100 Days on a Fulbright: Day 2

Naeem Mohaiemen’s “Tripoli Cancelled” installation. Credit Mathias Völzke.
From the New York Times review of 2017 Documenta in Athens.

Reading today: A thorough review by the New York Times of Documenta 14 with brief summary of Greece and Germany's complicated history. For example I did not know that a Bavarian was Greece's first king after the country won independence from the Ottomans.

100 Days on a Fulbright: Day 1

HFBK Archive of Recent Design Classes

• 
  
• 
  
• 100 days, Documenta as a Museum of 100 days
• 100 Days of a Presidency
• 100 Days Campaign, a publicity stunt by Amnesty International
• 100 Days' Offensive, Allied offensive on the Western Front WWI
• 100 Days' Reform, social reform in late imperial China

107 days left in my Fulbright and I will try to blog 100 posts.

Blogging felt relevant 10 years ago. As this Atlantic article explains, “Blogging — I mean, honey, don’t even say the word. No one actually blogs anymore, except maybe undergrads on their first week of study abroad.”

But for me, right now, it’s an easy lifeline to keep me productive during this challenging Fulbright. I have been working hard to get a Fulbright since 1995, when I took an independent study with Micaela Amato at Penn State with the sole purpose of getting one, and here I am 22 years later, 3-country Fulbright in hand. It has moved my whole family from sunny North Carolina (after we just transitioned there after my husband’s Fulbright to Austria) to a cold, rainy Hamburg where we live on top of each other, all sick with the flu. Surely it will get better, but in the meantime, this is my small goal: publish 100 posts.

This week in summary:

1. First class at HFBK. I had no voice because of the flu. Only 6 students showed. The projected-movie-as-back-up plan could not be seen because of broken curtains. The students explained that they are not graded and will have to miss weeks here and there for travel. I am in culture shock but curious. It is a well-known art school. Wim Wenders, Thomas Demand, Marina Abramovic and many other well-known artists teach or have taught here. The art on view here last June 2016 was impressively high quality. Clearly they accomplish much without energy given to compulsory attendance or grades.
2. Although our sick family-of-3 feels on top of each other in this city apartment, the Gästehaus der Universität Hamburg has been a good fit for our family. Last Wednesday evening, the Gästehaus team hosted a social hour where I met an economist from Poland, an American librarian studying Medieval block prints stored in amulets, and my favorite, Anna Stavrakopoulou, Associate Professor of Theatre Studies in Thessaloniki and Associate Director at Center for Hellenic Studies Harvard University. When I asked about her thoughts on Documenta, she lucidly described Germany and Greece’s complicated history. This morning, I read more in the New York Times review of the exhibition. I hope that she might participate in my HFBK seminar and we collaborate in the future. The Fulbright was formed in hopes that such connections would be established and flourish.

Headed to MacDowell!

Headed to MacDowell in January! Yay! http://www.macdowellcolony.org/about-ArtistsWorks.html

Glitch Architecture Shows How Beautiful Broken Can Be | The Creators Project

Glitch Architecture Shows How Beautiful Broken Can Be | The Creators Project

The dead zones of hypercapitalism – in pictures | Art and design | The Guardian

The dead zones of hypercapitalism – in pictures | Art and design | The Guardian

Anderson Ranch with Casey Reas

With the school year soon to go into full gear, I only have time for a short post on my recent workshop with Casey Reas at Anderson Ranch. Description from Casey is here: http://www.andersonranch.org/code-digital-fabrication-p1027-2/

For a more through description of the workshop, check out workshop classmate Simon Sarginson's post on Cyber Salon:
http://www.cybersalon.org/attending-code-digital-fabrication-at-anderson-ranch-with-casey-reas/

We had a fantastic group with a range of programming and fabrication skills. Everyone had something to offer. The week unfolded as follows:

• Monday: Processing intro with plotter + pen exercise
• Tuesday: Processing intro day 2 with plotter + vinyl exercise, laser cutter review
• Wednesday: CNC router review with blue foam exercise
• Thursday–Friday: Independent projects and crit

It was heavenly to be a student again, especially with Casey. He's extraordinary at working through ideas with code.

