# The Concentration City by James Graham Ballard

[...]
"The surgeon hesitated before opening the door. "Look," he began to explain sympathetically, "you can't get out of time, can you? Subjectively it's a plastic dimension, but whatever you do to yourself you'll never be able to stop that clock"- he pointed to the one on the desk-"or make it run backward. In exactly the same way you can't get out of the City."
"The analogy doesn't hold," M. said. He gestured at the walls around them and the lights in the streets outside. "All this was built by us. The question nobody can answer is: what was here before we built it?"
"It's always been here," the surgeon said. "Not these particular bricks and girders, but others before them. You accept that time has no beginning and no end. The City is as old as time and continuous with it."
"The first bricks were laid by someone," M. insisted. "There was the Foundation."
"A myth. Only the scientists believe in that, and even they don't try to make too much of it. Most of them privately admit that the Foundation Stone is nothing more than a superstition. We pay it lip service out of convenience, and because it gives us a sense of tradition. Obviously there can't have been a first brick. If there was, how can you explain who laid it, and even more difficult, where they came from?"
"There must be free space somewhere," M. said doggedly. "The City must have bounds."
"Why?" the surgeon asked. "It can't be floating in the middle of nowhere. Or is that what you're trying to believe?"
M. sank back limply. "No"
The surgeon watched M silently for a few minutes and paced back to the desk. "This peculiar fixation of yours puzzles me. You're caught between what the psychiatrists call paradoxical faces. I suppose you haven't misinterpreted something you've heard about the Wall?"
M. looked up. "Which wall?"
The surgeon nodded to himself. "Some advanced opinion maintains that there's a wall around the City, through which it's impossible to penetrate. I don't pretend to understand the theory myself. It's far too abstract and sophisticated. Anyway I suspect they've confused this Wall with the bricked-up black areas you passed through on the Sleeper. I prefer the accepted view that the City stretches out in all direction without limits.""
[...]

The Concentration City (1957). James Graham Ballard. The Complete Short Stories

# Pay & Sit: the privatized future as design

It looks like a satire but it is apparently not. Fabian Brunsing, a student participating to an interface/design competition proposed this private bench that needs 0.5 euros (70 cents) in order to have its spikes lifted down and thus to host bodies.
This very straight forward design is the logical sequel of what is already being created today, sly designs of non appropriation of the public space (see previous post about Survival Group).
It also makes me think of Philip K. Dick's Ubik that dramatizes an absolute privatized pay-fee environment (house doors, fridges, TV etc.)...

Thanks Ethel

PAY & SIT: the private bench (HD) from Fabian Brunsing on Vimeo.

# Richard Galpin's peeled photographs

Richard Galpin is an English artist that creates his work by peeling existing photographs using exclusively a scalpel and thus producing new visual landscapes.

# The poetry of Chicago's emergency staircases

I've been visiting the beautiful city of Chicago recently and I've been particularly impressed by the beauty of those tall buildings' emergency staircases. No one seems to have been really thought trough or designed and that's maybe why their delicateness and their infinite ascension triggers the imagination...

# Expansion and other works by Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley (see previous post with his spatial installations) is an English artist who investigates the body and the space that envelops it. His work Expansion is particularly interesting for its process of production: the artist body is first casted and reproduced, then expanded to spheres of space in contact with the body.

The official website is extremely well documented with the ensemble of sculptures and drawings created by Gormley since 1973.

Expansion (1989-1993)

Other works

# Aristide Antonas on BLDG BLOG and dpr-barcelona

I don't know if there are many of our readers who would not read BLDG BLOG on a regular basis; however for those of them, I would like to point out that Geoff Manaugh just dedicated an article about the talented architect from Cyprus, Aristide Antonas.
This article proposes an overview of Antonas' work, featuring the Crane Rooms, the Bus Hotel (see picture above), the Keg Apartment and the Screen Wall House.



To further you can also read Ethel Baraona Pohl's three very interesting articles on dpr-barcelona about the Keg Apartment, Waste Design Strategy and the Nicosia Water Tanks.

