April Greiman ➔ April Greiman is a thinker and artist, whose transmedia projects, innovative ideas, and hybridbased approach, have been influential worldwide over the last 30 years. Her explorations of image, word and color as objects in time and space are grounded in her singular fusion of art and technology. Greiman has been instrumental in the acceptance and use of advanced technology in the arts and the design process since the early 1980s. ➔ Moving from the constraints of European design movements she set off to Los Angeles which although at the time had had a limited aesthetic of its own. Museums and galleries were few. But the lack of an established design practice created a unique opportunity to explore new paradigms in communications design.
➔ In 1984 the mac was first coming into the design market. Most designers were against the idea of using it in aiding their design process skeptical of its future. However a visionary like April Greiman recognised its potential adopting it into her practice “The digital landscape fascinates me in the same way as the desert,” she says. This fascination comes from the core of her being, a core of perpetual curiosity and questioning that fuels her desire to explore and inspires the cuttingedge design work that places her at the helm of integrated design at the close of the twentieth century.
Tomoko Miho ➔ Tomoko Miho was a JapaneseAmerican designer. She is known for her solid understanding between space and object, receiving the Aiga Medal in 1993. Being heralded as “One of the most perceptive problemsolvers I know” by Rudolph de Harak. Looking back at her career it is clear to see that her work is an example of ‘the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.’ with her contribution to graphic design outweighing the sum of her talents. Posters, logos, catalogs and architectural signage all share the the same factors that her understanding of the relationship between space and substance, the concept and the details. Without showing sentimentality in her works they were still able to draw emotional responses. Tomoko Miho’s commitment to quality is what allows her to stand out.
➔ Tomoko spent her early life growing up in Arizona. She then went on to study industrial design in Los Angeles earning a degree. Her and her husband, James Miho, went onto a european adventure touring for six months where they met countless european artists. Switzerland at the time was on the the verge of combining design and consumerism. This appealed to the capitalist nature of America, changing the way corporate america viewed itself. New sans serif typefaces stripped back allowing people to start over, be seen as new. This simplified European art style soon took over america. Being on this trip allowed Tomoko to review herself and her design striping away and leaving only space to play with ‘“join space and substance,” as she later wrote. To draw the big picture, its message and its context.”’
➔ Miho is most noted for her contribution in the form of architectural posters in New York and Chicago. Today, they are still in the Museum of Modern Art. Her work is strongly influenced by Swiss international typographic style. Her architecturally infused works were honoured with numerous prizes and have been featured in international exhibitions.
Invisible Cities ITALO CALVINO ➔ This book works in three layers. There is the verbal pictures of the cities that are beautifully articulated by the character Marco Polo, the Venetian traveler who claims to have visited all of these cities, as he sits in Kublai Khan’s garden. The philosophical interpretations of the book and the artistic reflection. The cities are then divided into eleven categories and there are strong connections between the cities and memory, desire, and the dead, ect, which create the philosophical view. Then the cities are split into types such as trading cities, hidden cities and thin cities which represent the artistic idea. The entire novel is a conversation with the characters weaving beautiful views that only the reader can see as even Kublai Khan has never been to these places.
➔ The city of Melania is among the “cities of the dead” and its citizens are not real living characters but literary archetypes that are found throughout literature examples include the sponger and the hypocrite. For the residents of the city, although there roles may change and/or multiply, they still remain static and stereotypical and therefore dead. “Melania’s population renews itself: the participants in the dialogues die one by one and meanwhile those who will take their places are born, some in one role, some in another.”
➔ In the city of Theodora, it is considered among the hidden cities and what was hidden in its memories and libraries is revealed by the decisions of the citizens. In an attempt to rid the their homes of pests they eradicate all rats, fleas, and spiders. However once that has been accomplished “the other fauna” come back: “Sphinxes, griffons, chimeras, dragons, hircocervi, harpies, hydras, unicorns, basilisks were resuming possession of their city.”
➔ With its multiply layered story Invisible Cities poses many questions to the reader. Calvino’s vivid and haunting descriptions make up a large part of the charm and Calvino’s travelogue of wonders, his evocations of cities suspended on ropes over chasms, or constructed entirely of pipes and inhabited by water sprites, are part of the narrative tradition of the fantastic that may be traced back to The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.
