back breaking

I know I have been lagging in posting. I have been making things happen.
I just feel that I need to at least address the media issue right now. Human expression is something that is protected under some governments and denied under others. People express information through media. Media includes contextual landscapes and technology. The action always goes back to the person and the translation of information in media. Foot prints in sand is a translation of time and being in media. Displacement and change of ink and pixels is a way to translate and convey information through media. The documentary was current until last week. please share.



Fuck media control.

writing on the walls.

This installation project by
slovakian artist roman ondák is a living infographic. By plotting of visitors’ heights, the mean
will become increasingly apparent over the four months at the temporary stedelijk.
I am in love with the layering and personal interaction. This reminds me of the playroom we had in the basement of the house I grew up in where when my friends came over we would document our heights and our names amongst other self-expression graffiti. It's something so simple that every age can understand yet the implied aspects are phenomenal. I am curious to know if there is a stop animation or other documentation for this piece to then become a piece on its own.

I also wanted to bring up mr. Mel Bochner's work in relation to this. Though one could see it as artistic antics, I feel his work as a precedent is really powerful and playful.

what is a paradigm?

We keep talking about shifting it but ... what is it.. Georgio- take it away!



also- when will metaphor be dead in architecture? aka when are we going to stop using metaphor as means to creating the real? or even why are we just not creating the "metaphor" in the first place...

advertising...

ASSume the worst.

new poem!

Leas(t) Renewal Line

Your pine cone fiction-airs lost me on the highways to Georgia and back. I was saving bricks for your motor-less boat fantasies but the overnight drive took away your libido. I wore out some other rubber made man parts with my wicked insides. Your tips didn’t miss much, just maybe 4 hours of reproduction. I heard you say

it is

a waste of electrical endeavors but when the bitch can lick her gaping wounds the only remedy is a cork. The lunch box is in the fridge next to my aromatic arches aching for some structure or support and other things your bubble gum vending machine fingers relentlessly forget. There might be some sweets and nothing home right

about time

the dogs swallow these meat feeding paws. If it was tears you were after, those legs should have left the shoes in my mouth and the door crooked. Naked or not, knock knock jokes can’t win a watermelon at this un-fair ground. Are you wondering

that I

haven’t lost all my change of heart and pennies to a grown man? Too bad movies are more romantic when insensitive sound makers are directing. Ever hear the story of the goat and the porcupine. The porcupine only died when it did know realize it had to

live alone.

a second year architecture student project for sale on craigslist....

WTF?!!! Who built this?! How awesome? and I am in awe- its on craiglist....

park(ing) day pittsburgh 2010

The SNOW IS COMING!!!!!!!!! Here is our installation for Park(ing)Day in Pittsburgh! Check out the website as well with links to other wonderful parks!

no future in green architecture?!...

Thanks dwell for keeping my dreams alive!

Park(ing) day Pittsburgh!!!!!!

I guess it's that time of year again! The time to turn parking spaces in to Parks!!!Come down to Wood Street to find Emily Rice, Dawn Hirsh, and my self in a snow-apocalypse! ahh!!!

trailer condo.

CRAFT- O - TRON !!!!!!!

Check this out!!!!!


“THE REBIRTH OF THE VENDING MACHINE! The Travelling Pittsburgh Craft-O-Tron gets plugged into a new purpose!!"

Steel Town's Etsy's new marvel: "Tronny" the retired cigarette vending machine turned Craft Vending Machine has completed its makeover and has been stocked with a dazzling variety of some of the best handmade items in the 'Burg!! Check out the progress and get a sneak peek of the crafts here: http://artist.to/pghcraftmachine/

The lights will be turned on and the Craft-O-Tron will begin its new mission: to spread the news of the handmade scene in Pittsburgh and begin its journey through the city's cultural events, hot spots, and beyond! This craftstoric event will take place at the machine's temporary home: Wildcard in Lawrenceville.

It will be caught on video and posted on the facebook page.

Be sure to become a friend of the machine and follow it's trek and message: Buy local! Buy handmade!

Art THIS!

Seunghee Park. She's korean and colorfully touching new levels. Check her awesome out.

THINK TANK!!!

