# Vision Haptique by Salem Mostefaoui (OzCollective)

"Voyez, la vue optique, ce serait la vue éloignée, relativement éloignée, au contraire l’exercice haptique ou la vue haptique, c’est la vue proche qui saisit la forme et le fond sur le même plan également proche."

Extrait du cours de Gilles Deleuze à l'Université Paris 8 du 19.05.81

"See the optic vision, it would be a far vision, relatively far away, on the contrary the haptic vision, it is a close vision that grasp form and content on the same plan close as well."

Excerpt from Gilles Deleuze's seminar at Université Paris 8 (19/05/1981)

Vision Haptique is a series of twenty two photographs created by Salem Mostefaoui who is part of our friends' collective Oz. As the Deleuze's quote indicates, Salem tries to approach this antinomic haptic vision (haptic being what belong to the sense of touch) and to extract from each of those photographed buildings "a built truth that attempts to gather the architectural concept and its physical reality." In his approach of this method, he understands his work as being infinite.

When I contacted him to write this short article Salem referred to some photographers whose work has similarities in the approach of architecture:
- Perry Roberts
- Christobal Palma
- Nicolas Moulin
- Kim Høltermand

The complete series of visible on OzCollective's website

# Fissure Port by Biothing

Biothing entered the competition for Kaohsiung's (Taiwan) Port Terminal and designed parametric canyons that strongly contrast with the current paradigmatic trend of hadidian (!) floppy structures... In fact, here, Alissa Andrasek and Jose Sanchez decided to start from a virtual pure mass and then carved it with programmatic voids whose sharp edges narrate the cut of the mater.

More (text, pictures, videos) about the Fissure Port project on Biothing's website.

biothing
Alisa Andrasek + Jose Sanchez_ principal designers
design team: Knut Brunier – Gabriel Morales – Denis Lacej

# The situation in Palestine is NOT a war

I just watched a television debate on the French television (thanks Maxime !) wondering if the current circumstances were allowing to think of a potential peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
This enunciation of the problem mimic the one which has been the topic of the very recent negotiations between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas in Washington. Even Abbas himself posed the problem as such: "Israel has to choose between peace or the colonization".

HOWEVER, this enunciation is, in my opinion, symptomatic of the absolute refusal of the World to see what is the real situation in Palestine. Talking about peace implies that there is a war going on which is not the case by any mean. I affirm it; there is no war in Palestine.

Frederic Taddeï, the animator of this debate killed the latter "in utero", when his first question to his six guests the following question: "Who is to be blamed ?" This very question implies a symmetrical conflict characterized by a mutual violence between each camps, in other words, a war. The situation in Palestine is highly different and whoever went there without a preliminary educational brainwashed knows it.

In fact when Mahmoud Abbas proposes to the Israelis to choose between colonization and peace, he knows that he is bluffing at poker with no game whatsoever and his adversary knowing it. Only the Israeli State or the International Community can enforce the application of International Law which would stop the systematic daily oppression of the Palestinian people.
I am sorry to repeat what I already wrote in numerous previous articles but one has to know that there are at least 300 000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank that are violating the article 49 of the Geneva Convention -I am not even talking about the violent acts of some settlers on the local population- and that is one aspect of the illegal status of Israel.
One other is the various humiliations of Palestinian by Israeli soldiers revealing the extreme power established between a population and an army which is composed by a tremendous amount of people who are less than 22 years old. Tzahal is claiming that those cases of humiliation -those which are carried to the public- are marginal and not revealing the professional spirit of the army and I have to recognize that I understand some of those situations of "nervous breakdown" as symptomatic of the pressure put on those kids' shoulders associated with an educational brainwash (that is part of the Israeli military service's package). However and despite the fact that I condemn those acts, I also recognize the same "attenuating circumstances" to the very marginal terrorist acts committed by some disoriented Palestinians.

