Text for "The Folly of Learning"

Start of mock up for the text of "The Folly of Learning"

Beautell Arquitectos - Project - Saint John Baptist Chapel in El Hierro island

Beautell Arquitectos - Project - Saint John Baptist Chapel in El Hierro island:

In memory, childhood, and dream.

Only a thoughtless observer can deny that correspondences come into play between the world of modern technology and the archaic symbol-world of mythology. Of course, initially the technologically new seems nothing more than that. But in the very next childhood memory, its traits are already altered. Every childhood achieves something great and irreplaceable for humanity. By the interest it takes in technological phenomena, by the curiosity it displays before any sort of invention or machinery, every childhood binds the accomplishments of technology to the old worlds of symbol. There is nothing in the realm of nature that from the outset would be exempt from such a bond. Only, it takes form not in the aura of novelty but in the aura of the habitual. In memory, childhood, and dream. Δ Awakening Δ [N2a,1]
Walter Benjamin 1892 - 1940


The text for "The Folly of Learning"

The Folly of Learning

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Amy Winehouse; Alex Gibney on Wikileaks.

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Amy Winehouse; Alex Gibney on Wikileaks.:

"Nostalgia is often a cover for creative deficit" Rosie Swash 

Choosing Paper

In my test printing I used the following papers:

1. Mould-made Watercolour Board Hahnemühle
300 gsm - matt, rough and hot pressed
The mould-made Hahnemühle watercolour board 300 gsm is natural white, acid free, lightfast and extremely resistant to ageing. The Pads are glued and gauzed to ensure flatness when wet. All sheets contain the “Cockerel” watermark and have 4-sided deckle edges.
Hahnemuehle Website

2. Somerset® Printmaking Paper
100% Cotton - Highest quality papermaking material with excellent archival properties
Mould Made - Superior surface stability.
Acid Free & Archival -The paper will last for hundreds of years (in good storage conditions) and won’t discolour or fall apart.
Deckle Edges - The 4 deckle edges are visually very beautiful, and are perfect for float framing.
Beautiful Random Surface Texture - Surface enhances the finished print
Watermarked - For authenticity
Suitable for Multiple Printmaking Techniques
Somerset is suitable for block/relief printing, embossing, intaglio/etching, hand lithography, laser printing, letterpress, silkscreen/serigraphy, pastel and charcoal
Somerset Website

3. Super Alfa de Guarro Casas

El papel Super Alfa está compuesto en un 60% por fibras algodón, presenta marca al agua y barbas por los 4 lados
Tiene un color ligeramente amarfilado con filigrana.

Tamaño habitual del pliego es de 76*112 cm, con un gramaje de 250 gr, ideal para grabado aunque puede tener otros usos, especialmente indicado para Grabado al buril, Aguatinta y Aguafuerte. La textura del Super Alfa es rugosa.
Super Alfa Website

4. Fabriano Rosaspina

Made with qualitatively high-level raw material (60% Cotton). Rosaspina is a mould made paperboard and suitable for all printmaking techniques (etching, lithography and silk-screening).
The watermark runs parallel to the two larger sides of the sheet and reproduces the Fabriano trademark and logo.
The two larger sides are deckled.
Rosapina Website

5. BFK Rives is a 100% cotton, mouldmade paper which is acid free buffered. Its smooth surface and light sizing make it ideal for most artistic and printing techniques. BFK Rives has four deckle edges and a registered watermark.
Excellent for: Lithography, Intaglio Etching, Silkscreen, Linocut, Collotype and Drawing.
Also for: Typography, Embossing and Foil Stamping.
Advantages:
• 100% cotton for optimal absorption of water, a paper strength increased and the unique feel.
• Quality Conservation
• Smooth the delicate grain.
• Hue pure white, obtained naturally and does not yellow over time..
• 4 deckle edges, watermarked.
• Wide choice of weights: 210 gsm to 300 gsm.
BFK Website

6. Velin Arches ® is a 100% cotton, acid-free fine art printing paper. The paper is mouldmade using carefully selected cotton fibers that give the paper a sensual touch and strong resistance.
Its surface is marked and has a smooth grain similar to that of handmade papers. It is a watermarked paper, the four deckle edges, ideal for drawing, editing and art prints.
It is available in several weights from 160 gsm to 400 gsm.
Advantages:
• 100% cotton for optimal absorption of water, a paper strength increased and a unique feel.
• Quality preservation.
• Grain marked harmonious.
• Natural white that will not yellow over time.
• 4 deckle edges, watermarked.
• Wide choice of weights: 160 gsm to 400 gsm.
Velin Arches Website

Printing Practice with Cameron Fraser

With thanks to Cameron Fraser (www.fraserartworks.com)

Click on the images to see full size.

