On Friday night, I was invited to give a talk for ARCDES (Architecture & Design) Shanghai #48 at Sisters in Jiashan Market, Xuhui District, Shanghai, China. ARCDES was founded by Asmus Ziegler and started in February 2010 in Shanghai as a way to give talks but give them in a leisurely fashion that encouraged dialogue with participants. Having only 10 minutes (yes, I went over by two minutes - my notes were missing from the presentation view), I presented a call for action to use color more deliberately in design. The YouTube version of the video is above; the Youku (for Mainland China) version is below. Filmed by 园婷婷:
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Landline Becomes Mutation Matter
By Rem / in Tea Time with Rem / August 23, 2013So it takes a server failure, a new domain, a new host, a new blog name, a twitter handle, a new theme and plugins, and some traveling for me to restart what was formerly known as Landline into a new long-format blog under the name of Mutation Matter. Things are still being tweaked behind the scenes but my hopes for Mutation Matter are to take it far beyond what Landline was and to slowly evolve it into a kind of creative agency/publishing platform on landscape futures in fringe space, abandonment (willful or unintentional), mutative spaces (Oh! Much more powerful than "overgrowth"...), and one of my most favorite topics: ritual. Ritual as in something normal and not normal (mutative anyone?) where the landscape both designs this and is designed around it.
But, you may find that I stray from these topics from time to time. But I think that is acceptable, especially under this new name, which I think allows for a greater perspective on landscape futures and their associated issues and concepts. I would like to do more speculative postings and musings although this will be seldom since a longer amount of time is required for these intellectual desserts. And working in China does occupy a lot of my time. This was half the reason I stopped writing. But the other half was due to a post I had started writing in October 2011 on some strange path-finding in Taiwan based on, at that time, a recent visit, when I stopped to think about what was my intent. Yes, I was confoundedly confused on why it was so difficult to get around, but was I being insensitive? Had I become consumed with negativity about design or evolved into some great critic worthy of accolades?
So I spent some time looking at the history of Taiwan and the relationship of its frequent typhoons to its early Japanese colonial days and came to the conclusion that a) frequent destruction brought on by annual storms may induce a kind of reluctance to (re-)design things properly (if it's going to be destroyed again) and b), Japanese people have an inherent cognitive wayfinding method that excludes the use of signage as in the West. Should I then assume that Taiwan's wayfinding is influenced by these factors and let them off-the-hook? But you see, I can't help being critical and disappointed by failures and missed opportunities. On the other hand, I can't be expected, when visiting a place, to know all the factors of how it came to be realized. I can make assumptions based on what I observe and what I've learned about design, but is that enough when writing about a place? I now think it is. I am not interested in making Mutation Matter an <em>aggregator</em> or a <em>repost</em> blog where the information is told how it is or simply regurgitated from another source or format. Therefore, I would never be satisfied with a narrative without a story. Realistically, the practice of this is difficult and I will make mistakes or incorrect assumptions, but, dear Reader, I hope that you will be lenient with my observations and experiences and nonetheless find Mutation Matter an enjoyable and enlightening read.
Welcome to Mutation Matter.
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Open Letters on Shanghai Futurism
By Rem / in shanghai / October 21, 2012On Friday night, a Chinese friend and I attended a lecture presented by the Shanghai Studies Symposium, NYU Shanghai and the excellent Rockbund Art Museum, titled "All Tomorrow's Parties, Episode 2: Shanghai Futurism," and we were both left utterly confused and disappointed. We were looking forward to a discussion on such provocative questions as: How do others envision the future of Shanghai? What new technologies will we see and how will people use the technology of today? How will the city of Shanghai work on the societal level; will we see the (re)emergence of distinctive micro-neighborhoods? Would these neighborhoods have their own competitive grass-roots creative houses and participate in augmented reality work and play? Or will neighborhoods become their own micro-Shanghai city within segregated, exclusive developments?
These questions were not answered. In fact, they weren't even asked! How can you even begin to think about a "Shanghai Futurism" without thinking of some of these possibilities? Sure, you can look to the past as UC Irvine Professor Wasserstrom and Urbanatomy editor Nick Land did with research on films shot in Shanghai, past expositions and graphic design and then follow this with an obtuse rambling on time spirals and the Art Deco movement but I failed to see why this matters for the future of Shanghai; as the city has weathered quite a few epic events in the last century alone I would then be worried for its future if I only looked at the past! But you don't need an advanced degree or a university think tank to ask these questions. I'm sure that you, dear readers, have many of the same questions or even more creative ones!
