Shadows2

 

What better way is there to extrapolate a real life scenario than within a modern gaming environment. Despite the drama spinning of role-playing games, they can act like a simulation of the future human condition. What's more, these days we can already see the emphasis on digital data taking a larger role in society. Presidential campaigns in America have become increasingly data-saavy, with Obama's use of data analysis and Romney's low profile data-mining expedition. Does this mean the vote can be swayed just by aligning with the majority mindset? Is this manipulation or falsity?

See how interconnected and similar the physical world is with the digital world - Top: NASA’s satellite composite image of the earth at night.  Bottom: Eric Fischer’s map of Twitter interaction.

Watch Dogs is a game that follows characters that can exploit the data rich systems that are intertwined with our cities. I once wrote a paper about the urban design theory on the use of Twitter in cities and despite being a study of an emerging and fresh communication network, it seems primitive compared to the world described in Watch Dogs. It might not necessarily be a very different world physically but the dependence on a data network is both a great nod to technological efficiency and a huge amount of real time data waiting to be used for malevolence.

The 'shadow' which this game describes is not a physical shadow. The digital shadow that we all leave behind by writing blogs like this, using social media, filling in forms and even doing a simple Google search can drive anyone to manic paranoia if we think too hard about it. Other than being an exciting game with some awesome gimmicks (like hacking the electric grid from a cellphone), the setting is a very likely future condition that gives us all something to think about.

See the E3 Game Demo showing how personal data, the electricity grid and phone bugging is at one's fingertips. "I know how you think"...

Mist

Cai Guo Qiang's Endless presents a poetic collision of culture. However, without the bang and boom of other cultural advents such as the symbolic collision of 911, this installation shows two types of traditional boats (Chinese and Middle Eastern) lost in a mist. The encounter is sombre and the inherent stillness of the mist infects the piece.

The ephemeral and anti-stability theme is explored by many Chinese artists. Just today, at the Auckland Art Gallery I saw a series of photographs by Song Dong which spoke a similar language. A Pot of Boiling Water contained elements of performance art, as Dong pours boiling water from a kettle onto an old street of Beijing - the steam is temporal and the words written fade to the stability of stone.

Dojo

OPINION - The Hacker Dojo is a rather menacing name but in actual fact, it is a collective workspace for techies in Mountain View to do their thing, create start ups, conversations and great opportunities. It's where sites such as Pinterest took root, a place where innovation takes place. What could be better! 

Only thing is that the establishment is operating illegally and under fire from the local authorities, not for the work they do, but the building code infringements, mostly around fire egress and accessibility. Here, the worlds of creative tech and the age old limitations of architecture collide.

These code requirements (in particular the two mentioned) are strict for a good reason, but apparently to retrofit the old warehouse space to meet the code will cost more than what this organisation has available. Estimated to cost $250,000 dollars in upgrades (not surprising in the field of architecture and planning permissions), it's quite unfortunate to see such this community constricted by their shut down venues.

I hope there's a generous architect/planner who are helping them out pro bono and offer some expertise (makes life easier in these issues). Such spaces are valuable in how creative industries evolve, especially with the current trends in open source.

Help Hacker Dojo out - have a look at their website and cause. If you are interested in such spaces, or know of any, check out my previous blog post about collaborative creative spaces or leave a comment.

Offerings

A wonderful little concept is being played out in Wellington at the moment. Ornamental Thoughtfulness is a subtle gesture in the urban environment, where little bronze hands are being attached where people can place offerings to others. It's street art that encourages others to be creative.

Offering a piece of chalk to draw with.

Discover/write a secret note.

It reminds me of a similar concept I posted about in 2010, Dead Drops, which allows anonymous sharing via USB flash drives hidden around the city (I wonder if they're still there?). With all of these projects there is always some risk involved - vandalism, inappropriate 'offerings', a virus or two, but especially with creative street art projects, it is the risk factor that gives it some oomph. Street art isn't supposed to shy away; it should confront people who discover it in their environment.

Interested in street art? Browse the Street section of Creative Collision.

