The Seagram Building

This little video outlines the relvence of the Seagram Building in architectural history, as well as outlining it's structural rationale, materials and organisation.

This is part of the reseacrh we undertook before deciding the Seagram Building was the skyscraper we wanted to use as our template to experiment if a zoo can be fit into a skyscraper.

Please see the submissions area for the results.

The Dominance of Aesthetics

I came across this following passage Jean Nouvel put forward at the First International Symposium on Zoo Design and Construction held at the Paigton Zoo, Devon England in 1975.

"The exhibition of wild animals in captivity must always follow the rules of aesthetics, that is to say that the visitor must all the time feel himself to be in pleasant surroundings.

To obey this rule, the method of exhibition must follow the taste of the period, and the thoughts which the animals being shown arouse in the mind of the visitor."

Known for his preoccupation with architectural theatrics, it could be said that this way of thinking has been carried on in his works, right through to the The Musée du quai Branly which has received heavy criticism for a perceived reliance in its exhibitions on visual appeal and theatrics, as opposed to explanation and context.


Bernice Murphy, co-founder of the Sydney MCA and now National Director of Museums Australia and Chair of the Ethics Committee of the International Council of Museums. She told a Sydney symposium on 'Australian Arts in an International Context' that she found the whole of Quai Branly to be a "regressive museology" and the presentation of Aboriginal art "in a vegetal environment" to be "an exotic mise en scène" in the worst taste.

MICHAEL KIMMELMAN of the New York Times:

"If the Marx Brothers designed a museum for dark people, they might have come up with the permanent-collection galleries: devised as a spooky jungle, red and black and murky, the objects in it chosen and arranged with hardly any discernible logic, the place is briefly thrilling, as spectacle, but brow-slappingly wrongheaded. Colonialism of a bygone era is replaced by a whole new French brand of condescension."

"Think of the museum as a kind of ghetto for the "other," a word Mr. Chirac has taken to using: an enormous, rambling, crepuscular cavern that tries to evoke a journey into the jungle, downriver, where suddenly scary masks or totem poles loom out of the darkness and everything is meant to be foreign and exotic. The Crayola-colored facade and its garden set the stage for this passage from civilization."

I went the museum myself in 2009.(above photos are my own) Admittedly it did come across as a bit on the nose like Kimmelman had mentioned, right from the moment you enter where you see the elevated UFO like museum looming over a barren landscape setting. It's hard not to read into such an arrangement but then again I think it should be taken into consideration that I definitely sit on the more " prone to being difficult" end in the spectrum of cultural sensitivity.

There were some exciting sequence of spaces inside the museum, which was a stark and refreshing contrast of the clean sober spaces of the many more conventional museum spaces in Paris. I think it should be commended in its attempt to use space to add to the narrative of the housed collection. I think it's a great concept, the problem is in the clumsily heavy handed execution. The sequence of spaces is compounded with jarring effects and it got a bit chaotic and distracted from the exhibits. The lasting impression was that of style over substance.

For arts sake!

Ivan Durrant - considered by some as a controversial but seminal Australian artist

and to quote others he is: wicked, abominable, atrocious, appalling, a disgrace to Australian society, perverted… and these are the descriptions that made it to print.

So let’s have a look at some of his work and why it had provoked the responses it has:



What interested us most? Well, the dumping of a cow carccass on the steps of the NGV and the pigeon dinner.

It is interesting how Ivan points out how we (humans) are so willing to exploit animals every day for the sake of eating them, but the second we "exploit" them for the sake of art people get all up in a huff.

Why is this and what is the real difference? Animals don't want to be eaten, nor do they want to be made a spectacle of - So why can't we do both, so long as it's not "exploting" the animal but done respectfully.

Wim Delvoye is another artist who poses similar questions in different but no less contravertial ways - yes, the image below is a tatood pig.

Too pretty for this world

To quote webecoist.com:

"Like much of the futuristic green building designs and great green architecture of today, the ugly redheaded stepchildren of the animal kingdom don’t get much attention compared to the perennial endangered animal favorites like pandas, polar bears, and owls. These are the cute, majestic, and otherwise emblematic creatures of the endangered species list. But there are hundreds more animal species on our wondrous planet that are critically threatened and need both publicity and support."

So true, so true...

But if people (in general) don't particularily care if these animals exist or go extinct would they then pay to see them for pure entertainments sake? Up close? In a zoo!?

It's definitely something to think about.

And now for some images of a few of these critically endangered animals that no one really cares about, feel free to scroll through then scroll up and start again if you really want another look...:




This is a baby aye aye, aww babies, so cute.



A blob fish, native to Australian waters actually. Now this is truly emblematic material!




Some male hooded seals, inflating their faces to impress the ladies. I know I'm impressed!



A Purple Frog.

Animal Crossdressing - Nina Katchadourian

Fish Fashions

Fish Highway

What is a fish highway?

Imagine a means for fish to swim out the top of your aquarium, up to the ceiling, across the room and then down into another tank. That’s a fish highway.

Why doesn’t the water spill out of the highway?

The highway tube is completely sealed except for the openings at each end which are submerged below the tank water levels. Like a large drinking straw, when the air is sucked out of the tube the water rises inside it and will stay there unless you let the air back in.

Does it harm the fish?

As the fish swim higher the pressure drops a little but it’s only slightly lower than the pressure pressure in the tank.

How do you fill it?

When the air is sucked out of the sealed tube the water from the tanks flows into it. Eventually, after all the air is removed the tube is filled with water.

How do you clean it?

Water flows through the highway continuously so the tank filters clean the water in the highway. Algae is removed using cleaning magnets for acrylic tanks.

How does water flow through the highway?

Water is pumped through a separate pipe from one tank to the other using a small pump. As the tank water levels change (one rises and the other falls) flow is induced through the highway by the force of gravity.

Omg are you seeing what I'm seeing?

If I'm asking an animal that then the answer is most probably "uhh... no"

One of our experiments is to do with animal perceptions (more later)

This is a video that had a cute execution in exploring animal vision (even if my research has now allowed me to realise the inaccuracies in the actual video it's a nice and neat composition.)

visualizing 5 senses - final project from jaeyoon Kang on Vimeo.

Interest

Wild Things

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lol

the best bit is the follow up story of the snake dying of silicone poisoning.

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lol

National Emblem

Check out this image of a humble gold fish from the Baghdad Zoo during the reign on Saddam Hussein...


Yes, that is an Iraqi flag tattooed on the fish. In fact every single gold fish in the zoo was an opportunity to advertise nationalistic pride.

Surely it would make more of an impact to tattoo one elephant rather than hundreds of pretty little swimming things?

So Civil Right Now