Embossing

With the help of Cameron Fraser (http://www.fraserartworks.com/) I did a test emboss. This looks very promising, and after a serious testing session, I should be able to get cracking with making a series of prints before welding the sculptures of Pentecost. http://www.fraserartworks.com/ ) me hizo una prueba de relieve. Esto se ve muy prometedor, y después de una sesión de pruebas serias, debería ser capaz de darle caña a la fabricación de una serie de impresiones antes de soldar las esculturas de Pentecost.

Modern

"We find ourselves, in other words, in a late-flowering offshoot of one of the great modernist ambitions, which reached full bloom in "Ulysses": the urge to try out every conceivable style, not as a show of skill but in a bid to grasp a world so rich that it threatens, or rejoices, to elude our clutches."

Home Fronts by Anthony Lane p83 The New Yorker Magazine 29 April 2013

Howard Brenton on Conceptual Art

"...well he's a conceptual artist, and like all conceptual artists he takes experience and transmutes it into a more general statement about life. The difference between our conceptual artists and him, I think, is that many in this country and in the West, they concentrate it on themselves and their art is me, me, me. With him, his art is us, us, us. It looks outward."

Howard Brenton on Ai Weiwei
Front Row BBC Radio4 17/4/13

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rvpvk

Cutting planes

Arrangement for printing

The first cut

Finally got around to cutting the sheets of metal for Pentecost.

Finalmente llegamos a cortar las hojas de metal para el Pentecost.

Colours for Pentecost

Here is rough guide to the colours to be used in painting Pentecost.

Aquí es guía aproximada de los colores que se utilizarán en la pintura de Pentecostés.

Georgian Pavilion

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Gwangju Folly

Gwangju Folly II 

Since the mid-17th century, in literature and in architecture, the folly has been employed as a detour into delirium: nonetheless, a critical medium, oscillating between aesthetic autonomy and social-political potential. As a spatial intervention, the folly can be understood as a rupture, a strategic site questioning the constraints of norms. Gwangju Folly II director Nikolaus Hirsch and curators Philipp Misselwitz and Eui Young Chun have developed a curatorial approach that exploits the ambiguities of a folly as a critical tool of inquiry to address the condition of public space. Since the May 18, 1980 Democratic Uprising, the negotiation of public space in Gwangju has played a crucial role in the political transformation of South Korea—it has even come to signify a model for effective political mobilization. Contextualizing the potential of spatial interventions, the eight newly commissioned follies here seek to test the constitution of public space today—in contemporary Gwangju as well as in the global context. 

Architect David Adjaye and writer Taiye Selasi have developed a folly called the Gwangju River Reading Room. It is positioned on the embankment of the Gwangju River, connecting the street level above with the grassy flood planes used as a seasonal park. The structure draws inspiration from traditional Korean pavilions and houses a "human rights" library of 200 books from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie´s Half of a Yellow Sun to Emile Zola's Germinal.

Inspired by the function, economics, and history of Gwangju's pojangmachas, Ai Weiwei´s Cubic Meter Food Cart reflects on the role these "tented wagons" to instigate a discussion about public space: how does the city reconcile restricting these small, temporary, and useful structures while allowing the construction of massive permanent buildings?

As winners of an open competition for emerging Korean architects, Seok-hong Go and Mihee Kim's Memory Box appropriates an existing system of public lockers. The doors, however, have been replaced with transparent fronts so that citizens are invited to store and display private objects and memorabilia on public view.  Architect Rem Koolhaas and writer Ingo Niermann address public participation in terms of The Vote. Their folly is positioned in the middle of a busy shopping and entertainment district that is mainly frequented by teenagers. The street has been divided into three pedestrian lanes marked "Yes," "No," and "Maybe." Votes are counted via a digital system and tallies are placed online to create a new form of direct plebiscite.

Delhi-based artist collective Raqs Media Collective´s folly have transformed a train of the Gwangju Metro into the Autodidact's Transport. The artists have undertaken a conceptual re-invocation of Erasmus´s In Praise of the Folly (1668) on the Gwangju Metro as a way of extending the Folly project beyond the frame of static presence in built spaces.