# Mr. Obama, if you don't do it for justice, do it for the money

As I wrote in a not-so-old article, although Barrack Obama has been expressed the wish to close Guantanamo at the very beginning of his presidential mandate, the camp is still operational and operative (with every violations of Human Rights it implies...).

Today the Washington Post publishes an article based on confidential information of the cost of the facilities. The total reach at least 500 millions dollars in order to renovate the Cuban base into the most high security prison in the Western World. This figure does not surprise so much I suppose, but what definitely do are the facilities built for the people working there:
- 7 300 000 $ for two baseball fields
- 188 000 $ for a welcome sign (yes !)
- 114 000 000 $ for the housing units
- 164 000 $ for a skate park
- 207 000 $ for a swimming pool
- 96 000 $ for a hockey rink
- 249 000$ for a (non used) volleyball field
- 296 000$ for a (never used) Go-kart track
- 773 000$ for a KFC-Taco Bell restaurant

I hate to say that because the issue with Guantanamo has nothing to do with the American Military Budget (about 700 billions dollars a year when the National Education Budget is only...70 billions dollars), however I think that every reason to shut down this outrageous land of exception is good to take...

Article in the Washington Post
Photograph gallery linked to the same article

# Bavinger House by Bruce Goff

Although Bruce Goff (1904-1982) is very famous in the Chicagoan architecture milieu, he is not so well known (I think) outside of the United States. His Bavinger House (1955) in Norman Oklahoma is however a very interesting hybridization of high level of craft (see the joint between the glass and the stones) with a more deliberate approximation (see the net handrail or the polyurethane volumes).
This house is only the most expressive manifesto of Goff's architecture but there are several other buildings that definitely deserve attention.

# Untitled / 1:1

For all the parisian, tonight is the openning of Untitled / 1:1 . The exhibition is featuring different artists among them are our friend Taichi Sunayama (White Week End Kites collective) who's presenting a new animation video.



Untitled / 1:1 se tiendra à l'espace Brochage Express, Paris, du 5 juin au 27 juin. Vernissage : samedi 5 juin de 19h à 21h - 20h Cooking Class performance d'Asami Nishimura.


Untitled / 1:1 :
Eden Morfaux http://www.edenmorfaux.com/
Clio Simon http://cliosimon.e-monsite.com/
Whiteweekendkites http://www.whiteweekendkites.com/
Cooking Class : Asami Nishimura http://www.asami.fr/

Adresse : Espace Brochage Express 146, Boulevard de Charonne 75020 Paris métro : Alexandre Dumas (ligne 2).
du samedi au dimanche de 14h à 20h et sur rdv. Contact : Untitled Leïla Simon 16, Avenue de Laumière 75019 Paris tel: + 33 (0)6 07 40 15 48 mail: leila.untitled@gmail.com site : http://untitled-asso.blogspot.com/

# Transit-City's workshop about Chicago

The next Transit-City's workshop will occur this Friday June 4th in the Pavillon de l'Arsenal in Paris. The issue's topic Francois Bellanger proposes is: What if it was between 1910 and 1930 in Chicago that the XXIst century compact, fluid and complex city had been invented ?

The guest will be Jean Castex who wrote a book entitled Chicago 1910-1930: Le chantier d'une ville moderne.

More information on Transit-City's website.

# Israeli Piracy: What the f... is wrong with the New York Times ?

Apparently the American Press does not want you to know too much. Watching CNN speaking but not saying anything was not too surprising. However, reading the New York Times that relays pretty well the Israeli State's declarations, hides the obvious and even writes deliberate errors is just outrageous.
If we analyze today's article about the recent act of Piracy from the Israeli army, it seems impossible not to observe the incredible positioning of what is consider as a progressive American newspaper:

First: The Israeli State's declaration: Apparently the flotilla's boat could have bring “missiles, mortars and Iranians who will help them arm and train.” Pronounce the word Al Qaeda or Iran and the USA will let you do whatever you want. Seriously the thread is a bit too obvious here. Should we really recall that those boats were transporting aid to the Gaza strips that suffers from the Israeli blockade for a decade now. (the official blockade started in 2007 but it actually began in 2000, the only exchanges were only for the colonies before they had to withdraw).

