The Theory of Nevolution

Explaining the unseen

Leading off from the previous post Intelligence, Redesigned looking at intelligent scientific visualisation is this beautiful slideshow over at Design Observer on the life and work of designer Wil Burtin. I'd never heard of him or his work before, but the piece neatly sums up everything I needed to know about him and more. The more intriguing angle of either his work or the post is the role synthesis played in his work. 

Burtin referred to himself as an "integrator," a term he used to describe his own position as both a visual researcher and an interpreter of science... He clearly wavered between regarding himself as an artistic "creator" whose work was informed by the precepts and forms of visual Modernism, and depicting his practice as a sort of science of visual interpretation, where the work was informed by a discipline of engaged research.

Although he had a long history in publication and editorial design, it's his exhibition design that I find most interesting, and where his thought and working process become visible. As science was just beginning to understand hidden elements of the human body, Burtin helped to explain these ideas to the public, and to the scientists themselves.

His first exhibition, Integration: the New Discipline in Design begun his career working in four dimensions. It's from this that he solidified his thoughts and principles on visual communication. The Reality of Science, the fourth principle, is most interesting as a means of working:

The extra-sensory reality of science provides man with new dimensions. It allows him to see the inner workings of nature, makes transparent the solid and gives substance to the invisible... The designer stands between these concepts, at the center, because of his unique role as a communicator, link, interpreter and inspirer. To enlarge and define this vocabulary of visual language, and thereby contribute toward integration of our culture, is his social responsibility as a man, his job as a designer.

 

Mixed Bag

It's not that I'm cheap, it's that my sense of pricing is forever stuck at childhood. A Paddle Pop or a big bottle of Tarax should be 75 cents and a pack of Batman cards should be no more than 45 cents. I grimly accepted the price hike up to 95 cents when Batman 2 came out, only because of the card with Michelle Pfeiffer curled up on the bed. Her leather Catwoman costume stretched over over body came at the purrfect (I'm really really sorry) time for my prepubescent loins. 

Back in the good old days I'd get on my bike and ride up to the milk bar and get myself a pack of cards and some mixed lollies with the money raised from cleaning my room (such a sweet deal I worked out with my parents). Are kids even allowed to ride up to the shops unsupervised these days? But a chunk of change was all I needed to satisfy an afternoon so don't blame me when I think twice about shouting you a Cornetto the next time we go to the milk bar.

But milk bars are in a horrible state these days. A pocketful of silver won't buy you squat and all the windows are covered in cheap vinyl signage sporting Arial and Impact stretched to their limits. Thankfully, the good folks behind Milkbars, Laundromats & Urban Beauty on at Arthur's Circus have set out to remind us of a time when going to the milk bar meant something. With a focus on photography but with a proverbial and literal mixed bag of found ephemera as well, the exhibition is full of all the good things that made milk bars, well, good. 

Meanwhile, they're selling lollies at yesterdays prices and even have proof of a time when Paddle Pops were cheaper than 75 cents.

Arthur's Circus is at 631 Queensberry St North Melbourne. Featuring work by Natalie Jeffcott, Gemma Jones, Miikel Doomernik and Eamo Donnely. The opening hours are Thursday to Sunday 11am-5pm and the exhibition finishes on the 11th of October.

On the Nature of Tension and History

After finishing my backlog of posts related to the (fabulous) State of Design Festival, I was left with the question, what next? I'd had a wonderful time covering things not normally related to my oeuvre (sneaking that word into every second sentence lately) and am now left with the possibility of a minor direction change. Nothing too much, but we'll be flicking the proverbial 300 year old elephant bird egg every now and again. 

But speaking of 300 year old eggs, this gem comes from Harvard's Natural History Museum. Sadly, this image was not included in the final book, The Rarest of the Rare. Compared to other 'photographer-in-residence' examples I've talked about before, this one lacks a bit of interest. Not that the online gallery doesn't have charming examples of their collection, it just seems a bit too serious. I don't think this is the fault of the photographer, Mark Sloan, but institutional seriousness. But this is a gem of a photo. The grid of warm and weathered wooden drawers plays off the tension. Not just the potentiality of the following moments, but the tension of the photographers assistant asked to pretend to flick the egg (while the poor curator tasked with protecting it went to the bathroom). I can hear the internal conversation going on in his head: please, please, please, please, please? Just one. Just to see what happens. 

