Nuit Blanche ‘09 was even more of a madhouse than last year. In case you missed it, I’m sure there’s a ton of photographs being posted as we speak — and here’s a scant few more to toss on the pile:
Entries Tagged as ‘Art’
August 19, 2009
The World Machine!
After the Burlington Book Camp, one of the campers asked about my inspirations for Zorgamazoo. I revealed where the general idea came from, but didn’t have time for more detail.
Notably, chapter four features an intricate lottery machine called The Hero-Selection Divining Device. While I was writing that particular passage, I drew inspiration from Franz Gsellmann’s [...]
July 16, 2009
SANAA opens Serpentine Gallery’s Annual Architecture Exhibit
Japanese architects Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima have opened this year’s Serpentine Pavillion in Kensington Gardens.
The pair are based in Tokyo and design under the (acronymical?) moniker ‘SANAA‘ (and yes, acronymical isn’t a word. Neither is Zorgamazoo, and yet I wrote a whole book about it).
It’s a pity I missed the opening, but with a [...]
May 10, 2009
2009 Turner Prize Shortlist Announced
The 2009 shortlist for the Turner Prize was released last week, and there’s much being made of the fact that for once the artists who made the cut aren’t one-hundred percent conceptual. In fact, all four are (more or less) visual artists and — surprise, surprise – there’s an honest-to-goodness painter in there.
To be honest, [...]
April 26, 2009
Kinetica Art Fair (in London…alas)
Machiko, a close friend from London, taunted me recently with pictures of her trip to the Kinetica Art Fair. It was a show featuring the best kinetic art from across Europe and locally from the Kinetica Museum in Spitalfields.
The show featured carnivorous art, animal-machine hybrids, mechanical drawing devices, light sculptures and — perhaps my favourite [...]
February 17, 2009
Dubious Architectural Manifesto
A small group of architects in Britain, led by Austin Williams (head of the Future Cities project), recently released the oddly-titled document, “The ManTownHuman Manifesto.”
In it, Williams contended that modern British architects are oppressed by bureaucratic regulation and over-emphasis on environmental sustainability (no kidding).
He believes a pure form of architecture is no longer being practiced [...]
February 9, 2009
Poop Machine?
It’s true. There’s one on display in Montreal. It’s currently being exhibited in a gallery at the University of Quebec. It’s the latest piece from Belgian conceptual artist, Wim Delvoye, and it’s called Cloaca No. 5 (yes, there’ve been others). It’s on display until until Feb. 14.
In Delvoye’s words, “art should be useless. And this [...]
