cityofsound

World Design Congress 2009, Beijing: Carsten Nicolai / Alva Noto

(Continued from World Design Congress 2009: Day three. Written at the time, last October.)

As noted, I’ve followed Carsten Nicolai’s work for years, so it was a pleasure to see — and hear — him in the flesh. Nicolai, aka Alva Noto, is one of the stalwarts of the avant-garde electronica/noise/sound scene, but also works as a visual artist, as we’ll see.

For some time before the scheduled start, there are clearly set up issues with Herr Nicolai’s equipment. There is lots of quiet, concentrated discussion around the projector and sound set up. The projector resolution doesn't seem sharp at all, and worried-looking young organisers are all talking into headsets, making agitated waves up to the AV booth at the back of the auditorium. Throughout, Nicolai is calm and considered but insistent. With little else to look at, I note that he’s an elegant dresser - loose, dark wool flared trousers, grey top, deep burgundy scarf, impeccable white Adidas.

Finally, everything is good enough. The projector still isn’t as sharp as it needs to be, but Nicolai starts with a short video ... It’s a crisp glitch piece, with patterns of dots on screen. Then the fizz and static and rumble of a distant roar, until visual and aural static takes over. It’s the kind of start I’d expected, and a good one.

Contingent: recent films by BERG/Dentsu London and Keiichi Matsuda

Two (or three) recent films are worth watching for how they accurately depict the grain of the future. They are 'Making Future Magic' by BERG/Dentsu London:

And 'Augmented City'/'Domestic Robocop' by Keiichi Matsuda:

Both films - I'm counting Matsuda's as one film for the sake of argument - are interesting as they convey a sense of contingency in contemporary media technologies and informatics, or near-future extrapolations of such things. They indicate that such technologies are slightly awkward, incomplete, jittery, fizzing in and out of focus. And yet magical. Coverage is patchy, positioning vague, interaction is compromised yet the capabilities of people, buildings and cities are extended nonetheless. The aesthetic of both films - though quite different - is fascinating in terms of conjuring this sensation. (It's a sensation I tried to describe in text with The Street as Platform.)

Dentsu/BERG's reminds me of the work of Len Lye to some extent, and I can pay no higher compliment (and their collaborator Timo Arnall deserves special mention once again).

It's a form of light painting, which is as old as film itself in some respects despite their utterly contemporary methodology. And while it's difficult to see an application for it other than as raw aesthetic, and so lending itself neatly to branding and cinema, it's powerful precisely because of that aesthetic. 

As with Matsuda's masterful short film, the various augmented components twitch, jitter, blur, fade, wobble, jiggle, shiver, fade, snap, crackle, pop, hiss. Watching those blocky letters jelly about in mid-air is oddly familiar for something we've never seen before. For working with these and related technologies quickly reveals that they are contingent, awkward, unpredictable and far from the seamless experience generally depicted in films, promos (or my own designs for urban interaction, if I'm honest - though here we hit the tricky question of selling such ideas to clients, who in the case of city governments and property developers will rarely want to hear about contingency. Still, much of the most interesting, influential and useful work is without client at the moment.)

In Matsuda's worlds everything is interface and everything is social media, spam and partially relevant advertising, the holy trinity of internet background noise. This is an architect who understands that spatial intelligence now includes an understanding of data as material, just as architecture understands other materials such as glass, steel and plastic. And as such, an understanding of the essential limits, stresses, tensions and density of these new materials too. Or transmaterial as Mitchell Whitelaw would say. (Though watching the 3D 'Augmented City' without the glasses is probably even closer to how technology feels. Everything only just works, but even that is incredible.)

This sense of contingency can even be heard in the background noise incorporated into Matt Brown's soundtrack or in the crackly static Muzak underpinning 'Domestic Robocop'.

It's also a good example of how design itself can hover between research and art, being neither and both. Contingent. The BERGers are old friends, and though I don't know Matsuda, I'd guess that none of them would call themselves artists. Or researchers for that matter. But this work is, well, hovering in that indeterminate space, like a perfect 10 or a false 9.

There's something else: that these are films. Video is rapidly becoming the pre-eminent mode for communication of ideas (just as everyday photography is increasingly becoming video too). My day-job regularly involves discussions about whether animated 3D models or films are best for conveying ideas. Here both are used but film is the dominant medium, and the visions of all the designers here are interesting precisely because they can be situated in a film world with the gritty texture of reality, rather than the smooth polygons of pure animation.

Making Future Magic: BERG and Dentsu London
Keiichi Matsuda

Three taxis: Shanghai, Helsinki, Turin

See also
Three taxis: Melbourne, Beijing, Milan
Three taxis: Sydney, Hong Kong (arrival), Wellington

'Urbanism in the House', Tuomas Toivonen

One of the related highlights of HDL Global was meeting Helsinki-based architect Tuomas Toivonen (who has the great studio NOW), and in particular hearing him perform his new record ‘Urbanism in the House’ a couple of times.

Put simply, which is probably the best way with something like this, ‘Urbanism in the House’ is a record - and yes, on vinyl - that consists largely of a smart history of modern architecture and urbanism delivered in Tuomas’ Finnish-accented rap and set to metronomic house backdrop. Of course! Toivonen points out that house is the most architectural of genres, after all ...

I was lucky enough to see Toivonen perform it at the opening dinner for HDL Global (Sitra are, I believe, in some way a patron of the project, hence the tie-in with HDL and Low2No), and then again at an album launch party in a club a couple of days later (with Bryan Boyer, Justin Cook, Marko Ahtisaari, Rory Hyde and Cynthia Shanmugalingam).

Live, it’s quite something. In his track 'Teachers' (loosely based on Daft Punk) Tuomas name-checks everyone from Cedric Price to Sejima, while 'U is for Utopia' roll-calls “Mr. Ebenezer Howard and his theory of three magnets”, La Ville Radieuse and 'Less is a Bore'. To watch the room, er, 'blow up' in both cases was both surreal and immensely pleasing. Only in Helsinki?

Here’s the video of the first track ‘U is for Utopia’:

You can hear it at Myspace, or buy it here. And there's also an interview with Tuomas towards the end of the latest Monocle Weekly.

Suomenlinna

I’m just back from another intellectually enriching visit to Helsinki for a Sitra strategic design event. HDL Global 2010 followed the Helsinki Design Lab studio I was part of earlier in the year, and combined notes on all this to follow. For now, the HDL site provides a great record of events.

The video was taken on Suomenlinna (Wikipedia) the sea fortress guarding the harbour in Helsinki, which turned out to be a wonderfully contemplative place to sit and read the briefing notes for the Sustainability session I was moderating at the event.

(I must also admit to another sly bit of 'method designing' here too, as Suomenlinna was the venue for the first Helsinki Design Lab in 1968, which featured Buckminster Fuller, Victor Papanek, Christopher Alexander et al.)