elasticlimit

Modern Beijing from the China Central Television (CCTV) tower.

I shot this in May of this year. This is essentially the belly of socialist architecture. The stadium Ryan posted below will be a much welcomed addition to a city constantly on the build. Beijing is a CRAZY CRAZY place. I highly recommend all Americans GO TO CHINA sometime in thier lives. You will never be the same afterwords. It is life changing. China is one of the most interesting countries in the world, as it develops we will see an amazing adaptation of Marxisim within a profit driven economy. They are currently one of the MOST polluted countries in the world and one of the primary contributors to green house gasses. China has much work to do.

Although Beijing is an ancient city and was often used as the capital by one warlord or another, its modern history as a capital begins in the Yuan dynasty ( 1271-1368 ) with Kublai Khan, grandson of Ghengis Khan. It is here that Marco Polo made his base as he visited and travelled with the Khan. He spent over 20 years as a guest of the Khan before returning to Europe with his vivid descriptions of the great civilization to the east. Most of what we see today in Beijing was built during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). It is a city built to inspire; to awe the populace with the power of the emperor. Built for the rites and ceremonies performed to maintain the Mandate of Heaven as well as for defense, it achieves grace through power and size rather than through ornament and variety. The Mings looked to the past for their design. Beijing, like most major cities in China was built with a series of concentric walls. The outermost wall surrounded what was the Chinese city. A major highway which provides access to the outskirts and links the city with the major arteries to the rest of the country sits on its bed. At various points along the highway you can see the guard towers which loomed above the old gates to the city and provided early warning of invasion. One might regret the loss of this ancient wall, but the alternative would have been to raze whole neighborhoods in one of the most densely packed cities in the world.

link to some quick info on Beijing

NEW SITE… well not new.. but new name.. HOWS LIFE PEOPLE!!!!

david gleber here.. anyways.. peace.. till later

The Cartoonist

Quite frankly, this guy is the most interesting, semi-jaded, middle-aged, european illustrator, EVER!

This page will become the source for MANY MANY amazing design/art nerd websites.

Oh and while we’re at it, heres another blessed Blog I have found (by way of the Cartoonist)… its Andy Kaufman’s return-to-the-world Blog (he is apparently alive and well after many years of hiding from the FEDS for faking his death). Its not very convincing, but the posts are HILARIOUS!

Bill and his dog. Together at last.

This is the Blog for Clinton’s book.
LINK to the blog

Warp Records is the home of several electronica/blip-hop/drill-n-bass artists (Two Lone Swordsmen, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Autechre …).

If you go the ALBUMS section of the web site, there is a cool interface for choosing from their multitude of artists (40-50). Also check out the MIXES section for a cool puzzle like interface for listening to specific re-mixes of Warp artists.

For quick pleasure, check out the bottom INFO bar for a , interactive bar graph surprise!

Warp has made a very cool interface that expresses the frantic attitude of their rooster of artists.

GO PLAY!

NATO: Northern Arts Tactical Offensive

Sue HubbardOpening Spaces: poetry as public art
Many of today’s art projects will be temporary interventions in neglected spaces of the city ripe for regeneration, or endangered rural areas. The temporary nature of this work allows for subtle and modest intentions. Poets and artists can work with community groups and schools, old people and youth clubs to create temporary installations relevant to the needs and vision of a particular community. Neglected sites of inner city architecture can be reclaimed short-term as subjects and sites for poetry. The historic function of an abandoned building can act as a catalyst to the creation of poetry as public art.
www.poetrysociety.org.uk

Why? The simple answer is because there is no earthly reason to capitalize any of these words. Actually, there never was.
In the case of the words internet, web and net, a change in the house style was necessary to put into perspective what the internet is: another medium for delivering and receiving information. That it transformed human communication is beyond dispute. But no more so than moveable type did in its day. Or the radio. Or television. And we don’t capitalize any of those words… so why should we continue to capitalize the web?

