let's do it.

Missing you.

2012-02-09T13:50:00.000-08:00

It's been sometime since I've posted. More to update later.

In the mean while- I have been asked to take part in the Gestures Show at the Mattress Factory.

More to come soon. I am working with a collection of folks.

check them out!

Nina Marie Barbuto - maker who energizes an architecture which needles and challenges self definition. http://ninamariebarbuto.blogspot.com/

Dee Briggs - artist who works with fearless lyricism in raw material. http://www.deebriggsstudio.com/about/dee-briggs/

Nick Durrant - interactive designer who thrives on strategic thinking. http://www.plotsite.net/

Jeremy Ficca - architect and educator devising news ways to construct forms of elegance. http://www.cmu-dfab.com/

Pablo Garcia - artist, architect of the conceptual investigation, seeing no media as too new or old to be passed through a prism. http://www.pointprojects.com/

Jenn Gooch - artist who bears clear witness to the world we recognize but dare not know. http://www.jennifergooch.com/

Ling He - specialist in a world of architectural fiction and fantasy.

Matt Huber - architect-thinker and writer who will refine all definitions and leap to new conclusions.

Nick Liadis - architect of sound, theorist searching for a tectonics of music.

Transformazium - creative collective rooted in Braddock with revolutionary practice. http://transformazium.org/

Gill Wildman - activist skillfully capturing the imagination and generating fresh forms of engagement. http://www.plotsite.net/

Spike Wolff - artist, architect, educator who continually provokes new readings of our reality.

This was SOOO one of my projects

2011-06-03T10:59:00.000-07:00

Read about what they are doing in COLORADO- thanks tree hugger.

But they for got the part about harvesting the homeless's plasma!Gross i know but It was what I was talking about in 2007.

back breaking

2010-12-12T21:24:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-11-15T09:36:00.001-08:00

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?

2010-10-26T12:00:00.001-07:00

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...

2010-10-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

ASSume the worst.

new poem!

2010-10-16T08:45:00.000-07:00

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....

2010-09-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

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

park(ing) day pittsburgh 2010

2010-09-20T10:38:00.001-07:00

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?!...

2010-09-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

Thanks dwell for keeping my dreams alive!

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

2010-09-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-09-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-02T14:28:00.001-07:00

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

THINK TANK!!!

2010-08-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-08-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-06-15T21:32:00.001-07:00

other spaces....

2010-06-01T19:06:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-05-26T17:23:00.000-07:00

also

2010-05-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

Future Movie 1 from nina marie barbuto on Vimeo.

breath taking medias (take me back)

2010-05-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-05-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

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..

2010-05-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

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. ..

2010-05-09T06:56:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-04-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-03-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-04T17:19:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-28T17:47:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-23T07:53:00.000-08:00

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.

BIKE WALK RUN

2009-11-09T23:27:00.000-08:00

How does downtown exist as a hub for MTA riders and bicyclists in the city?

Celebrate eight weeks of mapping and conversations during the final night of HABEAS LOUNGE: A PLURALISTIC DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES. This event is the last in a series of DTLA explorations building a framework for ideas and exchanges about our shared city, conceived by artist Linda Pollack.

Art Walk night will be all about bicycles and public transportation. We want to hear first hand how transportation plays a role in life downtown! Pricey parking lots, scarce street parking, the threat of being towed...bicycle, metro and bus are alternative ways to get around without the trouble!

Advocates will be on hand to share their experiences and visions for transportation in LA, as well as challenges, from proposed master bike plans to everyday commuting.

Ride up 7th Street from the Art Walk to dialogue, discuss, debate, and learn ways to connect to the carless city.

A bicycle valet service will be provided by the LA County Bicycle Coalition.

During the event, check out the HABEAS LOUNGE, designed by Ilaria Mazzoleni: a cardboard sofa built from bike boxes by architect Nina Marie Barbuto, projections of classic / contemporary DTLA films selected by Linda Pollack and Maryam Hosseinzadeh, maps and bottled specimens from workshops by Katie Bachler, urban placemaking by James Jones, film footage of LA shot from a helicopter and a Pontiac G6 by Italian artists/architects ERGOT, an oversized Metro map, and more.

Plus SNACKS and a DJ too!

---------------------------------------------------

ART WALK SCHEDULE

5.00 - DTLA Resident DJ Emilio

5.45 - You Have HABEAS
About HABEAS LOUNGE, Its Design and Mission

6.00 - Re-Designing How LA Moves
including a feasibility study for a pilot bike sharing program in Wilshire Center, produced by the Critical Mass class at SCI-Arc (Prof. Ilaria Mazzoleni) and CICLO a bike sharing plan proposal for USC

6.30 - Pedaling The Path
Open Discussion on Current Bike and Public Transportation Experiences/Issues/Challengs in LA With Advocates and Users

7.30 - Tracing Our Path
Discussion-Based Mapping Exercise On The Gallery Wall

8.00 - HABEAS LOUNGE Artists Talk About Their Work and The City

8.30 - DJ Emilio Dance Party

For more information, visit: http://www.habeaslounge.org/

---------------------------------------------------

PERSPECTIVE GROUPS are part of "A Pluralistic Downtown Los Angeles Investigation", a series of explorations through maps and encounters, which will build a framework for the ideas and exchanges about our shared city.

Events are free and open to the public.

The HABEAS LOUNGE is in 7+FIG at Ernst and Young Plaza, located adjacent to the 7th + METRO Red Line stop. Validated parking in 7+ FIG parking structure, entrance on 7th and 8th Streets, west of Figueroa.

smarty pants

2009-10-28T17:55:00.000-07:00

this is an interview with my cousin from fall 2008. I just want to point out to how things have come into play afterwards. Just saying, people could pay me to think.

places to move to.