Built Systems 2040

By devoting a whole post to one room of the fantastic Built Systems 2040 exhibition it feels half hearted to put the rest into one post. Despite Plastic Futures being the clear winner, the rest were worthy of mention and despite my memory being hazy after a month, I'll do my best. OUTR][RTNO looked self organisation in the urban context by looking at a few examples in mega cities that have a certain plasticity in the built environment. One of the key themes that I've been picking up lately is that we seem to be moving away from the finished result and instead moving towards looking at processes as more important virtue. Nothing brilliantly new there, but I felt a heightened sense of this direction here. Moving away from the architect (or designer) as celebrity but to the system as celebrity. But then again, I'd expect that in an exhibition titled Built Systems, wouldn't I. 

The fluidity and dynamism of mega cities is shaping up to be one of the early twenty first centuries greatest metaphors as more and more case studies seem to focus on them. And while we all get caught up in 'favela chic'  still get the feeling that Melbourne and other developed world cities don't have the ability to be as plastic as we would all like. There's just too much hard infrastructure and regulations in the way. We can all dream though. Dreams aside, it's hard not to get enthusiastic for architecture-speak when it's this good:

Possibilities exist to utilise and develop notions of indeterminacy and 
self-organisation in city fabric, facilitating the emergence of the urban 
landscape as a set of systems operating under dynamic, temporal and 
fluctuating conditions.

DIY CITY looked what effect the Do-It-Yourself culture could have on Architecture (on a slightly tangental note, I read the update to this phrase the other day: DIO – Do-It-Ourselves). Looking at pre-fabrication, nomadic lifestyles, community building methods and other areas it discussed how might architecture help these communities and individuals instead of seeing it as a threat. Not my interest but worthwhile nonetheless.

Urban Rooms had a lovely mix of discussions and propositions looking at new ideas for making Melbourne's urban spaces more comfortable and usable from an individual perspective. Two such projects caught my eye, one theoretical and one more concrete. The images above discuss the possible idea of using the dead space on shop awnings above Swanston St as a new walkway. Nick Visser has come up with a plausible solution in creating more civic space much in tune with the new Highline park in New York (which seems to be a resound success) and would be a great alteration to Melbourne.

Below, the question of loose space was looked at with regard to the role of the designer. The construction of loose space undoes the 'looseness' inherent in such a spatial and temporal experience. By accepting this as a starting point, Alice Kohler looked at several ways in which it could be encouraged while retaining ways that the designer could influence positive interactions (and some rather nifty illustrations documenting found examples of loose space.

Plastic Futures

Those lucky bastards at the RMIT School of Architecture and Design get to take an elective called Plastic Futures 1 & 2. Lord how I would have killed to have taken that class. It was by far the highlight of the Design Laboratory 2040 City exhibition. I might get around to showing the rest of the exhibition, but it can't really compare with a room full of cotton wool. This is how I like my future; weird and dirty. Very dirty. Each student was given a bag of cotton wool, some thread, plastics and knitting wool. This at the end of a semester of discussions and told to come up with something in five days.

It was wall to wall post-singularity perversion and I was grinning the whole time. Crocheted coral reefs hanging from the ceiling was the most familiar thing I could find. Mostly because of the project going on at the Institute for Figuring; where they've been crocheting coral reefs for some time. It was refreshing to see other people getting into it, and not just from a  feminists handicrafts perspective. They were looking at it as 'coding as nature' and discovering wonderful ways of letting the algorithms come up with interesting forms. There was some other wonderful algorithmic patterns and sculptures, such as the cardboard piece above. 

But pumping up the weirdness quotient were two separate pieces that shared the same ideas were the two pieces below. The first, looked at the future of plastic surgery, and in this case, rhinoplasty. Leaving the surgeon behind, plastic surgery of the future would entail the act of biological additions to our code that would grow the 'corrections' into our DNA. This idea was ripe for corruption which they gleefully saw to. 

