In the introductory lecture to the seminar series time[space] this video encapulates an idea of time and space by inferring a real time narrative whilst traversing the city.  It also suggests dual time zones with a split screen and the rhythms of the city are also present.
Phaseone - Sugar


PHASEONE - SUGAR from Vadim Gershman on Vimeo.
Directors: Vadim Gershman & Ryan Powell
Writers: Vadim Gershman & Lea Sorrentino
Editor: Ryan Powell
Music: Phaseone
Track: Sugar
Produced by Vadim Gershman, Ryan Powell & Andrew Jernigan
http://phaseonenofun.tumblr.com/
http://vadimgershman.info
http://dmndtv.com

CONSTRUCTION SITE

Please excuse my appearance while my administrator executes some essential maintenance and renovations.  The site will be changing over the next few months and will be extending the research on Space and Place to ideas of Space and the Temporal.  In the meantime, while you are waiting why not check out this neat block tetris game...

Horrid music too much for this site so here's the link:
http://www.mylostgames.com/play/block_tetris

The Love Police

I wanted to show this in the lecture but the technology wouldn't let me:



...and here's the website:

http://www.cveitch.org/

Daihei Shibata: Shinkansen ver.2

Like the Gondry video for Star Guitar and Tal Rosner, [both links are in this blog].  Just love this sideways journeying.  Traveling in the Japanese high-speed train Shinkansen from Shinosaka to Tokyo.  The video sequence was shot by OLYMPUS EP-1(PEN).

Music: VanShe "So High"
 

Shinkansen ver.2 from daihei shibata on Vimeo.

London Futures

An exhibition of digitally enhanced images of London landmarks created to promote further awareness of climate change. The images are presented as postcards from the future, with the aim of 'bringing home the full impact of global warming, food scarcity, rising sea levels and how all Londoners will need to innovate and adapt to survive.' These images are impressive, disturbing, but complete fantasy. They show dystopia referring to a futuristic society that is purely fictional whilst applying symbols of real prejudice that is happening in the present and elsewhere in the world. They remind me of the last lecture, '...Other Destinations' where commonly known symbols and ideas are appropriated to a fake environment to stimulate viewers and evoke particular emotions.

The exhibition is currently on show at the Museum of London until the 6th March 2011. There are plenty of other images through the link - - Buckingham Palace surrounded by shanty towns, Parliament Square as a rice paddy and ice skaters on the Thames.

how our house resembles us as a person

This is my house. It's a 6 bedroom shared student house. I think that our houses do reflect who we are as a person. for example, what things we choose to have on display and what things we choose to keep out of view, how tidy we are and the things that se have. It reflects a bit on our own individual personality to how we style the house and our bedrooms.

Dystopia

the game shows life in and around vegas in a dystopian future after nuclear war. it has a cheery optomistic 50s feel to it which is in stark contrast to the ruins all around.

電気グルーブ Denki Groove / モノノケダンス

An emergent dystopian scene, or just a rave, and maybe even a type of reversioning or reinterpretation of the Hieronymus Bosch painting, Garden of Earthly Delights, which we discussed in the lecture.  The film's disruptive unravelling of the animation process, its shoddiness, particularly at the end is presented as the ultimate horror.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymIn5pqRH94&feature=related

Park Hill

In 1957 construction began on Park Hill, a council housing estate located in Sheffield. The construction was finished in 1961 and was received positively by the local community. What made Park Hill different from a lot of the large housing estates of the time was not just the architecture but also the sense of community.

When rehoming entire communities into a new building it wasn’t uncommon at the time for the people in charge to spilt entire communities up. However Park Hill was different as not only were neighbours able to be re-homed next to one another but the old street names from the previous area were also re-used, thus keeping the sense of community.

Although the building was initially seen as modern and offered better facilities than the current alternative at the time, decades later the building started to show its age and was in need of re-development. The building was listed in 1998 and is now being renovated by Urban Splash.

Its so common for people to quickly dismiss the future possibilities of just about any building made post-war. If its showing its age, best just to knock it down yeah? Eventually there will be a void in history when it comes to looking back at post-war buildings - particularly when it comes to social housing. Whilst some buildings can not be renovated because they are structurally unsound, the ones that aren’t should be preserved.

Although still in development, Park Hill is a great example of what can happen to architecture if people were willing to see beyond the surface and think. Although demolishing is often cheaper/easier - Plymouth Hoe Centre?

Michael

utopia?

"...the difference between a Utopia and a Dystopia can often lie in the visitor's point of view: one person's heaven can be another's hell."

My 'In-Between' Space

Within my home i find spaces that are unoccupied and used for 'passing through' most interesting. The way that they aren't dwelled in appeals to me, like they are a passage through time or a gateway between two spaces or dimensions. They have a function but are vital, necessary spaces rather than places to settle and exist in.
This particular space represents the meaning of the house in general as it isn't a permament home for me and where I move to next is unknown. In essence I am only passing through, I am in between two lives; my life as a student and the progression into my future self and my chosen career. My home now is therefor an 'in-between' place and will always have significance and will occupy a space in my memory but it is a place that I am passing through and will stay in a certain place in time. Just as I will change and move on, so will the place when someone else occupies it.