I want to just make sure you know that Jenna Kappelt and I are starting Awesome Gallery and Awesome Studio. The studio can also work as a think tank.. but we plan on having alot of sexy ideas.... and well... idea's that have SEX!!!!

info systsems...

David McCandless makes infographics. These simple, elegant ways to see information boil down the too complex or too big, small, abstract or scattered to otherwise be grasped by most ( at least while just looking at it with out being bias or being in an information overload). Also his topics are sometimes quite comical. McCandless's work is if the Processing diagrams of Casey Reas and Ben Fry where frozen in space and time.

presto chango

This awesome project by Gary Chang, a Hong Kong architect, is quite insperational. He transformed his pint-sized living space —a typical Hong Kong cramped 330-square foot apartment— into a super-efficient, super awesome 24-room bachelor pad with the help of an ingenious system of sliding walls, panels, and gizmos.

Recently, the New York Times profiled Chang and his amazing mini-mansion. Great way of downsizing! When Chang talks about the living conditions of the apartment when he was a child is quite shocking in comparison to his home now.

Via YahooGreen.

um.. sustainable?

other spaces....

Hello Heterotopia.. Jackie Tileston is one trippy painter. She mixes
Chinese and Tibetan landscape motifs in a flux of empty and full, atmospheric and graphic, abstract and figurative, quiet and psychedelic.
I really enjoy this part of her statement.... " A recent rereading of Foucault's' 1967 "Of Other Spaces - Heterotopias" essay was an inspiration since it perfectly defined the intent of much of this work - to create paintings in which several different locations or spaces are made to coexist within one space. In some ways, any of my paintings could be called heterotopic - "juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are themselves incompatible." Ideas of how we construct our realities and selves through language, social structure, geography, etc. offers a seemingly endless band of possibilities - my work as a painter is knitting the world together in a kind of visual globalism."

past clips...

also

Future Movie 1 from nina marie barbuto on Vimeo.

breath taking medias (take me back)

Hollis Brown Thorton lives and works in a warehouse studio in Aiken, South Carolina. He is quite amazing.
This is his MARKER piece VHS. Quite stunning, I must say. I put a larger one at the end of the post. Here is another piece of his that i admire:::
The title for that one is "nternational Working Party For Documentation & Conservation of Building
Sites & Neighborhoods of the Modern Movement." Snazzy.
Here is a snip from his artist statement that I really enjoyed.. "The environments in the work are constructed of both the tangible and the remote, things that are already understood and things in a vague state of formation. For instance, images in the photographs are tangible aspects of reality, frozen moments in time, people and places that exist, or at one time existed. Erasing or obscuring elements of the photograph puts the situation in a state of transition. Adding the lines and drawings adds other influences and potentials. Sometimes these lines are controlled by the elements in the photograph and sometimes they are completely independent. But the figures in the photographs, they are the reason the myths exist, they are the questioners who come up with the stories and explanations, so their environment is altered to represent these uncertainties and changing beliefs."

awesome things...

This... is totally worth your eyes... Eric Wareheim is a genious.. and a great dodge ball player as well... this one is also freaking great. Just throwing the awesomeness out there for you...

artfully urban..

Slideluck Potshow is a non-profit organization devoted to building and strengthening community around food and art. Casey Kelbaugh, dt Their objective is also to promote public appreciation of the visual arts and to provide art education opportunities to school-age children in New York City. Participants in the slideshow exhibitions are encouraged to take creative risks, in terms of content and presentation, and to not just show their portfolios. This is not a way for self marketing. Each slideshow exhibition has a section with a theme, as well as non-themed section.
At each Slideluck Potshow event, the exhibition is preceded by a potluck-style dinner. Attendees bring food and drink, as the evening begins with two hours of dining on the home-cooked delights of the participants, while drinking and mingling. This brilliant combination is what was attempted at the G.R.O.W.W. potluck/craft nights. Where Slideluck brings it to the next level is through the Slideluck Youth Initiative, an after-school workshop targeted for New York City public middle and high school students. It is designed to increase education and participation in the visual arts. SLYI has formulated a 12-week curriculum that includes lessons from guest photographers and field trips to local photo studios or galleries, and culminates in a student slideshow exhibition.
I want to get in touch with the founder Casey Kelbaugh and talk to him about starting one in Pittsburgh. I feel that we could pull off a really successful one injunction with the I Made It! Market.

open source urbanism PGH

This was my proposal for Pittsburgh's Civic future. It was for a gallery show that the Pittsburgh Architectural Club on for the Downtown Artwalk. Gerard Damiani reinvigorated this staple of architecture conversation in Pittsburgh. Hey Cultural Trust and Mayor Lukie, hire me for ideas.