2009-10-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

Halloween is coming up and I am going to be a rainbow. I am sewing my costume right now but here's where my mind set has been lately....
amazing.

ribosome

2009-10-18T00:27:00.000-07:00

i love you science.

2009-10-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

WHY IS PITTSBURGH NOT ON HERE?!!! AND WHY NOT LA? WHY IS IT A HIPSTER BIKE AND NOT A COMMUTER? mmmmmmmmmmm prejudice.

amazing.

2009-10-16T13:28:00.000-07:00

mark set.

2009-10-07T16:10:00.000-07:00

Party Favor(ite)s

Mix fruit flies and ottomans were the only things left from your divorcee s Avon potluck. Papa don't preach because I'm in MRIs loosing my patella and meniscus stability's. It's just a drill April Fool's for another farm animal flu

we are

catching involuntarily in the outfield of Dodgers Stadium. Hold my hand out of sockets while you clamp my wrist wrestling brace to other soft machines. We have it under controversial impulses to sniff out trouble from behind. It's not that the trophy boy toy is

better off

the mantel than on the floor, kicking and screaming. Park your posies and pickled fingernails! We have an aeronautic adventure ahead. I forget most of your allergies in my other bed. Make sure you close the door and frame the gangster creeping out of your cotton bleached restrictive loin cloths. I missed you at the afternoon tea. Sugur and agave never could sparkle and leave us

alone.

really.

2009-10-02T13:14:00.000-07:00

admitting.

2009-09-28T00:31:00.000-07:00

Pigeon Shit Breakfast

Call me Minnehaha but last week we had everything and the girl. Instant tease and oatmeal lost their embedded intelligence due to your looped mouth backtalk everyone can't seem to get enough of .

At this

intersection, I go left with no right angles to corner my lips. Thyroid explosions happen every time you bat your instigative eye balls. There's no sex in your violence or ghosts in your fridge. Why couldn't' you tell me the

point I'm

trying to make broke under your ten speed and forgotten French? Was it that hardly integrated into your daily regiment to pull and push some auxiliary strings so my ankle could possibly twist less? The drunk fly on my tongue and callused clean palms last night dominated rarely tanned leather while all you ate was canned spelling soup that tasted

not ok.

un stuck.

2009-09-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

Bye Bye Bucky Blue Eyes

Greedy grape kissers kept inventory over ape shit. I thought recipes and calculators expired monthly in your mouth by really it was all the time in your hands. Call it namesakes because

that's how

we re wrote continental histories. African food stores diligent soap operatic one week newsstands waiting for our discovery. Was it after the strip tease

I stopped

wet landing the basic bed sheets your sweaty face pollinated? I hope pigtails and nose rings were only epoxy and flux for lady tar tar. Ten points for you dodging out of knee busting cinema sluts. if only the whole tale poked looser holes in my body bag. It's an Indian summer and I am not as fly as the mosquitoes

wanting you.

Mind Control

2009-09-15T17:46:00.000-07:00

A new definition of monkey see monkey do. This just goes to show that you can really control your emotions if you wanted to. I think this relates to this movie....

BRAganza

2009-09-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

I want to make things that have never been made before- Yoshikazu Yamagata. Here is an image of one of his giganitc clothing items for Fall 2005. His white colossus can be found hanging in a tree, at other times it appears on the banister in a stairwell - food for the imagination but not to unsimilar to Vito Acconci's Adjustable Wall Bra. Public space is leaving home- I always thought this Acconci quote was related to the Wall Bra for some reason. It's making one of the most private spaces (the space between the breast and the cup) in habitable for all and all body parts for that matter. One could also relate home to a mother's breast that you stop feeding from . My brascape is itching to make it out and again... any suggestions?

tra(sh)gic.

2009-08-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

Chris Jordan's photographic work plays with a degree of scales. This piece Gyre depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world's oceans every hour. All of the plastic in this image was collected from the Pacific Ocean. Let's zoom in. Let's zoom even further.

We need to do something. How can we stop using plastics like this? Also, by picking up bread tabs you will help the ocean. If you want you can send them to me.
Thank you! email me and i will give you the address.

2009-08-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

Architecture is not the best thing to be in right now, but neither are a lot of "creatively" professional office jobs. When life throws you lemons, make lemonade.... This documentary, Lemonade, is about just that. More than 70,000 advertising professionals have lost their jobs in this “Great Recession.” Lemonade is about what happens when people who were once paid to be creative in advertising are forced to be creative with their own lives.

I graduated from SCIARC the week that everything fell last year. We are coming up to a year of recession. It feels like forever but also yesterday. Many young (and old) architects who have gone to school and slaved romantically over work for years got the pink slip saying, we can't pay you, we don't have enough projects, you are let go... I applied for EVERY job you can imagine and was fortunate to join the family at Locali. Since working there, I've lost weight, gotten better eating habits, and am probably am in the best shape in my life since high school. Though this is not a long term stop in my road of life, it has been great to let me think and take time to repackage myself. It is a whole new education.

dedication

2009-08-25T00:51:00.000-07:00

I did something like this for the Rainbows and Unicorn Show at the Echo Curio.. but by no means was it to this magnitude. Basheer Graphic Books put a contest out to promote Pantone color guide book to art college students and faculty. I am not sure what school or who was the actual artist. I am sorry.

sheer beauty.

