Stefano Mirti’s facebook wall

42/522012

timeline archive:a personal collection of curiosities

Stefano Mirti’s facebook wall

https://www.facebook.com/stefano.mirti.3

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Moscow, Russia

The "Kitchen" Debate

Tomorrow morning (Tue), I will give a lecture on this special moment when Cold War overlapped interior design and mass-consuption:

Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev at their best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7HqOrAakc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6RLCw1OZFw

More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Debate

If you want to come, it will be at 10.30, Bocconi University, via Sarfatti 25, in the class of prof. Andrea Quartarone.

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Phnom Penh

King Sihanouk

Yesterday King Sihanouk from Cambodia died in Beijing. He was one of the oddest XXth Century relic still active in the XXIth.

A very strange character, always surfing between farce and tragedy.

More about him at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norodom_Sihanouk

Here his obituary on the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/.../15/king-norodom-sihanouk…

Image above: crowning ceremony, in 1941.

Some other images of him: http://editorials.cambodia.org/.../vintage-photos-of-king...

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Duomo di Milano

Get your spire. Carve your name in history.

The history of the Milanese Duomo has always been linked to the generosity of great families and illustrious patrons of the arts.

The undertaking of the Cathedral would find in generosity, and in the desire for fame and public acknowledgement, the drive that allowed the Fabbrica to overcome everyday difficulties and continue its work.

Like Gian Galeazzo Visconti and Marco Carelli, the Veneranda Fabbrica wishes to resume the steps of said generosity.

The Veneranda Fabbrica invites you to “Adopt a Spire” and add your name, the name of your family or business, to one of the 135 Duomo spires.

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Chris Ware’s Building Stories

Building Stories comes as a big, exquisitely produced box containing 14 different booklets. They vary from pamphlets each page of which are around A2-sized, to a single narrow strip of paper, zigzag folded. A couple are bound in cloth or cardboard. They can be read in any order: and in combination they describe the lives of the inhabitants of a three-story building in Chicago.

Keep reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/.../building-stories-chris-ware…

More at: http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/.../chris-wares.../

Keep reading at: http://www.duomomilano.it/.../adotta-una-guglia.../...

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti

Very nice, in NABA. A great conversation organized by Legrenzi Susanna and Vered Zaykovsky.

Dominic Wilcox + Elio Caccavale + Forma Fantasma talking on the relationship between design and story telling.

Here above: "Baked" by Forma Fantasma.

More at: http://theartistandhismodel.com/2009/11/baked-by/

Good design tells a story? Good design sells a story! (1)

Thanks to Gioia Guerzoni for the links.

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Sound of Making in East London

Dominic Wilcox presents his fantastic work: "Sound of Making in East London". A cultural souvenir from the London East End, Summer 2012.

Here the website for the project: http://soundsofmaking.com/

Here is the New York Times writing on this souvenir (and many others): http://www.nytimes.com/.../for-the-olympics-artisanal…

And here you have Dominic's website: http://www.dominicwilcox.com/

Here, Forma Fantasma website: http://www.formafantasma.com/

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Northamptonshire

"I was commissioned by the Global Footprint project in Northamptonshire, a place famous for shoe making, to create some shoes. I decided to make a pair of shoes that can navigate you to anywhere you wish to travel to. I thought about the Wizard of Oz and how Dorothy could click her shoes together to go home. After uploading your required destination to the shoes via a piece of custom made mapping software and a USB cable, the GPS, which is embedded in the heel, is activated by a heel click. It then communicates to the wearer via a ring of LED lights to point in the required direction. The shoe with the GPS wirelessly communicates with the right shoe that has a progress bar of lights to show how close you are to the destination."

(Dominic Wilcox)

No Place Like Home GPS Shoes

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Royal College Of Art

(Lazy) Elio Caccavale

After Dominic, Elio makes his presentation.

Lazy day, because he goes again on the "Utility Pets" projects. Very nice project, but I know the story…

More about this project: http://sciencegallery.com/pigsSG

Keep reading at: http://www.dominicwilcox.com/gpsshoes.htm

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Netherlands

Goodbye Sylvia Kristel...

"People don't assume John Wayne shoots people and rides a horse on weekends, but people think I'm a nymphomaniac."

(Sylvia Kristel, 1952/2012)

http://www.nytimes.com/.../sylvia-kristel-60-dies-starred...

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Busan, South Korea

Opera House

Italian practice IaN+ has won first prize in the initial phase of the 'busan opera house' in South Korea.