Open Source Pittsburgh from nina marie barbuto on Vimeo.

i (keep) making it. ..

Back In PGH. Some Updates.. I have returned to the I Made It! Market, which I helped start with Carrie Nardini. She has been keeping it going since I went to LA three years ago. She has helped it to grow to beyond belief. Now, some things to look forward too!!! Next Saturday we are joining up with Pop Up Pittsburgh to put on a mini-market for the Hilltop communities of Mt. Washington(yes we have one in PGH too), Arlingon, Elliot, Beltzhoover, and etc. That is happening May 15th. THEN! We are having a nothor mini-market May 22 at Venture Outdoors Fest! Then in June, we have a lot going on. We are joining with WYEP, WildCard, and the JCC!
I hope to see you there!

THOM MAYNE was never called an asshole...

Thank you Modern Lovers. Thank you more Thom Mayne. Thank you Spike Wolfe and Matt Fineout for bringing him to Pittsburgh To lecture. This is his TED lecture from 5 years before. I am very cynical about architects and one thing that I wrote in my notes was "THOM MAYNE IS NOT AN ASSHOLE." His lecture was extrodinarily hopeful and I must say it was better than any E I could swallow. After the lecture, I sat and talked with my old boss and teacher Art Lubetz, and I recently sent him this email...

I hope the Lecture monday night was a wake up call for the students at CMU archtitecture. The field has changed and is changing rapidly. Not because it is monetarily funded to do so but since it is not, now is the time for architecture to catch up to technology and the social specturm. The public's understanding of Architecture has not "changed" drastically in the past 10 years. Things are still built with archaic standards due to convenience and affordability.We as architects rely almost on what the construction industries unions and workers inputs on the facility of implementing the building. The words brick/ply/block are over expressed jargon easily digested by anyone who goes to a Home Depot. Due to this lack of inovation, I believe this has lead to the populous disregarding the architect or "architecture" when building. "Why have an architect if you can build it your self?" Good point if I say so myself. Architecture to relate to its historical roots attempted to create awe with buildings that could not be built by the average Joe. If not for the grand scale of space of Notre Dame then the simple mathematics and engineering behind Villa Rotunda. At those times, designing and building a building occurred due to wealth and education. (Education directly related to wealth and social standing.) As we are now in 2010, we have to realize that the direct relation between wealth and education has disolved as information is mostly free and readily available with in minutes of a BING or Google search. Even beyond that, information sharing and open source programs give way to a democratic knowledge base. " It's all out there if you want to know it (or have the time.)" So this brings me to the the new and present Architecture education presented to students who are paying 40,000+ a year with some monetary aid to facilitate the aftermath. What is it we at Carnegie Mellon University are teaching our students? As campy as this statement might be, we must consider them as the future future generation of architects. Not architects for the first 5 years they leave school but for the 5+ years afterwords. As a rule of thumb to buildings completed now, architecture runs in a 3 to 5 to 7 year cycle. What has been happening is that highly creative minds have seen this lacuna of life filled it up with rapid works. This has been infiltrating the architecture offices pushing the limits. "Avant garde" is just working smarter and creating "archtiecture" that the public values as such. Morphorsis is a prime example of this.

The language of architecture has changed. It is no longer simply bricks/ply/block but actual code, similar to computer programing, computational biology, and genetics. Buildings are not "inspired" by nature as to resemble them as they did in the Art Nouvea and modern times of Gaudi, but can mimic "growth" of a living system and adapt to its forces (nature/environment/

inhabitants/commerce/etc). Scripting and BIM modeling (not just revit models) are used as tools for actions. Drawing in the traditional sense is a representation. It has become the afterthought, no longer the action. A prior design is dead and uninteresting. In other words, who cares what you think a blender or a bracelet or an office building should look like. The times of just "making up" forms is over. Actual reaction is applicable due to the technological advances. Architecture and its teaching needs to acknowledge this. Most prominent schools are already on the band wagon. Where is CMU?

