4.1 Crumpled Sheet Structures:

"...

Crumpling a sheet means a ruleless deformation of a flat sheet through uncoordinated forces.  The act of "crumpling" is the result of the disordered impact of non-cordinated forces on an object.  Crumpled sheets are produced by a deliberately disordered action applied to a sheet.  In my experiments, I have applied crumpling to wire meshes and thin metal grids.

I do not find such crumpled sheet structures to be less solid than those folded in regular patterns.  Crumpled sheets can be easily represented, as they actually were, in a Fourier analysis, as the sum or as the interference pattern of different regularly undulated 2-d surfaces of sinusoidal character.  Their deformation under pressure is difficult to predetermine.  As a consequence of this, crumpled surfaces are uncomfortable to calculate and are thus neglected by engineers. 

...

The problem of implementing crumpled patterns in architecture arises less out of the technical problems involved and more out of the emotional reasons they raise.  In spite of our familiarity with such shapes, in many cases, we find them aesthetically repulsive since they hurt our instinct for order.  "Homo Faber" tries to impose his/her own geometric mind onto artefacts he/she creates.  But is this attitude the only possible attitude?"

Friedman, Y. (2006). Pro Domo.  Barcelona: Actar

"In particular, the extension to an ever greater number of wage-earners of the lack of any distinction between time and work and time outside work, between personal friendships and professional relationships, between work and the person of those who perform it - so many features which, since the nineteenth century, had constituted typical characteristics of the artistic condition, particularly markers of the artist's 'authenticity'- and the introduction of this 'modus operandi' into the capitalist universe, can only have contributed to disrupting reference points for ways of evaluating people, actions or things."

Chiapello, E & Boltanski, L (2005). The New Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Verso

Gallerist-Collector-Masterbator

Lil' Babylon

image found by Kerry Byrne(artist) via the internet.

The way some people do it (says a friend of mine from Argentina) is to submit project ideas, unsolicited, to spaces. This came up when I was saying that after June, the summer looks pretty open.
I told him it is bad taste.

United States Patent D474573: The lozenge-shaped snack has a bulging and rugged aspect.

'Land reserved for future expansion viewed from the Tarzan's Treehouse in Adventureland'

"Here, Courbet shows himself as a wanderer who has returned home, recalling his declaration in 1850: 'I have just embarked on the great wandering and independent life of the bohemian.'"
-Wall text to The Homecoming (1854) on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

"(...) Everybody must have projects all of the time. The maximum must be extracted from leisure. This is planned, used for undertakings, crammed with visits to every conceivable site or spectacle, or just with the fastest possible locomotion. The shadow of all this falls on intellectual work. It is done with a bad conscience, as if it had been poached from some urgent, even if only imaginary occupation. To justify itself in its own eyes it puts on a show of hectic activity performed under great pressure and shortage of time, which excludes all reflection and therefore itself. It often seems as if intellectuals reserved for their actual production only those hours left over from obligations, excursions and appointments and unavoidable amusements. There is something repulsive, yet to a certain degree rational, about the prestige gained by those who can present themselves as such important people that they have to be on the spot everywhere. They stylize their lives with ham-acted discontent as a single acte-de-presence. The pleasure with which they turn down an invitation with reference to another previously accepted, signals a triumph between competitors. As here, so generally, the forms of the production process are repeated in private life, or in those areas of work exempted from these forms themselves. The whole of life must look like a job, and by this resemblance conceal what is not devoted to pecuniary gain. But the fear thus expressed only reflects a much deeper one. The unconscious innervations which, beyond thought process, attune individual existence to historical rhythms, sense the growing collectivization of the world. Yet since integral society does not so much take up individuals positively within itself as crush them to an amorphous and malleable mass each individual dreads the process of absorption, which is felt as inevitable. (...)"

-Theodor Adorno, Vandals in 'Minima Moralia', (written 1945, first published 1951), p. 138.

I hope that having worked with me for the last while it is clear that I am seldom an opportunist; neither is it the case here.