Very nice, indeed…

Keep reading at: http://www.designboom.com/.../busan-opera-house-proposal…

Of course, the thing that I love the most of this project, is the "stealth" operation toward: http://www.allzonedesignall.com/.../56-new-taipei-city.../

Well, Picasso famously stated that: "Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal". In this case, I think that we are in the "borrowing" arena…

Finally, I understand that if you want to win a

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Parco Regionale dell'Appia Antica

Marcovaldo

Marcovaldo is an unskilled worker in a drab industrial city in northern Italy. He is an irrepressible dreamer and an inveterate schemer.

Much to the puzzlement of his wife, his children, his boss, and his neighbors, he chases his dreams-but the results are never the expected ones.

competition in Asia (South Korea, Tapei, etc.), if you make a building with a spatial grid, you have a good start…

I want to live in the Fun Palace, now!

http://www.google.it/imgres?um=1&hl=en&safe=off...

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Roma

Urban Experience

Here the link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Marcovaldo-Seasons.../dp/0156572044

Here some more: http://www.nytimes.com/.../calvino-s-urban-allegories.html

---

This coming Sunday, in Rome there will be a walk on the footstep of Marcovaldo:

http://www.urbanexperience.it/.../walk-show-sulle-tracce.../

Thanks to Giulio Pascali for the link.

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Urban Experience is a cultural association built on the interest in relationships between land development, urban/human landscapes and the infinite opportunities given by the new 2.0 media devices; from smartphones/applications to social networking, from human experiences to smart development of cities.

We work constantly to find new solutions and new ways to use and live contemporary cities, never forgetting our core belief of a horizontally built community: from the historical center to the suburbs.

Innovation for us is the development of interaction in the ”users/usage” dynamics and this means that the smart cities are built on the intelligent and aware user citizens.

In order to encourage new ways for the citizens to explore and discover urban realities we decided we needed site specific urban performances, that we then designed with “edutainment” in mind.

Keep reading at: http://www.urbanexperience.it/english/

Thanks to Giulio Pascali and Legrenzi Susanna for the link...

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

New York, NY

Psychogeography

A disturbing tale comes from Ralph in New York. I'm not sure we're going to be able to let him out on his own in future. Apparently in an antic state, he decided to take a party of friends over from Manhattan to Staten Island on the ferry. Being Ralph – and committed to the transgression of all norms – he wanted his party to dodge the ferry fare, assuming that since his first trip stateside, in 1970, it would've risen five-hundredfold, from a nickel to $25. Much to his chagrin, the ferry was entirely free, having been subsidised in a vote-grabbing move aimed at improving the Islanders' self-esteem.

Keep reading at: http://www.independent.co.uk/.../will-self…

Here the link to Will Self & Ralph Steadman's "Psychogeography":

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

London, England

Kakfa's Wound

Wow. What a fascinating idea. Interactive cultural hub "The Space" has just posted Will Self's interactive online essay, 'Kafka's Wound: A Digital Essay'.

What is remarkable about the essay is the extent to which it utilises multimedia to tell its story. Self's digital footnotes can be accessed as one reads, and to some degree they recall the fiction of W. G. Sebald (to say nothing of Self's recent work).

Keep reading at:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychogeography.../dp/0747590338

Thanks to Gioia Guerzoni for the link.

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Porto Marghera

Well, let's say it was like being a dystopic sci-fi novel, waterpainted by Monet.

This is curious. I've been to Venice an endless amount of times in my life. Yesterday evening it was the moment where I've got enightened.

One of those rare moments where you are not

It looked like Monet, but it was dystopic sci-fi.

http://www.apieceofmonologue.com/.../will-self-franz…

Here the link to the project: http://thespace.lrb.co.uk/…

Thanks to Gioia Guerzoni for the link.

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

taking a picture, but the picture is taking you.

Venice lagoon, sunset, Porto Marghera oil refinery, an iPhone, a filter on Instagram. Ready for the future.

Better. Ready for the present.

ps.

...the name "Marghera", comes from the fact that the area where the present city was built, was once a marine swamp. In the Venetian dialect, in fact, "Mar gh' era" means "There was the sea"...

More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marghera

São Paulo, Brazil

CRAS

Stefano’s facebook timeline 42/52 2012

Once in a while, I get to see things that really stick into my mind. This is a detail of a work done by Stephan Doitschinoff in "CRAS" book.

Here the link to the book: http://shop.gestalten.com/cras.html

Here the link to the original image: http://shop.gestalten.com/.../cras_stephandoitschinoff…

Thanks to Davide Sacconi for the link.