"The Planners" by Boey Kim Cheng

The Planners

Boey Kim Cheng

They plan. They build. All spaces are gridded,

filled with permutations of possibilities.

The buildings are in alignment with the roads

which meet at desired points

linked by bridges all hang

in the grace of mathematics.

They build and will not stop.

Even the sea draws back

and the skies surrender.

They erase the flaws,

the blemishes of the past,

knock off useless blocks with dental dexterity.

All gaps are plugged with gleaming gold.

The country wears perfect rows of shining teeth.

Anaesthesia,amnesia, hypnosis.

They have the means.

They have it all so it will not hurt,

so history is new again. The piling will not stop.

The drilling goes right through the fossils of last century.

But my heart would not bleed

poetry. Not a single drop

to stain the blueprint

of our past’s tomorrow.

 

Custom Wrap - Rudolph the Red Nose Pandeer.

Happy Christmas, 2017!

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A1 - 14.8MB

A2 - 7.2MB

A3 - 3.3MB

A4 - 1.7MB

Sexuality in glass buildings.

Dezeen reports of people fucking in full-frontal in the Public hotel in NYC:

Horny guests at New York's newly opened hotel Public are ruffling the feathers of neighbours by leaving the curtains open while they have sex. 

Developed by legendary hotelier Ian Schrager and designed by Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, the 28-storey building at 215 Chrystie Street has only been open for two months. 

But complaints are flooding in from residents of neighbouring buildings, who say Public's floor-to-ceiling windows are providing unwanted views of the X-rated activities taking place in the rooms.
Those living in apartments at 10 Stanton Street have described some of the things they have witnessed to the New York Post. 

"Guys are together, girls and girls are together. They don't even pull the shades down," said Leonor Fernandez, 68. 

"You see them having sex all the time, hands on the window," said 26-year-old Melissa Santos, who lives in the same building. "Not like I'm a peeping Tom, but from the corner of my eye, you can see this going on four times a week."

It's interesting to me how cultural norms have shifted how people view sexuality in glass buildings.  One of the earliest feminist critiques of glass buildings was that transparency was prohibitive to sexuality as people constantly felt their privacy invaded upon.  But like everything else we have to view these critiques against the times.  Perhaps today's proliferation of amateur pornography and advance views of sex (that do not seek to demonise or cover up) have made people less shy about sex and to some extent fucking in public or behind a screen--maybe even necessarily performative/ exhibitionistic.  So while glass may have been prohibitive for sex for some back in the day, it may be the only material that gets people off today.

Custom Wrap - Panta Klaus.

Panta Klaus

Dec 2016

Various Sizes, Colour

1x + 2x scaled mock-up

Tis the season to be panny!  Enjoy!

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A1 (2x) - 8.55MB

A2 (2x) - 4.30MB

A3 (1x) - 6.95MB

A4 (1x) - 1.34KB

"Everybody believes they are the good guy."

Amaryllis Fox a former CIA Clandestine Service officer, “If I learned one lesson from my time with the CIA, it is this: Everybody believes they are the good guy.”

Custom Wrapper - Dragon Birthday.

2016 February, Jon's Birthday

Various sizes, Color

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A1 - 6.78MB

A2 - 2.82MB

A3 - 1.43MB

A4 - 729KB

JR's Louvre Pyramid Installation.

(Images from Design Boom and Wallpaper)

I love this installation at the Louvre so much!!!

From Wallpaper:

Last week, as a black and white simulacrum of the Louvre’s grand architecture began to mask IM Pei’s pyramid that stands in its forecourt, the person responsible could be found among those already taking photos. French artist JR had positioned himself at the point that the optical illusion – the ‘anamorphose’ – revealed a level of perfection that would have impressed and amused the kings and emperors who had once called this palace home. 

JR has been making giant photographic gestures around the world for upwards of a dozen years, often focusing on human faces so that the favela rooftops of Rio di Janeiro or the outside wall of the Tate Modern project groups of people as iconic statements. He puts the graphic into demographics. Yet it’s safe to say this might be his most audacious intervention so far. Here, the glass and steel pyramid becomes camouflaged by an exceedingly precise scan of the Pavilion Sully rising in the background. Consider it an architectural throwback by street art’s most monumental portraitist.  

The Louvre, which has a history of inviting contemporary artists to create a temporary site-specific work, began speaking with JR roughly around a year ago; and while the idea didn’t take long, working through the technical details did. The same specialists who worked on JR’s installation at the Panthéon in 2014 executed the installation of the film.
Up close, the arches, mullions and stonework become an abstracted pattern of Ben-Day dot pixilation (JR noted that the film will not leave residue on the glass once removed). Every element of the entry – from the recessed framing to the door pulls – has been covered with bits of the image to maintain total continuity. Something you won’t see: any corporate logos or sponsorship names. The project was self-funded, an aspect that JR says remains crucial to the way he works.  

‘I couldn’t have been born ten years earlier in the sense that everything I do is with the media of my time. Taking digital photos, sharing them on social networks, traveling to all these destinations around the world, working without brands,’ he tells Wallpaper*. ‘The way in which I work reflects the time in which I live.’ 

Despite cancelling out a structure that has never won over all Parisians, JR says the project is not intended as a critical commentary. Rather, he’s encouraging people to interact differently with the pyramid, proposing an ephemeral twist to an institution anchored in preservation. 

‘This polemic – was it better before – what does that actually mean? I did not know it before; I am of the generation who grew up with the pyramid. This is a question that largely depends on how people have lived with the pyramid,' he offers. 

Still, a brief occasion to imagine the Louvre without its modern addition might fulfil a fantasy for some. For everyone else, because the anamorphic image only covers the pyramid’s outward side, JR’s disruption won’t preclude a view of Pei’s most famous creation in its original state. 

But already, people have begun queuing at the spot where the ‘disappearance’ takes place. And for 24 hours from Saturday afternoon through Sunday, JR has invited a roster of artists including Daniel Buren, Felice Varini and Agnès Varda to participate in interactive programming – much of it open to the public. 

In this way, the overall project transcends an ambitious stunt to become an part of the collective memory. ‘It’s a little like magic; how will people discuss and share and repeat it – and in a way that’s often changed or amplified from the reality,’ he says. ‘It fascinates me to think of how people will remember the image when it no longer exists.’

///  References ///

Amy Verner, "Disappearing act: artist JR makes IM Pei's Louvre pyramid vanish," Wallpaper, 27 May 2016, http://www.wallpaper.com/art/artist-JR-makes-IM-Peis-pyramid-at-the-Louvre-vanish

Nia Azzarello, "JR completes monumental anamorphic artwork on the louvre's glass pyramid," Design Boom, 28 May 2016, http://www.designboom.com/art/jr-louvre-museum-installation-paris-05-24-2016/