Número 01 / Invierno 2011

PARADISEArchitecture & Shit

Editor:Juan Manuel Morales

Consejo Editorial:O.B. | G.C. | M.M.

Diseño:Mostro

Colaboradores:Pedro H.

Contacto:weliveinparadise@gmail.com

Gracias a Laura Brothers, Robert Overweg,Luciano Matus y Salvador Ortíz.

Paradise es una publicación sobre el espacio,su experimentación e interpetraciónes.

Se imprime en el taller de medios impresos de laUniversidad de Sonora. En Hermosillo, México.

2011 Ilusiones Ópticas del Noroeste

ÍNDICEEDItoRIAlp. 4

“BE PAtIENt, foR thE woRlD IS BRoAD AND wIDE”p. 6

tIJUANA MAKES ME hAPPYp. 8

thE END of thE vIRtUAl woRlDp. 11

oUt-4-PIzzAp. 16

AqUÍp. 22

6

7

8

“Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.”I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.

Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows--only hard and with luminous edges--and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said “my universe”: but now my mind has been opened to higher views of things.

In such a country, you will perceive at once that it is impossible that there should be anything of what you call a “solid” kind; but I dare say you will suppose that we could at least distinguish by sight the Triangles, Squares, and other figures, moving about as I have described them. On the contrary, we could see nothing of the kind, not at least so as to distinguish one figure from another. Nothing was visible, nor could be visible, to us, except Straight Lines; and the necessity of this I will speedily demonstrate.

Place a penny on the middle of one of your tables in Space; and leaning over it, look down upon it. It will appear a circle.

But now, drawing back to the edge of the table, gradually lower your eye (thus bringing yourself more and more into the condition of the inhabitants of Flatland), and you will find the penny becoming more and more oval to your view, and at last when you have placed your eye exactly on the edge of the table (so that you are, as it were, actually a Flatlander) the penny will then have ceased to appear oval at all, and will have become, so far as you can see, a straight line.

The same thing would happen if you were to treat in the same way a Triangle, or Square, or any other figure cut out of pasteboard. As soon as you look at it with your eye on the edge on the table, you will find that it ceases to appear to you a figure, and that it becomes in appearance a straight line. Take for example an equilateral Triangle--who represents with us a Tradesman of the respectable class. Fig. 1 represents the Tradesman as you would see him while you were bending over him from above; figs. 2 and 3 represent the Tradesman, as you would see him if your eye were close to the level, or all but on the level of the table; and if your eye were quite on the level of the table (and that is how we see him in Flatland) you would see nothing but a straight line.

Fragmento extraído de Flatland, A romance of many dimensionsde A. Square, publicado en 1885 por Roberts Brothers

en Boston, Massachusetts.

9

10

Un poco a raíz de los comentarios que apareci-eron en Boiteautils acerca del proyecto “Border Wall as Infrastructure” he recordado como unos compañeros de la carrera hicieron algo similar, trabajando en la misma ubicación y, sorprendent-emente para mi, con ideas similares en cuanto al punto de partida.

Tanto como dice Ronald Rael como me co-mentaba mi compañero proponen ver el entorno del muro como un espacio de oportunidad en-ergética, abandonando su condición de terrain vague.

En palabras de Salvador:

“El proyecto arranca de un concepto-premisa: la energía. Buscamos un ciclo energético de la arquitectura cerrado y equilibrado, por lo que la aportación de quien utilice esa arquitectura se plantea fundamental. Se persigue pues un lugar con gran cantidad de energía latente que sea una fuente casi inagotable para nuestra propuesta.”

TIJUANA MAKES ME HAPPYAutores: Salvador Ortiz, Sergio Pérez, Ana Gimenez, Laura Mariana Reyes, Jose Rafael Verduzco. Año: 2007-2008Proyecto para el Taller de Adriana Figueiras en la Universidad de Alicante, España.

11

La propuesta no se queda únicamente en la solución anterior sino que se complementa con la realización de un enorme edificio lineal (de referencia cercana a Superstudio o Rem Koolhaas) que acoge en su interior actividades relacionadas con la industria y el ocio.

“La frontera que acoge el tránsito de 40.000.000 de personas anuales (casi la población total de España). Sin embargo, no pretendemos solucionar las innumerables problemáticas que definen este emplazamiento, si no simplemente equilibrar un ciclo asimétrico, con un flujo mayor en una dirección y que compone una ciudad que

crece contra un muro. La formalización es un simple pero rotundo gesto. Se pretende cualificar un espacio umbral que queda confinado entre dos grandes pantallas publicitarias 24/7.”

El proyecto queda así convertido en una suerte de Mall, un Strip, un elemento de atracción que contiene los elementos arquetópicos de cada uno de los países, invirtiendo su orden, acercando así México a EEUU y viceversa.

American dream vs. Mexican dream.

TIJUANA MAKES ME HAPPYPedro estudia arquitectura en Alicante, España,escribe para La Periferia Doméstica.http://periferiadomestica.tumblr.com

Por Pedro Hernandez

12

13

Robert Overweg is a photographer in the virtual world, he sees the worlds of (first and third person shooter) games as the new public spaces of contemporary society and as a direct extension of the physical world.

Overweg dwells by foot or by air through the outskirts of the virtual world which he dissects through his photography. He documents the similarities and the differences between the virtual and the physical world while making use of the new possibilities the virtual world give him as a photographer.

