the video-recordings of the 6th. IoT & Built Environment MeetUp on Art and Imagination at the WW-IoT-day in V2 Rotterdam are now online ! Look and listen back to a series of most interesting talks, comment and discuss further to ensure this important topic remains an issue. Listen to e.g. Rob van Kranenburg, Yvonne Droge Wendel, Michela Magas, Ben van Lier, Usman Haque, Frans Vogelaar.
#1_Welcome_Leon van Geest from 4D-FilmVisions on Vimeo.
a consortium of six European researchpartners has created the FloraRobotica project; which “objective is to develop and investigate closely linked symbiotic relationships between robots and natural plants and to explore the potentials of a plant-robot society able to produce architectural artifacts and living spaces.”
‘braid columns’
The program for the 6th. IoT-MeetUp at V2 Rotterdam is now online; together with an increasing number of meetings worldwide once again we pay tribute to an important development that needs to be discussed together with accompanying human – as well as artistic – values. Come, listen and above all discuss with a fine group of speakers, moderated by Leon van Geest.
January 31st.; the FET-Observe workshop in Brussels, organized and guided by Philine Warnke and Elna Schirrmeister from Fraunhofer Institute. Some 20 researchers from e.g. computing, art, media, design discussed a series of possible/wishful future technologies within a wide range of topics, including ‘Future Living Spaces’, with the aim to frame topics that need further focused research and funding. Wonderful to experience a critical but constructive discussion from a variety of disciplines as well as a somewhat out-of-line thinking against many current developments.
architect/urbanist/artist/painter Daniele Cesari (1983, Ferrara, Italy) tries to capture what is unseen – but nevertheless experienced or imagined – within a city and its architecture. The result is a fascinating image of the energy of hidden phenomena; whether the streets are deserted or crowded…..
Alito e Vento
Interesting thoughts by Gordon Stott form Connect Homes on the CORE77 website concerning prefab architecture; his plea for a far more industrial approach in which one can buy a house per m2 fits the current debate on how to give the inhabitant more influence on his future home. This runs parallel with the latest initiative by ARUP on circular housing; their recent project ’the Circular Building‘ was presented recently on the London Design Festival.
preparations for the 5th IoT & Built Environment MeetUp on WW.IoT-day, April 9, are in full progress; again at V2 in Rotterdam we will discuss one of the most urgent and important current issues involved; i.e. the accompanying ethics and privacy issues. The format will again be a MeetUp; therefore all visitors need to register on the MU-website. Most speakers are now known; the evening will be moderated and provide enough time for discussion. More info soon………
On April 9th. 2015, the 4th. IoT, Built Environment & Smart City conference, now organized as a MeetUp, was held in Rotterdam, this year back on its original location, i.e. V2, Institute for the Unstable Media. Besides a fine line-up of speakers, among which Nimish Biloria (TUD-Hyperbody, Ben van Lier (Centric), Jan Belon (Buitengewone Zaken) , Floris Schiferli (Superuse), also one political party from Rotterdam (Nils Berndsen/D66) was present; which can only be admired, given the subject. Worthwhile in particular was the lecture (read by me due to her illness) from Cristina Ampatzidou; and especially the closing debate, moderated – like the whole event by Leon van Geest – delivered some interesting discussions and statements.
recently published: the Metabody Journal of Metacultural Critique, nr. 1. the Metabody project is an EU-supported project and will last 5 years, i.e. from 2013-2018. It covers various disciplines : music, dance, architecture, media, etc.; but above all “the context of the project is an unprecedented control society, with the onset of Big Data as new economy that aims to reduce all reality to traceable data” .(p.4) TU-Delft’s Hyperbody Lab represents the Architecture section. The Journal, accompanied by a dvd with works, prototypes and subprojects is available via the website.
Now that Ayn Rand’s ’the Fountainhead’ is put on stage by ‘Toneelgroep Amsterdam‘ I started re-reading some of its chapters/dialoges, after having first read it long ago. Once again I find it stunning, in the sense that much of what Rand wrote in 1947 is still valid and maybe more valid then in her days. One example:
“A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity follows its own truth, its only single theme, and to serve its only purpose. A man doesn’t borrow pieces of his body. A building doesn’t borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window and stairway to express it.” (p.16)
Of course; one can see/listen again to Roark’s famous fountainhead – roarks defense. he provides when he is in court, after being – correctly – accused of demolishing one of his (though build by another) buildings. Still; also after heaving seen/listened to Ramsey Nasr recently about his role: an architect has a client, a framework within which he builds. The Fountainhead is about holding on to one’s ideas and principles: but, referring to Nasr’s remarks, architecture is not ‘free art’ but does have its limits.
Nevertheless: after almost 70 years it remains fascinating, contemporary reading; without having seen it on stage yet, it is remarkable that it is practically sold out. I do hope not all visitors will be architects.
