Hasta La Creative!

Back in July, while i was visiting Documenta 12 in Kassel, i saw a 16-metre-long flower-bed raised above the ground, with 70 packets of seeds sprouting from the grass, each of them carrying worrying labels that documented the latest form of Colonialism: biopiracy.

Photo documenta 12

Biopiracy describes a new form of “colonial pillaging” in which western corporations reap profits by taking out patents on indigenous plants, food, local knowledge, human tissues and drugs from developing countries and turning them into lucrative products. Only in few cases are the benefits shared with the country of origin.

Biopiracy targets particularly countries known for their exceptionally high level of cultural and biological variety: Mexico, India, Brazil, Indonesia and Australia. This process is also referred to as “internal conquest” in analogy to the “external conquest” of colonialism.

In her Siegesgärten (Victory gardens, 2007) installation, Vienna artist Ines Doujak criticized the bio-politics of EU and the USA which turn a blind eye on the ruthless economization of nature and of life. The seed packets sprouting from the flower-bed informed visitors about global exploitation, genetic engineering and monoculture. On the front of the packets are photo-collages showing drag queens and kings and fetish secual practices set in exotic natural settings. On the back, the conditions and consequences of biopiracy are described and illustrated using real examples of the practice.

“We fear an increasing dependency on large corporations that seek to control global food production and agriculture by means of patents, from milk to bread and from baking grains to energy plants”, explained patent expert Christoph Then (via no patents on seeds.)

I had kept the artwork somewhere in the back of my mind, feeling that i needed to investigate the matter deeper. Now, Doujak has collected the images and texts relating to her work in a book which is partly in german and partly in english.

This is an eye-opening book (at least for me). I don’t think i’ll ever shop the same way again. Except that it’s not going to be easy. I can boycott a few cosmetics but how could i live without the giant which has been accused of being the “biggest threat to genetic privacy” for its alleged plan to create a searchable database of genetic information: Google? In her book, Doujak retraces many cases of biopiracy, while giving a context for the practice.

In 1980, Ananda Chakrabarty became the first person to receive a patent for a transgenic organism, a bacterium he had engineered to digest oil. Previously, life forms had been excluded from patent laws. The landmark patent has since paved the way for many others on genetically modified micro-organisms and other life forms.

5 years later, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office allowed GM plants, seeds and plant tissues to be patented. And by 1987 animal patenting followed. Today even human gene sequences, cell lines and stem cells are permitted. Corporate interests can thus corner life forms for the lifetime of a patent and have a monopoly on their exploitation. With the advent of nanotechnology comes the rise of what the Captain Hook Awards call the nanopirates, those who claim ownership of the molecules and even the elements that everything is made from.

Image documenta 12

As Ines Doujak writes in the book:

The stories collected by the artists are fearsome, here’s just a couple of them:

– Genetic material from members of some indigenous communities in Brazil and Venezuela can be purchased for 85 dollars through the Internet. It is unclear whether the samples were obtained with the full and informed consent of the individuals and of the Brazilian government. Another issue is whether there are guarantees in place to ensure equitable distribution of the knowledge and profits generated from the samples.

– A coalition of indigenous farmers in Peru protests against the multinational corporation Syngenta’s patent for ‘terminator technology’ potatoes. The patent involves a genetic-modification process that ‘switch off’ seed fertility, and can therefore prevent farmers from using, storing and sharing seeds and storage organs such as potato tubers. The Indigenous Coalition Against Biopiracy in the Andes says that by commercialising such potatoes, the corporation would threaten more than 3,000 local potato varieties that form the basis of livelihoods and culture for millions of poor people. They also fear that pollen from the modified potatoes could contaminate local varieties and prevent their tubers from sprouting.

