FLOLO: January 2011

Intellectual Commons in the City

Is it possible to have shared and public intellectual infrastructure in the contemporary city? How interesting and truly public can urban open space become, once we (at least in some aspects) overcome the strict barriers of property and privacy which as well restrict every day communication between people. To share books is common, but to have such 'opened libraries' accessible to the public at all times and let the community manage the library on its own, that would be a truly fresh approach to urban planning.
One may argue that letting communities manage such a new sort of 'intellectual commons' may be endangered and impossible because of vandalism or theft. Contrasting to such 'no-go' arguments I want to present you two projects which realize such 'intellectual commons' of different scale and outreach.

One project is the winner of the 'European Prize for Public Space' in 2010. The 'Open-air Library' in Magdeburg, Germany was initiated by the residents themselves to collect and share books. The building, a pavilion with opened and sheltered spaces, was built after a participative process by construction material which was left from an abandoned building. The project was guided by Karo* and Architektur+Netzwerk.

Image via architecturetoday

In Vienna there is a project with a more focussed outreach, the 'opened book closet' (offener Bücherschrank) with currently two book closets, at Westbahnstrasse and Brunnenmarkt. In the opened book closet the community can share books at no cost. When I was there three people were about to use the closet, two searching for literature and one just busy putting the books into order. The opened book closet was initiated by Frank Gassner and is supported by Werkimpuls.

Open book closet at Westbahnstrasse, Vienna 1070.

Let's be curious and see for more such initiatives which can help to render our cities more inclusive, livable and socially just.

Opening Herwig Weiser's 'Filmworks' at . Vienna

Last Saturday the first solo exhibition opened in Lisa Ruyter's lately opened art space ' . ' in Vienna. Herwig Weiser is mainly known for his sound sculptures and machines which he calls 'analog sculptural processes' such as 'Zgodlocator' , 'ZII' or 'Death Before Disko'.

Weiser's filmworks 'show a natural talent in a medium ideally suited for Herwig Weiser's interest in the relationship of sound, image and his focus on decaying technologies being returned to material origins. They also reveal a bit more about his personal motivations than what is immediately clear from his intriguing machines.' [source: press release]

Guests at the opening interested in materials describing Weiser's work. (image by David Schulder)

Super 8 projector with 'Untitled 1996/2011'.

Super 8 projector to the left with 'Untitled 1995/2011' and to the right projection 'Untitled 1999/2011'.

The exhibition features films previously shown in the context of film festivals, but as well unknown material from Weiser's vast personal archive of material filmed on super 8, 16 mm and video. The films are presented as projected images, as loops on super 8 projectors and as videos on TV screens. Moving through the exhibition, one can engage with each piece in a very private and singular way, yet the space is bound together by flickering lights of the projections and the sound created by film loops running in super 8 projectors. Please find a video by David Schulder at the bottom of this post to get an impression about the exhibition and the opening.

Installation with loops in two super 8 projectors, 'Untitled 1997 / 2011'. (image by David Schulder)

Detail of 'Franz Speck' 1998.

Detail of 'Lucid Phantom Messenger' 2011.

The exhibition spans 15 years of Weiser's work, from early projects (e.g. Franz Speck, 1998 / 2011) to a film about his latest work 'Lucid Phantom Messenger' (2011). Weiser recently started to revisit his archive of (film)works and shows loops of unchanged, unedited super8 film as well as digitally edited materials from his archive.

Weiser's films are a testimony of joyful technological experimentation and thereby seamlessly integrate into his process of creating his 'analog sculptural processes'. It is worth mentioning that many of the films in the exhibition were firstly shot in a time where digital technology (video) was overtaking analog film in popular culture. In these times, Weiser produced images which bear an almost digital aesthetic, appearing (for an observer in 2011) to be produced by algorithms rather than being super8 films altered by jogpads in a film editing studio (see for example works like 'Untitled (painting) 1998/2011').

Detail of 'Untitled (painting)' 1998/2011.

Still from 'Did you ever steal a real McCarthy?' 1997/2011. (image by David Schulder)

The moving images reveal a strong personal interest in the medium and an artistic production which is rather celebrating the process of creation itself than being concerned with the reception and presentation of the final product. The narratives and locations of the movies reveal an interest in immediate, strange and often dubious surroundings as well as a process of continuous artistic learning by doing. In some cases the films are shot in landscapes such as Germany's coal pits or construction sites and transport the transient character of environmental change.

