installation

The Houston Fence is a temporary outdoor installation on chain-link fences inspired by QR code barcode patterns. It is located at the intersection of Broadway and Houston in New York City, a crossroads notorious for its heavy traffic. The project was built as a result of a commission to improve fences put in place for a major street infrastructure construction project.

The project's blog can be accessed by mobile devices by means of QR code stickers placed on the fences.

The team behind the project is composed by Carolina Cisneros, Carlos J. Gomez de Llarena and Mateo Pintó, the same group that made the Fulton Fence previously.

Another season, another exhibition worth taking the train to Florence for at Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina.

Marnix de Nijs' latest installation, Exploded Views - Remapping Firenze, spectacularly recreates a visual and dynamic body experience of the city. Minus the added visual layer of the hordes of tourists who walk through its cobbled streets every day.

See for yourself:

I encountered Stockholm-based artist Albin Karlsson's work at the recent Icon Experiment, an island of interesting projects of an otherwise often ghastly design expo at the ExCeL center in London's uber-gentrified Docklands.

1g/min spinning a fine web

The Helga de Alvear gallery in Madrid is currently running a (very timely) exhibition on the controversial topic of Extraordinary Rendition. The expression was coined by the Bush administration to define new legal measures designed to sidestep the existing Human Rights system and deprive some individuals from its protection in the name of the fight against terrorism.

Detainees at Camp X-Ray, at Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

I'm back from Asturias which was as lovely as ever. We even had real vegetable to eat this time. The LAboral Art and Industrial Creation Centre in Gijón was opening Banquete_nodos y redes, Interactions Between Art, Science, Technology and Society in Spain's Digital Culture, an exhibition initiated by Karin Ohlenschläger and Luis Rico.

View of the LABoral shop and of the inauguration party right above it

From what i can learn from the press we are living in food mayhem: yesterday morning a nutritionist was complaining on French tv that because the country had turned its back on the usual bread and jam breakfast in favour of American-style fat and sugar-loaded cereals, the population was at risk of fattening. In the afternoon, i was reading in La Repubblica that the soaring costs of pasta, bread, fruit and vegetables are making Mediterranean diet harder to afford. Italians are eating more cheap processed foods high in fat, sugar and salt (via WSJ.) The whole continent is complaining about the food crisis.

I'm back from New York for more than a week and getting ready for new adventures in little Europe. Time to turn a page on the transcontinental trip by throwing in a couple of posts the best exhibitions i saw while i was in Manhattan. Some of them are still up till the end of the month, others have already closed their doors. Here we go...

It's not everyday that Dick Cheney gives its title to an art exhibition.

In the weeks following September 11, the U.S. Vice President justified a steep increase of surveillance measures by explaining that "Many of the steps we have now been forced to take will become permanent in American life. They represent an understanding of the world as it is, and dangers we must guard against perhaps for decades to come. I think of it as the new normalcy." Almost 7 years later, the collection and sharing of personal data by governments, luggage searches, Internet monitoring, and wiretaps have indeed become part of a "new normal" in American life.

View of the exhibition space

As promised two days ago, here's more details about Homo Ludens Ludens, a new exhibition which reflects on the various roles fulfilled by play in our digital era. Homo Ludens Ludens opened on April 18 at LABoral the Center for Art and Industrial Creation which means that i was back in Gijon, Asturias, land of monster squids, rosy cheeks, deep-fried and vegetable-free diet, gorgeous landscapes and sidra thrown all over your favorite sneakers.

The result of the elections in Italy (where i half live) is saddening me beyond words.

The Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo in Sevilla is currently running an exhibition dedicated to Ant Farm, a group of experimental architects and critical artists active mostly in the '70s. The exhibition includes videos, models, original drawings, inflatables and all the quiet you can expect in a cultural center located inside a stunning monastry on the bank of the Guadalquivir River, the Monasterio de la Cartuja de Santa María de Las Cuevas.

Monasterio de la Cartuja de Santa María de Las Cuevas

Nice, nice. I've lost my connecting flight and now i'm stuck in Madrid Barajas waiting for the next flight to Sevilla. It's an 8 hour wait but i'm on my way to ZEMOS98 so i am still cheerful.

Anyway, gives me plenty of time to catch up with the emails and the long overdue posts. So back to New York where i was a few days ago and the Exit Art gallery. I'm still wondering how this place managed to escape my radar so far.

Yesterday i was in Hasselt (Belgium) to visit the exhibition PLACE@SPACE - (re)shaping everyday life at Z33.

Was taken last week at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies at La Jolla, California which Kati London and I visited courtesy of Lev Manovich and Jeremy Douglass. The institute was built by architect Louis Kahn as two symmetric concrete buildings with a thin stream of water flowing in the middle of a courtyard that separates the two. Too bad my images don't do justice to this amazing building.

Last week i flew to one of my favourite cities, Liverpool, to visit the Sk-interfaces exhibition at the FACT art center. The show, curated by Jens Hauser, explores, materially and metaphorically, the concept of skin as a technological interface.

France Cadet had showed us slides of the Hunting Trophies she was working on during the presentation she gave at De l'objet de laboratoire au sujet social (From Laboratory Object to Social Subject), a week of lectures, screenings and workshops she organized at the Ecole d'Art d'Aix en Provence (France.) That was last November and i've been looking forward to see the final result of the work ever since. That day has come, yeah!

Panthera Leo (Lion)

Like with previous feature The Science of Sleep, Michel Gondry has an accompanying installation project for Be Kind Rewind, recreating the video store from the film at the Deitch Projects gallery.

Those wanting to test their acting chops will be able to make their own cinematic odes in the gallery's back lot, which will feature a variety of movie sets. All videos made during the exhibition will be on view inside the gallery. Gondry says, “I don’t intend nor have the pretension to teach how to make films. Quite the contrary. I intend to prove that people can enjoy their time without being part of the commercial system and serving it. Ultimately, I am hoping to create a network of creativity and communication that is guaranteed to be free and independent from any commercial institution.

Source: Wired

Like with previous feature The Science of Sleep, Michel Gondry has an accompanying installation project for Be Kind Rewind, recreating the video store from the film at the Deitch Projects gallery.

Those wanting to test their acting chops will be able to make their own cinematic odes in the gallery's back lot, which will feature a variety of movie sets. All videos made during the exhibition will be on view inside the gallery. Gondry says, “I don’t intend nor have the pretension to teach how to make films. Quite the contrary. I intend to prove that people can enjoy their time without being part of the commercial system and serving it. Ultimately, I am hoping to create a network of creativity and communication that is guaranteed to be free and independent from any commercial institution.

Source: Wired

Last month, i went to Florence to visit Emotional Systems, the inaugural exhibition of the brand new Strozzina.

The Fulton Fence is a temporary installation in Fulton Street, New York City on view through the spring of 2008. The project is a response to the effects of development; in particular the visual pollution created by the presence of construction sites in a small concentrated area.

The project is also online as a 'digital' site and is linked to the street intervention by signs that show a mobile barcode and a URL which can be accesed by any mobile internet-enabled device.

This website parallels the physical intervention in lower Manhattan, and explores the notion of "site" as both location and information such as the project's process, localized widgets, street history and visiting traffic statistics among others.