2009-08-24T07:52:00.001-07:00

This was a promo for Queen's "Bicycle Race."

poem

2009-08-19T12:02:00.001-07:00

Workman's Comp

Crippling crunches stole my integral appetite. It was off the wall and out of mind. Calender titty mags and old polariods don't seem to hang around much anymore. Beside you tongue calisthenics most nights kept me up and Adam

if you weren't

clipping nose hairs already. Funny, these games we play got arthritis from too much Patty Duke and cake for passive destructive dietary ignorances. I'm gassy and you swallowed a bag of Douglas fur. If you stopped exposing your inner feelings and moonshine maybe we would get something done around here. Too bad the coconuts are

so young I

bore them to tears and tea leaves last week. Rims ricochet ink deposits on your wrists in your dreamt future. Did you see any rainbows crawling across my carpel tunnels? When was this supposed to happen anyway? I can't care if you

would have loved

to be blonder in the last months. You have got this growth on your back and a twin eating a Puerto Rican just 2 hours from your parents house. I never said it was something they made trophies for at the convenient lottery stands. Hold my eyelids, Henry Darger's life styles appear more associated with vowels in a rapid increase. Whatever, you purr hypoallergenic kitten's breath. Until I swallow more salt and pepper, I am sure I don't really know

you by now.

pluralism

2009-07-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

you are here.

2009-07-28T02:37:00.000-07:00

Ok. So I have been working at Locali for about 2 months now and I still haven't written anything about the place. Shame on me. Locali is amazing. I keep telling folks that it's like if whole foods had a 7eleven. We make sandwiches, can make them vegan and gluten free, sell gluten free, vegan and raw options for food. We have a great selection of organic beers and wines and gluten free beers as well. A lot of the products in the store are locally made. The best part of the job (from a mediascapes standpoint) is the use of twitter for the store and the Icycle, the ice cream selling bicycle. Not only are the daily specials just a tweet away but so is the location of the Icycle. This geospacial, enviro friendly mobile food device finds its way to multiple farmers markets, social spaces, and birthday parties. I so far am the only girl riding the bike and I love it. We sell alot of locally made frozen treats such as Carmela's Ice Creams, Popshop Popcicles, Bittersweet Treats, and Tomberlies raw ice creams. Don't believe me on the awesome factor? Here's our yelp!

Twin City Suicide

2009-07-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

Vampire mouths might trickle down extacy lane if you aren't careful. I've been here before December and I still fee l the bumps. Am I just slow or are you you not aware of dietary monogamy? Why should LA love me after vomiting on her roof tops and topless dancers?

can't see past my window with out a slutty cloud of population graphs. It's only indian music that you

can't

stomach with kobe beef fast food. The pace of your eyelids is frozen for me. What was I doing here way other than sleeping next to your fragmented face. Ahoy matey, this ship don't stop for Thom Sawyer and any Yes song you can hum. The cigarettes

live

closer existence to your spectrum than my eyes. No matter, I'll get my own. It's only babysitting when your not drunk. Well excuse my outer body ethnographic experience but I can't hold this plate much longer. Are we beyond this or not even close to wadding afternoons under covers polluted with Seinfeld Dvds? So Minneahaha really fell hard off the rocks and snowcapped balls. Bobby Dylan and carpacio never let that big of a stain

here.

geospacial bike crash

2009-07-24T23:35:00.000-07:00

Bikewise is place where you can mark where you have had a crash or there is a bike hazard or even more important- where things have gotten stolen. Please add to this! Great when going to new cities!

bubble gum fantasies

2009-07-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

no they are not real... thanks to photoshop. but imagine if they were!....... These are by Simone Decker. I found them on a blog then got Kanye West's post about it as well. I need to restart my gum project. Here's some images from our stint in Venice beach (versus Decker's Venice Italy.)

Art delivery

2009-07-01T00:16:00.000-07:00

Some might think that physical systems of information dispersion might be antique with the rise of twitter, iphones, and the new Google WAVE. Buy analog production still has value on our city streets, at least in Berlin. The project called Papergirl has been recruiting young Berliner on bikes to distribute rolls of art work much like an old fashioned paper boy. In 2005 the city of Berlin decided to fine any one pasting posters on public spaces. Aisha Ronninger, an art student, with her colleges brainstormed about how to bring art to public urban spaces. They pass out art in public while riding their bikes through the city. This has now become a well-established happening in the city. Hundreds of artworks on paper are sent from all over the worlds to Papergirl team. Anyone can participate from art students to doodling taxi drivers. They just ask for a minimum of 2 artworks.

"The basic idea with the project is to bring art to the public in a different way from normal; to surprise people and bring them into contact with art in their everyday life.”

I would like to start one in LA. If you are interested in 1. being on the street team or 2. sending art, please email me. nbarbuto@gmail.com

Thanks!

WAVE hello to the future

2009-06-26T02:23:00.000-07:00

Open sourced awesomeness! This is the future of communication. It's version of email kinda works like how you can use Google docs already. But it's waves. It's sonic booms of info. It breaks the info into particles that you can interject into, a multi level conversation. This is great to really encourage all of our ADD conditions. Yet, I think its just a step closer to singularity.

And on that topic....

i made it! market!

2009-06-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

Ya for I Made It! Market! This was featured on the Keystone Edge website.

Old men mapping the world.