Nowadays, the only valid argument that can be carried by the Israelis for those violation of Law is religious. In fact, only the argument according to which God's words are the most important and that the antic territory of Israel belongs to the Jewish People. There is nothing I could argue against a Jewish fundamentalist who would affirm that a human life and human law is nothing compared to God. The defenders of Israel's occupation should thus decide if they agree with such a extremist and violent argument or not because once again, that is the only one which functions in a system of rationality that do not contain any contradiction. Nowadays, nobody can both include Human Rights in his system of rationality and defend Israel's colonization and occupation in the West Bank as this territory was defined in 1949 by the Green Line.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I am profoundly revolted against the eternal highjack of intelligence that is effectuated in debates which constantly refuse to look at the reality as it is, and the elaboration of semantic decoys in order to hide the undeniable violations of the International Law.

# Mister Sanchez by Vasco Mourao

Mister Sanchez by Vasco Mourao (Cargo Collective)

Thank you Jean-Baptiste

# Once upon a Place. Haunted Houses & Imaginary Cities

picture: La Fievre d'Urbicande by François Schuiten & Benoît Peeters

From October 12th to October 14th, will be held in Lisbon a very interesting symposium entitled Once upon a Place. Haunted Houses & Imaginary Cities.

Guest speakers include:
- Alberto Manguel (Author: The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, A History of Reading, among others)
- Colin Fournier (Bartlett School of Architecture, London)
- François Schuiten & Benoît Peeters (graphic novels authors)
- Kazys Varnelis (Columbia Univ., NY)
- Ângela Ferreira (artist)
- Gonçalo M. Tavares (author/writer)

The program is attractive with three full days of literary stimulation !
Thanks Pedro for reminding me about it.

# Interaction Between the Elements by Rietveld Landscape

Interaction Between the Elements is a beautiful project by dutch office Rietveld Landscape (Grand Prix de Rome 2006) which attempt to save a North Sea island, Terschelling from a massive flooding.
The project proposes to create multiple dunes by introducing hundreds of stakes in the ground which would recover the sand freed from vegetation and carried by the wind.
Here is the introduction text:

Interaction between the elements

Rising sea levels are posing a threat to Terschelling, a North Sea island and UNESCO monument. In 2008, a report addressing this threat appeared, and Rietveld Landscape was asked to advise on the opportunities offered by the report. According to Rietveld Landscape’s vision, the symbiosis between human activity and impressive natural processes accounts for Terschelling’s attraction to inhabitants and outsiders alike – a fact that should guide all attempts at dealing with the rising of the sea level.

Because it is impossible to predict with sufficient certainty when the sea will have what level, flexible strategies for East- and West-Terschelling are needed: interventions that follow the movement of the water and can be adjusted through time. The activity of a huge drifting dune will be stimulated by removing its current vegetation, and the power of the wind will be used to transport its sand. In this way, the growth of the island will outpace the rising of the sea level.

Although the proposed interventions have been designed specifically for Terschelling, the strategy informing it can be exported to other islands in the North Sea that are threatened by the sea in a similar manner. Read more >>>

Client: Atelier Fryslan
Designers: Rietveld Landscape
In collaboration with Deltares
Location: Boschplaat Terschelling
Status: vision 2009

# One Flat Thing Reproduced by William Forsythe

In the series People using their bodies are never wrong (cf articles about surf, parkour or other tight rope walkers), here is a beautiful choreography by William Forsythe entitled One Flat Thing Reproduced that introduce a group of people dancing in a simplistic familiar environment: a group of rectangular basic tables...

Bodies are flirting with surfaces and using the space in between that would normally be considered as too narrow to move. The margin between bodies and objects are therefore minimal and the risk of injury creates a very beautiful tension between all the living and inanimate elements of this choreography. The video sometimes shows views of the scene from above which reveals the transgression of the object frame by the bodies.

Thanks Hiroko

# Ethel Baraona's world of wonders !

Our friend Ethel Baraona (from dpr-barcelona) just reached 1000 references on her tumblr which offers a wonderful field of interesting discoveries to explore with enthusiasm !

# The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

One story by Jorge Luis Borges is interesting to read as it reveals his vision of his own work. This short story, entitled The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths in fact compares two types of labyrinths; the first one, complex, full of tricks and devices and the second whose labyrinthine aspect comes from its extreme simplicity and "desertness". It has been written that those the first labyrinth was assimilated to Borges' vision of James Joyce's litterature, which lost the reader thanks to the complexity of its form, whereas the second labyrinth was Borges' interpretation of his own work which lost the reader thanks to the vertigo of its essence.

