thru Tree & Donut

In Sequoia Park where I will be tomorrow if all works out

In La Puente, LA.

LA Daily / One-on-one Drive -Thru Crit

As part of my (o so short) three week residency here at Otis,

I'm trying out One-on-one Drive-Thru Crits.

This is how I see it working.

Students who wish to have an in-depth, one-on-one feedback about their work,

ambitions, and methodology can contact me.

We agree a date and time.

They decide where they take me – a place in LA that matters to them and their work.

Time is no issue; for instance, if a student wants to drive for three hours that's fine.

The point is that we both engage in an adventure of which none of us know the outcome,

and that requires trust and commitment from both sides.

My first critique was yesterday night with E.

We drove all the way up to the Observatory.

One of the many insights it gave us is that a view doesn't discriminate.

It's there for all to see and have.

It doesn't need to concern itself with issues of access or navigation.

Perhaps this is why the concept of the scenic image is so powerful.

Especially in a drive-thru city like LA.

La / The Weatherhouse Project / Javier

It all started with an article in LA Times by Esmeralda Bermudez.

It was one of the first things I read upon arriving in LA last week.

It made me want to meet Javier Prado.

Yesterday I was driving Downtown and sure enough,

Javier was by his Lake Backdrop in Mac Arthur Park when I approached him.

Javier has photographed park visitors all his life but his real ambition is to become a (famous) singer.

His camera is still his first, and he taped it all over to enable among others double exposure souvenir images.

"The only reason the whole world doesn't know who I am is because they didn't let me talk or sing."=

This friday night he and his band will be rehearsing on a parking lot and I will go film them.

I want to make another few portraits during my time here at Otis:

a) Rich, who owns two and nearly three garages full of records,

and organizes bi-monthly conventions that attract the world's most obssesive collectors.

b) The men (and occasionally women) holding up signs along the road;

especially the ones that juggle them high above their heads.

PS

The Weatherhouse Project is the working title of my research project and it refers to a (hypothetical) house on wheels that absorbs, processes and emits the atmosphere of different neighborhoods of LA. It's inspired by LA's manifold climate, from fresh and gloomy by the sea to super hot inland.

To be continued!

LA Daily # Baldwin Hills, Santa Monica Pier, Venice Mural

LA Daily # Inglewood

LA Daily # Absurd Tuesday

Corner bistro in Marina del Rey, where the LA river delta meets the ocean.

Chris said he'd take me to a place where

you can't SEE the OCEAN but you KNOW you're VERY CLOSE.

He was right. The ocean was the breeze, the light, the softened asfalt even.

The Wetlands, a protected area, popular with bird and bird spotters.

The towers in the morning fog are Downtown LA.

Downtown! Airborne! Awesome! Venice Beach! Brussels sprouts!

Pineapple Coriander! For your convenience!

Where does everything sound SO COOL here.

... AND LOOK so cool.

Re-read Robert Venturi's (awesome!) Learning from Las Vegas on the way here.

It all still makes so much sense:

- the ugly and the ordinary as alternative, aesthetic paradigm of design;

- an inclusive form of design, integrating the profane and the sacred;

- the building-becoming-sculpture versus the shed-decorated-as-sign;

Another proof that an in-depth, personal analysis of a place is of timeless value.

Otis College of Art and Design, my host until July 23rd.

More about my residency here in the next Daily.

(The LA Daily is released Now and Then, when content asks for it, unlike its name might suggest)

Summer Time

Seen at Hemeltjelief Festival last May

Daartussenin

On a super sunny Sunday, May 16th, Bas Princen* took to me see Wall/Muur by LOD at the former 'rangeerterrein' at Tour&Taxis in Brussels; Office designed a one piece décor, a circular wall, like a 'point de fuite', een 'nulpunt', an enclosed zero point. My iphone, just like my mind, was a little overwhelmed & sun burnt that day– perhaps that explains the deep impression the afternoon made on me.

