There are over 1,000
recordings of London life on the London Sound Survey website, plus sound maps,
historical references to past London sounds, and some original 1930s and 1940s
radio broadcasts.
All the recordings (which are safely stored in
the sound cloud )are Creative Commons-licensed which makes them available for
NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY. All you have to do under the terms of the license is
include an acknowledgement and a link to the London Sound Survey website at www.soundsurvey.org.uk.
Ian Rawes who compiled the The London Sound Survey works at the British Library sound archive and this collection of sounds is the result of his explorations of the world of Field recordings and acoustic ecologists . His own recordings employ a variety of professional, home made, and adapted devices .
Alinari black and white photographs were used by art historians before the days of good quality colour reproductions in books so that they could view the representations of buildings and works of art that the Italian company photographed. Art history departments bought them for study-put on reserve and/or available for browsing always as representations of a building or a painting, not seen then as interesting as examples of photography.
Over 167,000 photographs have now been digitised and are available on subscription as Alinari 24 Ore to individuals and Institutions at a reasonable price.
Subject areas which would find these images useful as well as art and architectural history include cultural studies, history, economics, sociology and science. It is also possible to search by photographer’s name.
You may be interested in the free access for educational use. The database can be searched and images have a small watermark on them (as in the image above) until you buy the image or subscribe.
London is one of the greenest cities in the world from Exploring 20th Century London
Our Level 4 undergraduates are currently 'in the Field' exploring various places around Cardiff, researching them in groups made up of students from all our different art and design disciplines. They will soon return and engage in creating physical outcomes to their investigations back in their practice studios. I think they may be interested to see how many different aspects there are to a city and how these present visually on this rather fab website.
Phase I of the Exploring 20th century London project is a partnership project between four museums in London:
Museum of London (MoL)
London Transport Museum (LTM)
Jewish Museum, London
Museum of Croydon
The project’s aim is to make the collections held by these museums more accessible, but to do so in a way that links the objects in the collections with the broader history of London. All objects and images featured on the site speak of the real events and experiences of twentieth-century London.
The content covers different types of objects: from Routemaster buses to architectural designs; from 1970s platform shoes to oral history recordings; from paintings and artworks to family photographs. It also includes a mass of supporting information.
more information about this project here
Martha Rosler Library 1 August – 9 November 2008 Stills Edinburgh, 23 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh
The book collection of the American artist Martha Rosler is perhaps the perfect embodiment of her radical vision - and an archive of the marginalised American left. It has travelled the world -here's its journey.
e-flux, New York, 2005-2006, Frankfurter Kunstverien, 2006,
Museum for Contermporary Art, Antwerp, 2006, unitednationsplaza, Berlin, 2007,
Institut national d'histoire d'art, Paris, 2007-2008, Stills, Edinburgh, 2008,
Gallery at the University of Massachussets, Amherst, 2009
Martha Rosler's Library holds books on economy, political theory, war, colonialism, poetry, feminism, science fiction, art history, of children’s books, dictionaries, maps and travel literature as well as photo albums, posters, postcards and newspaper clippings . On exhibition they could be studied at will.
Martha states in thsi video that
"the practice of an artist is based on ideas and criticism and thinking and philosophy and science"
three cheers for that
Now back at rest the library is in the process of being catalogued and can be searched here. There are over 7600 books in the Martha Rosler Library; they can be viewed by their title, author, or at their original location on Martha Rosler's shelves. A keyword search for Feminism finds 555 titles.
Rosler’s website here describes her work thus '(She) works in video, phototography, text,
installation, and performance. Her work deals with the separation of the public
and private sphere, exploring issues from everyday life and the media to
architecture and the built environment'.
She has published 17 books of photography, art, and writing, in several languages. Her essay book Decoys and Disruptions, was published by MIT Press in 2004. Publication of her three-part series, “Culture Class; Art, Creativity, Urbanism,” based on the Third biennial Hermes lecture that she gave in Den Bosch, the Netherlands, in 2010, was recently completed in the e-flux Journal, followed by “From Gentrification to Occupation: The Artistic Mode of Revolution.”
Friends of the Earth in their print journal 'EarthMatters' (July 2012) published a list of ten books thatthey believe changed the Earth. Actually there are plenty of other Top Ten Environment Booklists just try Googling it! There is a Cardiff based slant to this blog entry...I thought I'd check the list against Cardiff Met Library and Cardiff Public Library catalogues-here's the result . Information about how to join Cardiff Public Library is here. Follow the links from the book titles for more information.
This video, by The Economist, features Andrew Dent, vice-president of Material ConneXion,sharing his thoughts on the evolution of material science.
Material ConneXion's online archive and material libraries, based in seven cities world-wide, feature over 6,500 of the world’s most cutting-edge materials all of them commercially available for use.
