# Pimp my house

This video is Jonathan Odom's undergraduate thesis presentation video, SCI_ARC, 2009

It's a very interesting look at life conditions and social habits of the louisiana/US population.
The project that come out make the difference in this ironic situation.




AFTERMARKET IDENTITY: mobile housing beyond relief from jonathan odom on Vimeo.

# La Machine's spider in Yokohama

Remember this crazy mechanical elephant which used to walk in some European cities during several festivals. La Machine (French artists collective) did it again and sent a giant spider to Louise Bourgeois' Mum (or Wild Wild West movie...) to Japan to celebrate Yokohama's port 150th anniversary.

pictures (Chirodian)

# Archivirus' Ramp House

Archdaily publishes a post about this house in Athens designed by Archivirus and which allows its inhabitants to skate in their living room !

Florian c'est pour toi !

# CRAZY MUMBAI /// Water Infrastructure

In several places in Mumbai (here between Bandra and Dharavi), you can see those pipe lines crossing the landscape to provide the city in water. Sometimes slums are developing around them and requisition part of the water.

# Synecdoche New York by Charlie Kaufman

Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche New York is an amazing movie dealing with reality and representation in a fabulous Magritte way. Some parts recall Peter Weir's Truman Show in a more ambiguous and complex way due to a volontary and collective allienation. This is an important and beautiful movie.

# The Fall by Tarsem

Let us be clear, Tarsem is a commercial director and still his two films so far, The Cell and The Fall are difficult to appreciate for their scenarii or their characters' complexity. However Tarsem succeed to keep the same image rhythm of a one minute commercial in a one hour and half movie. Result is quite impressive and surely desserves to be watched...

# CRAZY MUMBAI /// Car Cemetery

Ballardian landscape in a government car cemetery near Mumbai Central...

# Naked City Spleen by Miru Kim

The contrast between Miru Kim's naked body and her New York, Paris, London or Berlin dusty environment is striking.
Lots of pictures on official website + this video

# Honda-Walking Assist Device on Core.Form-Ula

Last november, Core.Form-Ula published an article about what Honda calls its Walking Assist Device. This handy exo-skeleton allows the body to transfer its own weight on the device.

Official page on Honda official site

# Philip Beesley's Ball State Epithelium

Epithelium is the last sculpture/installation created by Philip Beesley with Ball State University (Indiana). For those who do not know him, he is an architect teaching in University of Waterloo in Toronto and besides his architectural practice he does a lot of workshop with worldwide schools to create these amazing interactive installations which move depending on a several factors. The machine seem to acquire its own autonomy, living like an ambiguous organism.

# Disconnection on Multimedialab

Here is an article on a Belgium blog called Multimedialab about all kind of disconnection projects forcing the body to be on a physical territory but thanks to a more or less sophisticated device, one's mind can leave to an immaterial territory. Paradox is that the body is being 'augmented' by this device which implies a relatively heavy transplant.

Merci Nicolas !

# Grasshopper Primer II by Lift Architects

Lift Architects help open source by providing a 163 pages tutorial for Grasshopper (rhino parametric plug in). Some of you may have read the first one, this second edition is actually an addition of the first one and some new tips (for instance to integrate rhinoscript in the scheme).

# CRAZY MUMBAI /// Slum in Goregaon

I visited a slum in Goregaon (Mumbai) last saturday. Three months ago, around half of the illegal tents have been destroyed by official bulldozers trying to recover the land for future real estate operations. That is why my pictures look so empty when the slum used to be very dense. Anyway people keep struggling for life partly thanks to local associations like APEFIB, which try to put as many children as possible in school.

#...

Ballard is dead...

# The reality of the virtual by Slavoj Zizek

The reality of the virtual is a film by Ben Wright giving Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek some time (about an hour and half) to discourse about 'real virtual', quoting Rumsfeld about the 'the known known, the known unknown, the unknown unknown' and adding himself the 'unknown kwown' as a subcontious knowledge, and eventually concluding his speech with five very very bright minutes about utopia, claiming for an utopia of thinking the impossible (just like quantum physics as he says).
I am very bad at writing digest so watch the movie yourself (available on youtube)!

# Perry Hall's paintings

Perry Hall's paintings are quite fascinating by the thickness of the paint they imply. View a lot more on the artist's official website.

# Impromptu an encounter between Yona Friedman and François Roche

For Parisians, tonight La Maison Rouge is hosting an "impromptu" encounter between Yona Friedman and François Roche.

You have to book before coming though on 01 40 01 08 81 or info@lamaisonrouge.org
Thursday 16th april 2009
La Maison Rouge
10 boulevard de la Bastille Paris (XII)

# Babel tales by Peter Funch

I have no idea of what is Peter Funch's purpose when he elaborates his photographs for Babel Tales, but looking at them I can see a totalitarian society where everybody belong to a specific cast which should be recognizable immediately. Ambiguity thus created is quite stunning I have to say.

pictures come from Gallery V1