2009-06-17T08:55:00.000-07:00

GO GO GEO WEB! For all you geographers out there, the internet is coming to get you. GIS , Geographic Information Systems, can be very boring sometimes but very informative. GIS and those who deal with it make it accessible to the public via cartography and visualization. By integrating geographic knowledge into daily human interaction can help us all live more sustainable/efficiently/and even socially.
Geographic Knowledge is more than just data:
Its predictions its cartographic knowlege
Meta Data- key for discovery and access
Because of Google and other mapping systems we are all thinking spatially in real time. They need to make the knowledge for the public. At the ACADIA conference I attended last October several presentations were also on this topic. The presentation by Ginette Wessel, Remco Chang, and Eric Sauda was titled:Towards A New (Mapping Of The) CityInteractive, Data Rich Modes Of Urban Legibility.
Their paper proposes a new interactive modes of urban legibility: data space, virtual and physical city, multi-nodal, and information flows.
They conclude that two necessary aspects of any urban visualization are interactivity and the combination of data and geospatial information. Interactivity is crucial because of the fluid nature of our experience and the diversity of individual agendas in the contemporary city. The combination of data and geospatial information reinforces the importance of geometry of the city alone is no longer a reliable indicator of meaning. The modern metropolis is a lasagna of complex overlays of information. The "city as object" has been retired. As much as the city is a living and reacting system, the information that defines or at least translates these transitory systems must be defined by the mailable technology such as twitter and iphone apps.
There was a lecture that Benjamin Bratton gave this past year where he talked about open source urbanism. "For the emergent pairing of urban software and hardware, the redesign of the polis is dependent as the redesign o the city & the redesign o the city is dependent on the redesign of the software, in fact they may likely turn out to be all the same thing." He also said architecture should commit suicide. Personally I am waiting for the jump. You can watch that lecture here. Just click on the video archive link.

Nader Vossoughian gave a lecture at the Berlage Institute in January 2009 titled Open Source Urbanism and the Language of the Global Polis which you can stream here.

What I want to know is how who is mapping what is happening in Tehran right now after the election. The use of "easy tech" aka cellphones to collect the people in riots and other rebellious demonstrative movements should really be documented and theorized. The fact that Facebook was banned in the country for awhile should tell you that the Iranians really know how to use it for its potential. Until then, here's the tweets about it.

cameo!

2009-06-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

(WORk01) preAMP+ iam from preAMP+ on Vimeo.

GOOD -n- trashy.

2009-06-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

This is not new news but its good to keep it in mind. GOOD magazine had one of their Transparency's on it recently. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a major problem for the world yet just recently (2008) has been physically addressed. Richard Owen is a building contractor and scuba dive instructor who formed the Environmental Cleanup Coalition to address the issue of the pollution of the North Pacific. The ECC plan calls for modifying a fleet of ships to clear the area of debris and form a restoration and recycling laboratory called Gyre Island. The ECC is a non-profit, NON-GOVERNMENTAL agency.

Heh heh, Hello?

2009-06-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

WELCOME TO THE FUTURE! Though the Design of the Elastic Mind Show was last year, there were so many products on display that its easy to find stuff as new. The Nokia Morph concept device bridges between highly advanced technologies and their potential benefits to end-users. This device concept showcases what is being explored by Nokia Research Center (NRC) in collaboration with the Cambridge Nanoscience Centre (United Kingdom). Nanoscale technologies will potentially create a world of radically different devices that open up an entirely new spectrum of possibilities. No longer just something to loose in your purse or your pocket. The phone is part of your daily appearance.

Integrated electronics in the Morph concept could cost less and include more functionality in a smaller space via its design at a nano scale. Nanotechnology has made it possible for materials like this, materials that are flexible, stretchable, transparent and remarkably strong all at once. All this is at the protein and fiber level of composition. The fibril proteins are woven into a three dimensional mesh that reinforces thin elastic structures much like the fibers in spider silk. The embedded elasticity enables the device to literally change shapes and configure itself to adapt to the task at hand. Also on a material scale, the utilization of biodegradable materials is planned in the production.. The "Nanograss" mentioned in the video is a brilliant idea that should be applied to other surfaces as well. I would even say automobiles! The nanograss harvests solar power. This miracle/future phone also will be laced with senors that have incite to bio-chemical awareness and consciousness to determine pollution or a fruit's ripeness. This could potentially count your own intake of calories and the calories you use while its on your body. Amazing. When can this be under my chirstmas tree?

Lego my FLW

2009-05-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

A childhood toy is stepping it up. LEGO and Brickstructures have unveiled an interesting new twist on a LEGO range - LEGO Architecture, the Frank Lloyd Wright Collection.
Brickstructures is mainly run by "architectural artist" Adam Reed Tucker who builds famous buildings out of legos. The FLW collection will surely be a hit since he's still the iconic architect of america.

As well as instructions, each building set includes a specially printed landmark name plate, an "inspiration booklet" containing facts, architectural significance and points of interest.

Make the wait worth it.

2009-05-21T17:22:00.000-07:00

Micheal Kontopolos has done it again!

the simpsons and architecture

2009-05-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

Maggie is an architect.

sf BIKES

2009-05-13T15:02:00.000-07:00

My friend Nathan Lee and some others have started this great cycle blog about bikes in SF.
CHECK IT OUT!

something to keep in mind

2009-05-12T19:12:00.001-07:00

brain fart

2009-05-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

I was teaching the kids about architecture the other day and I was just admiring the geometry equations on the wall. All of the sudden, I totally forgot the quadratic equation. I know. You are thinking, what is wrong with this girl, but I specifically remembered where I was and who was in the room when we were learning it in 8th grade. Who my teacher was and etc. So for all those who have forgotten about it: here she is!
I feel like maybe I should start a math night or at least a geometry night vrs just craft night.

pre post mod?

2009-05-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

This is the pre-Napoleonic (1758) proposal by Charles Ribart for an elephant-shaped building on the location of the current Arc de Triomphe. OH those French. Imagine if you actually live in an elephant.

