iPhone painting

The current edition of The New Yorker has a cover made by artist Jorge Colombo using an iPhone application called Brushes. Below is a short video from The Guardian website documenting the use of the Brushes program. (Apologies for the advertising clip that comes first. There's no way to remove it.) Article here.

unstabler and unstabler still

Exploring new heights (depths) of self referentiality. This road goes nowhere (or just goes round). Unstable city as mark, cipher (a sort of poetics).

WARNING: new unstable urbanism in Bergen

Shake the foundations!

In response to Amanda's post below - a city built on Dub would shake its own foundations and rock its inhabitants to their core!  I have just watched the dvd of "Dub Echoes" a documentary on the evolution of dub, directed by Brazilian film maker Bruno Natal. The film includes interviews with musicians, producers, engineers and dj's, including some old originals like U-Roy, Lee "Scratch" Perry and Bunny Lee, as well as representatives  of the current wave of post-dub electronica like Kode 9 and Roots Manuva. The sonic engineering of dub is explored and explained as a structural principle of much, if not most, electronic dance music, hip hop and other forms of contemporary urban music. See also an edition of the online publication Vague Terrain dedicated to digital dub - including several downloadable MP3 files, articles and interviews, including DJ Spooky, who is also featured in Dub Echoes.

On an almost entirely different note, another short video to watch is The Guardian's report on a tour of London by Peter Blake's Art Bus. In the sixties, (Sir) Peter Blake was known as one of the originators of British Pop Art, along with Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi, and the designer of the album cover for Sgt Peppers. Later he was also known as the former teacher and inspiration to Ian Dury. Here he visits sites related to famous album covers he has designed or contributed to.

Ci-tee-lit

Following a nudge from Rennee Turner who I have had the pleasure of working with here in Bergen, I couldn't resist posting this image :-)
- source: www.media.typetees.com

I think that Brandon L. should get one to wear next time he presents music videos that reflect the vibe of the city as he did at the "Cities re-imagined" conference last weekend.

In a similar vein, I revisited Serge Gainsbourg's New York USA, 1964

The Stockholm Exhibition

The Stockholm Exhibition is (currently) an online resource leading toward an actual exhibition to take place in 2013. The exhibition will

set out plans and visions for the development of a 21st. century urban environment. Architects, urbanists and curators have been

engaged to formulate the exhibition and to develop discussions on the website. Click on the poster icon "What is the Stockholm Exhibition?"

to bring up an interactive slideshow that describes the exhibition, its premises and some of its sub-themes.

Recent Discoveries

Images from recent forays into the urban or (sub) urban environments of Bergen, Trondheim and Melhus.

GOD NOK 17

Today, on Norway's National Day, I was surprised to see God on special offer in a supermarket window in Bergen for 17 Norwegian krone. And then there was the tank on top of a container, looking like a toy displayed on its packaging.

Cities / Citiz

Three images from Oslo, Sunday 10 May.

These arrows must lead somewhere unless they are just a piece of random, urban conceptual art, in the spirit of Senis Besmegenis

A window display that looks suspiciously like the art of Pedro Gomez Egana. What's going on?

Citiz appears to be something to do with coffee machines.

Maybe the machines might crash or explode, or have some other kind of accident.

Cities Re-imagined 1: 8 - 9 May - completed

Images from Cities Re-imagined

discussion moderated by Per Kvist

Steven Bode's reading on the work of Dryden Goodwin

Bull.Miletic presenting

panel with Synne Bull, Amanda Steggell, Michelle Teran and Vibeke Jensen

Vibeke Jensen's presentation

The conference "Cities Re-imagined 1" was conducted successfully on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 May. Panellists discussed themes including the use of photography to record, investigate, discover, reveal and interact with urban environments or the use of sound to influence, document or impact upon urban spaces. Interventions into the space of the city and its social/political structures, or into the virtual space of the city's informational twin were presented and discussed. Artists' video projects that examine the urban environment and that create a synthesis of these to re-imagine city spaces were shown and debated, and a range of textual strategies were used to theorise or fictionalise urban space in different ways. 

Keynote lectures were given by architect Nigel Coates and curator Steven Bode who discussed the work of artist Dryden Goodwin. The entire conference was documented on video and at a later date some short clips from the documentation will be posted online.

BUU will follow up on the conference by further developing some of the discussions that took place in Oslo.

City of Sound

A blog worth viewing, recommended by HC Gilje, is City of Sound, devoted to design, architecture, music and media.

investigating temporary urban art

For my presentation at the conference I specially created an online work of 20 blogspot sites called I AM SENIS BESMEGENIS. It is kind of finished now although I realize it never will be. I use as a starting point 2 icons of artists and the principle that all is art. It contains a large amount of visual material collected in the town and suburbs of Bergen during a 2 month scan of the city. I am pretty sure that I will not be able to show all material during the conference so HERE is the link to the first page. Also If you are not able to come to Oslo you are very welcome to visit my view on a city. Looking forward to the meeting, Ron Sluik.

Common Lands

Common Lands is a project initiated by curator duo Rakett for the area of Bjørvika in Oslo - in the vicinity of the new Opera House.

The former dock area is now a development site and a contested space in socio-political terms. Rakett have invited several artists

to respond to the site and to make temporary public art projects there. "Common Lands" is being launched on Tuesday 12th. May

with a presentation by the curators and a discussion around rights of access.