Missing marbles

Over on Over the Net there is a recent entry on New Zealand marble, the white marble of PIETRASANTA (18km south of CARRARA) and the new works being produced there.

Image: Marble blocks being quarried in the Pietrasanta mountains, found here.

Guantanamo Allocation Center

[exhibition announcement]

"The 'existential function' of the act of creation leads to the affirmation and the creation of a territory, a group, a singularity, a meaning. But it is only possible to articulate the meaning of a situation in relation to an action undertaken to transform it. To situate oneself somewhere, to create a territory or new modes of subjectification and articulation, is both a political and an existential question. And this concerns social practices as much as artistic practices."

(Maurizio Lazzarato: Art and Work)

A Project in Public Private Partnership
Initiated by Christoph Faulhaber
Realised and Supported by Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg VENUE Hafencity Hamburg Shanghaiallee/Yokohamastr. 20457 Hamburg, Germany

Being one of the first municipalities throughout Europe, the state and city administration of Hamburg, Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, has accredited the public private partnership 'Guantanamo Allocation Center'.

The Guantanamo Allocation Center is an initiative dedicated to the question of relocating the remaining detainees still in custody at the soon to be closed US MILITARY BASE. GAC focuses on the global process of allocation and relocation, and aims to provide accommodations in Germany that offer a process of re-socialization by providing and furnishing a temporary, and eventual, final home.

The project was kicked off by the German artist Christoph Faulhaber and has already teamed up with further both private and public institutions and corporations. With its first installment GAC sets out to laying the foundation for final decisions in the global process of relocating the remaining inmates.

The first installment, considered as temporary accommodation, consists of mobile units each giving room to one inmate. Four wooden crates match one 40 ft. high cube shipping container. The temporary lodging will be accompanied by a program of activities encompassing various aspects, topics and personalities from within the legislation and political process.

In order to realize the final installment, GAC has opted for a vacant lot, part of which was formerly the MAUERSTREIFEN, the military zone within the Berlin Wall. The design of the yet undeveloped 'final home' is oriented towards contemporary designs in architecture and urban planning, taking into account the special needs of the inhabitants.

Furthermore, GAC engages on consultations with international decision makers to preparing ground for the resettling of further inmates.Since GAC relies entirely on civic and individual engagement, we would very much acknowledge support and funding from any direction.

For more information please consult:

Guantanamo Allocation Center
Mr. Christoph Faulhaber
http://www.gac-web.org/

Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg
Senator Ms. Karin von Welck
http://www.hamburg.de/

HafenCity Hamburg GmbH
Ms. Penzlien
http://www.hafencity.com/

Special Envoy to Closing Guantanamo
Ambassador Mr. Daniel Fried
http://www.state.gov/

artfinder Gallery
Mathias Güntner
http://www.artfinder.de/

Image: Street art by Banksy, found here on the Prison Photography blog

Motor City is crumbling

The industrial heart of Detroit has become a ghost town, according to a recent photo essay in Time Magazine (thanks SH). Images include the grand MICHIGAN CENTRAL STATION, derelict for more than 20 years; The FISHER BODY PLANT, producer of Buick and Cadillac bodies, abandoned in 1991 but still home to some floor sculpture; and what must be the grandest car park we've seen, the former MICHIGAN THEATRE within the MICHIGAN BUILDING, apparently built on the site Henry Ford built his first car.

Looking around, Henry seems to have his NAME written all over this town. THIS lot full of rusting iron frames is quite a sight. Heading west from the city you find the Ford plant, and nearby Zug Island and surrounds has some DRAMATIC AND INTRIGUING scenes. We wonder how life COMPARES across the river in Canada?

Image: Fisher Body Plant #21, Interior, including artwork by Scott Hocking. (Sean Hemmerle)

Making your mark

A couple of interesting things we found this week: Real Google Map markers (thanks ADA/LM); and the following call for participation.

QUERY in situ and online art project
http://www.query-online.net/

DATES:start for Application: August 20th, 2009

in situ project in Munich: September 12th, 2009

BACKGROUND: This project consists of two parts. Part 1. An installation in Public Space in Munich, Germany taking place in September 2009. This part is a prelude to the online project. Google Maps will be taken from the virtual into real space: big balloons, shaped like Google marks, floating above two churches in Munich (St. Anna -christian and St. Lukas - evangelic), visible day and night, with questionmarks/querys on them. Part 2. takes place in Internet and is meant as an open art project and discussion platform.

It's unlikely but would be great if both real-space manifestations found their way back into the virtual map.

On the QUERY website, we recommend going to the FAQs for a 90second summary of 5000 years of religious development and geographic expansion.

Lots

We thought we were being clever with last year's virtual homage to Ed Ruscha's Thirty Four Parking Lots, but it seems we're not the first, and others have even been to the trouble of finding the original sites (thanks J+MB).

Eric William Carrol has used Google Maps to create this flickr album, and now there is Pascual Sisto's automatic version, which rolls through all 34 locations live from google without you needed to so much as click a link. Nice.

Image: Eric William Carrol's Lot 32.

