Bank's Headquarters Are So Big That You Need Robot Guides [Gizmodo]

"Turns out that there's a financial center in Madrid, Spain which is so damn big and confusing to navigate that you'll desperately need these multilingual robots to guide you around. Here's how it works—in-action video and all:

You stroll up to where the mechanical swarm is waiting, tip-tap your way through a menu on a robot's touchscreen to select your preferred language, pick a destination, and off you go.

The robots are about knee-high and zip back and forth through the Santander Group's financial complex in Madrid. They're clever enough to avoid running into people, other robots, or any of the LED panel covered columns around the complex while promptly getting you to your destination."

from: http://gizmodo.com/5512140/banks-headquarters-are-so-big-that-you-need-robot-guides

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Flash Mobs Take Violent Turn in Philadelphia [NY Times]

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/us/25mobs.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

“PHILADELPHIA — It started innocently enough seven years ago as an act of performance art where people linked through social-networking Web sites and text messaging suddenly gathered on the streets for impromptu pillow fights in New York, group disco routines in London, and even a huge snowball fight in Washington.

But these so-called flash mobs have taken a more aggressive and raucous turn here as hundreds of teenagers have been converging downtown for a ritual that is part bullying, part running of the bulls: sprinting down the block, the teenagers sometimes pause to brawl with one another, assault pedestrians or vandalize property.”

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Post-Apocalyptic Future: Container Trucks Recycled Into Mobile Homes [Gizmodo]

LINK: http://gizmodo.com/5500765/your-post+apocalyptic-future-container-trucks-recycled-into-mobile-homes

Designer Aristide Antonas says, these keg apartments:

"...can be detached from their cars and can form more stable units for a certain period. A big circular window can be introduced in the vehicle's cylinder towards the car's side with the use of an enforced circular frame. This will give the form of a window open to the driver's section or to any chosen view if the keg stops in a particular way. The circular window can also serve as a projection screen surface if a special tissue is unfolded."

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Chris Petit - Content

 

from Channel4:

"Thirty years ago, Chris Petit directed Radio On, now considered a road movie cult classic which caught the zeitgeist of the Britain of the time.

Now showing in the True Stories strand, Content is described by Petit as, "an ambient 21st century road movie", a meditative essay inspired by the almost trancelike state the act of driving can bring.

With the narrative provided by Hanns Zischler, the film is variously about memories of other journeys from Texas through to Poland, the impact of modern technology and the rise of the huge impersonal factory sheds which now line roads throughout the world."

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Crash: Homage to JG Ballard - Gagosian Gallery London

Crash: Homage to JG Ballard

Author: Simon Sellars • Feb 12th, 2010 •

Ed Ruscha. Fountain of Crystal, 2009. Acrylic on canvas. 30 1/8 x 36 1/8 inches (76.5 x 91.8 cm).

CRASH: HOMAGE TO JG BALLARD

Press Release
Gagosian Gallery
6-24 Britannia St London WC1X 9JD
t. 020.7841.9960 f. 020.7841.9961

Gallery hours: Tue – Sat: 10:00am– 6:00pm

Thursday, 11 February – Thursday, 1 April 2010

Opening reception: Thursday, February 11th from 6 to 8pm

I have used the car not only as a sexual image, but as a total metaphor for man’s life in today’s society.

JG Ballard

Gagosian Gallery London will present “Crash,” a major group exhibition opening on 11 February 2010, which takes its title from the famous novel by JG Ballard.

Ballard’s novels stand among the most visionary, provocative literature of the twentieth century, with his ominous predictions regarding the fate of Western culture and his insights into the dark psychopathology of the human race. This exhibition is a response to the enormous impact and enduring cultural significance of his work, following his death in spring 2009. Highlighting Ballard’s great passion for the surreal and his engagement with the artists of his own generation, “Crash” includes examples of his specific inspirations as well as works by contemporary artists who have, in turn, been inspired by his vision.

Ballard’s first published short story “Prima Belladonna” appeared in 1956, the same year as the celebrated Independent Group’s exhibition “This is Tomorrow” at the Whitechapel Gallery, which marked the birth of Pop Art in Britain. It was here, and in the work of Surrealists such as Salvador Dali and Paul Delvaux, that Ballard found the seeds of what he called a “fiction for the present day”. With its dystopian depictions of the present and future, its bleak, man-made landscapes and the recounting of the psychological effects of technological, social and environmental developments on humans, his work has resonated strongly among other writers, filmmakers and visual artists. The exhibition “Crash” brings together works by artists tuned to the Ballardian universe, from his contemporaries such as Ed Ruscha, Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol and Helmut Newton, to younger artists such as Tacita Dean, Jenny Saville, Glenn Brown and Mike Nelson.

The exhibition is organised in association with the Estate of JG Ballard.

List of artists: Richard Artschwager, Francis Bacon, JG Ballard, Hans Bellmer, Glenn Brown, Chris Burden, Jake & Dinos Chapman, John Currin, Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico, Tacita Dean, Jeremy Deller, Paul Delvaux, Cyprien Gaillard, Douglas Gordon, Loris Gréaud, Richard Hamilton, John Hilliard and Jemima Stehli, Roger Hiorns, Damien Hirst, Dan Holdsworth, Carsten Höller, Edward Hopper, Allen Jones, Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Vera Lutter, Florian Maier-Aichen, Paul McCarthy, Adam McEwen, Dan Mitchell, Malcolm Morley, Mike Nelson, Helmut Newton, Cady Noland, Claes Oldenburg, Eduardo Paolozzi, Steven Parrino, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Jenny Saville, George Shaw, Cindy Sherman, Piotr Uklański, Andy Warhol, Rachel Whiteread, Christopher Williams, Jane and Louise Wilson, Christopher Wool and Cerith Wyn Evans.

For further inquiries please contact the gallery at london@gagosian.com or at +44.207.841.9960.

More information here.

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A Thousand Windows

Found these from a series called "A Thousand Windows" - Ben Hartschuh via a YouTube message.

A similar aesthetic I have been attempting with Porn Negative Space

http://www.benhartschuh.com

From the Artist's Statement section of website:

"I saw this one where a couple was just sleeping. The lights were on and they were sleeping.No sound though, you couldn’t hear him snore. One hundred and sixty-seven viewers,watching them sleep. Maybe if I wait long enough they’ll start having sex. A friend saw. “I couldn’t have this, I wouldn’t leave the house,” she said. A thousand windows and each have their own story. In another, a man in a garter belt and panty hose stood in front of his television. I couldn’t see what was playing,  it was distorted in the darkness of the background. It’s the depths that get me. The distance,  male and female,  planes of focus. Separation. Another, the girl in the back undresses, coolly, and without much effort or excitement rubs her breasts. Fifteen more viewers. The man turns; maybe it’s his encouraging words or her impatience, only time will tell. Sixty more then, they’re in the triple digits now. Playing to hundreds of homes. They’re active participants, exhibitionists and voyeurs, feeding off each other. What makes us so curious about what goes on in others homes, yet so shocked to see it? Why do the lives of others seem much more interesting than our own? If a camera watched you who would look through from the other side? How would they view you? This work presents life seen only by those who choose to seek, or desire to be sought. Set up by the subjects themselves, cameras broadcast the alluring, the boring, the playful, the disturbing, the demure, and the insatiable. I’ve chosen to show you only pieces of the whole, moments frozen. If we can ponder the instant does it become more real? It is up to you to decide right or wrong, to be turned on or mortified, curious or condemning. They are playing for you."

 

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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