Straight talks – some plane “reading” on art in public places

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Art and Architecture in the Public Sphere of Cities. Joshua Decter, director of the Master of Public Art Studies Program at USC, organized and moderated this event exploring art and architecture in the public sphere, and unorthodox ways of engaging the public. The panel featured Anne Pasternak, president and artistic director of Creative Time, New York; Los Angeles based installation artist Doug Aitken; and Peter Zellner, Los Angeles-based architect and founding principal of ZELLNERPLUS. The event was presented as part of Visions and Voices, and was held on February 2, 2009, at the Davidson Conference Center.

Public Space, Public Art and Public Life. USC Norman Lear Center director Marty Kaplan moderates this incisive panel discussion that explores the interplay between art and architecture in urban spaces. Panelists: artists Christopher Janney & Anne Bray; USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Scott Fisher; Ted Tanner of AEG Real Estate & LA Live; Fox Music’s Robert Kraft; USC School of Architecture Dean Qingyun Ma.

Architecture, Design, Art: Strategies for Survival. USC — April 23, 2009 — “Architecture, Design, Art: Strategies for Survival” was a conversation among Teddy Cruz, Marjetica Potrc and Krzysztof Wodiczko that took place on April 6, 2009. The event was organized and moderated by Joshua Decter, director of the Master of Public Art Studies Program (Art in the Public Sphere) at the USC Roski School of Fine Arts, and was the second part of the “Participation and Friction: Rethinking Art and Architecture as Public Culture” series, sponsored by Visions and Voices: The USC Arts and Humanities Initiative.

See also the Roski School of Fine Arts Masters of Public Art Studies Guest Speakers / Lecture Archive for talks by a growing list of speakers, including Doug Aitken, Ute Meta Bauer, Teddy Cruz, Steve Dietz, Mark Dion, Sam Durant, Andrea Fraser, Rudolf Frieling, Hou Hanru, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Grant Kester, Norman Klein, Michael Krichman, Miwon Kwon, Rick Lowe, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Allan McCollum, Anne Pasternak, Patricia Phillips, Marjetica Potrč, Gregory Sholette, Rochelle Steiner, Gloria Sutton, Nato Thompson, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Peter Zellner, and Tirdad Zolghadr.

Artful public pissoir

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The City of Victoria unveiled this new public urinal on Friday. It was designed by Vancouver architect Matthew Soules. Sept. 5, 2009. Photo: CTV.ca

The City of Victoria unveiled this new public urinal on Friday. It was designed by Vancouver architect Matthew Soules. Sept. 5, 2009. Photo: CTV.ca

“The urinal is surrounded by about 150 vertical steel green pipes that have been welded together in a curvy design that is meant to evoke the arches in Victoria’s historic buildings, [architect Matthew] Soules said.

“The pipes are spaced apart just enough to let an outsider know if the urinal is being used but still maintain privacy for the user.”

via CTV British Columbia

Buckminster Fuller and Olafur Eliasson Exhibition

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Recently I had the good fortune to see the Buckminster Fuller exhibit while visiting Chicago. He was one of the first interdisciplinary thinkers and an early advocate of alternative energy. This is an excellent exhibit for those who want to be inspired by a true visionary. He was an architect, engineer, environmental scientist, mathematician, philosopher and visual artist. One can explore his quest to discover what one person can do to serve the needs of his fellow human beings. Olafur Eliasson’s work is concurrently showing until September 13, 2009.The Buckminster Fuller exhibit is showing at the Contemporary Museum of Art in Chicago, extended until July 5, 2009.

The Emotional City

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Here are some images from Marina Zurkow of Will Pappenheimer’s and Chipp Jansen’s Tampa Public Mood Ring.

Photo: Marina Zurkow
Photo: Marina Zurkow
Photo: Marina Zurkow
Photo: Marina Zurkow

Acoording to the project website,

“The Tampa Public Mood Ring (TPMR) is a combined internet and spatial artwork installation which allows an online news community to display the emootional condition of public news stories as color hue. It is based on the wearable “mood ring” which chemically changes color according to body temperature. The online artwork responds to participants news concerns and accordingliy recallibrates the color intense LED lighting in a physical location. For the Lights on Tampa program, the ring draws on the ocal and national sports community proplled by NFL fanaticism leading to the mega event, Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa.”

Feeling great — or angry — about something you just read or heard about? Register your feelings at the Tampa Mood Ring project and watch as the giant football sculpture changes colors based on the collective mood of Tampa Bay.
via TampaBay.com

The Tampa Public Mood Ring is realized through Lights On Tampa and includes partnerships among the City of Tampa and Gerdau Ameristeel. Gerdau Ameristeel, an international company headquartered in Tampa is fabricating the temporary ring structure, designed by Pappenheimer, out of Orange Bowl steel. TampaBay.com provides the news context, while ESPN will periodically inlcude the work in its audience polls and newscasts.

Public Mood at the 2006 01SJ Biennial

Will Pappenheimer, Public Mood: Light Temperature

In 2006, Pappenheimer presented a small-scale, indoor version of this work, Public Mood: Light Temperature, as part of the C4F3 Interactive Cafe at the 1st 01SJ Biennial and ISEA2006 Symposium.

D-Tower

In 2005, Lars Spuybroek of Nox with Q.S. Serafign completed a not dissimilar project, D-Tower, which illuminates a specially constructed tower in Doetinchem, Netherlands, according to the results of an ongoing poll related to emotions of hate, love, happinesss and fear. See:

In praise of the temporary

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A recent article about Frank Gehry’s Serptentine Gallery Pavillion reminded me of a somewhat magical rainy afternoon last summer wandering around Olufar Eliason’s 2007 Serpentine Gallery Pavillion with Kjetil Thorsen.

Photo: Steve Dietz
Steve Dietz
Photo: Steve Dietz
Photo: Steve Dietz
Photo: Steve Dietz

According to Time

“Every summer since 2000 London’s Serpentine Gallery, which is located in Kensington Gardens, asks a prominent architect who has not yet built in England to design a temporary pavilion for a site adjacent to the Gallery. Quite a few major names have gotten their first Engish commission through this project — Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Toyo Ito, Rem Koolhaas, Alvaro Siza.”

The Eliason pavillion was not just a chic place to have coffee. Though I missed it, the next day Eliason and uber curtaor Hans Ulrich Obrist organized a 24-Hour Serpentine Gallery Experiment Marathon 2007 featuring experiments performed by leading artists, architects and scientists.

“The experiments explored ideas of time, space and of reality through models, vibrations and perception, investigating Eliasson’s assertion that ‘What we have in common is that we are different.'”

There is so much world-class architecture in the Twin Cities now that you can hardly pick up an in-flight magazine without reading herzogdemeurongravesnouvel, but there is something to be said for the ephemeral. It allows, perhaps, for greater experimentation – on the part of both the artist-architect and the presenter. I love the Walker’s artist-designed mini golf, and the coterminous Design for the other 90% was an important, thought-provoking show, but neither were really spaces you could fully inhabit, and perhaps most significantly, neither represent a regular, ongoing commitment to exploring experimental public spaces. That’s ok. Not their goal, but it would be interesting.

What would an ice house / art shanty by Gehry or realities.united look like – and feel like?