I'm a little hazy about the next piece, but I a have understanding that children's toys would be grown to be semi-sentient, instead of manufactured in a factory. Each model had little descriptions about the toys behaviours and odd habits; rolling around and becoming fixated with sand. I'm having trouble conveying the peculiarities of this piece, but peculiar it was.

The students went on an excursion to West Australia and looked at these weird growth forms on the beach that have some odd linking to some of the first examples of life on earth. Strange rock formations in the beach turn out not to be rocks, but microbial forms that harden with each layer called thrombolites. Read more about it here, it's delightfully bizarre. 

Then there was the living memory extension product called iPatch. By attaching these somewhat parasitic creatures to the body, they would absorb all unnecessary memories and thoughts, or act as a personal hard drive. They took it one step further and asked what would happen if people were to swap their patches? People memories could be wilfully planted into others. 

The whole exhibition was imbued with the fun that the students must have had in projecting all these ideas into their 'logical' conclusions.

The real 46.4

I mentioned the bushfire road trip yesterday and decided it would be worth putting up a what we came across. The amount of destruction is quite disturbing, as you can see. Marysville is gone; completely and utterly burnt down to the ground. The only business still standing was the bakery. Almost all of the homes have been lost, save a few that somehow escaped the random path of fire. Kingslake seemed at first to not have been so affected until you realise that the shopping strip was mildly unaffected; whole neighbourhoods surrounding the town are gone.

From a purely aesthetic viewpoint there were lots of nice contrasts between order and chaos: the still standing structures and the warped debris surrounding it. That somehow the raging fires only affected some buildings and left others standing for no foreseeable reason still surprises me. I'm tempted to discuss this charming juxtaposition further but question it's taste. Walking around and taking photographs gave me a strange sense of voyeurism - recording the loss of lives and history with a cool detachment - compounded by the urban playground I was frolicking in when it all happened.

Discover Toolangi

Wanting to see what havoc the bush fires had wrought, me and dad went for a somewhat lovely drive through the country. I spent the day of the fires when it reached 46.4 degrees in the city, if you remember cooled by the artificial water hole at ACCA. The idea of looking at a decimated countryside came up and we decided to try and spend our stimulus money in Kingslake and Marysville. Unfortunately, there wasn't much business left, but a pie and coffee sufficed our desire to help. 

Meanwhile, we came across this wonderful building in the unaffected part of the bush. Nestled between towering trees this structure seemed both at home in it's environment and totally out of place. But it caused an almost immediate U-turn to go and see what it was.

Inside was exactly as I'd hoped. Lots of little spaces devoted to the Toolangi forest and all it's wonders. One cabinet looked at all the different types of honey you could find in the area because of the breadth of bio-diversity. Others looked at the men and women - long gone - who lived in this part of town. The strong scent of eucalypt permeated throughout the building: I'm guessing as a result of both the trees outside and the building materials used throughout the place.

This deck was by far the most exhilarating space. Throughout the structure there were chance encounters to witness the forest - a sliver of a window here, a walkway with lovely vista - but this spot was magical. It gave unfettered access to the forest; hovering above the ground I experienced the idea of nature in a way I never had before. 

Oh, and some of the detailing on the welcome sign were pitch perfect. I just wish we'd had some time to walk along the sculpture trail - if only out of respect for the gorgeous lettering on the sign. 

On the nature of language, order and decay

The curatorial eye behind the current line up of works at Craft Victoria deserves a medal. The three exhibitions on display work perfectly together, creating something much greater and broader than the sum of their parts, while still maintaining casual links between the two. We'll start with what I consider to be the most interesting - and by virtue the most cerebral of the three. Babel, by Natasha Dusenjko is a beautifully quiet series of porcelain and paper works looking at codes, language and myth.

An extension of her previous exhibition Bone Ancestor II; fragmented texts, codes and instructions are wrapped and rolled around ceramic bones and towers. The black surface, reminiscent of star charts creates a lovely counterpoint to the rising structures - in both colour and texture. The fragmentation of words create chance encounters and meanings allowing for different readings from multiple angles. 

