# The Last Land by Hans Schabus

Here is the project that Hans Schabus achieved for the Venice Art Biennale 2005: a monumental piece of rock in the middle of the Giardini. The inside part is as impressive as the outside with numerous wooden beams and posts maintaining the building's structural integrity.

# Moving Things by Brandon Morse

Here is a poetical monument to engineering. Brandon Morse creates videos of structures submitted to a series of forces which deforms them and make them collapse for some of them. It makes me think of the softwares that the Pentagon uses in order to simulates destruction of buildings as Eyal Weizman pointed out in his last work: Forrensic Architecture. (in this lecture, the targeted buildings were the one in Iraq which were hosting important personalities to assassinate for the US Army.)

see Morse's work Moving Things

found on PYTR75

# Sådan Set Er Byen by Anne Haaning and benandsebastian

Sådan Set Er Byen is a new work by benandsebastian (see their manifesto for boiteaoutils) and Anne Haaning. It is a short and beautiful film inspired by the poem Det (It) written in 1969 by the Danish poet Inger Christensen.

Sådan Set Er Byen

a film by Anne Haaning and benandsebastian

assistants: Christine Bjerke, Marie Erstad, Rasmus Myrup Mortensen

soundtrack: ‘Junkspace’ by Isambard Khroustaliov

Narrator: Jan la Cour

‘sådan set er byen’ is inspired by and constructed around the poem:
‘Det’ by Inger Christensen
copyright © 1996 Inger Christensen, v. forlaget Gyldendal
translation copyright © 2005, 2006 by Susanna Nied

# Ai Wei Wei is under House Arrest

I am a bit late with these news but I learned yesterday that Ai Wei Wei has been placed under house arrest by the Chinese Authorities at the beginning of this month. In fact, one could recently read about his studio in Shanghai, first authorized then built, and eventually retroactively judged illegal and subject to destruction; following what, the Chinese artist decided to organize himself a destructive celebration of his studio. This seems to have been as an excuse for the Chinese Authorities to arrest him -they were probably planning that a long time ago, since Ai Wei Wei never failed to criticize the Chinese governmental system- as "they cannot let anything happen if they don't understand it" says the artist in a interview for the BBC visible here.

I definitely do not register myself in a world vision dividing the "free democratic world" and the "evil totalitarianism axis"; however, one has to observe that the freedom of press and opinion in China is still severely limited since those liberties constitutes an obstacle to the bureaucratic capitalist system currently in operation. The difficulty of dealing with those issues seems to be related to the fact that governmentability is more operative via a system than via peoples themselves, as illustrated by Wen Jiabao's (the Chinese Prime Minister) own interview for CNN being censored in China. In fact, in this interview Jiabao was stating that "freedom of speech is indispensable, for any country, a country in the course of development and a country that has become strong".
Read the whole interview.

# Metropolis II by Chris Burden on Transit-City

Francois Bellanger very recently released a post about Chris Burden's new installation which could easily be considered as the artistic manifesto of Transit-City.
In fact, this installation, Metropolis II, is a monumental metropolitan race track on which 1200 hot wheels cars are driving at high speed. It can sound a bit too straight forward to represent Los Angeles' circulation as the artist asserts; however, watching the video above is a good way to realize that the speed frenzy occurring within this tentacular race track becomes very interesting if not hypnotic...

# Platforms by Romain Pellas

French artist Romain Pellas created several platforms installations that uses a very cheap and rough looking architectural vocabulary. With Ceiling (Paris 2006) (photograph above + last one & video), this vocabulary implements a strong contrast with a bourgeois apartment, thus creating an architectural dialogue as violent as interesting.
Platform is only one category of work for which Pellas uses this "bricolage" language. Much more interesting installations can be seen on his website.

# MANIFESTO /// benandsebastian

benandsebastian

We work out of a need to explore, probe and question the world around us – through architectural constructions. For us, architecture is not only the buildings we inhabit, but also a way of thinking that can be explored through the spaces of mythical stories, utopian models, economic systems and power relations.

We create highly-crafted spatial constructions as a way of questioning our own assumptions about how we inhabit the world around us, inviting others in to question theirs too. Working through a process of serious play, we tackle our interests head-on and are not afraid to explore the dysfunctional and unfashionable. Our recent work has taken inspiration from mediaeval rituals, romantic ruins, office politics and a Manhattan urban legend.

We develop our work through a process of continual ‘story-telling’. Each project is built on stories whose endings have not yet been written. Our works are not ‘one-liners’, but inspire curiosity exactly because they beg for multiple readings.

photograph above: 'Made in Ruins' by benandsebastian (photograph by Niclas Jessen)
see the City of the (Re)Orientated published earlier on boiteaoutils

# Small Worlds by Frank Kunert

A small dose of humor today to give some courage to every students who just realized that their semester will end up in 3-4 weeks or so (!). Frank Kunert's Small Worlds (in reality dioramas he photographs) are enchanting for their soft absurdity involving domestic architectures.

# Two Connected Houses by Mark Manders

Two Connected Houses is Mark Manders' proposition for the Guggenheim's exhibition Contemplating the Void (see previous article). In fact, this artist proposes to link a little house in the the void of the Guggenheim, with another house on the other side of the street by a tunnel excavated from New York's ground. "It will take four days to construct the tunnel", he writes.

The whole narrative is to be seen on Roma Publication's website

# Abhominal by Jason Hopkins

Jason Hopkins develops a compelling digital art work entitled Abhominal that illustrates a beautiful hybridization of geometrical normative structures with a tumorous organic flesh. His "bodies" are as much striking to me that it obviously evokes the hyperactive use of uncontrolled topological surfaces in current architecture. Jason Hopkins proposes a much more interesting vision of not only a surface, but also its content, the flesh, which is not without recalling Marcos Cruz's interest (see his manifesto for boiteaoutils).

However, what I just wrote is only my interpretation as an architect and I wanted to have Jason's "version" of his own work which is the very short text that follows:

"I am fascinated by mankind’s pursuit of ‘perfection’. Through the instruments of science we strive to categorize, understand, rearrange and ultimately tame the natural world around us. My sketches are explorations of possible genetic futures where mankind has achieved this perfection, where science has ironed out the inadequacies of being human."

Biostructure 2

Human Reconfiguration VI

Human Reconfiguration IV

Human Reconfiguration X

Human Reconfiguration XIX

Olympian I

Human Reconfiguration XI

Human Reconfiguration XII
Human Figure Study III

# Todor & Petru by CRCR (Wizz Design)

Todor & Petru is a very short film created by CRCR, five students from the GOBELINS, l'école de l'image (applied art & digital media school in Paris) within the frame of an internship at Wizz Design in Paris. The results evoke a lot of things that have already been done, yet demonstrates an excellent articulation of technique and aesthetics.

The five students are Remi BASTIE, Nicolas DEHGHANI, Jonathan DJOB NKONDO, NIcolas PEGON et Jérémy PIRES

# Refaced facades by Alexandre Farto

Alexandre Farto is an artist who creates monumental faces by scratching facades' material until it composes beautiful bichromic compositions. He also works with wood, metal, paper and billboards but the wall series seems to be the most architectural one.
As every piece of art which is created by subtraction of material (sculptures coming obviously first in mind), it is beautiful and vertiginous to think that the work is already contained within the material and that the artist content himself to reveal it.

Thanks Martin.

# The excavated books of Noriko Ambe

Noriko Ambe is an artist who magnificently excavates books to create troglodytes landscapes within them. The physical landscapes thus dialogue with the imaginary landscapes created by the books' content in an almost inversion of form and substance.

A tremendous multitude of other works are visible on her website.

Thanks Biayna