To the left, 'Untitled 1995/2011' shot in a construction site, to the right 'Untitled 1993/2011' shot in an agricultural landscape in the Netherlands. (image by David Schulder)

The exhibition is opened until 26th of February. Visit the homepage of ' . ' to find out more about opening times and future shows. Moreover there will be soon a post about a visit to the studio and ' . ' the art space of Lisa Ruyter.

I'm Dreaming of a White Wastemas

LAGI Competition 2010, Winner 'Lunar Cubit' Announced

The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) recently announced the winner of their 2010 LAGI design competition. According to the competition brief, the project should propose energy generating public art which is culturally valuable, approachable for people and environmentally sound. There were many very creative and forward-looking entries for the competition and the jury for sure didn't have an easy time to decide about the winner.

During the recent 2011 World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, the winning project 'Lunar Cubit' was announced. The project was developed by Robert Flottemesch, Jen DeNike, Johanna Ballhaus and Adriana P. De Luca and designed to be located at an intersection on the road connecting Masdar city with Abu Dhabi airport.

Lunar Cubit by night indicating the lunar cycle [image copyright by competition team]

from the project description:
"Lunar Cubit is a site specific proposal to be constructed in Abu Dhabi just outside Masdar City, the world’s first zero carbon metropolis once completed. Combining artistic vision with sustainable design and engineering, Lunar Cubit examines the nature of time through nightly contemplation of lunar phases and daily transformation of sunlight into electricity, powering up to 250 homes. Inspired by astronomy, quantum physics and the photoelectric effect, for which Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921, this work is open to the public, inviting a personal experience where one can literally reach out and touch a 1.74MW utility scale power plant, in the form of nine monolithic pyramids rising from the sands of Abu Dhabi.
Lunar means relating to or involving the moon and cubit is the name given to the oldest recorded units of length; employed though antiquity, the oldest cubit being the royal cubit, dating back to the Step Pyramid of Djoser circa 2,700 B.C." [source]


Lunar Cubit by day, an approachable public sculpture. [image copyright by competition team]

You can study the proposal more in-depth with the low-res competition pdfs or on the Lunar Cubit webpage.
I wish the team all the best in realizing this proposal and hope that similar projects, where art, energy generation and public space are coming together, will be more frequent in other parts of the world as well!

Environmental Health by [re]designing Nature in a Solidary Way: Natalie Jeremijenko at k/haus Vienna

This is a short account of Natalie Jeremijenko's lecture: 'On engineering biodiversity, improving environmental health and wrestling Rhinocerous Beetles' which was held in conjunction with the ÖGFA series 'Solidarity - How do democratic spaces come into existence?' as part of the exhibition '[re]designing nature' at k/haus Vienna.

It was inspiring to get new ideas of how to conceptualize our urban narratives in (environmental) design. From my notes taken during the lecture...

Become an 'IMpatient' in the environmental health clinic to participate in changing what design means and in producing new collective goods. Nourish our common knowledge of how stuff is made. Get involved at the clinic's field offices floating as PET-bottle-barge on the East river or as an installation in the 'other-space' at the inside of a roundabout. Measure the sky's clearness with a wearable breathing mask indicator. Take out your environmentally pimped sensor feral robot dog to raise awareness about the state of the soil next door by performing for media outlets (let the media dogs bark for you!). Connect impatiently the local artists and community groups in financing a NOpark biofilter down the street. Resist the urban pollution fallout by installing an urban space station on your roof which will service your building's air. Visit 'Manhattan's National Wildlife Habitat' to understand urban environments in a different way, get in contact and flirt with the animals and enjoy previously invisible information at the 'amphibious architecture'. Become an 'adventurous eater' to break down existing borders in our food-webs.
(Yes,) We can (!) organize our common creative resources to become agents for environmental change, thereby overcoming a current 'crisis of agency'. We are all equally qualified to realize the transition of our material culture in a joyous, playful and sensual way.

I will write a subsequent post presenting the work of the environmental health clinic in a more in-depth way.