Okin Apartment Project in Seoul

Okin Apartment was originally built in 1971, by the City Metropolitan Government near the Palaces- is the biggest and most spectacular Palace in Korea, and it was the Main Palace of the Chosun dynasty. Okin Apartment will be torn down soon to make a Green Park around Inwang mountian. Inwang mountain literally means "Benevolent King Mountain". It is located south of Bukhan mountain and from it you can see the Palace and the presidential house.

A few weeks ago We (group of artists from Seoul) organized a holiday event at the Apartment where most tenants are moved out but some are not given either an apartment or enough money to move other places and still negotiating for the right of tenants to move new places. This issue is not solved yet but the City Metropolitan Government started to tearing down the apartment.  I think it is actually very meaningful place for us artists involved in.  We will be having talks, walking tours and events, in terms of exploring and excavating an intimate relationship with architecture, history as well as art expression.

Check this out  http://okinapt.blogspot.com/.

Radial Citizens and the Bureau

My short fiction "Radial Citizens" can now be read at:

http://www.brandliterarymagazine.co.uk/page.php?ed=05&title=Paul%20Green&name=07

The story is a part of a sequence developed in response to a brief from Bureau Coordinator Jeremy J. Welsh. There is no resemblance intended between the Bureau described in the work of fiction and any other Bureau, including this one. Please do not call your attorneys. Thank you for reading this announcement.

Video screening in Cologne 29 august

Programme:

Par Hasard, 2009, by Bull.Miletic, trt: 5’45”

Whir, 2002, by Bull.Miletic, trt: 12’00”

Spatial Traces, 2008, by Jeremy Welsh & Robert Worby, trt: 4’00”

The Go, No Go Detector, 1997, by Jeremy Welsh & Robert Worby, trt: 6’00”

Moving Target, 2007, by Farhad Kalantary, trt: 2’00”

The Day of Removal, 2009, by Farhad Kalantary, trt: 6’00”

Shiva, 2003, by HC Gilje, trt: 8’00”

mekanisk <-> organisk, 2009, by Ivar Smestad, trt: 5’06”

Uten Tittel (Untitled), 2003, by Amanda Steggell, trt: 5’00”

Merkur & Psyche go to the cinema, 2009, by Amanda Steggell, trt: 2’55”

Mais 68?, 2009, by Camilla Haukedal, trt: 1’45”

Motholic Mobble Part 4, 2009, by Kaia Hugin, trt: 6’33”

Screening presented by BUU in collaboration with Kjubh Kunstverein.

Special thanks to Doris Frohnapfel.

Glasstraße 83, 50823 Köln-Ehrenfeld, Saturday 29 August at 21.00

supported by OCA (Office for Contemporary Art Norway)

Ultra Modern, Very Social

The Camels are Back in Town!

Just outside the Botanical Gardens in Oslo Circus Merano are preparing for their annual show. I had the pleasure of walking past the site for a couple of days on my way to rehearsals at Black Box Theatre, and while there is a lot to be said about keeping animals in captivity I have to say that the camels seem to enjoy their mobile lifestyle.

They travel in style - with their own personnel to take care of their daily hygiene and massage needs, after which they have morning hay together, and all out in the fresh air.

re-burbia.com: reimagining the suburbs

An announcement from a JG Ballard mailing list, forwarded by Paul A. Green:

With the current housing crisis, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, and
rising energy costs, the future of suburbia looks bleak. Suburban
communities in central California, Arizona and Florida are desolate
and decaying, with for sale and foreclosure signs dotting many lawns.
According to the US Census, about 90% of all metropolitan growth
occurred in suburban communities in the last ten years. Urbanites who
loathe the freeways, big box stores and bland aesthetics
stereotypical of suburbia may secretly root for the end of sprawl,
but demographic trends indicate that exurban growth is still on the
rise.
In a future where limited natural resources will force us to find
better solutions for density and efficiency, what will become of the
cul-de-sacs, cookie-cutter tract houses and generic strip malls that
have long upheld the diffuse infrastructure of suburbia? How can we
redirect these existing spaces to promote sustainability,
walkability, and community? It’s a problem that demands a visionary
design solution and we want you to create the vision!
Calling all future-forward architects, urban designers, renegade
planners and imaginative engineers:
Show us how you would re-invent the suburbs! What would a McMansion
become if it weren’t a single-family dwelling? How could a vacant big
box store be retrofitted for agriculture? What sort of design
solutions can you come up with to facilitate car-free mobility, ‘burb-
grown food, and local, renewable energy generation? We want to see
how you’d design future-proof spaces and systems using the suburban
structures of the present, from small-scale retrofits to large-scale
restoration—the wilder the better!


The 20 finalists are now on show and open to public voting -
http://www.re-burbia.com/finalists/
- sadly, none demonstrate great Ballardian insight. But the suburban
airships are cool.

Urban Screening / Outdoor Projections

The next BUU event is a screening of artists' film and video work to take place at an outdoor location in the back yard of a house in a former industrial area of Cologne on Saturday 29th. August. The event is programmed by Synne Bull and Jeremy Welsh and is hosted by Doris Frohnapfel and Kjubh Kunstverein an independent association of artists and curators. The event will feature short video works by HC Gilje, Amanda Steggel, Ivar Smedstad, Farhad Kalantary, Kaia Hugin, Camilla Haukedal, Bull Miletic, Jeremy Welsh & Robert Worby. Full details of time/place and programme to follow!

Amsterdam in Letters

Amsterdam in Letters is a photo book by Dutch photographer Maarten Helle, documenting typography on buildings throughout the city of Amsterdam. In particular, the book concentrates on typography that is integrated with the architecture, and it is divided into sections that deal with lettering realized in metal, stone and ceramics. The book covers both historical and contemporary sites and is in part an archeological project, looking at the remnants of businesses or institutions that are no longer, but that are remembered through the signs and slogans that remain. The site changes identity, the text remains, the relationship between building and text becomes destabilised, mysterious, maybe even unintentionally ironic.

The book includes an introduction/contextual essay by Willem Ellenbroek, in both Dutch and English. It is visually rich and is an interesting contribution to the ongoing research into urban environments.

More information on Maarten Helle's work can be seen at his website, and there is a short video on the same subject (in Dutch, but it's also quite visual) on You Tube.