Hands on Ceramics
Brooke Thorne
Friday 28 November 2014
Wednesday 26 November 2014
Thursday 13 November 2014
Ron Arad
Born in Israel 1951
Architect & Designer
Studied at the Belzalel Academy of Fine Art, Jerusalem.(1971-1973)Then at the Architectural Association, London, under the mentorship of Peter Cook. A key founder of the Archigram movement.
Worked briefly as an architect.
Formed One-off With Dennis Groves, 1981.
Established Ron Arad Associates, 1989.
Established Ron Arad Architects, 2008, to run in conjuncture with the above.
Professor of Design Product at the Royal College of Art in London, 1997-2009
Considered a sculptor of furniture and spaces, Arad has pushed the boundaries of acceptability with his choices of materials and decorative components.
He has cultivated a high tech/post punk/post apocalyptic aesthetic, utilising deliberately coarse industrial materials, coupled with found objects and scrap.
However, he is also highly selective of his materials and the ways in which they are manipulated.
His initial aesthetic is most prominent in his interior design during the 1980's, such as his work for Bazaar on London's South Molton Street, 1984, in which cast concrete features where accompanied with an air of dislocation, destruction and decay.
Arad's furniture takes a more ironic and playful vain that is undeniably present in the form of his "Big easy" chair.
The big easy series was intended to demonstrate that comfort could be obtained using industrial materials, that would not normally be associated with soft furnishings.
Later Arad moved toward mass producing some of his earlier designs, Such as his "Book worm" Bookcase, that was first produced in limited numbers and constructed from steel, and later re released made out of translucent plastic for more general consumption and manufactured by Kartell.
Monday 10 November 2014
Sokushinbutsu
Japanese Monks that successfully underwent the process of self mummification.
A full explanation of the concept and procedures used can be found here.
Sunday 19 October 2014
The Polygon Nuclear Test Sea 1 (After the event), Kazakhstan 2011
The Polygon Nuclear Test Site I (After the event), Kazakhstan 2011
NUCLEAR TEST CITIES ABANDONED BY THE SOVIET UNION
Friday 17 October 2014
Memphis Design Group
A design collaborative formed by Ettore Stottsass in the 1980's, comprised of Italian designers and architects.
The name apparently originates from this Bob Dylan Song, which was being played on repeat throughout their first meeting.
Their main creative influences were the Art Deco and Pop art movements, and their main aim was to reinvigorate the radical design movement by contesting the contemporary concept of 'good design'.
They met again in the February of 1981, by which time the members had produced 100+ drawings. September the same year the group exhibited a range of clocks, lighting, furniture and ceramics, intentionally using materials that lacked culture, such as coloured laminates, at the Arc 74 Showroom, Milan. To an audience of internationally famous architects and designers.
They also released a book; "Memphis, the new international style".
The group had always fully intended to be a fad, and in 1988 Stottsass disbanded the group, having left himself in 1985.
Members included;
Alessandro Mendini, Martine Bedin, Andrea Branzi, Aldo Cibic, Michele de Lucchi, Nathalie du Pasquier, Michael Graves, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Shiro Kuramata, Matteo Thun, Javier Mariscal, Luciano Paccagnella, George Sowden and Marco Zanini
Century chaise by Andrea Branzi '82
Anti- Design was a movement that originated in Italy and spanned from 1966-1980.
Notable characteristics included use of striking colours, distortion of scale and ironic/kitsch presentation.The primary function of their designs was to subvert the way the user thought about the object. This was a form of open rebellion against the avant-garde designers working in the industry at that time, who conformed heavily to the perfectionist aesthetic of modernism.
A key spokesman for the movement was Ettore Stottsass, who later went on to found the Memphis
design group.
Other notable groups are Archigram and Superstudio
The movements manifestos can still be considered revolutionary, focusing on function over beauty and principles such as temporary and throw away design that reflects the mass production of objects to fulfil consumerist greed.
Their main aim was to make people think and engage with the products, even if they did ultimately throw them away.
The movement ultimately became the root of post modernist design.
Designers within the movement include;
Vico Magistretti, Gianfranco Franco Franchini, Livio Castiglioni, Enzo Mari, Piero Gilardi and Paolo Lomazzi
Manufactured by Artemide
Designed by Gianfranco Franco Franchini & Livio Castiglioni
Monday 22 September 2014
"CALCULATION" DRAWINGS BY RAFAEL ARAUJO
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Rafel Araujo is a Venezuelan artist/illustrator who's stylistic influences include both Da Vinci and M.C. Escher.
Working on an old drafting table, Araujo began drawing his own perspective illustrations, eyeballing the trigonometry to plot dot sequences that would allow him to create curved shapes like double helixes and cones. If you look closely at Araujo’s drawings, you’ll notice each of the main shapes sits within a line-drawn square or rectangle—he began adding this to his works after realizing these scaffolding boxes created a more reliable way to correctly position the dots. “There is naturally a learning curve,” he says. “And as problems are solved, you become more adept and, again, daring.”
As Araujo became more confident in his skills, he began adding ink-drawn butterflies, insects and shells to the canvas and painting them with acrylic in order to add visual complexity to his work. Each illustration takes him upwards of 100 hours, and that’s if he doesn’t mess up. “Painting is very similar to cooking,” he says. “You’ve got to be always careful!”
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