Some of the cases described in the book are comforting, they show how organized action can reverse unfair processes. That’s what happened with quinoa, a plant cultivated in the Andes for 6000 years. In 1994, scientists from Colorado University were granted a patent to a Bolivian species. This means they could also control the rights to any hybrids created using the Apelawa variety, including many traditional varieties grown by peasant farmers in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile as well as varieties important in Bolivia’s quinoa export market.

As the president of the Bolivian National Association of Quinoa Producers said at the time: “Our intellectual integrity has been violated by this patent,” he said, “Quinoa has been developed by the Andean agriculturists for millennia, it wasn’t ‘invented’ by researchers in North America.” Protests proved successful: the patent was dropped in 1998.

A second case with annulment of a questionable patent concerns the Hagahai people (Papua New Guinea). Their first contact with the outside world was in 1984. Viruses and illnesses resulted in this contact decimated the Hagahai to such extent that they were under threat of extinction. Foreign researchers administered the vaccination needed but also took some DNA samples (without their knowledge). They discovered that the people is immune to leukaemia and degenerative neurological illnesses. The genetic qualities of the Hagahai were patented in the United States. Worldwide protests led to the annulment of the patent.

More images
from her work at documenta, Kassel.

An Atlas of Radical Cartography, edited by artists Lize Mogel and Alexis Bhagat (Amazon USA and UK)

The editors say: An Atlas of Radical Cartography is a collection of 10 maps and 10 essays about social issues from globalization to garbage; surveillance to extraordinary rendition; statelessness to visibility; deportation to migration. The map is inherently political– and the contributions to this book wear their politics on their sleeves.

An Atlas of Radical Cartography provides a critical foundation for an area of work that bridges art/design, cartography/geography, and activism. The maps and essays in this book provoke new understandings of networks and representations of power and its effects on people and places. These new perceptions of the world are the prerequisites of social change.

New York City Garbage Machine, by the Center for Urban Pedagogy

The slipcase contains a set of ten maps and a collection of essays by artists, architects, designers, and writers who illuminate the maps and explore their role as political agent. An Atlas is one of the most intelligent, thought-provoking and original publications i’ve read in a long long time.

First there is a purely aesthetic pleasure of unfolding the maps and discovering the careful, unique and innovative design of each one.

Then the essays are engrossing. They are written by people who have a story to tell you, they are passionate about it, they are angry or worried by the current state of affair but they are also smart enough to know that the best way to solve a problem is to adopt a pro-active attitude.

Right from the cover, showing an “upside-down”map, we are faced with the fact that even the most banal and innocent-looking map has its own agenda, that it is extremely difficult to separate cartography from politics and ideology. Far from being neutral accessories which would merely help you go from point A to point B, maps are often used as instruments for controlling and shaping beliefs. Conversely, maps can also be at the service of protest and social change. That’s what the contributors of the Atlas demonstrate. Deliberately, openly and quite convincingly.

Unnayan | Chetla Lock Gate, Marginal Land Settlement in Calcutta, 1984 (detail)

The first map transports you a few decades ago in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Formed in the mid-late 70s, Unnayan was a civil activist groups which campaigned on dwelling, health, labour, schooling and various rights-related issues met by communities in urban and rural areas of eastern India. Unnayan was involved in projects that including preparing maps that identified settlements which existed in Calcutta at the time but were blanked out in officila maps. Elaborated in collaboration with the communities, the maps helped them locate water pumps, roads, but it also made these communities visible on a space which official maps would otherwise define as “vacant land.” The vast majority of these maps are destroyed by floods or stolen. Jai Sen, a member of Unnayan, reconstructs fragments of these experiments and puts them on record in Other Worlds, Other Maps: Mapping the Unintended City, his contribution for An Atlas of Radical Cartography.

Institute for Applied Autonomy, iSee

All the other maps are contemporary.