Entrance to Anderson Ranch, photo by Joelle Dietrick 

Computer lab, photo by Simon Sarginson

Fab lab, Donna Sweigart designing jewelry on felt, photo by Simon Sarginson

Detail of Donna's design, photo by Simon Sarginson

Ben Moren's plotter + pen design, photo by Simon Sarginson

Simon Sarginson's maze on the laser cutter, photo by Simon Sarginson 

Will Russack guiding us through the CNC Router exercise, photo by Simon Sarginson

Friday class crit, photo by Joelle Dietrick

Friday class crit, photo by Joelle Dietrick

Friday class crit, photo by Simon Sarginson

Many thanks to the funding from Anderson Ranch and Florida State University's Office of Research that allowed me to attend. Related international collaborations and exhibitions already brewing. Thanks, Casey!

Jalal Tarazi on Life Teaching Overseas

My friend Jalal Tarazi just finished his book on Teaching Overseas. A fun read.
http://jtarazi74.wix.com/jalaltarazi

Robert Yarber on Lapidus' Fontainebleau

About to talk at Penn State where I studied with Robert Yarber, Julie Heffernan and Micaela Amato. Stumbled upon VCU's interview with Robert Yarber: https://youtu.be/N_II9nPuhJk

When I really drawing floating figures in 2006, was it in part because Yarber bubbled up subliminally? Bizarre...

Kaldor Public Art Project: Thomas Demand

Kaldor Public Art Project Project 25

Thomas Demand (complete documentary) on Vimeo

- documentation of temporary projects

Empire

Empire: Excerpt from the 2-channel installation "Empire: 7 Degrees N 81 Degrees E" by Eline Jongsma & Kel O'Neill. Made as part of the project "Empire: Legacy of the World's First Corporation."

This excerpt tells the story of Herman Steur, a man whose charitable instincts led him to build a Dutch village in the middle of the Sri Lankan jungle.

Made as part of the project "Empire: Legacy of the World's First Corporation." Shot and exhibited in collaboration with Theertha International Artists' Collective, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Josef Schulz

Josef Schulz 

BLDGBLOG: We Can Terraform It For You Wholesale

BLDGBLOG: We Can Terraform It For You Wholesale

Las Vegas development called Ascaya, in progress.
Wow. The construction site in our Orlando Museum of Art project on steroids.

Brutalist buildings: Park Hill, Sheffield by Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith

Park Hill housing estate in Sheffield, England, built after WWII. 
It brought "streets in the sky." 

Brutalist buildings: Park Hill, Sheffield by Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith

Containers, Seaports, Sekula

Allan Sekula and Noël Burch, still from The Forgotten Space (2010).

After spending a summer writing about seaports and shipping containers, I'm bookmarking this article on Rhizome. http://rhizome.org/editorial/2014/aug/14/containers/

Interested to find out more...expat ladies, email me at jdietrick@gmail if you have any stories about ports, shipments, or your employers—anything that relates to global trade. It's for a 2015 summer project at MoCA Jacksonville's Project Atrium and a larger series. Past project documented by the extraordinary Sarah Emerson here: https://vimeo.com/71907184

Foreclosed Home Update

Oh to be at this conference at Columbia University this weekend. http://buellcenter.org/

Temporal Gerrymandering

▶ Geoff Manaugh at The Center for Design and Geopolitics - YouTube: http://youtu.be/MNzkl65pwtU?t=7m21s   Playing with time zones to meet socio-political goals.

Quantitative Urbanism

Life in the City Is Essentially One Giant Math Problem in Smithsonian Magazine

Dietrick + Mundy. The Sea is a Smooth Space. 2013. Single-channel animation. Dimensions variable.