School daze.

2009-05-07T00:29:00.000-07:00

Currently, I have been teaching 6th graders about architectures at George Washington Carver Middle School in South Central LA. I have been posting everything on my other blog
THE FUTURE STARTS WITH YOU. The kids are amazing. In the midst of making a powerpoint, I found this diagram on parabolas. Pretty amazing. I miss math, don't you?

NON BELIEVER

2009-04-15T00:55:00.000-07:00

I can't believe he doens't believe in Unicorns... David Kross is the shit. Really. unicorns?! no?Michel Gondry. WTF?!

watch out for this artist.

2009-04-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

Alia Penner's got some awesome stuff. my friend Sonny ran into her and met her and she might be in the MSTRCYLNDR.

overwhelmed with thought!

2009-04-06T16:53:00.001-07:00

schools of thought diagram. Here is the whole thing. It's amazing. Some of the key is::
white general systems
red cybernetics
black physical sciences
blue mathematics
magenta computers & informatics
green biology & medicine
yellow symbolic systems
orange social systems
olive ecology
gray philosophy
cyan systems analysis
purple engineering

Enjoy!

post_post?

2009-04-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

This past week has been field with lectures from miscellaneous art and architecture bloggers and media theorist. Welcome or post-welcome to Postopolis. This was put on by the Storefront for Art and Architecture and ForYourArt, and it is part of Los Angeles Art Weekend. Some of key people of blogs were David Basulto from Plataforma Arquitectura and ArchDaily, Jace Clayton from Mudd Up!, Régine Debatty from we make money not art , Bryan Finoki from Subtopia, Dan Hill from City of Sound, and Geoff Manaugh from BLDGBLOG. It was a 5 day event. I was able to attend the opening night and the closing. I was absent in the middle due to a cold. But all is well because I followed the whole thing on Twitter. Other people who presented were Fritz Haeg, Inaba, GOOD magazine, Islands of LA, Fallen Fruit, and Benjamin Bratton.

where i belong....

2009-03-30T02:12:00.000-07:00

right there.

Stuff IT! You're Full of IT. I've Had Enough!

2009-03-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

Old news, I know, but this could be the next great wave of graffiti, edible graffiti. Though it could also be considered just a prank or a malicious act (but really only if your a diabetic or an anorexic or have some food phobia), pieing really is a declaration of space and occupancy much like graffiti. This is a different way of tagging but actually marking the figure. It's saying "have your cake it and eat it too you jerk." From Wikipedia:: Pieing is the act of throwing a pie at an authority figure, politician, or celebrity as a means of protesting against the target's political beliefs, or against a perceived flaw — arrogance, hubris — in the target's character. Perpetrators generally regard the act as a form of ridicule to embarrass and humiliate the victim. In some US states 'pieing' may conform to definitions of battery, but not assault.
Now there is also caking which involves cake. Here is a healthy list by wikipedia as well of those who have been Pied. These delicious acts have been carried out not just by individuals but by brigades as well. Some to note are Les Entartistes,Biotic Baking Brigade, and Bakers Without Borders. An infamous one is the pie throwing anarchist Noel Godin. "We only attack the wicked--the great and the wicked," aka all politicians. When French Rally for the Republic party bigwig Nicolas Sarkozy visited Brussels in February, he was pursued through a downtown conference center by 30-odd people carrying pies and equipped with cameras. He was hit three times. "People are mad today, and this form of burlesque terrorism hurts nobody," says Van Hiel, Godin's companion and sometime accomplice. "The cream pie is the arm of the weak and powerless."

I was thinking how over architects I am. How pompous most of them are. How cocky they are. How many cocks they try to shove off as architecture.... I feel the time is now. YES NOW. For the people of the world to give them their "just desert." I am starting on a new mission. And it starts here::

Who's with me?

i had to ride the bus to santa monica to take care of my brother so i wrote a lot on the way...

2009-03-20T02:04:00.000-07:00

Spoke and Poke Driver

Cross those knees and unbutton those lips, it's the greatest show on this side of the frozen hemisphere. Weren't the stuffed bipolar bears scrumptious as the inventory vomited from the mausoleum? Make shift rears and gears got you from Tempe and back. Hold this while

tie my shoe. Did you know I could balence hats off of Prince impersonators as well? It's cool frostbitten figments were the last texture I knew of yours so

never

finger bang my tonsils again this week. Broken accordion staircases

meant

more after the future was published. Let me tell you about this cryptic trip tic your saliva and I took just

to say

I love it when you each peanuts and tobacco. Are you feeling and filling me up to the brims and bottoms with lollipops and lolly gaging? You kept asking me to gag and grapple more than your Adam's apple and bananas foster. My mouth's full again can you repeat what you said. I got lost down there in between I forget and

I'm sorry.

poem.

2009-03-20T02:03:00.001-07:00

Fictional Poster Child

Narcissistic egg layers and stretched out laryngitis landing pads became fresh kitsch TV dinner just like in the movies. Biking through the BladeRunner tunnel on a daily basis continues to act as a face lift for chemical imbalances and nuclear membranes. Patronizing my knotty ligaments

sometimes

gets milk to shoot through my nose. Let me tell you what happened last night while you were choking on oxygen and dust bunnies. All of a sudden we were in the park but really in Ireland with cliffs under our knees. Backdrop fiber glass bricks made better intents than your fists. King Kong doesn't live here any more. And all

you

can say is something or another about the weather vanes in Kansas becoming extinct like the partiarchy. I can't wait for the popcorn or your acned back to hatch. It's 8 o clock,

are

you coming in my mouth or on my ear because the blindfold you left on left skid marks. This is getting a bit too extroverted for an afternoon luncheon. Wherever did you get that hot sauce sucking routine? We were floating on mattresses and title waves enacted their eminent domain

everywhere I

forgot my sunglasses. It was my first blockhead carving and cellular mysticism all wrapped up in 2 concise spheres. This is entertainment. This is an octopus. This is just what's been between most of my fat layers and physical sheet slappers for 10 years now. Man times a grasshopper and I can't smoke enough. Don't believe me? Just take a

look.