The Institute for Applied Autonomy discusses tactical cartography and how locative media technology can be used by activists as cold and precise weapons to foster critical social engagement. They illustrate the concept by detailing their project iSee, a web-based application developed in collaboration with NYCLU and the Surveillance Camera Players to chart the locations of CCTV cameras in Manhattan. By checking iSee, users can find routes that avoid these cameras (“paths of least surveillance”) allowing them to walk around their cities without fear of being “caught on tape” by unregulated security monitors. Their essay explains how stories about the iSee application spread all over the media and generated a series of discussions and debates amongst a -so far- unsuspecting audience. The work also extended to camera-mapping workshops which assumed the double role of rendering the proliferation of surveillance cameras tangible to a general audience and creating an empirical basis for challenging policing and public safety policy.

Visible Collective/Naeem Mohaimen interviews Trevor Paglen about his investigation into extraordinary rendition flights, the tension between art and activism as exemplified by a look at Mark Lombardi‘s drawings and Ashley Hunt‘s maps, the reasons why cartography shouldn’t be confused with geography, etc.

Olivier Clochard and Philippe Rekacewicz, Death at Europe frontiers

I found An Architektur‘s contribution to the book illuminating. Because of what i read in the media and because of the intense pleasure i experience when i am treated like a delinquent by the “immigration” officers each time my plane land in the U.S., i often have this vision that the U.S. is the evil one in the quest of security and border control. An Architektur, a collective that applies sociopolitical questions to space and architecture, proves me wrong by exposing the European Union’s efforts to tighten its borders against asylum seekers and people looking for a better life. Hence, the need to close hermetically the access to EU and to park inside a migration camp anyone managing to jump above the wired fences. An Architektur points to several maps which illustrate the issue such as Migreurop‘ s From European Migration and Asylum Policies. to Camps for Foreigners map (PDF), – Hackitectura‘s map that rethinks the frontier between Morocco and Spain, replacing the concept of border as space of separation with site of connection and reciprocal flow, etc. A striking example is the article and map called Death at Europe frontiers where Olivier Clochard and Philippe Rekacewicz document the death occurred while trying to reach the territory of the European Union. Only documented death are taken into account but their number goes way beyond the 7 000 between 1993 and 2006 (3 000 from December 2003 to 2006). The map shows that danger doesn’t stop when the border is crossed. Once inside the EU, migrants have to face racist attacks, unsafe working conditions for the illegals, police repression, internment camps, etc.

Pedro Lasch, Guías de Ruta / Route Guides, 2003/2006,

These were just a few lines about 4 of the maps and essays you’ll find in An Atlas of Radical Cartography. There’s also Pedro Lasch’s beautifully symbolic map of the America/Latin America relationships, Lize Mogel’s politically heavy re-lecture of the map of the San Francisco Bay Area, Jane Tsong’s children science textbook-style drawings which reveal what it takes to be able to turn on the tap in her bathroom, the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s well-documented New York City Garbage Machine describes the fight for power over the bins, Brooke Singer’s The US Oil Fix demonstrates the impact that the US addiction to fossil fuels has on the rest of the world and Ashley Hunt’s A World Map tackles the world capitalist system.

An Atlas takes also the form of a touring exhibition which is making a stop over unitl May 6, 2008 at Dowd Fine Art Gallery, SUNY Cortland, NY.

Related: Resistant Maps (part 1) – Introduction, Resistant Maps (part 2) – GuerrigliaMarketing.

Ground-up City. Play as a Design Tool, edited by Liane Lefaivre and Döll.

010 publishers says: Ground-up City. Play as a Design Tool maps the continuing history of an urban design strategy for play in the city. Liane Lefaivre has developed a theoretical model for tackling playgrounds as an urban strategy. She steps off from a historical overview of play and the ludic in art, architecture and urban design, focusing particularly on the post-war playgrounds realized in Amsterdam as joint ventures between Aldo van Eyck, Cornelis van Eesteren and Jakoba Mulder.

Ground-up City places the playground high on the agenda as an urban design challenge. It also shows how specifying a generic, academic model for a particular situation can lead to a practically applicable design resource.