You see, I have a particular vested interest in this topic of Shanghai Futurism. I work in the designing of the future of Shanghai (and other cities in China). Many others do the same, some more spontaneously, which I often envy, because the work that I do is methodically designed, carefully considered and planned so that one day the general public can enjoy a space that is flexible and comfortable enough for those creative ambitions to spontaneously develop, or be influential enough to do the same in a physical place that is an urban park, a streetscape or a commercial plaza. It is often wished by those of us in our field who care strongly about the academic issues of spatial studies, wayfinding and communal-societal needs, that only if we could have an audience who cares as strongly as us to make the places we live and work more comfortable using innovative solutions that address these academic issues. This is not a wish for a particular kind of aesthetic (which is a means to an end; it should never be considered a desire in of itself), nor a flexing of the mind of the egotistical designer (we all are egotistical as a designers; it is inherent to a certain extent), but rather it is a wish that stems from the definition that design is essentially problem-solving, whether it addresses a problematic design of the past or it fills a hole that was not there before because it is something completely new and unseen and is needed by the public. These academic issues I mention are all possible to be solved, or be developed with more reasonable intent, in a future. A future, or futures, that I am hopeful will be better than the past.
Thus, it is very much my desire to experience how others predict what life and work will be like in Shanghai just over the horizon of tomorrow. I write this open letter to those who have a vision to share on our city, whether you are Shanghainese, Chinese or Expat, and not merely to relate how things once were and that's how things might be in the future. What are your dreams of tomorrow? How would you hope to live in your city of the future?
Jeremi Bigosinski
Writer of Landline Blog, and Landscape Designer in Shanghai, China-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"上海未来主义"让我期待的是关于上海未来发展的一些真知灼见，特别是加州大学欧文分校教授兼上海研究专家Jeff Wasserstrom的讲授。在Jeff二十多分钟的演讲中，结合生动而多角度的照片，对比展示了上海的昨天和今天，论及了杂志封面的变化，交通方式的变化和好莱坞上海取景的流行化等，却甚少对于上海明天的畅想和讨论。Jeff认为上海将是未来之城，因为其多元的文化特色。另一位发表演讲的是《精彩上海》编辑Nick Land博士。Nick给我上了深奥的关于时间螺旋和art deco的一课。时间是连续向前的，而art deco在上海的实践表明了上海的现代化。在之后的讨论中，二人论及了上海和北京的区别，上海快速发展的原因和时机等，但是也没有更多的论及上海的未来发展，和上海将如何在国际舞台上扮演未来之城的角色，颇有些遗憾。上海的未来会有哪些可能性，会是怎样的发展路径，希望听到更多的探讨和论述。
蕾蕾
一个外行的普通听众
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Framework Then and Now
By Rem / in thesis / August 15, 2009In the past, the discipline to me was an understanding of presence, how objects rest in relation to the land and human experience. I also sought to impose my background in sculpture on landscape architecture. I realize now that that thinking was flawed for both sculpture and landscape architecture are inherently linked. They both have material conditions and responses (to themselves and their environment). They both create presence (in of themselves and their environment through human experience).
They are linked, but, they do have a difference in thinking that I was not aware of at that time: scale. I do not mean that simply one is larger or smaller than the other. I mean that the scope, or extent of thinking is different. Most sculpture concerns itself with the object of itself. Most sculpture does not consider its surroundings or if it somehow does, is not influenced by said surroundings to create meaning on a higher plane of thought. Lately it has irritated me when sculptors discuss their work and pay little to no interest in the placement of their work. An analogy of this would be to consider a well refined and developed work on display in a gallery. It is powered by a black, ungainly power cord plugged into the wall. Yes, there are artists who question craft or the modus operandi of work in a gallery, but the majority do not -- because their concern with sculpture is with the object of itself. A landscape architect would be concerned with the power cord and the outlet it plugs into. Perhaps even the cables, the walls and the electrical grid. Unlike sculpture, whose interest is with objects, landscape architecture is concerned with those objects embedded in the landscape, whether it be deep in the hinterlands or part of the urban fabric.
The discipline is not just regulated to design. I never imagined that landscape architecture has the power to not just influence policy making but enact change as well. Unlike the fine arts or architecture, which are influential, (look at the progression of society in the 20th century), landscape has the capability to change fundamental concepts of society -- water use, transportation, human experience and interaction -- that no political agenda can ever hope to accomplish. So we are not just creators of human experience, we are designers of society.
Upon graduation I will continue my various initiatives outside of the discipline with a decidedly marked concentration in better practices and landscape architecture. In sculpture, I intend to embark on public art projects that actively engage experience and presence. In authoring my children picture books, I intend to introduce a story arc that involves either better practices or current issues in landscape management. In illustration, using my Hippoville™ cards as a vehicle for environmental edutainment will not go unnoticed to the public. In Hippos for Humanity, I hope to develop the project of using alternative land use practices to benefit humans and hippos alike in 29 African countries. And finally, within the discipline itself, I hope to understand how to design landscapes that have presence and porosity.
[It's curious that when I wrote this back in July, I thought it was perfect. Now there were some things I've changed for this post.]