Penguin

"A final blow to the mythology of concrete as the ultimate, universal modern material took place in 2004, when the last remaining penguins in Berthold Lubetkins’ Penguin Pool at the London Zoo polemically left their celebrated shelter in search of a setting that would feel closer to their natural environment. After 70 years, Lubetkin’s architecture was still deemed organic, but not sufficiently so. Sympathetic to the penguin’s stand, a local zookeeper was reported to say that the pool was “an architect’s dream, not a penguin’s.”

Women

Can you imagine a city exclusively for women? It may soon be a reality in Saudi Arabia where plans are being made for a city with no men, allowing women who want to seek a career to do so without breaking Islamic law.

I am unfamiliar with Islamic practices so I won't comment about the traditions that spur this development in Saudi society. However, it demonstrates the importance and struggle of fundamentals that underlie any city. With this marked example of providing facility to women to mitigate the strict rites and regimens of their culture, a unique step in urban planning is created that would probably not be witnessed in any other place.

At least in fiction, the notion of a womens-only environment isn't completely new. The ecofeminist novel The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper explores society where genders are purposefully segregated in a post-apocalyptic setting. The idea is drastic - at least for Western and other egalitarian cultures.

In a way, it is great to see such a strong will in urban planning come into play. Usually the hallmark of utopian thinking (ironically most which did not succeed due to the unrealistic idealism), has planning practice been dulled by a please-all, compromise approach? Although the gender separation probably wouldn't work in other cultures, Saudi's setting and resources could see something that works and may even change the culture in which this development sits.

Thread

Yuriko Sakai's 'The Room of Kappa' rivals that of Chiharu Shiota's work in the way she uses thread in space. Unlike Shiota's relational lines of chaos, Sakai created a space of absolute orderliness. From the horizontal planes that frame the work to regularity of the angles and intersections, there is something zen about being in the presence of, or being in such a sculpture.

Thanks to Spoon and Tamago for the heads up.

Reject

A timely FB post from Cameron Sinclair says that it would have been Andy Warhol's 84th birthday. I, for one, can't imagine the King of Pop Art being that old. There's something explosive about the short life of a lively artist.

P.S. The drawing may be picked up from the museum at your convenience.

When Warhol was 28 years old, he offered a drawing to MoMA, only for it to be rejected outright in a standard letter. See his work now, possibly in the annals of the same MoMA. A stinging reminder not to give up on our creative aspirations.

Assassins

Assassin's Creed III is coming out later this year and once again it's ready to trump the last game with various improvements and novelties. When seeing and playing the maiden game of the series, we were impressed, but look at it now!

There has always been an increasing importance on realism in gaming environments especially for actions games of a high console calibre. For continually successful titles such as Assassin's Creed, I'm guessing a lot of the budget goes into the artistic, phenomenal feel of the places you play within. Keeping in mind that the premise of the Assassin's Creed story is that you are reliving a past time to save the world, etc etc, it makes sense to have this emphasis on resemblance.

What impresses me is that all of these highly complex environments are based on real historical settings outside of any living person's real experience. Calling upon a tonne of research and a vivid dose of imagination, the game creators take on this challenge. Now, with the new AnvilNext (hope it's a developer's inside joke because it's not a catchy name..) game engine, apparently they're taking weather conditions, landscaping and atmospherics to the next level. They'll need a lot of that in colonial America - past Assassin's Creed games focussed on the Middle East, Florence and the ancient lands of Rome in it's heyday - filthy rich with elaborate, historically primed architecture and cities. Baby Colonial America wasn't even on the map yet.

Remember that this isn't the third game per se - Assassin's Creed II had two subsequent continuations. That they are breaking out this third official game with the snazzy new game engine also starts a new chapter of the narrative. Cue the new continent and miles more for gamers to explore... and virtually kill people in a variety of creative ways. Welcome to the Un-United States of America.

Higgs

Many of us who are not involved with the science world probably heard about the ground breaking Higgs Boson 'discovery' but had no idea what it is or the relevance of it. I had the pleasure of having an engineering friend try to explain it to me (with fervour) but it was hopeless - I just didn't really get it.

The artist Josef Kristofoletti was given the task of visualising this phenomenon and I get this one! A mural of the Large Hadron Collider, it's a homage to the discovery but also something pretty for the rest of us. Look at how it transforms those budget tilt slab walls! Remember humans built this enormous piece of equipment, but the sheer scale of it is wondrous.

This guy is a human printer.