norayoung.ca » art

Yes, That’s Right, It’s a New Post

Nora — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:50:38 +0000

A while back, I visited experimental architect, Philip Beesley, in his studio in Toronto’s west end. I went to talk to him about the enormous, beautiful, installation piece he’s taking to the Venice Biennale of Architecture, representing Canada. It’s a remarkable work, called Hylozoic Ground. You can see some images here. Hylozoism was the concept that everything contained some sort of life force, and this is reflected in Philip’s work metaphorically. He’s working in the area of ‘responsive architecture,’ where structures can change or move in response to external, environmental conditions, or in response to the way the people within the space are using it.

What I love about Philip’s work is the way he’s breaking down the hard line between the built and the natural environment, creating spaces that are permeable, changeable, and, well, responsive. As we humans start to generate more data about where we are, and how we are using the space around us (for example, with our GPS-enabled phones, we ‘check in’ at locations) will we be able to provide buildings with more information about us, and how we want to use the space? You can imagine a future in which architecture, the environment, and us, are all in a loop of information and response to that information.

Anyhoo, if you’re curious about Beesley’s thoughts, my interview with him on Spark is here

Everyone Loves a Zombie

Nora — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:37:00 +0000

Fox News (yes, I know) is reporting that a digital road sign in Austin, Texas was hacked recently. The impish hackers changed the sign to read “Zombies Ahead”. Heh, zombies.

Foxnews.com says that:

“According to the blog i-hacked.com, some commercial road signs, including those manufactured by IMAGO’s ADDCO division, can be easily altered because their instrument panels are frequently left unlocked and their default passwords are not changed.”

The speculation is that it was the work of university students, which is the digital equivalent of drunkenly stealing a street sign for the dorm room.

In addition to reminding me to watch L.A. Story and Land of the Dead again, it made me think about what happens when digital information is more widely dispersed among our real, physical environment. Will it take the ‘true-for-now’ tendency of the web out into the wild?

Advertising Turf Wars

Nora — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:29:00 +0000

Amidst all the increasingly invasive, extreme, (or, on a lighter note, interactive) advertising out there, here’s an intriguing little border war. Textually reports that a teenaged graffiti artist named Skullphone hacked into a bunch of digital billboards in Southern California, replacing the ads with his logo of a, er, skullphone. Probably most arresting less because of the hack and more because of the visual style of the skull holding a cell phone. (via Blogrunner)

Speaking of which, what’s the deal with all the skull imagery these days? Tattoo-style skulls on clothing (like my shoes), Damien Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull. A sign of our Thanatos-driven times, I guess.