The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths

It is said by men worthy of belief (though Allah's knowledge is greater) that in the first days there was a king of the isles of Babylonia who called together his architects and his priests and bade them build him a labyrinth so confused and so subtle that the most prudent men would not venture to enter it, and those who did would lose their way. Most unseemly was the edifice that resulted, for it is the prerogative of God, not man, to strike confusion and inspire wonder. In time there came to the court a king of Arabs, and the king of Babylonia (to muck the simplicity of his guest) bade him enter the labyrinth, where the king of Arabs wandered, humiliated and confused, until the coming of the evening, when he implored God's aid and found the door. His lips offered no complaint, though he said to the king of Babylonia that in his land he had another labyrinth, and Allah willing, he would see that someday the king of Babylonia made its acquaintance. Then he returned to Arabia with his captains and his wardens and he wreaked such havoc upon kingdoms of Babylonia, and with such great blessing by fortune, that he brought low his castles, crushed his people, and took the king of Babylonia himself captive. He tied him atop a swift-footed camel and led him into the desert. Three days they rode, and then he said to him, "O king of time and substance and cipher of the century! In Babylonia didst thou attempt to make me lose my way in a labyrinth of brass with many stairways, doors, and walls; now the Powerful One has seen fit to allow me to show thee mine, which has no stairways to climb, nor walls to impede thy passage."

Then he untied the bonds of the king of Babylonia and abandoned him in the middle of the desert, where he died of hunger and thirst. Glory to him who does not die.

From Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley, Penguin Books, 1998, p. 263-264.

# William Heath Robinson's mechanical apparatuses

William Heath Robinson is a cartoonist from the first part of the XXth century who spent most of his time to invent complicated mechanical apparatuses in order to achieve a single action. The absurdity that emerges from those machines is, in my opinion, a pretty good expression of technophilia in its ambiguity, most of the time fascinating but also sometimes sustaining its existence by its own contemplation...
It makes me recall Hernan Diaz Alonzo's lecture's conclusion at the Pompidou Center, one year ago, that was questioning the hyper sophistication of the Coyote's apparatuses in order to catch the road runner. This sophistication is so planed and contemplated that it eventually fails but rather than condemning it, Diaz Alonzo claims that this failure should be thought as part of the work.

William Heath Robinson is regularly quoted by Peter Cook and CJ Lim as a potential reference for their work and their architectural studios in schools.

# A roof is a roof is a roof by Janis Rucins on Archinect

Archinect recently published a project entitled A roof is a roof is a roof designed by Janis Rucins for Alex Lehnerer's research studio at the University of Illinois.
The poetical narrative is merely useless -I don't mean it in a pejorative way- and interrogates the very idea of paradigm and pre-conceived ideas by questioning the idea of the roof as an under-developed architectural element. He thus re-interprets the house archetype and code -following Hugh Ferriss- and flips it in a way that recalls the Oblique Function (see previous article).

I recommend reading the nice narrative and explore more documents on archinect.

# Tower of Babel. Bruegel and his successors

Pieter Bruegel's paintings of the Tower of Babel are impressive by their sense of details; one can probably spend one whole day exploring the multitude of scenes populating the canvas...
But Bruegel's paintings also acquired the status of paradigm in the Tower's representations. After him, painters from the XVIth and XVIIth centuries -and even later- continued to paint the biblical edifice with similar compositions.
Something peculiar in Bruegel and later, van Valckenborch's paintings is that the Tower seems to be based on a mountain as some pieces of rock emerge from it. The Tower seen that way would have not been an addition of material but rather a monumental sculpture of a mountain...

For this article I chose five of them but several dozens of them can be seen by following this link.

I also already wrote about the Tower of Babel and Kafka's poetical hypothesis that the Great Wall of China had been designed to be its foundation: read the article

Read the Chapter 11 of the Book of Genesis in the Bible narrating the Tower of Babel's story.

Pieter Bruegel 1563

Pieter Bruegel 1563 (detail)

Pieter Bruegel 1563 (detail)

Hendrick Van Cleve 1580

Lucas van Valckenborch 1594

Lucas van Valckenborch 1594 (detail)

Dutch school (XVIIth century)

Marten van Valckenborch around 1600

Tobias Verhaecht around 1600

Tobias Verhaecht around 1600 (detail)