Fred Dervin has invited me co-edit a book: New technologies of the self,
mobilities and (co-)construction of identity. We would like to invite you
to submit abstracts. And please forward the call for publication.
I had a fascinating conversation with JB after his thesis defense yesterday evening; thanks to Oren, colleague at ReD Associates.
As JB writes about his research:
“Biojects is a concept i coined to specify a certain class of objects that follow biological rules and share similar structures in their behavior and constitution with organisms. A specific class of biojects is composed by immaterial instances such as concepts or ideas. They exist as phenomena but are difficult to observe per se (for more information on existent object vs non-existent objects see Zalta and Meinong).”
Read in Le Monde, this article about Top-Braille a nomadic object that enables blinds to have access to information:
“Brevetée dès 1996, la souris nomade TopBraille a valu à son concepteur, Raoul Parienti, le prix de l’innovation 2007, décerné le 13 décembre par le magazine L’Usine nouvelle dans le cadre du prix des ingénieurs. Ancien professeur de mathématiques, le lauréat, sensibilisé aux problèmes de vue dont souffrait sa soeur, a fondé en 2004 l’entreprise Vision pour développer son invention. L’appareil, muni d’une microcaméra, déchiffre les caractères d’imprimerie d’une taille comprise entre 0,7 et 15 mm de hauteur et envoie les images à un processeur intégré. Le tout offre une telle simplicité d’emploi pour l’usager qu’un apprentissage de quelques heures, affirme Raoul Parienti, suffit à maîtriser le Top-Braille.”
Screenshot from the website: www.top-braille.com
Seems highly interesting… How can neo-nomads resist? An Atlas of Radical Cartography.
Via archinect. A History of the Hotel, slide show. Apparently the history of the MODERN hotel begins in America…
Screenshot from slide show: “Photograph of demonstration against segregated hotels, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 4, 1962. Bill Young/Atlanta Journal-Constitution.”
“It was only in the 20th century that American hospitality became truly democratic. Beginning in 1908, E.M. Statler challenged the hotel industry’s attention to the wealthy by declaring that he would offer hospitality “at a price ordinary people can afford.” Statler’s slogan, “A bed and a bath for a dollar and a half,” launched his hotel empire and made him, as a 1950 trade journal put it, “The Hotel Man of the Half Century.” A decade later, the civil rights movement launched a wave of demonstrations against discrimination in travel facilities. Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech—which evoked the plight of black wayfarers with the reminder that “our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities”—helped persuade Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in public accommodations.”
In terms of hotels, I have always liked the caravansérails of the old médinas. Acording to Archnet.org, wich provides you with a dictionary of Islamic architecture, the caravanserai, is a “Roadside building which provides accomodation and shelter for travellers.” Also,
“The term caravanserai is a composite Turkish term derived from caravan (i.e. a group of travellers) and serai (palace). Generally it refers to a large structure which would be capable of coping with a large number of travellers, their animals and goods. The term first seems to have been used in the twelfth century under the Seljuks and may indicate a particularly grand form of khan with a monumental entrance. During the Saffavid period in Iran (seventeenth to eighteenth century) caravanserais are often huge structures with four iwans.”
A hotel for neo-nomads: Everland by Swiss artist-duo Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann.
“Everland is a Hotel with only one room including a bathroom, a king-size bed and a lounge. The bounteous dimensioned room represents the subjective dream of a hotel: the architecture, the playful details, as well as the request to steal the golden embroidered bath towels. All Everland guests are partaking in the project.”
Screenshot from website
Thank you Nanna!
N. is fantastic… She keeps on feeding me with cool stuff to blog!?
Check this “visuel interactif” Design made in Korea (Le Monde, 25-11-07). Below some screnshots for appetizers:
The wine room at the Clarion Collection Hotel in Københaven has an automat that serves you an exact dose of 65cl of wine, not a drop more. I like the concept though it is not well displayed (The space around it is too awkward)…
“It is hard to imagine a society that would deny the body just as we had progressively denied the soul. This, however, is where we are heading.”
Paul Virilio, Negative Horizon (London, New York: Continuum, 2005); the last words.
Carry your home… “like a snail” would say Do-ho Suh… who presents in an interview for art:21 the Seoul-Home/LA-home project:
“The experience was about transporting space from one place to the other. A way of dealing with cultural displacement. And I don’t really get homesick, but I’ve noticed that I have this longing for this particular space and I want to recreate that space or bring that space wherever I go. So the choice of the material, which was fabric, was for many reasons. I had to make something that’s light and transportable. So something that you can fold and put in a suitcase and bring with you all the time.”
About “My town in my home” artist Mafuyu says in her Ping Mag interview that:
“I think the image or the concept of a “house” exists in everyone’s mind regardless of shape or form - as a “home”, “a cozy place” or “a space for family communication.” Therefore, the common denominator between him [Yamagata, the fashion designer with whom she collaborated] and myself might be a “house.”"
Screenshot from Mafuyu’s website: www.writtenafterwards.com
Anyway, carrying home with you is what Nomads do. Traditionally the baggage is rather bulky. Nowadays home may have shrunk to a USB key or to the skin. More than something that you carry, home is something that you wear. The project recalls that of Sylvie Ungauer, At Home, 2000. And that of Lucy Orta, Refuge Wear City Interventions, 1993-1998:
Refuge Wear City Interventions by Lucy Orta, 1993-1998. Screenshot from Orta’s website