Michelle Grabner on Curating the Whitney Biennial- BurnAway

Michelle Grabner, fearless as usual. "I am giving primacy to artists who are also teachers rather than young emerging artists. I looked at the artists who are teaching these young artists."

http://burnaway.org/michelle-grabner-give-talks-atlanta-nashville/

Golan Levin Liberates Legos

How A Geek Dad And His 3D Printer Aim To Liberate Legos - Forbes

Meat Houses, TTBK

Mitchell Joaquim and the Terreform 1 team on organic ways of building homes… 

Geographies of Collaboration, Berlin

After Year Zero - Geographies of Collaboration I Conference
Exhibition - Conference
Haus der Kulturen der Welt / Berlin
http://hkw.de

Exhibition / 19.09-24.11

The realignment of the world after the Second World War is not recounted
here with regard to the confrontation between the Cold War blocs, but with
a focus on the interweaving of European and African history in the process
of decolonization.

In installations, videos and films , artists such as John Akomfrah and
Jihan El-Tahri examine the attempts to transform the basic conditions of a
Western-dominated modern era. A conference takes up "Geographies of
Collaboration" with a view to the first Asian-African conference, which was
held in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955 and gave rise to the Non-Aligned
Movement.

Conference  / 03-05.10.2013

The panel discussions take as their point of departure the Western,
ideologically dressed-up concept of freedom, of which the Congress Hall,
today the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, itself is a symbol. The building,
conceived as an architectural signal in the Cold War, exemplifies the
humanistic universalism of the "free West" that reordered itself after the
Second World War.

Meg Cranston and John Baldessari in Berlin

Real Painting (red farm house), 2013

Acrylic and oil on canvas

106,7 x 91,4 cm / 42 x 36 in.

12 Things Successful Women Do Differently

12 Things Successful Women Do Differently
on the Huffington Post

28 Female Thinkers You Should Know, Even If Wired Magazine Doesn't

28 Female Thinkers You Should Know, Even If Wired Magazine Doesn't
Scroll down for list of ladies

Melanie Willhide: To Adrian Rodriguez With Love

Melanie Willhide: To Adrian Rodriguez With Love (PHOTOS).

A happy glitch story.

Color Organ | The Daily Omnivore

Color Organ | The Daily Omnivore

Flight Maps

Visual flight rules for area around Chicago. More at http://vfrmap.com/

Expat Population Worldwide Infographic | The Global Shed

Expat Population Worldwide Infographic | The Global Shed

Talking Poetry and Pedagogy with the SFPC (@SFPC_school) Team

Talking Poetry and Pedagogy with the SFPC (@SFPC_school) Team

The Colorful Stories of 5 Obsolete Art Pigments

The Colorful Stories of 5 Obsolete Art Pigments

Artist interview, Walid Raad: a mediator between worlds - The Art Newspaper

Artistic interventions: Walid Raad, Appendix XVIII: Plates 160-237, 2012

Artist interview, Walid Raad: a mediator between worlds - The Art Newspaper

"...when these objects travel overseas, they will change...In the final reckoning, Raad is committed to expressing his political, historical and theoretical concerns in a medium that is emphatically visual. “I’m working with line, colour, shape and form,” he says. “Whether it’s a war or this massive infrastructure, you confront an event like this emotionally, aesthetically, historically, conceptually, and you see an opening for a new form, a gesture that must do justice to the complexity of this experience. Physical universes are being built all the time. How do you build one that doesn’t collapse in a few seconds? That’s a challenge."

The Good Glitch

Doing research into glitch art for upcoming project and most amused by recent news.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/the-good-glitch/

And interpreted by Colbert

Navigating Silicon Valley As A 'Woman Programmer' : NPR

Navigating Silicon Valley As A 'Woman Programmer' : NPR: "a new, more virile and virulent sexism."

How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’ - NYTimes.com

How to Be a ‘Woman Programmer’ - NYTimes.com

Expat House Hunters

Hello, expats, just in case anyone is interested and has just bought a home overseas, contact Michelle James to tell your story on House Hunters International.