By looking into how games work and the aesthetics of the virtual world he asks questions about how the system works and the people behind them.

14

The end of the virtual world 7, 2010, Robert Overweg, Modern warfare 2. Image courtesy TAG, The Hague.

15

“This series of photographs originates from four popular first person shooter games (Left 4 dead 2, Half-life 2, counter-strike and modern warfare 2) Unlike you might think the virtual world is not round like the physical world but flat with hard-cut edges. These photographs show us how the virtual world ends. What I find interesting about these photographs is that they behold a certain dramatic almost classical feel to them playing with our real life experiences but cut off.”

16

The end of the virtual world 1, 2010, Robert Overweg, Left 4 dead 2. Images courtesy TAG, The Hague.

17

“By taking the photographs out of their context of the virtual world and blowing them up in a size of 144cm by 81cm (or larger) the typical aesthetics of games are laid bare. At first glance the photograph seems to represent the physical world really well. After further inspection you might see the identical air conditioners on the roof both have the exact same rust and scratch marks, the brick pattern on the wall on the right has non fitting patterns. The most obvious example is the two colliding roads whom are pasted together.”

http://www.shotbyrobert.com

18 ‘Afte

r mid

nigh

t’ de

la se

rie M

oonw

alki

ng a

fter m

idni

ght.

Sear

chin

g fo

r my

disc

o da

rlin

g(20

08),

Laur

a B

roth

ers.

Pági

na o

pues

ta: ‘

Fles

h pr

ince

pol

e’ d

e la

serie

The

fles

h pr

ince

ss(2

009)

, Lau

ra B

roth

ers.

OUT_4_PIZZALaura Brothers utiliza un livejournal para publicar su trabajo, convirtiendo al espacio virtual en una galería donde se exhiben piezas intangibles, las cuales expresan una potencialidad comunicativa novedosa.

El sitio es un ejemplo de las tantas aplicaciones que ofrece la internet, y el espacio virtual en general, para funcionar como nuevos canales expresivos, capaces de constituir una experiencia espacial real.

Una tarde de invierno Paradise tuvo la oportunidad de conversar, virtualmente, con Laura Brothers y profundizar un poco sobre su trabajo, los detallas detrás de OUT_4_PIZZA y sus orígenes.

http://out-4-pizza.livejournal.com

19

20

P. As a first question: How do you refer to your work? Are they images, illustrations?

lB. It somehow shifts around depending on the context of the conversation, but in gen-eral, i say “image” or even more frequently, i find myself saying “post” to refer to a series of images that go together. It’s a blog after all.

P. I’ve called them posts too : ). What about the blog, how did it begin?

lB. In all honesty, it started as a quiet attempt at entertaining myself. I thought it would be a private affair to track my own digital cre-ations over time.

P. A brain drain?.

lB. You’ve put it perfectly. Wink.

P. Your posts seem to document decisive moments of spiritual experiences but still remain honest about their nature, do you re-gard that domestic feel as an important part of your works?

lB. I’m not sure I quite understand what you are asking, but when you say “domestic feel” I think maybe you are referring to how they might rely heavily on personal associations that may be conjured by the imagery? If I am reading into that correctly, then yes. I think there’s a lot of reliance on my own personal associations and trust that others will have a similar experience in viewing the work. If that’s not what you meant, I just did a good job projecting one of my answers onto your question.

P. Considering the fact that OUT-4-PIZZA it’s a blog, and that it takes form through the internet do you think that new ‘mate-rial realm’ which is the web manifests in the themes of your works?.

lB. Well, I think the idea of the web is inher-ent in the work as a whole, as a blog . The way in which someone views my work is ad-equately different than the process one goes through when viewing work offline, in real life... in, say, a gallery. And I do definitely draw from a language of computers though maybe not necessarily just the “web.” The way in which I draw my pieces makes the computer’s involvement apparent. In some works, I’ve made use of recognizable ele-ments of image-making software like Google Sketchup or the lasso tool in Photoshop. So, visually, yes, the culture of computers is all over my posts. But thematically? That’s harder to discern.

P. When exhibited, what do you take on account to translate from the virtual to the physical, what’s the approach towards the in-stallation?

lB. I’m still in the process of finding the right way for me to translate my work into the physical. Ideally, what I put up on the blog, to me, belongs on the blog and thrives in that context. Taking it out of its safe home doesn’t necessarily change the piece completely, but it becomes a different piece to me. So the way I approach it, depends on the imagery and the method of showing it physically.

P. Last one: If you decided to tag every post, what do you think the most common words would be?.

lB. This could be a one word answer, but I don’t think like that...This would also depend. Depend on the way in which I choose to use the tags. Do I use them for my own reference to find specific posts easily? or what type of “style” the image is? OR am I tagging based on themes? On color? complexity? Anima-tion or still? I think this is why I don’t use tags. I suppose if I had to guess, the most fre-quent tags would be “static” and “triptych”.

21

‘Cruise control’ de la serie Branded with possibilites(2008), Laura Brothers

‘Pamela in position’ de la serie Beavis and Brahms(2009), Laura Brothers

22

23‘For never’ de la serie We are the children of the sun(2008), Laura Brothers

24

Aquí

25

I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE WORD SPACE MEANS...I KEEP USING IT.BUT I’M NOT QUITE SURE WHAT IT MEANS.

-GORDON MATTA-CLARK

Ilusiones Ópticas del Noroeste