Rainer Ganahl "I Wanna Be Alfred Jarry"

 

 

International Invitational Exhibition on OCT-Loft Concept Design

Within the company URBANUS, we recently developed an urban design project dealing with upgrading industrial building stock to be used as a densly productive area for creative industrial production. The project was featured in the exhibition 'Re-Start' in Shenzhen's OCT-Loft cultural district in July and August 2011. Here I want to provide some background info about the project and images from the opening showing the different urban design proposals.

View over OCT-Loft area to be upgraded. (click to enlarge)

OCT (Overseas Chinese Town) was founded in 1985 in Shenzhen and until 1994 OCT industrial enterprises had developed into a corporation with 55 companies under its umbrella. In this regard OCT shows the speed of growth of industry in Shenzhen (and China in general) and that these industries are now increasingly shifting from secondary industrial production to tertiary, service based economies.

As curator Li Sha is explaining the context of the exhibition:
"Since 2004, OCT started to upgrade the remaining East Industrial Zone to the Creative Cultural Park (named OCT-Loft). The upgrade of the Eastern Industrial Zone in Overseas Chinese Town to the Creative Culture park (OCT-Loft) shows it only took 26 years to complete the transformation of a European industrial city that was projected to take 100 years. [...] 
In recent decades, with the transformation and decline of large industrial systems in Europe and in the US, the protection and regeneration of earlier industrial heritage became a trend. The industry was upgraded as the region became increasingly more well known; however, the site is protected both by a respect for the natural surroundings and by archaeological practices, one that places extreme respect on the context and space. [...] 

'Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord' (Latz&Partner, 1990-1999). Industrial heritage carefully re-purposed with respectful archaeological approach. (Image source: wikipedia)

Upgrading of these areas will undoubtedly protect the industrial architectural heritage, and enrich the city's creative cultural space, but they have several issues: the area is difficult to adapt to the rapidly changing urban space; the aim for future development is unclear, and it could easily be transformed into a high-end fashion area; the area may have difficulty meeting the demand for new space in the region.

Zeche Zollverein in Essen, Germany. (image source and credit: Claus Moser @ Flickr)

Culturpark Westergafabriek. An old gasworks site refurbished to allow urban cultural events and host creative industrial entrepreneurs. (image by PLANETART @ Flickr]

Culturpark Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam. The old 'gashouder' (gas storage tank) used for an exhibition. (image by Bas Boerman @ Flickr)

Culturpark Westergafabriek. The same gas storage tank as above used for a rave event. (image by Gia Vasilevska @ Flickr)

In fact, in Europe, another mode co-exists with the aforementioned strategy, that is the active protection mode. This mode also pays attention to the industrial architectural heritage and regional studies, but it is more concerned about the contemporary significance of the architectural and regional improvement. [...] 
The exhibition invited Bernard Tschumi Architects (New York / Paris), Dominique Perrault Architecture (Paris), MVRDV (Rotterdam), Urbanus - Architecture and Design (Shenzhen /Beijing) and Sou Fujimoto Architects (Tokyo) to offer thoughts on the OCT-Loft conceptual plan and the renovation of B10 into the OCT Contemporary Art Museum, exploring the strategy for the active protection of the industrial building."

It is fair to say here that this 'respect mentioned by Li Sha is not always a given in Europe. It is not uncommon that private as well as public investors just dont acknowledge or can imagine the heritage value of industrial buildings dating back a few decades. The problem in such a case is: you loose a type of architectural heritage, a unique form of space, which would be able to host an array of diverse events, being it cultural or representational. Such rough industrial heritage spaces may also provoke creative re-actions in these spaces which are impossible to create in sleek museum-like environments.There is something to architectural form which was created for another purpose in the past. So the really creative and culturally valuable act is actually a (sometimes temporary) re-purposing of industrial architectural heritage.
After this more theoretical and contextual introduction please have a look at some images of the contributions:

Bernard Tschumi Architects

Domique Perrault Architecture

MVRDV

URBANUS

Sou Fujimoto Architects

Hong Kong Street Art

'Warchild' Streetart Project in Bushwick

"A child's silhouette is shaped out of war toys owned and played by the artists during their childhood. The earth's continents are made up of a toy battlefield.
Society is programming war into its youngest. Children are involved and suffer from numerous armed conflicts all over the world. War, a playful game or deadly reality? Some kids play in safety with war toys, while others, in less fortunate situations, may be taught to become child-soldiers or fall victim to the brutal face of war.
Instead of playing with war toys, children should be supported in becoming more tolerant to proliferate peace and understanding within a global society. In Mahatma Ghandi's words: “If we wish to create a lasting peace we must begin with the children”.
See also: meinwe

Hacking the Branding of Public Space: The Artvertiser

There is a nice project currently created for hacking the visual representation of open urban space by creating means to sublime the quite intense branding in public open spaces in certain urban centers around the globe. If we consider how important and (pre)dominant billboards and commercial signs have become in defining how our cities look like and with which information our society gets feed and conditioned every day.

Art lover hunting for fresh impressions with the help of The Artvertiser. [copyright The Artvertiser via image source]

The Artvertiser, is 'a software platform for replacing billboard advertisements with art in real-time. It works by teaching computers to 'recognise' individual advertisements so they can be easily replaced with alternative content, like images and video.'  [source]

Funtional diagram of The Artvertiser. [image copyright and source Julian Oliver]

 The project was initiated by Julian Oliver in February 2008 and is now being developed in collaboration with Damian Stewart.
The developers refer to the artvertiser 'as a form of Augmented Reality technology' and consider it to be 'an example of Improved Reality.' [source]

See how The Artvertiser works:

Augmented Billboards 2: The Artvertiser @ Transmediale 2010 from Julian Oliver on Vimeo.

The Artvertiser was released as fully working beta software and has been appearing in Berlin as part of Transmediale 2010, in Brussels for the Europe wide Media Facades Festival and in four inner-city walks during Rotterdam's Image Festival. [source]

Please see Julian Oliver's TEDx talk in which he explains more about The Artvertiser. I will buy the first batch of Artvertiser sunglasses! 

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.