The Sir John Soane Museum Housed in an 19th century townhouse The Sir John Soane Museum is a small, but popular attraction. It was formerly the home of the neoclassical architect Sir John Soane. It holds many drawings and models of Soane's projects and the collections of paintings, drawings and antiquities that he assembled. Architecture
➔ The most famous spaces in the house are those at the rear of the Museum – the Dome Area, Colonnade and Museum Corridor. These are mostly toplit and provide some idea in miniature form of the lighting created by Soane for the toplit banking halls at the Bank of England. The Picture Gallery has walls composed of large 'moveable planes' (like large cupboard doors)that allow it to house three times as many items as a space of this size could normally accommodate (the original hang in this room was reinstated in January 2011). ➔ The more domestic rooms of No. 13 are at the front of the house, many of them highly unusual, but often in subtle ways. The domed ceiling of the Breakfast Room, inset with convex mirrors, has influenced architects from around the world. The LibraryDining Room reflects the influence of Etruscan tombs and perhaps even gothic design in its repertoire of small pendants like those in fan vaulting. Collections
➔ Antiquities Soane was able to collect objects worthy of the British Museum, including the alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I, covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs, discovered by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, bought on 12 May 1824 for £2000 (Soane's most expensive art work). After the Seti sarcophagus arrived at his house in March 1825, Soane held a threeday party, where 890 people were invited, the basement where the sarcophagus was housed was lit by over one hundred lamps, refreshments were laid on and the exterior of the house was hung with lamps. Among the guests were the then Prime Minister Robert Jenkinson, and his wife. Other antiquities include: Greek and Roman bronzes including ones from Pompeii, cinerary urns, fragments of Roman mosaics, Greek vases many displayed above the bookcases in the library, Greek and Roman busts, heads from statues and fragments of sculpture and architectural decoration, examples of Roman glass. Medieval objects include: architectural fragments, mainly from the Old Palace of Westminster (acquired after the 1834 fire), tiles and stained glass. Soane acquired 44 examples of 18th century Chinese ceramics as well as 12 examples of Peruvian pottery. Architectural drawings and models
➔ There are over 30,000 architectural drawings in the collection. Of Soane's drawings of his own designs (many are by his assistants and pupils, most notably Joseph Gandy), covering his entire career, most are bound in 37 volumes, 97 are framed on the museum walls, the rest are 601 covering the Bank of England, 6,266 of his other works and 1,080 prepared for the Royal Academy lectures.
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British Museum ➔ The British Museum is a museum dedicated to human history, art, and culture. Its permanent collection, numbering some 8 million works, is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence and originates from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries was largely a result of an expanding British colonial footprint and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the British Museum (Natural History) in South Kensington in 1881. Some objects in the collection, most notably the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, are the objects of controversy and of calls for restitution to their countries of origin. History
➔ Although today it is primarily a museum of cultural art objects and antiquities, the British Museum was founded as a "universal museum". Its foundations lie in the will of the Irishborn British physician and naturalist Sir Hans Sloane. During the course of his lifetime Sloane gathered an enviable collection of curiosities and, not wishing to see his collection broken up after death, he bequeathed it to King George II, for the nation, for the princely sum of £20,000.
➔ At that time, Sloane's collection consisted of around 71,000 objects of all kinds including some 40,000 printed books, 7,000 manuscripts, extensive natural history specimens including 337 volumes of dried plants, prints and drawings including those by Albrecht Dürer and antiquities from Sudan, Egypt, Greece,Rome, the Ancient Near and Far East and the Americas.
The World Goes Pop TATE MODERN ➔ Pop art engages with massproduced imagery borrowed from popular culture. It has often been viewed as primarily North American and British phenomenon, however in this exhibition it pushes past that stigma. Showing how different cultures and countries contributed to to the movement during the 60’s and 70’s. In doing so, it becomes clear that the strategies and visual techniques of pop have been applied to issues beyond consumerism, addressing social imbalances, censorship, the role of women, sexual liberalisation, tradition, war and civil rights. What constitutes popular imagery is not limited to the advertisements and pinups of canonical pop, but includes political propaganda and folk traditions. Politics, the body, domestic revolution, consumption, and public protest – all is explored and laid bare in eyepopping technicolor and across many media, from canvas to car bonnets and pinball machines.
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One and All: a voyage through sight, sound and sea SOMERSET HOUSE ➔ One and All is a voyage through sight, sound and sea by three leading artists – Tania Kovats, Owen Sheers and Martyn Ware. Working across art, language and 3D sound, with film by Benjamin Wigley, they capture the powerful connection we all have to our coast. Somerset House hosts a dramatic staging of these digital artworks that invites visitors to take an evocative journey around our shores in the heart of the city.
➔ Martyn Ware’s soundscape takes inspiration from his childhood steelworks ‘charabanc outings' to the Yorkshire coast and memories recorded by the public; Tania Kovats’ new work builds on a longstanding preoccupation with water and the sea; while Owen Sheers presents a poetic journey along the Gower Peninsula. * Man Alive HYDE PARK
➔ First transmitted in 1971, John Pitman reports on a day in the life of Hyde Park, meeting the soldiers who live there, early morning Serpentine swimmers and other local characters. Looking into the rich history of Hyde park it is a brilliant documentation of London and its characters including the behind the scene people that keep it going, and have throughout time.