Second: Omission. The NYTimes presents a geographical map showing where the boats were assaulted without precising on it or in the text the most important element here which is that all this operation happened in the International Waters which constitutes an absolute act of piracy. I don't want to be too much imprecise here so the followings paragraphs are directly excerpted from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea:


Article101
Definition of piracy

Piracy consists of any of the following acts:

(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed:

(i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft;

(ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State;

(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft;

(c) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in subparagraph (a) or (b).

Article102

Piracy by a warship, government ship or government aircraft whose crew has mutinied

The acts of piracy, as defined in article 101, committed by a warship, government ship or government aircraft whose crew has mutinied and taken control of the ship or aircraft are assimilated to acts committed by a private ship or aircraft.

Article110

Right of visit

1. Except where acts of interference derive from powers conferred by treaty, a warship which encounters on the high seas a foreign ship, other than a ship entitled to complete immunity in accordance with articles 95 and 96, is not justified in boarding it unless there is reasonable ground for suspecting that:

(a) the ship is engaged in piracy;

(b) the ship is engaged in the slave trade;

(c) the ship is engaged in unauthorized broadcasting and the flag State of the warship has jurisdiction under article 109;

(d) the ship is without nationality; or

(e) though flying a foreign flag or refusing to show its flag, the ship is, in reality, of the same nationality as the warship.

2. In the cases provided for in paragraph 1, the warship may proceed to verify the ship's right to fly its flag. To this end, it may send a boat under the command of an officer to the suspected ship. If suspicion remains after the documents have been checked, it may proceed to a further examination on board the ship, which must be carried out with all possible consideration.

3. If the suspicions prove to be unfounded, and provided that the ship boarded has not committed any act justifying them, it shall be compensated for any loss or damage that may have been sustained.

4. These provisions apply mutatis mutandis to military aircraft.

5. These provisions also apply to any other duly authorized ships or aircraft clearly marked and identifiable as being on government service.

Not mentioning this information pleads guilty for NY Times' (and obviously other American main medias) objectivity. Once again Israel despised International Laws (see my article about the article 49 of the Convention of Geneva) in a complete immunity. The question of the ALLEGED weapons on one of the boat becomes also obsolete since it enters into the denomination "self defense" against pirates.

Third: Error on purpose: The NY Times mentions on another page (that propose a debate about "rethinking the blockade" which already tells a lot about how this military blockade is interpreted in the Times' redaction) the "Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007". Let's recall that the Hamas became a majority in Gaza thanks to democratic election on the contrary of what would like to be believed in the Western World that finds more simple to mix everybody who is not an ally or a subject in order to amalgamate them as "security threats".

Today I am furious.
I am furious that the Israeli State daily opress the Palestinian people.
I am furious that the American medias actively hide information.
I am furious that we actually need a suppression towards an international group of people to hardly open our eyes.
and I am furious in advance to know that things are going to go back to normal very quickly and Netanyahu will be very likely able to come back very quickly in the United States to finish his American tour without anything practical atempted against the State of Israel's international crimes.

We have to act.

ps: I don't want to be too paranoid but the fact that there used to be a link towards a page for Rachel Corrie (this American woman who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli Bulldozer D9 while she was trying to avoid a Palestinian house in Gaza to be destroyed) on an other article of the NY Times and that the link does not work anymore, worries me about some (self)censorship...
Here is the original article

# Thomas Wrede's Real Landscapes on Deconcrete

Deconcrete recently released an article about Thomas Wrede's composed landscape photographs entitled Real Landscapes which dramatizes tracks of artefacts in extreme geological terrains. The shift of scale is important here since it opens the opportunity of discovering new landscapes in the micro-scale just like David Linch suggested in the opening of Blue Velvet...