SO CUTE

2009-03-20T01:45:00.000-07:00

Look how cute Jesse Buckner is as she goes to kick some ass in the Pittsburgh Delegation for the National Bike Summit. With her are Erok, Scott Bricker and Maurice Tierney.
Go get'em.

It's Alive!

2009-03-20T01:03:00.000-07:00

Choe U Ram is an amazing artist from South Korea. He has a deep understanding of robotics and creates these organic like structures that "live" autonomously almost. His show entitled Anima Machines was at the SCAI The Bathhouse gallery in Japan. Anima means soul in Latin. These things definitely have a life of their own. One of the best part of his work is that he treats these sculptures as specimens and gives them scientific names as well. This beautiful specimen is Una Lumino, 2008
Scientfic Name : Anmopispl avearium cirripedia URAM
The materials are Metallic material, machinery, metal-halide lamp, and of course electronic devices. Here is the description from U Ram's website:: According to a recent report from United Research of Anima Machine- U.R.A.M,
a brand new species of mechanized sentient creatures has been discovered
operating within communities.Said to exhibit sophisticated and uniform behavioral patterns, this new species has been observed communicating actively with each other in colonies not unlike those of bees and ants.

Communities of these species gather and collect to form a giant mass of pulsing, breathing light, where they exchange information about where to find city energy, their main source of sustenance. Despite the inexistence of leaders or orders due to lack of command system, they seem to operate through interactive communication. When the lump with congregated independent living entities shines brilliantly, larvae swim in the air towards it and attach themselves.In addition, their eggs and larvae are reported to generate light by themselves. This living entity also emits redundant energy where city energy is necessary through communication by means of light. When looked down from a night plane, the city lights seem as if they are breathing,
and some are actually the scenes of these living entities’ interactive communication. Although these living entities are not easy to be distinguished from city lights due to darkness and distance, observations are occasionally made on their swimming act in search of greater community to adhere to.
This living entity has the form and movement the same as that of sea acorn (barnacle), which collects city energy in the air by moving their hard mouth.
They often attach themselves on some surfaces in factory machinery rooms, basements of old buildings and colorful neon signs within places with high human population density. It has been reported that the discovery of mechanical living entity community in the form of a giant bee hive is the first in history.

I love it how he talks about energy as well. mmmm sounds familiar....

my fortune cookie today...

2009-03-18T20:35:00.000-07:00

"you are an individual interested in foreward thrust and the future"

poem.

2009-03-16T21:51:00.000-07:00

Craigslist Concubine

Anabolic diets and diaphragm meters clogged more than the arteries exiting the city. Criminally speaking, I can't take my eyes off of you or any other cat scratched mustang romping through Boyle Heights. It's not that high that

can't regret not ever seeing it. It's less and less that I see your courageous blue eyes replaced by females wreaking of Koffi Anon. Last night, the groin and the makeshift testicles did me in only partially in preparation for turkey basting and drainage. After all the book reports and pornographic film reviews I have spit and swallowed for your own traumatic asymmetries you'd think that you'd

want you

to be the only bees between my knees. Really, I am in the armpit shaving cream sundae. Ex-LAX and sponsorship from other undigestible matters flooded the CNN freeways, stroking my rear. There is this truck that you talk about on a daily basis. The sheet metal kept crinkling under our twinkle toes. I am not terribly certain about the immediate need

to destroy

every last parking spot this side of Fairfax. I am not moving till June. I caught myself bare lip kissing bricks again with broken bottles of Tapatio. Was it a mistake to tell you everything on the menu at the tamale hut was awesome? Never mind the dog and my little pony show, I tend to strip bare after carrying my unicorn up the steps. These dreams post rubdown are getting more and more lost highway. But really, it was never more revealing than all the spelling mistakes that you couldn't tell

me.

high in east la.

2009-03-13T13:49:00.001-07:00

wtf

2009-03-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

rainbows.

the wheels on the bike go round and round...

2009-03-12T22:41:00.001-07:00

and on his truck as well. a friend of mine, Zach Lihatch is currently trucking around while pedaling his book! (ha ha ha) He is putting together a book that documents bicycle cooperatives and co-ops in the US. If he comes your way, please send him some support. Here is his blog where he's been keeping track of his adventures thus far. Below is his mission statement::