The Big Bang

Shared links on Facebook are proving a great source of material, far too much to keep up with given the pathetic output rate this blog has recently slumped to (hello, hello?). Today's gem (thanks JP) is a Guardian article on a 55m Manchester sculpture, which has had its difficult life brought short and is being dismantled due to safety concerns. Needless to say, the work still exists HERE in the parallel universe of google maps where it will remain until the next update. At least, that's the story we would have liked to have told but it seems the sculpture was never even built in google land. With little obvious connection beyond its large size, it seems through repeated comparisons that Big B was doomed to live in the shadow of Antony Gormley's ANGEL OF THE NORTH.

Image: A deactivated bang. Photograph by Mike Peel (http://www.mikepeel.net/).

Hopping mad

A facebook tip-off (thanks LV) has led us to a sweet new theory on crop circles. Turns out it's all the work of looney livestock, or at least that's what the men in black would have you believe... But does that explain the proliferation of field formations in particular pockets of the UK? Agrarian substance abuse could certainly explain THIS manifestation. But what of these, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE? Or this complex example, which hasn't been captured by google yet but is apparently located HERE. THIS one in Oregon was clearly made for web browsers, and THIS is just showing off.

The All-Seeing Eye

"From the Panopticon to the Wunderkammer explores the deep chasm between ideas of ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’. One of the most damaging fantasies of modernity was the idea that there could be a universal view to encompass all people, phenomena and things within set categories. Many museums were founded on such convictions. This view is also made evident in the punitive institution of the Panopticon, the rationalist, Enlightenment prison in which one governor could see all the inmates in their cells from a single, fixed, authoritarian viewpoint. This approach is contrasted with the earlier, more fluid Cabinet of Curiosities, a prototype of the modern museum, which brought together disparate items from different origins as objects of delight and wonderment. In a reversal of history, this Biennale will be a contemporary Wunderkammer, allowing the audience direct experience and enjoyment of a wide range of art that is not categorised in any hierarchical way. [...]

"The Panopticon is a type of prison designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1785. It features a circular array of inward-pointing cells – allowing one guard to observe all the inmates from a single point of view, without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched. The central goal of the Panopticon was control through both isolation and the possibility of constant surveillance."

Media announcement for the 2010 17th Biennale of Sydney

Now let's peer into some Panoptic structures:

Panóptico in BOGOTA, now the National Museum of Columbia

PRESIDIO MODELO in Cuba is also now a museum.

MT EDEN Prisons in Auckland, which apparently resembles...

DARTMOOR Prison, England, which was once put to sea by the Goon Show.

The ROUND HOUSE is the oldest building still standing in Western Australia, which is also home to Australia's Hardest Prison: CASUARINA.

STATEVILLE in Illinois is one of America's Hardest Prisons.

The notorious INSEIN PRISON in Burma was actually built by the British and was the largest in their empire before World War II.

While we're sneaking in and out of correctional facilities, here's ALCATRAZ ISLAND, GUANTANAMO (or Gitmo) and COCKATOO ISLAND, which, like Alcatraz, is now a tourist facility and next year will once more be a venue for the Biennale of Sydney.

This interactive map provides international statistics on prison population per capita.

Image: Inside one of the prison buildings at Presidio Modelo, Isla De la Juventud, Cuba.

How low can you go

Recent adventures had us primed for an exploration of the world's tallest towers but we couldn't resist a little more spelunking. A recent email (thanks again, JR) introduced us to Guatemala's 330-ft deep GIANT SINKHOLE (described here and here). And then we found our work had been done for us, thanks to this handy list of Large Holes by Virtual Tourism, which we will shamelessly borrow from:

MIRNY DIAMOND MINE, Siberia is the largest open diamond mine in the world and is visible from an extraordinarily high altitude.

KIMBERLEY Big Hole, South Africa is apparently the largest ever hand-dug excavation in the world.

This grainy VIEW doesn't offer much so we'll have to take their word for it that Belize has one of the better Blue Holes (image above). The deepest is Dean's BLUE HOLE, nearby in the Bahamas.

The Monticello Dam's GLORY HOLE spillway is used to drain the reservoir when the dam is at full capacity and creates an impressive negative space within a negative volume.

Lastly, we'll stop at the inverted mountain of BINGHAM CANYON MINE, Utah, begun in 1863 and supposedly the largest man-made excavation on earth. It has plenty of the classic MOTIFS we've admired before and, seemingly occupying two time zones, a nice dusting of SNOW at one end. Being in familiar SPIRAL JETTY territory, we thought we'd have a look around the Great Lake and found no shortage of salty eyecandy, including HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

Paradise junction

Like John Hurrell, we've often pondered the middle-of-the-road wetland RESERVE established during the recent redevelopment of Auckland's central motorway connections. At first there was just a lot of soil being moved about, excavating a negative space while creating a corresponding mound. Then it was planted, watered, and made functional. It seems artist Cellulite Rose has beaten us in claiming this curious civic piece of earth work as art.

Image: Publicity photo for Cellulite Rose's Island Resort, 2009