‘Species of Spaces’ (2014) by Nathan Gray.
An acoustic tour of Cockatoo Island, using found objects as percussive tools to strike against the industrial built-environment there.
Tag Archives: found
Nathan Gray
Willem de Rooij
Willem de Rooij, ‘Route langs 18 hoeken’ (Route Along 18 Corners) (1993)
A brochure setting out a route along 18 corners of galleries and exhibition spaces on the ground floor of the Stedelijk Museum building. The work was made before the building was renovated from 2004 – 2012 and depicts floors and walls that have since changed.
Kamikaze Loggia
Photograph by Levan Asabashvili.
Photograph by Krzysztof Weglel.
Some examples of informal structures called “kamikaze loggias”, the vernacular extensions of modernist buildings characteristic of Tbilisi. These extensions have been created since the 1990s as an organic response to the new, “lawless” times after the fall of the Soviet Union. They increase the living space and are usually used as terraces, extra rooms, open refrigerators, etc.
It is said that a Russian journalist named them “kamikaze”, drawing a parallel between the romantic and suicidal character of such an endeavour and the typical ending of most Georgian family names “-adze”. This architecture also refers back to the local palimpsestic building technique, which since the Middle Ages has allowed new houses to be built on top of existing ones on the steep slopes of the Caucasus Mountains thus not monumentalising the past but expanding on it for the future.
Read more about the Georgian Pavillion at the 2013 Venice Architecture Biennale here.
Unknown
Ottoman miniature from the Surname-i Vehbi (‘Book of Festival’, an album with illustrations depicting celebrations), showing the Column with the three serpent heads, in a celebration at the Hippodrome in 1582.
Bik Van der Pol
Bik Van der Pol, ‘Up close’ (2014)
For the exhibition ‘The Part In The Story’ Bik Van der Pol decided to bring the sculpture ‘Two Rectangles Vertical Gyrating’ (1971) by George Rickey, and install it laying down on the floor of the exhibition space. This kinetic sculpture, normally installed on Rotterdam’s busy Binnenwegplein, has somewhat of a contested history. After recent renovations of the square causing an elevation of the ground, the blades of the sculpture rotate at a mere 2.11 meters above street level. The sculpture was hence considered a safety hazard because of the danger of it hitting the heads of passers-by. In prevention of any accidents, the sculpture was fenced off in 2012 and temporarily removed later that same year.
A video showing Rickey’s sculpture in action on its old location.