The brightly colored actors moving amidst the public represented two generations, the first built the wall fourty years ago, and the second was on the point of violently taking over their ideals. The audience dwelled around the wall, guided by the dialogues on their headphones, in search of the action and never quite falling in pace with it. The voices so close and yet so far gave an intimate sense of the history of this imaginary place of (be)longing. It made me enjoy the whole piece without necessarily wanting to catch all of it. A kind of associative, dream-like narrative.

One sentence I liked especially was

In het begin en het einde is er niets en daartussenin wordt alles opnieuw steeds uitgevonden.

*Bas has been photographing Office's work for some years. This year their collaboration is the basis of a special duo show at the Venice Architecture Biennale, where the photographs of Bas will be juxtaposed to OFFICE's collages.

hello, goodbye

Identity is not about who you are but about how many persons you become as life pulls us forward. This blog is for me not about sharing my most personal thoughts in a diary-like manner but an exercise in taking on different perspectives. Until today, Madame des Matins Brumeaux posted all the messages on this blog. She decided to leave for a long holiday (she won't say where to), so Miss YesNo is taking over her tasks from now on.

Au revoir Madame des Matins Brumeux! Archived on July 3 2010.

" Madame des Matins Brumeux is a nostalgic yet militant mind. She has a thing with archives. She thinks of herself as elegant but others find her especially funny. Perhaps it is the tie she wears over her right shoulder, like a sjawl. She would love to wear high heels every day (like in italian black and white movies), but she likes long walks too much. Too many things matter, and that is why Madame des Matins Brumeux has started this blog."It is not because some things are unlikely that they don't happen", Madame likes to whisper before opening her eyes each morning."

Relational things

This little iphone snapshot video documents the opening of Yvonne Dröge Wendel's Object Research Lab at Outline Gallery in Amsterdam, on a super rainy Sunday morning last May. I participated in one ORL session with a.o. Tine Melzer – the outcome of which will be translated into one of Yvonne's sensory, self directional things.

Here's the project in her own words @ objectresearchlab.wordpress.com/

The Object Research Lab aims to chart the contemporary thought and approaches about objects. Finding these contact points and moments of exchange that could translate in a visual research that in itself could be made applicable to artistic practice and design.

The first working phase of the Object Research Lab took place at the M4 guest studio in Amsterdam from August 2009 to January 2010. During this period encounters took place in a studio high up over the rooftops of Amsterdam within a constructed setting of human and non-human actors. Here Artists, Archeologists, Art objects, Pre objects, Amateur objects, Design objects, Philosophers, Sociologists and Designers have been busy formulating the necessary questions when it comes to (the future of) things. They brought in their respective skills and vulnerabilities to the Research Lab in order to find new ways of thinking with things. During and after each encounter in this series, the team at the Object Research Lab started to translate the ideas generated into three dimensional and textual forms – building up various trees, bodies and approaches to ideas of materially-engaged art practice.

Disrupting Design

The "editors at work" in my studio garden, discussing draft papers for the book they've been meaning to put out in the world since of all them met by chance a few years ago during a workshop. My contribution includes a visual essay– a visual grammar of research–and an essay entitled "What's going on here?", where I attempt to disclose a personal design ethics, driven by desire and irrevocably engaged with the world as it is - an inextricable enigma.

If everything works out the book should come out next winter at a yet to be disclosed (very nice) publisher..... More soon!

tribute

studying musica calade by fréderic pompou these days

found this slideshow, was shocked to see

it was a tribute to a 12 year old Sophie who passed away

and then....

was relieved, somehow,

when I found out who Sophie really was.

~

I knew there was something

mythical about the sound of this piece.

the thinking hand

Views of the exhibition of Enzo Mari's paperweight collection

"the intellectual work", exhibition curated by barbara casavecchia
kaleidoscope project space, april 13 - 30, 2010, Milan

"mari has always investigated the role of the intellectual, the cooperation of thinking

and doing, heads and hands. words and things.(...) but there is more.

granting the papers months and years to mature, to form geological
layers of meditation, also means escaping the oppressive mechanisms of the productive
system, the compulsive logic of efficiency at all costs. it means affording oneself
the subversive luxury of taking all the required time to develop a good project. it means
extending the range of research in order to get an overall picture, acting against
the increasing hyper-specialization that restrains creative expression nowadays.