This is a VERY intersting article from Wired News on the syntax of the web. Please read for fun and pleasure. Notice all catagory words have been changed to follow suit with this move. I agree with this completely and its great that we have folks around who are considering this stuff important enough to even discuss. Good job Wired…cheers!
www.wirednews.com

Read also how Tony Long (the author of the above article) demanded there be a hyphen in the word e-mail!
Link to WiredNews e-mail article from October 2000

www.yamaha.com
I’m going to apologize for this post off the bat. I Apologize….and state that I am the only one allowed to post garbage like this. I post this under the loose catagory of “industrial design”….it really should be posted under “personal fetish”. So…sorry everyone. I just couldn’t help it. I have a weakness. This motorcycle is an absolute monster of 80’s design. HUGE motor. In fact if you squint you can see its ALL motor. So much so that the gas tank is completely engulfed by the carbs and those insane air scoops. Yet its still sort of subtle and understated to the uninitiated. Still sort of a “standard” looking thing with thankfully very little chrome to show off…it just dosen’t need the flash. It just plain goes too fast to even see it anyway. You might as well go ahead and take out an extra insurance policy, because this bike is so fast you might just survive to tell about it. Yes, some things haven’t changed… Its the original early 1980’s liquid-cooled, 1198cc, DOHC, 16-valve, V-4 beast that’s won more Best Musclebike awards than it knows what to do with. For over 20 years now, Mad Max has been wiping the boulevard with pretty much every musclebike-come-lately in terms of pure, unadulterated acceleration. What else would you expect from a machine with high-lift cams and a quartet of massive downdraft carbs stoking its ravenous V-4 powerplant. Things really get fun once the tachometer sweeps past 6000 rpm and V-Boost induction kicks in, force-feeding the engine, via a servo-controlled butterfly valve, huge mouthfuls of unleaded. I feel guilty already.

www.cat.com

I just wanted to expand in more detail on what you suggested about the CATERPILLAR® logo within your post on the Human Locator project. Mosty because some of our readers may not remember or have ever noticed (or rather REALLY SEEN) the genius within the CAT® logo and additionally, to make the point that we may be expecting too much from Freeset™ when comparing them to CAT®: Its just a whole new kind of world really… perhaps uncharted territory in terms of logo design and branding. Remember, that the CATERPILLAR® corporation has been around since 1890 or so. It took the company until around 1915 to establish a LASTING corporate identity which emerged only as they perfected the gas powered tractor for the allies in World War I. My point here is I think it is a slippery comparison to attempt to critique the (not yet even corporate) identity of a very new, very small startup software company to that of a 100+ year old machinery manufacturer. Its just not the same world. The Human Locator is so new that I think we have perhaps a unique design problem on our hands in terms of: “How does one BRAND (or market) technology to technophiles and marketers?” I will wager that within TWO years this product and perhaps its parent company will be absorbed within a much larger corperation ANYWAY so perhaps its current independently designed LOGO and/or brand identity SHOULD be seen as merely temporary. Again…I agree with you- their current logo is horrible and does not communicate anything about the techonology OR the potential of the product. But to compare them to a company like CATERPILLAR® may be expecting too much too soon from such an experimental startup. Finally, it is also important to note that human location mapping/surveillence technology in relation to content delivery is not new. Prof. Keith Roberson brought the artist Myron Kruger to my attention. Further research seems necessary.

Islamic Art from The State Hermitage Museum and The Khalili Collection

A page from the Gulshan-i ‘Ishq (The Rose-garden of Love)
by the Sufi poet, Nusrati
India (Hyderabad), c. 1710
Opaque watercolour and gold on paper
© The Khalili Collection, London

25th March 2004 - 3rd October 2004
Everyone in London must see this show!
The most significant exhibition of Islamic art to be held in London since the Festival of Islam at the Hayward Gallery in 1976, this small but dazzling introduction to the art and artefacts of the Islamic world promises to be one of the cultural highlights of the year. Heaven on Earth: Art from Islamic Lands includes artwork representing the finest decorative arts of Islam - calligraphy, textiles, jewels, metalwork, ceramics and paintings, ranging in date from the 9th to the 19th century and covering an area stretching from Spain and the Arab world to Persia and the Indian subcontinent.
www.hermitagerooms.com

regional radarloop

ART.FICIAL EMOTION II: TECHNOLOGICAL DIVERGENCES
Creation numerique: Emoção Art.ficial

The WEB NET MUSEUM is a dynamic museum with international vocation, of strictly private nature. It is intended to replace more traditional institutions to introduce and support artists, works, experiments and events, in connection with the new digital culture. Based in Paris, this art collective has an amazing international scope. This is most definitely a site to retrun to for exhibitions and performances all over the globe.