Four the past four years, Zach has been involved with BICAS in Tuscon, AZ. BICAS (Bicycle InterComunity Action and Salvage) is a cooperatively-run non-profit Community Center that through bicycle advocacy and recycling bikes, promotes education, art and a healthy sustainable environment. In conjunction, it provides services and opportunity for those in need.
The emergence of places like BICAS has occurred relatively recently. 10 years ago only one or two such projects existed. For a little history, BICAS itself was created in 1989 with a different mission than bikes. It was to help the homeless and originally called Bootstraps to Share, operating out of someone's garage. In 1994, Bootstraps to Share organizers decided to focus on what the group did best encourage people to ride bicycles. Thus, BICAS was born. BICAS is one of the country's oldest bicycle co-ops, along with Boston's Bikes Not Bombs and New York's Time's Up. It is only appropriate that Zach started his journey there. Now almost every major city some type of collectively run community bike space. Many of these groups have organized a network and meet at a national gathering to discuss their tactics, success stories, and challenges. All across the country, community bike shops have become a powerful resource, impacting all who come in contact with them.
I would even go to say that they have become a staple in our generations society. I almost expect there to be a bike co-op in every city because I grew up with one as well. (shout out to free ride!) It's weird that that's what I assume. Fortunately, every city I've gone to in the US there's been one. Right after I moved to LA (like that week) I found a bike on craigslist and brought it to the Bicycle Kitchen. It just happen to be Bitchen Kitchen, the ladies night. I didn't know any one in LA and it was so welcoming! And re-affirming to be able to be fixing my bike in a strange new place.
Bicycle co-ops/collectives are the actualization of strong ideas. This once viewed as a sub-culture occurrence has blossomed into a current and appreciated amenity of the city and culture of its own. Zach's goal with this book is to bring attention to the bicycle co-ops and collectives and give this new and promising movement the recognition that it deserves. This next part is a direct quote (I've been paraphrasing thus far) but its too beautiful not to say it as it::"Thus far, there are many people who are involved in such endeavors, and countless others whom I believe could benefit from the knowledge that there is a practical and viable alternative out there. As individuals and communities, we can empower each other to reject those forces in the world that hold us down and to replace them with something much better. Through photo documentation, interviews and film [Zach] will be offering a glimpse into an alternative that is flourishing. "
It brings tears! So great! and SO TRUE! When I fix my bike and turned my Motobecane to a single speed all by myself I felt so empowered. This sounds lame. But bicycles truly contribute to bodies in space working in complete freedom. They cross lines of occupantcy and rights. When you are on your bike you become this beautiful hybrid of flesh and metal. With cars, you are still just in a pod, your energy is not recycled in any way and there is abundant waste. Freedom and mobility are extremely important to me and to what I think are everybody's rights (that and the right to information.)
So! Please contact Zach while hes on his journey. This book should be pretty awesome.

also...

2009-03-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

on the edge of awesome nesss.. here are some sneak peaks of what im making now specifically for this art book im doing with kendo. we are trying to blow minds. and not design anything. or architect for that matter. My work that I will be putting in will be analog collages, a sewing paper piece which has a name that i forgot, and some digital mash ups from images that I made during my architecture educational career, specifically undergrad. So here are some of the images:: Please tell me what you think. The CAAAAAAT one is more of a joke.

while we are on the subject...

2009-03-11T21:50:00.001-07:00

happy bday chuck!

my new bike.

2009-03-09T22:29:00.000-07:00

it feels like im riding the same thing.

poem from a few weeks ago.

2009-03-09T00:14:00.000-07:00

Santa Barbara School

I was christened by deli slices and vanilla wafers but nothing nearly digestible as your rump. Merry weather middle names kept us pregnant with ha has and hot air. Maybe it was a mistake to tell you in parcel post how

nothing

tastes like you out west. Open granges and cast iron ranges left us tripping on Joshua Trees. I prefer to be an ivy intoxicated median in your meta mph movements. Don't tell me breakfast

is more valuable

than Joy Division Public Enemy mashups. Wait, you lost your monorail ticket and you want to shower in my shoes? What happens intothe seamless stream line audible bass jam and beats?
It pieced out the mountain tops. AFrames in southern California told better bed time stories

than my

local RV clearance mart. Just imagine a nomadic spit shower in a rain forest of for rent signs. Did you see it under the concrete and skid marks? Your gingivitises bleeds just as well as Cubans for

freedom.

home sweet home

2009-03-02T15:32:00.000-08:00

This is in Aliquippa, PA, where I grew up. It's outside of Pittsburgh.. This is the building where I should have been all along.

brilliance.

2009-03-01T02:07:00.000-08:00

my next move

2009-02-28T00:19:00.000-08:00

After meeting with Sonny Coates earlier this week, I've realized that I have made a lot of awesome artifacts but since they weren't perceived as the final object (aka the architecture) they have been passed aside and put back in to the hard drive.

I count this lack of "being enamored with the immediate object" with my architecture education. More specific that that, my first week in freshman design studio my professors Tim Hadfield and Marsha Berger took us out of the studio and we followed them to the student center at cmu. There a group of Tebetian monks were making a mandala. I was 18 and had never seen anything like it before. It was beautiful. They were finishing it up and then the ceremony began. And what happens is that after hours and hours of laboring on this beautiful sand sculpture, the monks push the sand into piles, mixing the vibrant colors back to a mush. And as trippy as this might sound, Marsha said one of the most important things that I have kept with me to this day. And to paraphrase, it is to remember that you have to walk away from your work and its in some one else's hands. Someone will destroy your building, aka some one will kill your building. And its not for you, its for those who you make it for. (Wink wink.. how does this relate to my Inhabitable Organism??!!!!)

This video is very similar to the mandala experience I had. I used to have some of the sand and now I am kicking myself because I have no idea where it has gone to through all my moving about. But the sand is just an object as well.

So back to my little story. I am putting a book together with Kendo of our work. I am putting images I have made and am making now. The long story short here is that my architecture training has taught me over the years to not just make. For art, that's how I do alot of it. You can just make due to its rapid turnaround and monumentality. Architecture needs to be stripped of 1. the pretension that soo many folks have in its community and 2. its permanence. It's time we loosened up and got more like Picasso. (and to quote.. art can only be erotic...)