(...) perhaps the paperweights and the notes are ultimately talismans, there to exorcise

the risk of being complacent and giving up the search."

'I could affirm that the intellectual work

lies in saying NO.
negation is addressed not only to others,

but also to your own goal, because the final
aim is getting to the essence.' - enzo mari

source images & text: designboom

The title of this post is taken from an expression which Erik

recently used to describe his ideas of art education, De Denkende Hand

Living with Berlage

These days Berlage, Krijn & Cathelijne's rabbit, is staying with me.

Or better said: is taking over the studio...

First her space was 1/3 of the front space but since she jumped over the fence

everytime I walked out of the room I now granted the whole front studio to her.

But ground floor is not enough for Berlage and everything is worth jumping on.

This morning Berlage ate parsely, cucumber, some bread and salad.

And some of my morning newspaper.

I think we are becoming friends.

good, better, other

Image by Bas Princen, who was in Burkina Faso and Mali last week for Icon magazine
(which is put together by an editorial team of four, incredible but true)

What's going on?
Is it a drive-by closet?
A roadside instant shop?
Someone's migrated balcony?
Probably all of them.

What came first, the clothes or the tree?

Tree, clothes hanging to dry, wind and road -
They look like they have always belonged together,
even though we learnt they are not supposed to.

Another example of how little we really know
how poor generic design is
and how immensely rich the world is,
if we are able to see it!

life comes first

Photo: Cihan Lacin, http://www.coid.nl

Life comes first and is the source of my work.
Work was never not meant to hollow life out,
no matter how passionate you are about it.
That's what I told an interviewer from the city
when she asked me
how I draw the border between life and work.

Quetions are beautiful things.
They often trigger a truth
that was not evident until that moment.

Raoul - one had to move to see

Foreseen, 1989, Eindhoven

Raoul who was always there for us, is no longer amongst us.
He stepped out of time and cut short the life he couldn't live anymore.
Raoul left some traces online and I brought some together here.
Because without attention for one another, each and everyone of us is alone.
Raoul: we had no idea we are so sorry (words by Annelys today at the ceremony)
~
Here are some notions and phrases, which for me remain associated with Raoul's curiosity,
enthusiasm and generosity; pieced together from memory, email fragments and just plain sadness.

"Een ander beeld vraagt om een andere (talige) structuur wil zij niet in haar mimetische kwaliteit het afleggen tegen de grotere macht waar tegen zij zich juist wil afzetten." - Date: 8 March 2007 19:03:22 CET

"Er zal dus eigenlijk een ander discours geproduceerd moeten worden dat meer het bricolerende weefsel zelf mimetiseert....." - Date: 26 April 2007 23:01:06 CEST

"We moeten, en ik herhaal mijn argument van de laatste ontmoeing- het maar eens uitgebreid over representatie hebben..." - Date: 26 April 2007 23:01:06 CEST

"Met tekst –want het leek de hele tijd die kant op te gaan- bedoelde ik niet een gedrukte –of anderszins gepubliceerde tekst maar het weefsel (textuur) van betekenissen die een museum om een kunstwerk weeft. (...) Kortom tekst als textuur en/of weefsel." - Date: 26 April 2007 23:01:06 CEST

"Tamelijk eenvoudig eigenlijk. Wanneer je bijvoorbeeld kijkt naar de gemiddelde behandeling van een kunstwerk dan wordt het overgrote deel benut om te beschrijven WAT er zichbaar is en zelden HOE iets zichtbaar wordt gesteld."- Date: 13 May 2007 11:02:49 CEST

"De esthetica hernomen (Paul Frissen). (...) De kunsten en de vormgeving en hoe zij (misschien wel als verschil zijn weggevallen in de nieuwe media) kunnen deze rol op zich nemen." - Date: 13 October 2007 13:52:44 CEST

