Projects for Total Urbanisation
Today’s World
Projects for Total Urbanisation
PhD Exhibition
Friday 13th November
One night only
6 – 8 pm RMIT Building 49
67 Franklin St, Melbourne
The Duel Meaning of Things at Westspace
The Duel Meaning of Things
Cardboard, mirror tiles, skateboard wheels
2009
The Duel Meaning of Things displays everyday items such as family portraits and baseball bats whose original purpose changes due to a single event or action. Referencing sixties Italian architectural group Superstudio, ‘anti design grid,’ I reconfigure mass produced objects and images to emphasize the dual purpose they can have both positively and negatively on our lives. The use of the word “Duel” is a play on the word in reference to the murder of Lawrence King.
Sophisticated Living 4 (Team Australia) Curated by Veronica Tello
Team Australia. Group show at the Carlton Hotel and Studios. December 2008
Team Australia is:
jeremy drape, emily ferretti, veronica kent, annika koops, brendan lee, natalie ryan, utako shindo, jackson slattery, salote tawale, glenn walls
Curated by Veronica Tello
Prototype for Sophisticated Living 3
Prototype for Sophisticated Living 3 exhibited at RMIT gallery, December 2008
Something that means something else
Installation view at Westspace Inc, December 2008
Prototype for Sophisticated Living 1 (Broke exhibition)
Prototype for Sophisticated Living 1 exhibited at the Carlton Hotel & Studios 2008 in the group show Broke
Prototype for Sophisticated Living 1 for the exhibition Broke At the Carlton Hotel & Studios 2008
Let’s talk about it, or new utopias
By
Rebecca Coates is an independent curator and writer, Adjunct Curator at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), and currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Melbourne looking at site-specific, ephemeral based installations.
Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness , a new book by Elizabeth Farrelly, coins a new term for a new form of architectural horrible-ness. For Farrelly, Western society is now a “Blubberland”, a society in which ‘most of us have more than enough of what we need and more than enough of what we want as well’. As she continues, most of the inhabitants of Blubberland have far too much and more not only of material goods but also bodily fat, ‘to a degree that is dangerous for them and for the future of the planet.’ Thus the development of the McMansion: vast sprawling architectural monstrosities with too many bedrooms, an equal number of bathrooms, four-space garages, and so many windows that those commissioning them can’t afford the curtains. And filled they are to groaning point with all the stuff and possessions a family could not possibly want, let alone need.
The disillusionment and rejection of modernist architectural ideals by the 1960s Italian group Superstudio might be akin to a similar rejection of today’s faceless, tasteless, mass-consumist architecture in what was once the green belt. Once only the domain of savvy architects and design aficionados, Superstudio’s little-known architectural vision is undergoing a cult revival as architects and artists look to articulate their dissatisfaction with popular trends and developments.
Founded in Florence by a group of radical young architects in 1966, Superstudio laid out their vision of a built environment, ‘an efficient minimalist space that provides an ordered existence .. [The space should] not [be] constructed on the whims of consumerism and fashion.’ The location of this new form of avant-garde thinking is of course not accidental: Florence, Italy: a town ‘where all such contradictions become evident … [a town which] stands historically symbolic.’ And what better vehicle to launch their manifesto than Italian Vogue: anarchy and avant-garde are nothing if not fashionable.
To read the full transcript click on the Articles icon on the right hand side.
How to avoid Modernism
How to avoid Modernism at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, April 2008.
In 2005 l created a scale model of Philip Johnson’s Glass House (1949). As with Farnsworth House I was attracted to Johnson’s simple lines, geometrical forms and large floor-to-ceiling windows that opened up the interior to the outside world. It was not until 2008 that the thought of using the model for the work How to avoid modernism (2008) came to fruition and was exhibited at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces in April 2008. The original intention for this work was to create a queer space using objects and materials in the model making reference to Johnson’s homosexuality. However, in researching the building, Johnson’s personality, I found that his politics and the history that surrounds the structure began to dominate the work.
Philip Johnson, Glass House, 1949
How to avoid Modernism (2008) consists of video of a lone male figure pouring blue- coloured water down the chimney of a scale model of Johnson’s Glass House. The model is constructed of masonite, cardboard, clear perspex and balsa wood for the internal kitchen bench. The video was filmed in my studio in Melbourne. Shot in one sequence, the video runs for less than a minute,[1] and was looped in Final Cut Pro to emphasise the constant flooding of the building.
In a 1950 article in the Architectural Review, Johnson listed Mies Farnsworth House as one of the inspiration for the Glass House. However, Peter Eisenman, in his introduction to Philip Johnson: Writings, claimed the house was not based on Mies at all but rather, as Johnson stated, ‘from a burnt wooden village I saw once where nothing was left but foundations and chimneys of bricks’ (Eisenman, cited in Friedman 2006). Eisenman claimed that the Glass House was a result of deep psychological conflict that Johnson had suffered due to his involvement with fascism during the Second World War. According to Friedman, ‘the Glass House is Johnson’s own monument to the horrors of war. It is at once a ruin and also an ideal model of a more perfect society’ (Friedman 2006, p. 151). Eisenman concluded ‘that the house was an expression of Johnson’s “personal atonement and rebirth as an individual”’ (Eisenman, cited in Friedman 2006). But all this seems to be Johnson’s way of deflecting issues relating to his sexuality. On his estate in New Canaan, Connecticut, Johnson presented the world with a public image of himself through the Glass House. His private self was kept closeted metres away in the windowless guest house. (To read further click on Articles then click on How to avoid modernism)
[1] A version of this video can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfdJHZrNU44