An itinerant structure, the Korean artist Do Ho Suh and Suh Architects's In-between Hotel is both strange and familiar. It slips through the fabric of Gwangju's public identity: a temporary dwelling unit activating aspects of Gwangju that have eluded the grand narratives.

Danish artist group Superflex´s Power Toilets address the inclusion of Gwangju into the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. Superflex have replaced a run-down public toilet in Gwangju with a new toilet which—in its interior—is an exact copy of the exclusive toilet used by the Executive Board of the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. While maintaining the semblance of a normal public toilet, the structure also engages its users in questioning the relationship between original and copy, exclusivity and inclusivity, and, ultimately, the infrastructures of power and everyday uses.

The Roundabout Revolution by Eyal Weizman and Samaneh Moafi establishes a relation between Gwangju in 1980 and the turmoil, civil strife, and revolutions that have shaken the Middle East since the "Arab Spring": the parallel uniting many of these uprisings being that they all took place in and around traffic circles. The folly draws a line from roundabout revolution to post-revolutionary round table politics.

Folly: the book The Gwangju Folly II will be accompanied by a conference and a publication. The book takes the form of fragmented glossary of associative thoughts and images, alongside more shrewd scholarly investigations, edited by assistant curator April Lamm, situating the eight new follies within a broader cultural discourse. It includes a photographic survey by Bas Princen and texts by Barry Bergdoll, Joan Didion, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Felicity D. Scott, among many others (Hatje Cantz, 208 pages, ca. 80 illustrations,17 x 24 cm, ISBN 978-3-7757-3553-7).

Robert Hughes

"Art should make us feel more clearly and more intelligently. It should give us coherent sensations which otherwise we would not have had."

Robert Hughes.

The Mona Lisa Curse

Le Choeur de Lumière (Chapel of Light)

http://www.anthonycaro.org/news-chapel.htm

Ville de Vence - Matisse Chapel

Ville de Vence - Matisse Chapel:

Rothko Chapel

Rothko Chapel:

'via Blog this'

Welding practice

Castells Vilaseca

Castells Vilaseca

Today I went to Castells Vilaseca to get prices for the material I need to create "Pentecost". I also bought a few bits to practice welding.

Hoy fui a Castells Vilaseca para obtener los precios de los materiales que necesito para crear "Pentecost". También compré unos trocitos de practicar la soldadura.

The Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost

Acts 2 (New International Version)


The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs--we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?" 13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine. "


Hechos 2 (Sagradas Escrituras (1569)


1 Cuando se cumplió plenamente el día de pentecostés, estaban todos unánimes juntos en el mismo sitio; 2 y de repente vino un estruendo del cielo como de un viento vehemente que venía con ímpetu , el cual llenó toda la casa donde estaban sentados; 3 y se les aparecieron lenguas repartidas, como de fuego, que se asentó sobre cada uno de ellos. 4 Y fueron todos llenos del Espíritu Santo, y comenzaron a hablar en otras lenguas, como el Espíritu Santo les daba que hablasen. 5 (Moraban entonces en Jerusalén judíos, varones religiosos, de todas las naciones que están debajo del cielo.) 6 Y hecho este estruendo, se juntó la multitud; y estaban confusos, porque cada uno les oía hablar su propia lengua. 7 Y estaban atónitos y maravillados, diciendo: He aquí ¿no son galileos todos éstos que hablan? 8 ¿Cómo, pues, les oímos nosotros hablar cada uno en su lengua en que somos criados? 9 partos y medos, y elamitas, y los que habitamos en Mesopotamia, en Judea y en Capadocia, en el Ponto y en Asia, 10 En Frigia y Panfilia, en Egipto y en las partes de Africa que está de la otra parte de Cirene, y romanos extranjeros, tanto judíos como convertidos, 11 cretenses y árabes, les oímos hablar en nuestras lenguas las maravillas de Dios. 12 Y estaban todos atónitos y perplejos, diciendo los unos a los otros: ¿Qué es esto? 13 Mas otros burlándose, decían: Que están llenos de mosto.

The Making Of "El Greco's Pentecost" by jd holden

Over the next few weeks I'll be blogging about this new piece of work I am making...
Durante las próximas semanas voy a ser un blog sobre este nueva obra que estoy haciendo ...