Link::::www.webnetmuseum.org

This is an amazing site of Squatter stuff found from a link off the Palais de Tokyo links page. You MUST check this out!
Different people, with different backgrounds (e.g. squatters, punks, hackers, etc.) try to work together and collect news and importent stuff on the squatter scene.

Link::::squat.net

Surface to Air is a New York- and Paris based art collective, with a goal to shape a new tradition in fashion and art.
Its a rather cool if not somewhat dated takeover of your desktop.

Surface to Air

Plastic surgeons around the world are being given the chance to show off their talents, in a new artificial beauty pageant in China.

Natural beauties like Miss China Qi Guan will not be eligible

YIKES! This was picked up off BBC Asia Pacific. This is a prime example of Chinese culture over-the-top!
SG.

BBC ASIA PACIFIC ARTICLE::::::::::::::
A contest will be held in October among women who have undergone cosmetic surgery, according to state media.
It will be open to any woman who can prove her beauty is man-made. Plastic surgery is on the increase in China, China Daily newspaper said, with around
20bn yuan ($2.4bn) spent yearly on beauty treatments. The idea for “Miss Plastic Surgery” was reportedly born after a woman was barred from a
traditional beauty contest after spending $13,000 on 11 cosmetic operations. The paper said China now had a million beauty salons, employing six
million people. Their clients range from body-conscious teenage girls to women in their 30s seeking facial jobs and breast implants, it added.
The rise of the salons is based on the assumption that beauty is a route to success, China Daily said, citing findings by US economists which indicated
that good looks increased overall hourly income by 5%. China recently lifted a 54-year ban on beauty pageants, which the authorities used to see as bourgeois and decadent. But the explosion of economic growth and the loosening of social controls of the past few years has led to a growing preoccupation with how people look.

The Miss World contest was held in China for the first time in 2003.

china.org article on the same issue!
Dr. Sha’s Cosmetic Plastic Surgery and Dental Clinic in Shanghai

Hey all this is the copy of an email Mary Balthrop sent me after she looked at the student work site. I thought you might want to know your work is impressing everyone back at International Programs in Tallahassee! Mary was the director of the London Program here for several years. She is now back in Tallahassee. Thanks for your input!

All links are now Pink…as Becca and I have found this color to be quite nice I decided to make the blog match (sort of) the launch of the new Student work site which is posted below. All catgories are now black. Its looking a bit “post-punk” I think. Enjoy.

I am outta here on Thursday. If anyone finds errors on the student work site post them to the BLOG or email them to me and I will fix ASAP. I will also email everyone the new URL for the site once we get it get it online the in Fall. This will be the permanent HOME for the FSU:::London_Summer_EuroGraphica website. So keep checking and adding as you move through your travels in the world. I think it would be great to have one of you back as a visiting speaker you all begin to settle into your careers here in London or wherever you decide to land.

Here’s the link to the student work site again…..I know I’ve posted it before but….just so everyone knows this BLOG is now in pingback and trackback mode….so every link you post to another blog or anyone monitoring pingback and trackbacks will know. This link is posted here to test this functionality.

FSU:::EuroGraphicaSummer2004_Student Work WebCompendium

cheers-
SG

finally.

Check it out and let me know what you think. GREAT time this summer lads! Good luck to all of the brave folks staying behind as we return back to the burning inferno that is FLA…USA.

stay in touch

bon voyage……
sg.

FSU:::EuroGraphicaSummer2004_Student Work WebCompendium