Urban Golf (image)

The first interesting aspect of the book is that it was written by a theorist and an architecture firm both very keen on exploring the potential of playgrounds as a means to connect people together, to increase a sense of community and to improve the integration of immigrants into the city.

Liane Lefaivre is Professor and Chair of History and Theory of Architecture, University of Applied Art, Vienna, and Research Associate at the Technical University of Delft. The architecture firm D̦ll РAtelier voor Bouwkunst has developed a practice where creativity and innovation are deployed in order to tackle the design task in an undogmatic way.

Lefaivre has been investigating playgrounds for years, tracking the archive of urban playgrounds Aldo van Eyck had told her about before he died, setting up an exhibition about playgrounds and design for children at the Stedelijk museum in 2002, and writing numerous books on architecture, playgrounds and van Eyck.

Bertelmanplein, 1947 (image)

The legacy of Van Eyck pervades the book. The Dutch architect is famous for having designed the playgrounds that almost everyone who grew up in Amsterdam during the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s have played in.

In 1947, the young architect was asked to design a small public playground for Bertelmanplein, a residential area in the Dutch capital. Van Eyck designed a sandpit bordered by a wide rim. He adeed four round stones and a structure of tumbling bars. Bordering the square were trees and five benches. Van Eyck also designed the playground equipment with the objective that it could stimulate the minds of children. The first playground was a success. Many playground commissions followed and Van Eyck adapted his compositional techniques to each site.

Of the 700 playgrounds realised by van Eyck between 1947 and 1978, 90 still maintained their original layout in 2001, though sometimes equipment designed by others had been added. With the playgrounds, he had the opportunity to put the needs of the child and neighbourhood democracy at the centre of town-planning and urban renewal.

Playgrounds are hardly ever taken seriously in urban projects, at least not as much as car parking or street density for example. Besides, the emphasis is usually on safety rather than spontaneity and creativity.

Pink Ghost by Périphériques

In their chapter about “The Nature of Play”, Döll explains that There is a need for an inspiring alternative that cultivates the potential of homo ludens in an urban context. They set out to demonstrate that the city is already full of playful opportunities by listing some of the most inspiring examples of the re-appropriation of public space by city dwellers: Ingo Vetter’s exploration of Urban Agriculture, free-running, urban golf, street football, rockabilly fans gathering for dance sessions in Tokyo parks on Sunday afternoons, Stadtlounge in St Gallen by Pipilotti Rist and Carlos Martinez, a blue house, Pink Ghost in Paris by Périphériques Architectes, etc.

Stadtlounge (image)

Lefaivre then kicked in again with a long and fascinating chapter on the place of play, in particular in the art world, from XVIthe century Dutch paintings to Carsten Höller’s Test Site at Tate Modern. Another focus of the chapter is the history of post-war playgrounds, in particular in Amsterdam.

Playground for the over 60

Lefaivre and Döll had the opportunity to apply their ideal of top-down (driven by the citizens themselves) playground design in a study they realized in two urban redevelopment areas in Rotterdam. Oude Westen in the inner city and Meeuwenplaat in Hoogvliet, both defined as “multicultural neighbourhoods” experiencing social problems. They asked children to give them a tour of their neighbourhood, to take pictures of anything in their area on which they had a positive or negative opinion and to report on how and where they play. See Döll, Work / The World is My Playground.

Image: D̦lll РAtelier voor Bouwkunst

The study has received much interest in the field of public space and play but its materialization into policy and practice is still accompanied by a big question mark.

An interesting appendix is the one made of the interviews carried out by Lefaivre with 2 artists and a curator whose practice involves a particular attention to play: Dan Graham, Erwin Wurm, Jerome Sans.

I picked up that book without thinking too much while i was in my favourite Berlin bookshop, it followed me reluctantly in my suitcase and i only opened it the other day because i was stuck in a hotel room without internet. It might have been one of the very first times that i said “thank you” to the evil and capricious spirits that govern internet connections. Ground-up City is an inspiring little book.