House Hunters International examples:

- LA to Vienna: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOiump3__Mo 
- Boston to Berlin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pug3NnEGtwc 

Hello everyone,

I thought I would reach out to let you know about the exciting new spin-off show that we have in production here at HHI towers.  The new show is called House Hunters International: Renovation and we are looking for expats who have recently bought fabulous properties and are about to embark on some imminent renovations. Ideally they should be outgoing and fun, aged under 45 and have bought a property within the last few years.

We are looking to film this Summer and for the renovation projects to take up to four months so perhaps a new kitchen, a small extension etc.  We have some budget that would go towards finishing the project which makes it a little more interesting!

Please do get in touch if you have any contacts for people who may be interested in the show.  It would also be lovely to hear your news!

Best wishes,

Michelle

Michelle James
CASTING PRODUCER LEOPARD FILMS
1-3 St Peter's Street, London N1 8JD - +44 20 7704 3300
michelle.james@leopardfilms.com
www.leopardfilms.com

Margo Sawyer

margosawyer.com

Marina Abramovic and Ulay

Marina Abramovic and Ulay

Architecture on Spiegel

Architecture in Berlin: An Urban Planning Disaster - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Fascinating, albeit brutal review of Berlin's last decade of building.

Glass Pavilion in Spain

moneo brock studio: glass pavilion in cuenca, spain

herzog & de meuron: messe basel exhibition hall

herzog & de meuron: messe basel exhibition hall

Open Source Architecture Manifesto

Open Source Architecture Manifesto by Carlo Ratti Associati from Dezeen on Vimeo.

Mat Collishaw's Paintings

http://www.blainsouthern.com/exhibitions/2013/mat-collishaw-this-is-not-an-exit 

‘You can’t just paint – you have to address the whole history of painting and then make some sort of paradigm shift,’ he says. ‘I’ve been trying to find a way to do this, and this is my solution.’

Color in Tirana, Albania

Photo by David Dufresne

The colourful apartment buildings of Tirana | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

MoMA new website for Louise Bourgeois

MoMA | Louise Bourgeois

Ken Weathersby

Collage-paintings at their best. http://www.kenweathersby.com/painting-and-collage-2006-2012

Thanks, http://anaba.blogspot.com/2012/12/ken-weathersby.html

Dutch architects to use 3D printer to print a house

Dutch architects to use 3D printer to print a house

transmediale 2013 BWPWAP | transmediale

transmediale 2013 BWPWAP | transmediale

Bank Deal Ends Flawed Reviews of Foreclosures - NYTimes.com

A bank reversed the foreclosure of Christine Lucier, and her home, while empty, was vandalized.

Bank Deal Ends Flawed Reviews of Foreclosures - NYTimes.com

DC Installation at Flashpoint, Opening Tonight 6-8!

Joelle Dietrick + Owen Mundy. Grid, Sequence Me. 2013. Two-channel video installation. Dimensions variable.

Event details at http://www.culturaldc.org/events/2012/12/joelle-dietrick-grid-sequence-me/

The New Bottom Line

More at http://www.newbottomline.com/

QR Codes for Digital Nomads

QR Codes for Digital Nomads - Interactive Art by Golan Levin and Collaborators
2011 | Golan Levin and Asa Foster III, for F.A.T. Lab

Modular Abstraction: A Q&A with Judy Rushin

Modular Abstraction: A Q&A with Judy Rushin on the New American Paintings/Blog

Art for the female expat: "site-specific works that can travel well"...[and]..."reflect our own untethered geographies."

World's Narrowest House

Keret House

World's Narrowest House by Jakub Szczesny

"The house is located between two buildings from two historical epochs. “The first is a brick building on Zelazna Street – a fragment of the pre-world war II city, almost no longer existing. The second – a cooperative concrete apartment building, an element of an “imposed structure”, which was aimed at negating the previous city landscape."