Bergon en Heidegger over de ervaring van de duur: "“zij valt samen met de wereld, zoekt daarin het singuliere en onherhaalbare dat op zijn beurt onpresenteerbaar is” - zie: H. Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics p.7

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi guys (Magnum P.I. Season 1976),
Hoi jongens,
Hé geluksvogel (zomaar in Detroit...),
Mijn waarde kenniskringleden,

Woekeren en opschorten
Dit spel is nooit waardevrij
Differentie als verlangen
Voorbij goed of slecht.....
Being-there
JONGENS, LEES MIJN VORIGE MAIL NIET. IK DRUKTE PER ONGELUK OP ‘SEND’ EN DEZE MAIL IS NOG NIET AF.....
Om mijn positie te ‘hernemen’.....
Ook wil ik nog even stilstaan bij
Tussen zien en weten
“Het lichaam is ruimte, het bewustzijn tijd” (Bergson) - en dit valt niet op te lossen [RT]
Zij [dit leven, dit landschap] wordt dus ervaren maar kan niet in haar geheel uitgedrukt worden.
Dit volgend wordt het voorgestelde uitermate interessant.

"In andere woorden: we maken betekenis door "tussen" de betekenisgevende
structuren te gaan 'staan' en niet meer door een plek (locus) aan te wijzen
waar deze gevonden kan worden." (over Lyotard's intrasemische ruimte)

Hier wordt ontwerpen ont-werpen.....

Komttie.
Voor jou altijd:
You’re welcome en het is altijd als steun bedoeld

Het was een goede middag.....
Succes!
Veel succes alvast!
En nu ieder een fijne avond!
Geniet van dit weekend!
Geniet van je weekend!
Liefs en goed weekend!
Tot gauw,

En zo heb ik nog meer mar zal ik het hier even bij laten?



www.raoulteulings.com
1959-2010

Subject to change or the space love needs

"Subject to Change" performed by NDT, Choreography bij Lightfoot & Léon

there is a point when the carpet she dances on,
the space in which she manifests all the love she holds within her,
that carpet shifts under her feet and turns her world around.
Sil and I were sitting on the tip of our chairs by then, moved to tears.

PS Noticed something strange in the format, right click the trailer and zoom out
or view full screen to not miss the margins of the carpet
(that's where it's all happening, in the fringes... of course)

Subject to Change is part of True to II, a compilation including also the virtuoso, super precise Shutters Shut and the magnanimous Cacti by young (24 year old yet author of 23 choreographies?!) Aleksander Ekman. Last chance to see and feel it all: tonight in Utrecht and tomorrow in Alkmaar.

Déracinner les pensées

Unroooted countless blackberrie bushes today, to make space
for a small magnolia, a group of snowdrops and three handful of field flowers
(which we call sneeuwklokje –snowbell– in Dutch, and perce-neige –snow piercer– in French)

Noticed a few parallels between the way roots and thoughts behave

a small stem says nothing about the size of the root below
a small stem that looks like it's by itself often turns out to be connected to some bigger root
(sometimes many meters further, in any direction)
pulling gently on the root yields more result
a hard pull will break the root off, leaving it amputated
to free a root you need to dig the earth up in a circle around it
at first it looks messy but it's also refreshing
shaking a root and seeing clumps of earth fall apart in black dust feels REALLY good
it made me think of the earth globe racing through space
raking the earth till it's soft and even feels EVEN better



Also cleaned up an uncanny pile of trash that was under my terrace when I moved in
and that I had tried to ignore over the winter. After getting rid of the most horrible stuff
I was left with earth and bricks of every possible size. I masoned them into a more or less even surface.

Bringing some kind of intention or direction or reading mode into whatever material
you are confronted with always works - it turns it into something, at least.


eco cathedraal van Kunsthistoricus, architect en filosoof Louis Guillaume Le Roy in Mildam (fr)