More playground: Playful Parasites, A playground under the table, Playing with urban geography, etc.

Image on the homepage: Daniel Ilabaca does a cat balance, by Jon Lucas.

And one for the road:

Tactile – High Touch Visuals, edited by R. Klanten, S. Ehmann and M. Huebner. (Amazon USA and UK.)

Publisher Die Gestalten says: Tactile shows how graphic design is moving into three-dimensional objects and products. The innovative examples documented in the book demonstrate how designers are developing and implementing their ideas spatially from the very outset of a project. Tactile proves that spatial innovation in graphic design is not limited to personal work or artistic endeavours, but is being sought out more and more often by commercial clients, for example, in store design.

When i’m in Berlin, i spend ages in bookshops, i’d leaf through a book, wondering whether i should buy it or not. If it’s a book about contemporary design or art, i feel like the old bat who’ve seen most of what’s inside the book at a biennale or fair. Sometimes i discover the work of an artist i like in the book, i’ll then take my notepad and pen (sorry to disappoint anyone who thinks i’m cool enough to have blackberry or i-phone) and write down the name of the artist, and once i’m back home i google the name. But sometimes there is a book that makes me say “Gosh! i’m still such an ignorant, am i not?” I turn page after page and discover creators i’d never heard about. Go! I collect my bonus, and go straight to the cash machine.

Tactile is one of those book. It demonstrates in a very visual way (there’s very very little text inside) how digital technology has freed designers from their screens and sheets of paper and allowed them to explore 3D with collages, sculptures, installations and objects. I like the way most of the works presented in Tactile are still very close to their 2D origins, there’s no cheating, no ambition to be a product designer (though sometimes they should), it’s pure 2D made and cut to inspire our 3D ordinary existence.

A selection of goodies from each chapter:

Chapter 1.
Type & Poster, in which graphic design dresses in foam, wool, ice, meat (!!) or bricks and ventures in the great outdoors.

Thundercut for Global Inheritance

Chapter 2
Objects, Scenes & Paperworks is an orgy of origami, cardboard landscapes, heroes and characters going literally for a walk out of the pages. There’s Michael Salter‘s robots made of styrofoam, Simon Elvins‘ fabulous Paper Record Player

Paper Gun Factory by Martin Postler (images courtesy of Noam Toran)

After having investigated the history and the aesthetics of the AK-47, also called the Kalashnikov after its inventor, designer Martin Postler (whose project Life/Machine – Scenes from a Roboted Life you might remember) freed the AK-47 from its lethal substance by deconstructing it into a paper model construction set and putting the emphasis purely on the weapon aesthetics. What remains of the gun itself when void of purpose: Is it still a gun? Is it still a beautiful object if its lethal function is eliminated?

I also like Etienne Cliquet‘s ordigami internet statistics (also available in keyboards, computer fan, audiospeakers, etc.)

Chapter 3
Dressed Up is probably the chapter which brings you the most surreal examples of the trends. Graphic design is wrapped around the body, stuck onto faces and twisted in the hair.

Love at first sight for the work of IJM.

IJM, Chinese Spring

The ueber-talented team from Uchu Country created a Relax Magical Hair Tour extravaganza for Relax magazine

Bryony Birkbeck designed the costumes for the On Board video of Friendly Fires.

Christa Donner: Alternative Anatomies, Mouthful, documentation of collaborative public intervention, with Kristine Seeley

Chapter 4
Products & Sculptures is an entertaining mix of hand-made (where the un-perfection becomes valuable) and high-tech (think rapid prototyping, new materials, etc.)

Sandrine Pelletier, Battlefield III

FromKeetra‘s THE GREAT SLUMBER a.k.a.Blood Puddle Pillows

Chapter 5
Indoor Installations shows how some graphic designers take a scene you’d expect to see flat and quiet on a piece of paper or a computer screen and import it into a building, making visitors think that they are living in a comic strip or a “drawing installation.”