Andrew Dent believes Material ConneXion will help bridge the gap between science and design as we move from the “synthetic century” into a “biological century”, where intelligent, nature-inspired materials consume less resources and less energy.
An international panel of experts review 50 to 60 new materials for the library every month, adding only the best. The archive is organized in eight categories (see below) comprising the largest selection of sustainable materials and the only Cradle to Cradle materials library in the world: the 8 categories: Polymers, Ceramics, Glass, Metals, Cement-based materials, Natural Materials, Carbon-based materials, Processes An online Materials Database is available at a price to Universities (not available at Cardiff Met).
NewYork, Bangkok, Beijing, Cologne, Daegu, Istanbul, Milan, Seoul, Shanghai all have physical Material Connexions libraries
Feature articles from Matter magazine (published quarterly by Material Connexions) are available to read online . Each edition of the journal follows a specific theme like the special issues on 'Wellness' and 'Technology' and all contain a wealth of information and images relating to innovative materials and their uses.
Would you like to take a journey on the Rhaetian Railway through the Swiss Alps? Or
perhaps you’d prefer to explore the mosaics of Pompeii in Italy. Or gaze upon
the nine-story Roman aqueduct in Segovia, Spain. Or track down the Aboriginal
rock art at Kakadu National Park in Australia.
Google Street View
has left the road and photographed some of the world’s most impressive
monuments and parks. Launched at the end of May in Madrid, the World Wonders
Project is the latest creation from the Paris-based Google Cultural Institute,
a wing of the company that aims to spread culture and history to users around
the globe. To scan inside the Nijo Castle in Kyoto and traverse the
grounds of Stonehenge, Google had to ditch its typical car-mounted scanners.
Instead it created image-capture equipment suitable for adapted tricycles and
vertical trolleys that can be pushed around to capture indoor sites. These
trikes globe-trotted for a whole year, sailing down the Amazon River and
sitting atop the Glacier Express train in Switzerland.
To document 132 heritage sites worldwide, the Google team has
partnered with content providers such as UNESCO, the World Monuments Fund, and
Getty Images The site
is geared towards educational uses , as both students and teachers can
download free lesson plans and presentations.
Another Google Cultural Institute project launched early last
year was The Art Project a collaboration with 17
museums and covering about 1,000 works
of art. In April 2012 , the updated version contained 32,000 artworks from 155
museums. The institute has also digitized Nelson Mandela’s archives, the Dead
Sea scrolls, and documents and photos from the Yad Vashem Centre for Holocaust
research.
The Living Building Challenge has
won the 2012Buckminster Fuller Challenge an annual international design Challenge awarding $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity's most pressing problems.
Published by The International Living Future Institute, a non-governmental organization (NGO) in
America The Living Building Challenge is an intensive green building standard that seeks to define the
highest possible level of environmental performance.
Whether
the project is a single building, a park, a college campus or even a complete
neighborhood community, Living Building Challenge provides a framework for
design, construction and the symbiotic relationship between people and all
aspects of the built environment.It has five imperatives, each of which has to be met
and maintained for a full 12 months before a building can be certified as
“living.” Those imperatives are as follows: a building has to generate all of
its own, renewable energy on-site; a living building has to capture and treatall of its own water; only non-toxic and sustainably-sourced construction materials may be
used; buildings have to be placed on already-developed sites in order to reduce
urban sprawl; and finally, a living building must be beautiful and inspiring to
its occupants and others. More than 140 projects have registered around the world since the Challenge was first released as a certification program in 2006
edge made by finding leaves the same size tearing one
in two spitting underneath and pressing flat on to another Helbeck,
Cumbria October 1983
If you are interested in Landscape from many viewpoints and not just from the aesthetic or Fine Art perspectives then you will enjoy following the thoughts on Landscapism a blog written by Eddie Proctor. His most recent blog is 'a Manifesto for a Working Landscape' which covers all possible aspects of 'Landscape' and contains a plea to bring them all together and stop thinking and planning for them separately. Don't miss the links on the left of his blog page including one to the on-line Preview of the Andy Goldsworthy Digital Catalogue DVD Volume 1: 1976-1986 where you will find rare and early examples of Goldsworthy's work scanned in from his personal slide catalogue and there's also a link to my favourite old rockers who used to work in the music industry and now celebrate nature, beer, music and art in equal measure on their wonderful blog 'Caught By the River'.