"As soon as the reverie becomes concentrated, the genie of the Volcano appears. He dances on 'blue and red embers... using as his mount a snowflake carried along by the hurricane.' He carries the Dreamer away beyond the quadrangular monument whose founding is traditionally attributed to Empedocles. 'Come, my king. Put on your crown of white flame and blue sulphur from which there comes forth a dazzling rain of diamonds and sapphires.' And the Dreamer, ready for the sacrifice, replies: 'Here I am! Envelop me in rivers of burning lava, clasp me in your arms of fire as a lover clasps his bride. I have donned the red mantle. I have adorned myself in your colors. Put on, too, your burning gown of purple. Cover your sides with its dazzling folds. Etna, come, Etna! Break down your gates of asphalt, spew forth your pitch and sulphur. Vomit forth the stone, the metal and the fire!' In the heart of the fire death is no longer death. 'Death could not exist in that ethereal region to which you are carrying me... My fragile body may be consumed by the fire, my soul must be united with those tenuous elements of which you are composed.' 'Very well!' said the Spirit, casting over the Dreamer part of his red mantle, 'Say farewell to the life of men and follow me into the life of phantoms.'
-Gaston Bachelard quoting George Sand, Psychoanalysis of Fire, p. 18.

3 reclining nudes

"Obsessed with creating his sculptures exactly as he envisioned through his unique view of reality, he often carved until they were as thin as nails and reduced to the size of a pack of cigarettes, much to his consternation."

My dog understands me but I do not understand it. Who is more stupid?

QUESTION:

Can you tell me where to buy and how to store my pseudo drugs?

ANSWER:

Pseudo drugs can be purchased from:
Sigma-Aldrich,
3050 Spruce Street,
St. Louis,
MO 63103.
1-800-325-3010

At this time they have the following scents available:
- Marijuana
- Cocaine
- Heroin
- LSD
- Cadaver

At this time they do not have a meth scent for sale.

http://www.leerburg.com/

The Good Enough Mother

a cover of a cover of a cover of a cover of a cover

Anne Collier
Smoking 2, 2005
C-print, framed
1025x1279mm
Edition of Five + 2 AP

Swiss Solutions

"(...) In 1835, a young civil servant and aristocrat from France, named Alexis de Tocqueville, would publish a book about America that still resonates today.
The book is called "Democracy in America," and in it this young Frenchman said that the secret to America's success was our talent for bringing people together for the common good. De Tocqueville wrote that tyrants maintained their power by "isolating" their citizens -- and that Americans guaranteed their freedom by their remarkable ability to band together without any direction from government.
(...) Our Founders rejected both a radical individualism that makes no room for others, and the dreary collectivism that crushes the individual. They gave us instead a society where individual freedom is anchored in communities. And in this hopeful new century, we have a great goal: to renew this spirit of community and thereby renew the character and compassion of our country.
First, we must understand that the character of our citizens is essential to society. In a free and compassionate society, the public good depends on private character. That character is formed and shaped in institutions like family, faith, and the many civil and -- social and civic organizations, from the Boy Scouts to the Rotary Clubs. The future success of our nation depends on our ability to understand the difference between right and wrong and to have the strength of character to make the right choices. Government cannot create character, but it can and should respect and support the institutions that do.
Second, we must understand the importance of keeping power close to the people. Local people know local problems, they know the names and faces of their neighbors. The heart and soul of America is in our local communities; it is in the citizen school boards that determine how our children are educated; it's in city councils and state legislators that reflect the unique needs and priorities of the people they serve; it's in the volunteer groups that transform towns and cities into caring communities and neighborhoods. In the years to come, I hope that you'll consider joining these associations or serving in government -- because when you come together to serve a cause greater than yourself, you will energize your communities and you will help build a more just and compassionate America."
-George Bush

The trauma from the last post made me start smoking

Adam MCEWEN
One Concept
2007
C-print
83,2 x 15,9 cm
image courtesy Galerie Rodolphe Janssen and the artist.