The two tables allow for different meanings and scales when viewed in opposition. Table 1 alludes to star charts; constellations of texts hinting at importance, especially in relation to the placement of towers. The map looking up to the stars via the towers of babel, communicating unknown messages to the stars above. The cold stark forms of the towers work well with the organic forms of the bones on Table 2. Perfectly ordered and numbered archaeological bone fragments repeat the textual ciphers and codes, meticulously ordered. The jump in scale between the architectural and the archaeological is lovely; each hinting at an underlying language and mythology. Meanwhile both contain elements of each other - the towers of rationality have been placed in a seemingly random manner, while the organic forms of the bones have been laid out in perfect order ranging down in sizes.

Both tables are looking for answers - the rational and scientific civilisation looking upward and the ordered inspection of the bones as remnants of a past belief system. The conversation between the two as well as the answers can be found in the wall installation between the two. Meticulously ordered scroll fragments compel the viewer to decipher the two tables - mocking our need to understand it all. Delicate and uniform, it asks us for the same patience put into the work in deciphering the language. Quite a lot considering all the text has been applied to the wall using letraset. 

She also has some stunning smaller pieces for sale in the shop such as these bones and other objects and necklaces.

Gleaning Potential by Simon Lloyd is a collection of fragments and materials used to explore his wider work. His finished objects play with scale, materiality and texture and form quite a nice collection of works. The parenthesis set the tone in this collection, starting it all of on quite a comical note. But his collection of found objects were the highlight for me. Situated in a mini shed, rows and rows of smaller found objects sit on shelves creating a mini wunderkammer of banal pieces turned interesting my the virtue the whole. I'm always a sucker for this sort of thing - the display of order - and as it windows on to the rest of his finished work I felt it quite a nice way to look at it all.

Meanwhile, seeing a copy of the flyer for the open day at the museum put the exhibition in my good books almost immediately. The bags of found objects further highlighted the ludicrousness of the whole thing, and the addiction of collecting in general.

Cycle, is a series of sculptural works that play with organic natural forms reminiscent of sea pinnacles and and other choral forms. While these have aesthetic beauty the more intriguing aspect of the exhibition is the eroding of these objects. Last night they were placed in water allowing them to return to their somewhat original state. The static and finished pieces will be creating a counterpoint to the erosion of the other pieces. Lovely variations in form made by the emergence of these pieces work rather nicely as a third exhibition.

The really olden days

Way back in the olden days (2003) I was obsessed by the aesthetics of human evolution. Couldn't get it out of my head and looked for it everywhere I went to the point of distraction. The American Museum of Natural History in New York was a total nerdgasm for me when I stumbled upon their stunning dioramas in the Hall of Human Origins. I spent way too long in there looking at the progression of nude proto-humans in their natural environment. I wanted to get behind the glass and hang out with these people and maybe go foraging with them. The problem with it being the olden days was my digital camera (bless it's heart) had a massive resolution of 640 x 480 and could only take 100 photos. And it needed a few battery refills to get up to there. Despite this, I took enough photos to satiate my hunger.

This gorilla was in the hall of great habitats, but he's majestic enough to include it in here. And he's a gorilla, which is kinda evolutionary like. The mix between painted background and plastic plants really make a convincing scene; both in photo ad at the museum.

And the replica of the cave at Lascaux was heaven. I tried thinking of ways I could either replicate this or steal it and ship it back home. I couldn't believe that they'd gone to so much trouble to recreate the first known art gallery/performance space. All for me. 

The shadow of things as well as the things themselves

I'm always a sucker for the rigid authority that natural history museums present to the public. All those trays of butterflies and fossils; visual evidence of genetic change laid out with little white stickers next to them all. The stark presentation of the object itself, with disregard to it's surrounding environment (dioramas not included). It seems that I've been missing out on what goes on behind closed doors. Justine Cooper was privileged to go backstage at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and took these beautiful photographs that look at both as an evolution of the collecting and storing process, and as an historical and contemporary perspective on how we systematise and assign value to nature. Seed have a rather beautiful slideshow of her work Saved by Science (which look better on their site than they do on hers).