Jonas Liverod, Drawing installation at Kabusa Konsthall, Sweden.

Fulguro, Label Suisse (Music Festival)

Chapter 6
Outdoor Installations: see previous chapter, except that this time, it’s the great outdoor for everyone, sharing some methods and sometimes a certain penchant for subversion with street art.

Teleklettergarten

For ars electronica 2003, Bitnik and FOK, transformed the facade of the Linz’Art University in to a gigantic keyboard, inviting members of the audience to used it as a climbing wall. They get a crash course in climbing and software development. After that climbers and programmers collaboratively inputed code into an oversized programming environment. During one week, they programmed codes, scripts and tools and demonstrated various software functions. Not only did the Teleklettergarten turned programming into a physical experience, it also use this public and collaborative programming interface to collectively demonstrate against the arbitrary awarding of software patents for core functions which are the basis of day-to-day work with computers. By ensuring that the illegal action (the execution of patented code) is performed by an anonymous collective, no single person can be made responsible whilst being able to publicly demonstrate the restriction these patents mean for programmers and for the whole user community.

Image appearing on the home page: Agata Bogacka, Glass, edition, 2004.

Related book reviews: Super Holland Design, Hand Job: A Catalog of Type, JPG 2: Japan Graphics, Hidden Track: How Visual Culture Is Going Places.

Natural Architecture, by Alessandro Rocca (Amazon USA and UK).

Publisher Princeton Architectural Press says: Natural Architecture presents sixty-six site-specific installations that use raw materials, manual labor, and natural stimuli to create truly green architecture that is as organic as the materials with which it is created. Projects by Olafur Eliasson, Patrick Dougherty, Nils-Udo, Ex. Studio, Edward Ng, nArchitects, and many others are shown together for the first time. Selected for their commitment to the use of raw materials, manual labor, and natural inspiration, these works are vividly displayed in photographs, drawings, and models. These fantastical creations allow the changing landscape to naturally overtake each structure until it finally decomposes. Each project is accompanied by a series of photographs, drawings, and models. The rugged and surreal beauty of the projects in Natural Architecture question the wisdom of our ever accelerating construction processes and point a way forward, toward a new organic simplicity of structure and form.

Image on the right: Olafur Eliasson, Ice Pavilion, Kjarvalstadir, 1998

Natural Architecture is what the author calls a “little paper museum” which showcases the way artists and architects are creating small and medium-size buildings using the resources of the location and respecting growth process and natural phenomenon. Following the rules of nature used to be the only available option. That was a very long time ago. Today it’s more a matter of installation art. The works presented in the book are therefore in most cases not to be regarded as structures built specifically for the purpose of having people to live or work there. The creators featured in Natural Architecture are affiliated with Land, Earth, Environmental, Bio or Conceptual art and not so much with architecture. Which doesn’t mean that these works have no relevance for architecture as they provide a space for discussion about the conventions and process of architecture.

Niels-Udo, Child, wet petals of poppies, bracken, ilfochrome on alluminium

It’s a very quiet 200 page book. You get all the words right from the start, after that that’s just pictures after pictures with only a statement from each artist to open the chapter dedicated to their work. Inside the book, there are works i find downright awful and other which are so amazing that i promised myself that i’ll try to follow the field more closely. In the meantime two discoveries:

Nils-Udo who has been exhibited his site-specific all over the word since the 80’s.

Morioka Spider, Japan, 2002. Bamboo bars, branches, earth, grass planting, ilfochrome on alluminium

(more images of his work)

Patrick Dougherty is the glamorous one. Dougherty used to be a carpenter and creates fairytale experiments (see front cover of the book) using tree staplings, weaving and nest motifs.

Installation for a Melrose Avenue boutique, using tree sapling as construction material

Videos following the creation of some of the artist’s installations.