LA TEX CITY

2009-02-27T23:38:00.000-08:00

SITE 03::
an overpass
999 yale street LA CA 90012

LATEX CITY
MARCH 7TH
2PM

Please make your way to 999 Yale Street LA, CA 90012 on March 7th at 2pm. Go up the giant pedestrian ramp and join up on the overpass. There will be a sighting of LATEX CITY. Come and experience the space! Come see how balloon people dress, feed, and even listen to music.

This time, it's a completely public space.
Help us make this act of open urbanism a reality.

los angeles unicorn hobos

2009-02-22T11:49:00.000-08:00

do you believe? French photographer Jean Yves Lemoigne is a amazing.

for my video jockey-ing

2009-02-21T19:12:00.000-08:00

this is where i want to be......

we are the world...

2009-02-20T01:33:00.000-08:00

Chris Harrison from my alma mater Carnegie Mellon University has made these beautiful diagram of the Internet Map of the World. H retrieved his information from the Dimes Project which provides several data sets that describe the structure of the Internet. These magnificent drawings use their most recent data at the time of their creation in Feb 2007.
Chris created a set of visualizations that display how cities across the globe are interconnected. This is by router configuration and not physical backbone. So even if you try to zoom into your house, we wont see you with your laptop in your underwears. There are 89,344 connections total according to the Dimes Project. I have recently emailed him to find out how he made these, what software, and where he got his info. How reminiscent is this work to the flight 404 action? mmmm It smells like open source urbanism to me!

!!!!!!!

2009-02-17T22:44:00.000-08:00

This was featured on the STREETS blog LA:: my ParkingDayLA exhibit!

"Nina Barbuto, the principal of the fledgling Awesome Studios earns bonus points for setting up her park in a pay parking lot near the corner of Rose and 3rd just east of Little Tokyo. She gets double bonus points for providing shade with a tarp made of 200 black bras."

making shaking

2009-02-16T02:06:00.000-08:00

So I have been getting in to this. I want to work on this becoming more of a series. The crowds.

Tonight I went to see a friend from college, Jacob Ciocci's work at cinefamily theater on Fairfax. He is simply inspirational. Here's a small sample.

His work, as awesomely stimulating as it is clearly wraps up in a bow what my/our generation is exposed to. No wonder most of us have add or something along those lines. I mean it is great for multitasking. Even Benjamin Bratton said something about this in the class I had with him over the summer. He was commenting on how architecture students will have multiple screens and be watching multiple things at once while working on a maya model. I always found having a movie on the side or listening to books on tape/this american life/pandora.com or hulu I get more done. We have been growing up with a vomit of images in our faces from saturday morning cartoons to every pop up on the internets. (Please let there be no pop ups in Web 3.0!) So. The question is ... now what? Why isn't our archiectures conveying this also? Is it? is it too subtle? I want media vomit architecure. This is BEYOND surreal. Welcome to the AWEsome.

SHOUT OUT AND MARCH

2009-01-12T21:03:00.000-08:00

times are rough right now even down under. as you know we (valetina vasi, adrienne garcia, jessica rivera, and myself) have started a little art collective entitled get rid of white walls, or g.r.o.w.2 . We had our first show December 13 with more coming up.

Our efforts have inspired our Aussie friend and lover Danielle Peck to ignite the collective in Melbourne, where there is currently a housing crisis for students. Her Design For Change blog is quite informative and inspirational. She is planing an event to occur in the coming months so watch out.

A specific point of view of the housing crisis is that of S.H.A.C. or The Student Housing Action Cooperative. They are a group of students who formed together to take action on student housing affordability. They bring to the table a raising of awareness and petition universities and government. They have recently taken possession of four double story terrace buildings that have been vacant for three years. Property that was just siting wasting away. The property is owned by the University Of Melbourne. They are currently in negotiations with them to have it turned into a student run housing co-operative, which only makes sense.

gonzo scrible.

2009-01-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

Backseat Diplomat

Twenty four ears molded to cell phones and rebate commercials kept indigestion a hip thing. Do your gay neighbors sing that high too? Goofy two shoes went animal killing last week.

By this time

next month you'll be swallowing Viennese sausages for opportunities in carpel tunnel syndrome help circles. It's all just a bunch of verticies when it comes down to it. You hold my head better than anyone else

in my life.

Excuse the bumps, my scalp's a stress related landscape. Something you do for money. Somethings you do for love. You haven't done anything with your dead skin cells for months. With all this social networking and autoerotic texting

you'd think I'd know

more thank just a think or two. If this is why we can't have nice things how come you stopped brushing your teeth? Could you talk to me open mouthed in your car before I forget what you said

by now.

beep dot beep dot dot beeep

2009-01-03T17:27:00.000-08:00

For something fun::
Here is a site that translates txt to morse code.
-. .. -. .- / -- .- .-. .. . / -... .- .-. -... ..- - ---
That's my name!

sitting here wishing on a cement floor...

2008-12-31T03:14:00.001-08:00

post industrial bovine

Hold my breath for two more minutes. It's easier with your fist in my mouth. I can't really blame you for going with the flow of 10,000 cadavers and 3 more unknown.

It's a sign of our times,

this organic Molotov cocktail with silicon cherries on top. Lisa Frank still represents my inner monologue better than pork-less beans.

When you know

you're right you are most likely left of the manual spectrum. She was a cute little Asian girl with pigtails and keys. Not many complaints there other than temperature related scars. You can't tell me that

it's better

this way with Mars and Jupiter living in your veranda. Mr. Rodgers never held a kosher hand towards the direction of a nostalgic tomorrow. All I can say is that I have a masters degree and I am learning

to be solo.