I believe with integrating scripting, new media tools, and utilization of rapid prototyping CMU architecture could be on the same playing field as others from competitive schools. By having studios that encourage students to not just look at the past ( I feel that yes students should still know how to draw and how architecture was created before) but should look to 10 to 50 years beyond their current times for their creations. Students should be encourage to be apt to present knowledge and current events, not just arts and archtiecture but biological and other technology. The undergrad should be experimenting and utilizing the graduate school as well. Amazing projects come out of the intelligent workplace and yet no one is aware of the work. The Brahmans are disconnected from the Vaiysas and Sudras.

When we live in a world where most people have a connection to the world wide web in their pockets, we should have students who design with this in mind. Presentation and application should also be integral to the work produced at the school.

HEALTHCARE.

Something to think about Obama.....
But also.. Hello Health! Social Media and Health Care ... Though one could joke that it's the hipster answer to health care, Jay Parkinson is bringing awareness to peoples door. “Doctors and companies that don’t embrace communication are living in the pre-internet days,”
said Parkinson. This boutique medical practice combs old-fashioned house calls with web-based instant-message and video consultations, online scheduling, and digital records. Digital records, so many doctors offices still have those awful sliding files that are not only an eyesore but tedious for those working with them.
Something to keep in mind:: “Health care’s been taken away from the neighborhoods and become institutional,” says Parkinson. “There’s no incentive to embrace new interfaces for communicating, because insurance doesn’t pay for technology implementation. Instead of waiting on the health-care industry to catch up, we’re doing it.”

So how does this new health care bill help us to work towards something like this?

RAIMUND ABRAHAM

RIP. It's so sad that he died on his way after his lecture at SCIARC. DTLA is a killer. Austrian architect Raimund Abraham, best known in this country for his knife-thin 2002 Austrian Cultural Forum building in Manhattan, was killed in a car crash in downtown Los Angeles early Thursday morning, according to a report from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).

Eric Owen Moss issued the following statement: "Earlier in the evening Raimund delivered a powerful lecture at SCI-Arc, re-stating his enduring love for architecture and his willingness to fight for the design discourse as he defined it. That unique and powerful Abraham advocacy for architecture is irreplaceable. Raimund, We miss you."

Born in Tyrol, which is located in the Alps, Abraham credited his understanding of architecture to his time growing up in the mountains. In 2002 , he told NYTimes this beautiful statement: “When you are a skier, you have to read the snow - it is not some romantic white mass; it is a material. If you want to glide faster than anyone else, you have to understand the crystals. This was my education, not the school of architecture.”

Think about that. Don't think about building as building.. but the crystals behind it.

something to brew about

Recently moved back to pittsburgh where micro brews are readily available. I have to endorse this one due to its taste and content. If you get a chance, check out this great beer from Erie, PA.

Tacoshed

I just moved from LA back to Pittsburgh in the last month. I can't say I miss Los Angeles much other than my constant craving for that $1 taco that you could get at any point in time on a 24 hour scale. I have been hunting all tacos down in Pittsburgh but while reading BLDG BLOG, I came across this project. The TACOSHED. Where does that taco come from. Granted there are more tacos per capita in California but does all the ingredients come from the "land of plenty"?
Last fall, a group of URBANlab architecture students from the California College of the Arts, Rebar art and design studio, and Landscape David Fletcher started their assignment adventure a a local taco truck. The research, based on SF's food and watersheds, was based on the premise that the familiar food (aka tacos) are part of a greater subliminal system and could give visceral insight to other connections in the environment. Similar to the work by Sourcemap, awareness of your input (and hopefully output one day) helps the user to see their own connection and potential impact to those around them and the environment.

The work is being presented this Thursday, Feb 25 in the Mission in San Francisco.

This week I will try to make a project similar to this but with ranges.