OMA台北的小丑鼻，『現代』歐洲中心主義的青春痘

天昏地暗的時勢，好久沒有讓人眼睛一亮的事。但是我們還是要相信莎士比亞，這是最黑暗的時代也是最光明的時代。

OMA- 酷哈斯團隊(Rem Koolhaas & STEDEBOUW B.V / Ole Scheeren) 的台北表演藝術中心(Taipei Performing Arts Center)提案，讓歐美建築界跌破一大堆眼鏡，http://www.dezeen.com/2009/01/28/taipei-performing-arts-centre-by-oma/; 因為建築外表實在不像這幾年cctv(北京大褲叉), Prada Epicentre Stores, 西雅圖圖書館那樣炫目，甚至還有點七零年代土裡土氣的倫敦現代建築風格，那顆大球尤其讓歐美建築界人士吐嘲為『小丑鼻』，有些人甚至還說這樣的提案，如果是在歐美建築學院中學生的作品一定會被當掉。堂堂普立滋獎得主有這麼瞎嗎？還跟記者說這是最滿意的作品之一!

在眾人百思不解中，有人流出一抹詭異的微笑地說這才是道地的OMA!

Ben van Berkel & the Theatre of Immanence

Ben van Berkel, The Thing, 2007MESO Digital Interiors, On Things Off Things On, 2007production sketch

The group exhibition Ben van Berkel & the Theatre of Immanence consists of an advanced installation designed by Städelschule professor of architecture Ben van Berkel together with Prof. Johan Bettum and Luis Etchegorry. The installation houses a series of works by artists and architects who have participated in the one-year long experimental project, entitled the Space of Communication, a project by the Städelschule Architecture Class (SAC). The participants in this project have been international architects and artists Asterios Agkathidis, Brennan Buck & Igor Kebel, Florencia Colombo, Dani Gal, Holger Hoffmann, Jonas Runberger and Gabi Schillig. In addition, the Frankfurt-based design-technology group, MESO Web Scapes / MESO Digital Interiors, is providing an installation of advanced image projection entitled On Things Off Things On. Throughout its period, the exhibition will serve as a hub for various events and lectures. This exhibition marks the end of the exploratory Städelschule-project the Space of Communication where various aspects of the contemporary conditions of social interaction and communication have been investigated. While some of the projects inherently engage with new electronic technology, some take it for granted and others merely reflect upon it in a distant fashion.

Patrick Keiller: The City of the Future

Images: Detail from Booth Poverty Map, Charles Booth collection, LSE Archives

The site of Queensbury station in 2004, with inset from Queensbury Tunnel (Riley Brothers, 1898)

With London (1994), Robinson in Space (1997), and The Dilapidated Dwelling (2000), Patrick Keiller established his reputation as one of the most original film-makers of his generation. Now, for the first time, he presents the multi-screen, installation version of his research project The City of the Future.

Sketching the invisible.

Visualizing Data, this thematic category deals with the transformations occurring in existing spaces as they are experienced and read through the dynamic relations of power in artistic projects.
It addresses issues such as the aesthetics of power, the contemporary iconography of power (contemporary monuments and their symbolic function, national and international cultural identities, the iconic building, designing for the crowds-world sports events), borderlines (exclusions, spatial discrimination, reclamation strategies, gated communities, surveillance the suburbs, control as security) or re-constructions of the urban landscape.
There are some nice examples :

Interactive Visualization Lab |George Legrady

A Project for Geological Displacement.

Geological Displacement !!!

“…I spend a lot of time walking around the city…
The initial concept for a project often emerges during a walk. As an artist, my position is akin to that of a passer-by constantly trying to situate myself in a moving environment.
My work is a succession of notes and guides.
The invention of a language goes together with the invention of a city. Each of my interventions is another fragment of the story that I am inventing, of the city that I am mapping.” (Francis Alÿs, Mexico City 1993)

A project by Francis Alÿs, collaborating with Rafael Ortega and Cuauhtémoc Medina.
On April 11th 2002, 500 voluntiers were called in order to form a line to move a sand dune situated in the surroundings of the city of Lima. This human comb progressed pushing forward a certain quantity of sand with shovels in order to move the dune from its original position. The actual displacement was of an infinitesimal proportion, but not its metaphorical resonance.

Landschaft

Chris Welsby, Wind Vane, 16mm double projection, 1972

The exhibition presents eleven artistic positions that each examine the phenomenon of landscape in very different ways, both in terms of form and content. They focus on the more or less natural physical landscapes as well as on their representation in art. They test and appropriate landscape as a medium for ideological messages, as a mirror and stage of the (artist) subject, as a fatigued form of artistic expression, and as material for alternative spatial concepts.