ARTIST Damien Hirst who has been valued at £215 million has unveiled plans to build more than 500 landmark eco-homes in Ilfracombe, which he hopes will regenerate the town and provide a national blueprint for environmental housing. The plans involve utilising land at Winsham Farm, which has been owned by Hirst for the past ten years, as well as nearby Channel Farm and Bowden Farm. Mr Rundell said the houses would be modern in design and could incorporate state of the art environmental features such as photovoltaic panels, concealed wind turbines in the roofs and increased insulation. "If we are committed to doing this as Damien wants it, it will happen. Damien is a man who gets things done."
Damien Hirst's latest exhibition, The Complete Spot Paintings, will be held at all 11 Gagosian Galleries across the world. Here's a selection of the works, which the Guardian has provided in a slideshow here
Inhabitat (a weblog forum for emerging trends in architectural interior and product design), in partnership with Philips Lighting recently ran a competition called Bright Ideas Lighting. The idea of the competition was to showcase the potential of LED lighting. They were looking for examples of inspiring eco-friendly lamps that make smart use of materials, and are designed to work with low-energy LED replacement bulbs like Philips AmbientLED. (Since LED bulbs are low heat, this was an opportunity to get creative with other materials that might be off-limits with traditional incandescent bulbs). The panel of expert judges selected 20 finalists based upon aesthetics, creativity, sustainability, practicality, and commercial viability. Readers then voted for the winner.
The winner, designer Edward Chew, cut box drink cartons into hundreds of strips and folded them into pieces to create his Tetra Pak lamp . Along with its retro looks and attractiveness it is also a creative example of upcycled design and craftsmanship – it was even assembled without the use of any adhesives!
Read about the competion and the other winners here
Something for a sunny day with thanks to Sarah Williams
The Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge owns a vast and much of it fragile collection of polar images dating from the earliest famous days of polar exploration to the modern day. The photographs allow searchers to trace the history of polar exploration and also that of polar photography and include images of domestic scenes round camp, aboard the polar vessels, animals polar and expeditionary and staggering landscapes made of ice. These images are now searchable online through Freezeframe, a fully catalogued digital image database of polar exploration photographs from 1845-1982 that has been produced by the Scott Polar Research Institute to support learning, teaching and research into topics relating to the history of Arctic and Antarctic history, exploration, and science.
The images are presented with ancillary material from the collections of the Institute, and critical essays contextualising much of the material.
Ecobuild is the world’s largest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment. Starting today and running until 3 March the conference features more than 600 speakers, 1300 exhibitors, 130 seminars and a packed programme of live demonstrations. If you can't make it to this free event (it's at the ExCeL exhibition and conference centre at the heart of the new Green Enterprise District in London’s Docklands) you can still explore the website and read the Ecobuild blog on which a panel of leading thinkers and doers, from around the industry share their views on the latest news and events every week.
It has long been a common complaint that a visit to Stonehenge is not as soulful an experience as it should by rights be. The best view was always from afar. As one drew near the stones lost their aura and became somehow disappointing, sat by the side of the road and the visitor centre as they were. The architectural practice Denton Corker Marshall, which won the competition to build a new centre , proposes to construct a building 2 km from the Stones that will not be visible from the monument. This webpage features a video which with the magic of digital editing literally wipes away the roads currently near it and leaves Stonehenge to once more impose itself on the landscape. This webpage as well as relating the travails of funding such a large project also posits a new theory on how the stones were moved 150 miles from the Preselli hills to Wiltshire.
'For over twenty years Patricia Johanson has patiently insisted that art can help to heal the earth. For the last ten years she has been creating large-scale projects that posit a radical, yet utterly practical vision. She works with engineers, city planners, scientists and citizens' groups to create her art as functioning infrastructure for modern cities'. you can borrow the book by Kelley from Howard Gardens Library.
Here is a Youtube interview with Patricia Johanson discussing her recently completed biosculpture installation in Finland and talking about her approach to what she does. The video was created for Remediate/Re-vision at Wave Hill in New York, an exhibition curated by Jennifer McGregor in August 2010. Follow the Wave Hill link for a downloadable catalogue of the exhibition so that you may read about the work of 15 major art & ecology artists . I met Patricia in Turkey many years ago at an art and ecology conference. She is articulate and pioneering. She describes her position as 'working at the cutting edge of what is known and what is just hoped for'.
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
From Nov. 20-27, the week before this year's UN Climate Meetings, 350.org coordinated over a dozen major public art installations across the planet. A satellite company, DigitalGlobal documented the project from space. My favourite is this polar bear from Iceland. Look at the link for videos and photos including King Canute trying to keep the sea back in Brighton (designed by Thom Yorke and comprised of people dressed in blue plastic).
Call for Entries (closes 20 December) The National Trust, in collaboration with the NHS Sustainable Development Unit and supported by Arla, one of the largest dairy companies in Europe, is looking to help to fund and distribute a feature documentary film that examines our contemporary relationship with nature. http://site.britdoc.org/pages/820/view/