As the only artist ever given the privilege as the museum's artist-in-residence she was able to document the 'immense corridors of locked steel storage cabinets most powerfully express the veil of structure dropped over the complexity of nature'. And yes, I was just dying to drop that line in somewhere. It's not all systems of stark rational order; these bones haven't been unwrapped since they were excavated nearly 100 years ago. I'd be dying to delicately unbundle them not just to handle 70 million year old bones but to also gaze at editorial design from 100 years ago. 

As an accompanying article to the slideshow Seed have an article about The Awe of Natural History Collections. The lure of these collections as well as the vast storage of the unseen lies not just in it's systems of order, but in the collection's utilitarian value. As Ole Worm (builder of one of the most impressive wunderkammern of his time) said to his students when using his collection to teach "Let us take off the spectacles that show us the shadow of things instead of the things themselves".

Which is exactly what this guy would be thinking.

5 Things you may or may not know

Got all excited yesterday to celebrate so I planned a day of going down to the museum to see the free exhibition they have in the foyer. Being skint, I didn't feel like paying to have another look at the Darwin to DNA exhibit they have inside. Besides, the light isn't very good, and you can't take photos; pretty much means it doesn't exist. Although they do have some neat dioramas of beaks, skulls, monkeys and all that jazz. Anyway, I knew it was going to be a smallish affair but one trivial box? 

To be fair it was kinda neat, and I guess I did learn five things, so I can't really complain. I must admit though, the museum really do know how to put on a good spread. Perfectly structured, considered layout and nice use of white (green?) space. The way they've divided up the page (board? Language eludes me) into three main columns while allowing for crisp hierarchy to follow throughout. 

Don't get me started on inside here. A rather nice witty solution don't you think? Although it would have been nice to see some more modern book covers other than what was on rotation in the late seventies and early eighties. You might not be able to see it here, but all the words line up with all of that intricate and lovely origami, which F thinks is coming back into vogue; not just intricate folding but evidence that someone has put time, labour and effort into an artwork as opposed to conceptual works where the hand of the artist isn't visible. We'll get into that another day, but it's still a nice point to make as we head towards tighter definitions of authenticity (now that history has started again after 20 long years).

Quite a funny list as well. Stood there nodding my head in agreement at the prospect of not being able to spend money on books due to the needs of children and not being able to have conversations win a gentlemen's club. Can't really say I've ever thought about marrying my cousin though, even if her name was as lovely sounding as Emma Wedgewood.

And yes you're right, that is some lovely 19th century scotch modern typography lining the insides of those bird boxes. My thoughts exactly. What's that you ask? How could anyone else dream up the almost perfect mixture of Darwin, taxidermy, evolution and Victorian era sharp serifs into something resembling my wet dream representation of a cabinet of curiousity? Oh, they've also included old swing tags to show the taxonomy of the birds as well. Well, isn't that the sweetest gosh darn fucking awesome display in the world then isn't it. 

It's on at the Melbourne Museum until May 31st.

Tarlo & Graham Part II

I've had pangs of guilt that the photos in Part 1 were never good enough so I went down there the other month and took what I hope to better shots. Thankfully there was a lot of new stuff, and more of it too.

Lots of new signs and great type everywhere too. I don't know how or where they find all of this stuff, and I'd just kill to be taken to their storage site. I don't think I'd ever leave.

Bonus points for having one of these not from Melbourne. I've been seeing quite a few of these lately. Really must find out where they're coming from. One has to wonder if the Georges River Rd text was made to intentionally resemble a river; I hope so.

This post just wouldn't be the same without an antlers money shot. Head on down to 60 Chapel Street Prahran to get your own moose shot. Or check out my flickr set if you can't be bothered crossing the yarra.

Mr Walker's incredible collectables

Wired magazine has a fascinating article on Jay Walker's Cabinet of Curiousity. Not just content to be filled with objects of yesteryear, there's quite a few modern day stunners as well. Like what you ask? Nothing important, just a Sputnik and a napkin from 1943 on which Roosevelt outlined his plan to win WW2. The most recent TED conference used some of his library as the backdrop for the stage, in case it seems familiar. I'm still waiting on them to release his video, but patience is a virtue I guess. While it looks pretty good on the web, it looks stunning in print, with full page bleeds and saturated colour. It's definitely worth having a read of the full article and having a jaw dropping gander at the photographs by Andrew Moore.

