Julien's Urban Dreams

juxtapositions VIII: still light

2008-11-06T07:07:00.001-08:00

Why Not Creating a Situation?

2008-11-06T06:17:00.000-08:00

I will be writing a series of posts about “creating situations”. I hope they will sound interesting to you.
The title would seem a bit alien to you at first sight, but it’s actually a term first used by The Situationists, they explain a “Created Situation” as “a moment of life, concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organization of unitary environment and the free play of events”

My interpretation of the idea is that we need to construct situations in order to utilize our feelings and we need them to build our memories, the memories that we can judge our passed lifetime with. In order to come up with an ok judgement, life supposed to be the realization of a meaningful game, which is provoked by our own presence. A main determinant of a situation is time, and the time can be considered as a collection of moments. In other words, situations shares moments which compose the time, and those are the moments which supposed to enrich a progress.
Over and above and more excitingly, every single moment has a different significance and their effects on us are independent from each other. In this respect, It is possible to point out that the countless moments occupying a considerable amount of a lifetime can be less valuable or equal to a single moment in absolute terms.

Here what are the significance of spaces? The space is the stage for all these happenstance and they are one of the elements that create moments, they enrich or trivialize them. The valuation of moments and the spaces are interrelated and their association is mutual. Even though the state decisions construct spaces, the spatial semantics are obtained by the moments of social relations. So it is impossible to consider space and people separately. Singularly they both lose their meanings.

So, what we need is to have more situations, the situations that are not products of a dull social life. We are against of dull spaces that lead us to a numb society; we need moments of sociality created by our free plays, we need our spaces of liberty to have meaningful experiences and we need our experiences to build our memories.

I want things happening around me and me as a part of them.

#paintings by the situationist artist Constant Nieuwenhuis

juxtapositions VII

2008-11-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

Spaces of Subconscious: "Being John Malkovich"

2008-11-03T14:28:00.001-08:00

Please try to remember all those weird hidden spots where you used to play or try to remember the meanings you gave to spaces of your childhood, which shape the amazing products of imagination like doors to nowhere, corridors to different dimensions, plays under the little table and the huge worlds you built there. Those are the origins of we grown ups' spatial perspective.

Yes the topic is “the spaces of subconscious” and because of its astonishing spatiality, I can’t think of a better example to refer to, “Being john Malkovich” . A company between the 7th and the 8th floors of The Flemmer Building in Manhattan and a supernatural tube that takes people to John Malkovich’s body. how awkward is that!

“6.15 at Malkovich”, that’s how they organize a date. But where is Malkovich? A café, a hotel, a street? No, Malkovich is only a body with conscious but his spatiality enlarges enough to host another lives. I did say “spatiality of a person”, yes.
And that chase scene in Malkovich’s mind, while his subconscious becomes spatial, it transforms into a battleground for two girls. There we see doors, windows, corridors, passages, holes, shutters, namely almost all transition elements of architecture and those create the fluid scenography of Malkovich's life with all its periods. His subconscious has an architectural character and all the events of his past are mapped with spatial elements.

Then, now you think about a dream you saw, could it be a different dream if the life you live had a different spatial setup? So, does the spatial visualization capability of subconscious point out that the ones who create spaces can intentionally sneak into our minds?

Yes.

Juxtapositions VI: Hijomalind

2008-10-31T13:13:00.000-07:00

This is a slightly different piece of the serie. it includes hand drawings.

Juxtapositions V: I Gaer

2008-10-28T04:16:00.000-07:00

Ok this is another piece of my illustration series

Nuri Bilge Ceylan

2008-10-26T05:36:00.000-07:00

“Men can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is alive.”
(Karl Marx)

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is another Cannes winner new-realist director. There are neither holy moments nor breakthroughs in his cinema, there plays no music when the guy kisses the girl, his created situations feel real and the spaces are the feelings. His moments of life are deliberately constructed by the real play of events of timeless and placesess stories. So, that makes it even possible to imagine both the director's Istanbul, Dostoyevsky's St. Petersburg, Kafka's Prag or an old man's countryside visions.

And I'm excited to see his last work "Three Monkeys".

*pics are from: http://www.nuribilgeceylan.com/

the spectacle of distraction

2008-10-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

Information effects society, information gets transformed into feelings and emotions. If someone is able to access to information, then accesses, and the "distractive information" is always the more attracting ones. Foucault, in this sense, ignores “agency” that he does not think an individual can intentionally choose to get away from any kinds of discourse. Here, it is possible to define a simple equation; more information means more effects on society and a distracted society is always the more controllable one.

Do we individuals have no choice but to participate?

I can always close my internet but why do I turn on my TV?

Urban Juxtapositions IV: Glósóli

2008-10-21T18:15:00.000-07:00

if you don't get what this is then

Androgyn Urbanism

2008-10-21T17:05:00.001-07:00

Lately, we came across with really spectacular polemics between two strong figures representing the power, a famous architect and a prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi and Daniel Libeskind. Berlusconi commented on one of the Libeskind’s design for Milan and said that the bent(bowed) structure originates a "sense of inability" because it is not “manly” enough. Plus, the writer Umberto Eco weighed in support of Berlusconi's words saying: "Milan is full of people with crooked members. There will simply be one more in need of Viagra."
Without criticizing the project, I directly want to ask if the terms “manly” and “in need of Viagra” have anything to do with urbanism? And is the representation of the power done by the images of so called “male architecture ”?

Here Guy Debord is once again proves himself; "spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images". Actually, there is no one considerate about the sense that the project creates, what matters is the image it reflects, and preferably a manly image.

So now, should it be said that we kids are in favor of “Androgyn Urbanism”?

I will talk about that.

Urban Juxtapositions III: Hoppipolla

2008-10-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

Third piece of my juxtapositions, danette's favorite.

The king is naked

2008-10-21T16:39:00.001-07:00

The poet, the artist, the sleuth — whoever sharpens our perception tends to be antisocial; rarely "welladjusted," he cannot go along with currents and trends. A strange bond often exists among antisocial types in their power to see environments as they really are. This need to interface, to confront environments with a certain antisocial power, is manifest in the famous story, "The Emperor's New Clothes.”
Marshall Mcluhan, The Medium is the Message

Urban Juxtapositions II: Saeglopur

2008-10-21T15:55:00.000-07:00

Here all you need is a glass of Glühwein

Urban Juxtapositions: Ni Battery

2008-10-21T14:48:00.000-07:00

This is a series of juxtapositions designed by me. They can be called as Neo-Situationist Designs or Postmodern New Babylon Interpretations.
Basically, I wanted to create designs involving emotions, all you need is to dig into them. I'm sure you will wonder what the names mean. Each of them is a song of Sigur Ros and those songs are attached to designs, deeply.

Btw, since they are not yet copyrighted, I can't put them in any bigger size. I'm sorry.

Here we go: Julien's Manifesto

2008-10-21T10:36:00.000-07:00

Life is composed of situations. And they take place in urban environments. What matters for me is to have “situations” those transform into “feelings”. What matters is to be able to feel as much as possible as myself.
There exist countless feelings and emotions in life and I would only be complete If I can feel fhings like fear, lust, anger, delight, disgust, love, envy, worry, enthusiasm, passion...as they really are. