Typographic Utopias

Société Réaliste: Hexatopia, betűkészlet, 2009

TYPOPASS-CRITICAL DESIGN AND CONCEPTUAL TYPOGRAPHY at Platán Gallery, Budapest. Organized by Dorottya Gallery and tranzit. hu with the collaboration of the Polish Institute.

How does critical design emerge, the attempt to counter consumer culture with a social consciousness with the intention not only to serve customers but also to shape visual culture, even the whole of culture and society? The project focuses on typography, a visual language that can be interpreted both in the field of art and design. The exhibition presents the historical and contemporary projects and publications from the boundary of design and the visual arts in three groups: Typographic Utopias, Anti- and Parallel Design, Subversive Design.

Porto/ Utopian

Images: ruined shopping mall outside the university; pyrite
[fool's gold] at the university geology museum.
Photographs by/ copyright Sarah Browne, with the kind
co-operation of the Utopian Studies Society.

10th International conference of the Utopian Studies Society,
Europe, at the University of Porto, Portugal, July 2009.

What Utopians Eat

Selection of food and drink consumed at the 10th international
conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Europe, at the
University of Porto, Portugal, July 2009.
All photographs by/ copyright Sarah Browne.

Allora and Calzadilla at Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin

Allora & Calzadilla, How to Appear Invisible, 16mm film on HD, 2008

The two new works shown by Allora & Calzadilla are the latest in a series of commissioned works that extrapolate on the unfolding historical and social dynamic of the Schlossplatz, the site of the temporary kunsthalle.

Pleasingly, it is the large expanse of the Kunsthalle that is left essentially vacant, with the film work being installed (unfortunately poorly) the entrance area adjacent to the bookshop:

Allora & Calzadilla’s new work ‘Compass‘, 2009, conceived specifically for the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, creates a new spatial and acoustic experience. Dividing the Kunsthalle horizontally, a level is introduced, inaccessible to the viewer and reducing the grand exhibition hall to less than one third. Visitors can only hear the vibrations and sounds of an a capella dancer performing a choreography above their heads. The otherwise empty exhibition space is turned into a huge resonating chamber.

The film is quite beautifully shot on 16mm film, if a little indulgent and overly long in places, documenting the last days of the demolition of the Palast der Republik in late 2008. Its saving grace is its protagonist, a German Shepherd dog who is wearing a headcollar made from a plastic KFC bucket. His curiosity and interestedness, and that of the camera that follows him, distinguishes the film from so much other film work made in recent years that takes Berlin/ communism/ modernistic interiors as its subject and beautiful/melancholic as the mood for its sumptuous, elegant and detached panning shots. The KFC bucket, protecting the dog from licking his wounds, is presumably also a discomfort, an annoyance, and a hindrance to proper vision. However the metaphor isn’t overplayed, and as is typical of Allora & Calzadilla’s work, there is that unique and satisfying contrast between functionality and political poetry.

Exhibition at Temporäre Kunsthalle, Schlossplatz, Berlin-Mitte, July 11th til September 6th 2009

RIP Kodachrome

They say all good things in life come to an end. Today we announced that Kodak will retire KODACHROME Film, concluding its 74-year run.

It was a difficult decision, given its rich history. At the end of the day, photographers have told us and showed us they’ve moved on to newer other Kodak films and/or digital. KODACHROME Film currently represents a fraction of one percent of our film sales. We at Kodak want to celebrate with you the rich history of this storied film. Feel free to share with us your fondest memories of Kodachrome.

from the comments:

New Year/ Relic

Intriguing object found in the plant room of the university.
(Appropriated for household decoration).

Polyamory

In the morning I will attempt to give a paper/ presentation to a room full of utopian scholars. I’ll be talking about contemporary art and crowd theory, and interestingly, the other prestenters will speak about social networking and technology as potential contemporary utopian forms.

This will be quite a test for me, to see if the polyamorous (yet often illegible) field of contemporary art has a real point of contact in this interdisciplinary context.

I am nervous.

Invincible

I’ve justed checked in to the Holiday Inn in Portland, Maine. For the next few days I will be attending a utopian studies conference here.

On the freeway from the airport, a sign read Welcome to Maine: the way life should be.

It was dark outside so there wasn’t much to see other than the neon signs of various franchises. I watched the DVD that was playing on the bus: it was set in the seventies (the heavy yellow colouring was a giveaway)and Mark Wahlberg played a part time barman from Philly who ended up playing in the NFL. He even scored a touchdown at the end. It felt different to watch this kind of film in the states, it made more sense somehow.

I’ve seen city buses covered in the legend Believe in Something Better (purple and spearmint; apparently not politically affiliated).

Election day is Tuesday. It’s an interesting time.

A Romantic Interlude*

 

A Romantic Interlude is the title given to a work that exists at different times as a structure, object, event and super 8mm film (all images here). This work is a response to my research into representations of the Leitrim landscape and emotional attachments to it, my own included. These representations, visual and textual, ranged from the Lovely Leitrim tourist board films of the 1980s to more current journalistic texts in papers such as The Irish Times. I’ve been particularly interested in recent migrations to the county: ‘Leitrim’ is a place, but becomes a kind of ideal when spoken about from afar. 

 

The Look of…

Technical crew (with Tshirts); Marietta biscuits and Lincoln Creams (also Bourbon Creams and other chocolate things); smoked glass; institutional carpets; plastic clip name tags; the reading of scripted, and sometimes poorly prepared papers; Times New Roman; office blinds; exhausting/ exhausted building. Overall, maybe not what I expected a utopian studies conference to look like, which was a bit silly of me.

There were however two individuals who caught my eye: an older gentleman who pursued his needlepoint patiently, and with good progress, through every seminar I attended with him; and a boy, maybe not quite a teenager, who stayed close by his academic father’s side, a newish Huxley clutched in his hand.

It seems utopianism is a thing to be played close to the chest – maybe it is at large within the population to a greater degree than I suspected.