The Avant-Garde in Minnesota

Image via Leisure Projects
www.leisuregallery.ca

***

KVLY-TV
updated 2:13 p.m. ET, Tues., Feb. 26, 2008

A creative way to get around the statewide smoking ban is spreading like wildfire around the state. Dozens of bars are expected to stage so-called "theater nights'' this weekend, in which all the patrons are dubbed actors. That qualifies them for a loophole in the state smoking ban, which permits performers to smoke during a theatrical production. Mark Benjamin, a lawyer who first had the idea, estimates 50 to100 bars around the state could hold theater nights this weekend. Officials with the state Health Department said earlier thisweek they were waiting for an opinion from the state attorneygeneral's office on the legality of the theater nights. State legislators who championed the ban said last week the loophole will likely be plugged.

Frozen

Marcel Broodthaers, »Cover des Ausstellungskatalogs Marcel Broodthaers. Cinéma«, 1968 – 1972
1997 | Fotografie | © Estate Marcel Broodthaers; VG Bild-Kunst 2004

Turning Points

Q: Is that your birthday suit? **************************************************************************** A: Well it isn't my Sunday best!

"My eyes followed the smoke which curled and uncurled in the dappled light. And my mind mingled in the smoke and slowly vanished in blue wreaths. After a long interval, without having any recourse to logic, I could see with utter certainty the origin, the growth and the disappearance of the world. It was as if I had once more plunged into Buddha, but this time without the delusive words and insolent acrobatic tricks of the mind. This smoke is the essence of his teaching, these vanishing spirals are life coming impatiently to a happy end in blue nirvana..."
-Nikos Kazantzakis Zorba the Greek, p. 49

Silent Partner

"Diminished intellectual capacity, accelerated respiration and heartbeat, hypertension, slowed digestion, neurosis, altered diction: these are the consequences of excessive sound in the environment."
- Jacques Attali, Noise p. 27

• Only fractals succeed in capturing the reality of the markets. Benoit Mandelbrot

Smoke & School, featured item

Big Ideas

The world's greatest painter, Yves Klein, is a Frenchman.

Advertising in reverse

From the cutting room floor...

WITHOUT NAMING NAMES there are some among us who would like to believe we are slaves to 'intense experiences'. Since arriving in our class we have taken to devouring tablets of chocolate- with little regard for their squared sections- they are compulsively broken at jagged diagonals, bit by irregular bit, until they are gone. Some of us would like to believe it is a compulsion that is reproduced among other habits; all night talking and arguing, hard liquor without dilution or alleviation, social confrontation after jagged social confrontation- this is what drives us on. But to be frank, some of us are lightweights, drowsy after two intense beers, depleted after a handful of theatrical gazes exchanged. And some of us have secret lives, don't come to class, don't live in the city, and we can only assume possess some other vocabulary- a vernacular some of us, in our thrill for this, our sole bent intensity, can only imagine.
To make amends for our refusal to centripetally congregate we hand around a small book. Communicate with each other, it pleads.
The book can easily be commandeered, a flag raised up its spine. Waiting for the anonymous coup, the question of the relationship between the ideal and the effective is cast in stark relief on the vessel's form.

3.67 Acres of Vacant Land

"Getting the rights to distribute Procter & Gamble products would be a gold mine," said one of the partners at New Bridge Strategies who did not want to be named. "One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out 30 Iraqi stores; a Wal-Mart could take over the country," he said.

- Washington Post, October 2nd 2003.

Property Description:3.67 acres of vacant land adjacent to Kroger store in Memphis, Tennessee.
Location Description:The property is located in Memphis, Tennessee and is adjacent to a Kroger store which runs along American Way. It is near the former Mall of Memphis which has been razed and remains vacant.

Funny fact from Flin Flon

Prospectors discovered gold near the town, 600 miles north of Winnipeg, in 1910 and originally called their settlement Beaver City. By 1914, they had changed the name to Flin Flon in honour of a fictional character called Josiah Flintabattey Flonatin - from a turn-of-the-century novel called The Sunless City - who found a city laden with gold at the bottom of a lake.