Of particular interest are the maps in the foreground, a celestial atlas from 1660 by Andrea Cellarius.

"It has the first published maps where the Earth was not the center of the solar system," Walker says. "It divides the age of faith from the age of reason"

Update: They've finally released his TED talk, which is just as neat-o-riffic as one would have hoped.

Leave home and join the circus

Having lived in  North Melbourne, I always get all emotional whenever we drive past and witness the slow and steady decline of my first share house. It's still as awkwardly run down as it used to be, and marvel at the landlords insistence on not doing anything for the house. But at least the fig tree still gives off it's bounty every summer. Meanwhile the area is changing slightly, but probably no more than others. Errol Street seems to always retain it's flavour no matter what gets added to it. Queensberry Street seems to not move at all though, except it's latest addition; Arthur's Circus. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be indeed. By definition you could could it an op shop, but the niche here is amazing.

It's amazing how some people have an eye for the most specific of objects, and just fill up a place with it. They started with an obscene collection that they couldn't stop adding to, only to be given more by family members. The namesake of the shop, Arthur, is their cute kid who must either be frustrated that his parents get to keep all the good stuff, or overjoyed that he lives in this bright kiddie wonderland of yesteryear. I'm sure that when he gets older it will scar him in some strange way and will most likely take up whatever emo/goth trend the kids will be getting into in ten years (shudder to think). Natalie and I were both in the Old School exhibition at Uppercase Gallery, so I'll always have some antipodean affinity with the place; she takes really neato photographs. I annoyingly missed out on going to see their exhibition of board games as part of the Fringe Festival; but that's not really an excuse now is it. 

I was there on my birthday and picked up some cute little fridge magnets and a small poster that I'm just itching to find the right frame for. Meanwhile, if you want to see how they're going and have a bit of a perv at their stock, check out their blog. Or if you're after the real world variety, point your feet to 631 Queensberry Street North Melbourne. Opening hours are 11 - 5, Thursday to Saturday.

The wet keyboard hypothesis

A little tip for everyone out there who uses keyboards: pouring water into them and giving it a bit of a shake makes them work worse, not better. Some background: a few weeks after I got my new computer, I spilt some orange juice on them. This then produced the desired effect of making the keys rather sticky and hard to use. Naturally, I went out and spent some good money on a wireless keyboard, but not before asking the genius if it would be clever for me to give the old one a quick rinse in a vain attempt to fix the problem of the keys sticking. After being warned that it was most definitely a stupid idea, but seeing as though I had voided my warranty, I made as well void it as well. First time round, and it solved the problem. Orange juice gone, and the keyboard was given a clean bill of health. 

 

Fast track one year later, and for no good reason, the keys started sticking again. So, empirical evidence would point to the logic in giving it a good wash again. Which I did, naturally. The next morning, I eagerly went to check on my hypothesis. Everything was working fine, except the Caps Lock key was stuck, and I couldn't turn the damn thing off. I might also add at this point that some treacly tobacco infested water was dripping from the keyboard when I held it up. It occurred to me, that the solution was simple. Wash it again. Now, here is where my experiment begins to unravel and I understand the fallacy in my previously held hypothesis. At this point, I also remember that the wireless keyboard had run out of batteries many months prior, and grumbled with the foresight that it was going to be quite a few days before I would get around to the simple task of getting some new batteries. Yesterday however, I made the point of braving the rain and bought some batteries, and eagerly rushed home to prove to myself that I can be given important responsibilities like getting some batteries. It should be noted, that one should always check if two batteries are enough, an in this case, I was off by one. With the innate fear that one shouldn't mix batteries, I then had to go out and get a four pack. So I now have three spare batteries sitting in front of me. 

 

Meanwhile, check out the Csirac exhibition on at the Melbourne Museum. The first computer in Australia took two years to assemble, and some parts of it needed to be hoisted into the building it occupied using a crane.