My Home

I've spent my whole life living under the same roof, and although the interior and exterior has changed slightly throughout the years it is my home. A place I feel secure and safe in my surroundings, with my family I share the space with.
My home is a place I enjoy being in, an escape from the outside world into my own world where I can relax in comfort. It is a place I have grown up in and have lots of memories from both the outside, in. This makes it a special dwelling for me to spend my time within. Although there are some empty rooms in my house, and unfurnished rooms it still to me is a space I look forward to entering and shutting the door behind me to relax with the ones close to me where everywhere I go theres a personal touch from my family to comfort me.
My room is a seperate area just for me, my own retreat thats personal to myself. Although I've spent 20 years/ all my life in this house, I've had various different bedrooms however I've alwats made it into my space. My newly decorated bedroom is a comfort zone for me, everything situated in my bedroom is what I have chosen for myself, striking wallpaper and bold black wardrobes reflects my interior interest and has created statemement pieces.
Not only is the interior of my home important to me but also the exterior garden creating a sense of place and freedom where I can also enjoy my time, weather permitting! Living behind a cricket field it brings a lot of activity during the summer months and then during the winter months I can view the snow on the moors from a window upstairs, all this together creates a beautiful surrounding to call home.

James's Home

To me home is where I enter into my space, A space that I share with my family, where we can shut the front door and step into our own world. My home is a place where I am happy to return to everyday, it conjures up the words,comfort,warth,friendship and family. My room is an area just for me; it is full of things that I have chosen and things and things that have a meaning or a purpose. For example, My 'A' level art piece has been framed in oak and hangs on a white wall which shows off the natural green and brown colours-I look at this piece of work and automatically think of all the hard work went towards it and the differnt techniques used.
My house is centred in a very natural environment; it is built on the side of a cliff over looking the Looe river; and is surrounded by woodland. This environment enables me to have a sense of space and freedom. I have obtained alot of inspiration for my artwork from my beautiful surroundings, such as the river and numerous trees and the wildlife. I have also drawn alot of inspration from certain colours during different seasons; such as the reds and golds during autumn and shades of green during the spring. For all of the reasons above, I feel part of my environment and can identify with its surroundings and how they enhance my life and indentity.

..and why not?...

Technology, Politics and Culture:

The link connects to a blog post listing earlier concepts and attitudes to advertising standards in the media c. 1950s/60s.  Warning, some of them quite shocking and not all related to the lecture today.  Representation of gender and identity being referred to here, but there are other examples from a range of contexts...

This is home to me, although this is more of the house/building that I grew up in. My home, a place of refuge/ a place where I can rest, is more the image below, which is the view outside of Number 4, and I think of home as the flavor of the air when I return to Plympton, the taste of Plympton water, the freedom to do whatever I want. The wood itself still has similar attributes to a home, a roof - "shelter" (the canopy of leaves, branches etc), walls - "defence" (the trunks, bushes, ivy etc), and windows and doors - "seeing" & "entrance" (areas of the wood which is less dense which you can gain entrance through and look out from).

Transitory Living

I currently live in rented accommodation. This is a room in a house occupied by my landlord who is away at work for weeks at a time. I haven’t ‘rented a room’ for over 15 years now so this feels very odd. I am used to putting my self onto the walls, establishing my clutter and having all my things to hand. At the present I am living out of my travel bag. With nothing in a specific place in this inpersonal non place I am continuously trying to find my things. They are all contained within my room but they all occupy a cardboard box. I have been made to feel very welcome in this house but I can’t yet live outside this temporary confinement. My pictures do not yet adorn the walls. My stuff has not ventured far from my room. My toothbrush is the only thing that has got far and that is just down the hall in the bathroom. I only have one piece of clutter and that is the small pile of paperwork living unmanaged on my desk.

Bedroom/Office/Lounge

Currently living out of a bedroom, every aspect of my life is compiled into one space. On one side of the room, my bed. The other side, everything else.

Theres an unused 4:3 LCD TV which is slightly obscured from view due to the build up of paint brushes, boxes, paper, mail - still to be sorted. These objects sit upon a vivarium for a lizard.

On the wall a clock which displays the incorrect time - must replace the batteries soon. The notice board to the left of the clock is full of ideas for photographs, blog posts and reminders - the usual lists reminding me to write ‘to do lists’ are also present.

Below a desk, a computer - which is home to more notes. Film scanner. More paper. Above the canvas boards on the floor is a red shelving unit. This holds CDs, DVDs, pens, change, cameras, electrical tape, undeveloped film shot decades ago.

Ideally I’d have a minimalistic room with neatly framed prints hung upon the wall. A distinct lack of notes stuck to things. The floor wouldn’t be used as a make-do storage device however, this space is functional, not an idealist one. Whilst this room does show an element of myself, my personality, it is not perhaps the one I’d choose to publicly display (but now have).

Michael

Home

Home for me is much like having a split personality, mainly due to the fact that I see myself as having two homes. There is my 6 bedroom student house which holds my temporary lifestyle where I socialise, drink and fend for myself as I venture through my uni life. Whereas 20 minutes away there is my childhood household where I have grown up feeling safe, well looked after and knowing I have a sheltered life to fall back on.

Yanko Tsvetkov: Mapping Stereotpyes

This links to the work of an illustrator/designer who maps the world in accordance with their stereotypical perceptions.  Nobody is really left out, so it shouldn't be too insulting, although the Americans come out quite badly in a few of these examples as 'perpetrators' or maybe this is also a further stereotype?  The image below is:

The World According to USA (Fearmonger Special XXL Edition)