The Smell of Maple Syrup

The answer is aspergers: Smoke & School cont'd

N + Ron

This image is a work of the United States Department of the Interior, taken or made during the course of an employee's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.

Greenwich Awkward Time

"the last residues of artistic aspiration toward transcendence (by means of traditional studio skills and privileged modes of experience)"

On Daniel Liebeskind: "The original sketches for the Royal Ontario Museum were drawn on napkins - and turned out to be so close to the final design that the napkins themselves were exhibited. In fact, Libeskind has produced some of his best work at the dinner table - his famous Jewish Museum in Berlin was mostly elaborated on kitchen roll. 'I know a lot of architects who draw on expensive paper that will never disintegrate and is designed for archives. To me that's a slightly fictitious version of the creative process. The creative process involves whatever pops into your head.'"
From the Guardian, Observer Food Monthly

And i'll tell you why I know this in a moment...

CIVIC,
MARKET,
TRANSCENDENCE,
FAME,
INDUSTRIAL,
and
DOMESTIC

"However, legitimate tests are not always abundant in conflicts: tests which are not classified and which are not subject to the surveillance of a third party constitute forms of conflict which make it impossible to reach an agreement based on the merit of the argument, and thus establish a relation of force between the disputants. These are not tests of something, trials in which it is clear what the rules are and what is exactly put to trial, but they are tests of force. In this, therefore, conflicts are definable as sequences of tests subjected to a more or less rigorous classification, sequences of tests which activate an arena of actors made up of different scenes, each with its own timescale."

- Wikipedia Entry for Luc Boltanski

Blending into the Surroundings

The Communist Ashtray

Back to the future: 2005

"Improvisation, over time, yields access to substratum vistas of altogether unseen colouration" - No-Neck Blues Band

Off The Record

Towards a Typology of the Vancouver School

Welcome to Framagraphic!

FRAMAGRAPHIC FRAMING GALLERY, located at 1116 West Broadway (one block west of Oak Street) in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, has been under the same ownership/management since 1976. And, as Framagraphic's many loyal customers can attest there's much more to Framagraphic than just frames for graphics!

Whereas high-quality, tasteful, and imaginative custom picture framing is the mainstay of the business, an unusually large variety of Canadian and International prints entices art lovers from all over the province as well as from areas far afield.

Posters representing art throughout the centuries are also available.

In addition to advising walk-in customers, Framagraphic provides an art consultation service for both private and corporate clients, including, where requested, pick-ups, deliveries, installations, and design advice.

Since 1977 these services have been used to the great satisfaction of some of the largest and most important galleries, retail outlets, and corporations in Vancouver and surrounding areas.

Framagraphic takes pride in its reputation for fast and efficient service with a distinctive personal touch. Clients keep coming back; they enjoy being greeted by name the second time around and finding how well their interests have been remembered. Such close attention produces work of the highest quality as well as many new friends.

FRAMAGRAPHIC FRAMING GALLERY
1116 West Broadway
Vancouver, B.C
Canada
Telephone 604- 738-0017
Hours: Monday through Friday 9:30 am to 6pm
Saturday 10:00am to 5:00 pm

I am convinced we can do something together as long as I do not have to do anything

"It is, strictly speaking, a monad: an isolated, condensed being, sharing some of the romantic symbolism connected to the image of the solitary tree out of which it is carved."
-Jeff Wall, 'Selected Essays and Interviews', (2007, The Museum of Modern Art, New York) p. 107.

UL: Do you think the artists in Glasgow have anything more in common than a similar education?

"The characteristic organic motifs which appear on many Mannerist frames (such as the one illustrated above) seem to have been generated by craftsmen - especially silversmiths - working in the courts of Bohemia. The melting cartilaginous shapes mimic the fluidity of metalwork, and caused this style to be known as 'Auricular' (like ear lobes)."
-Paul Mitchell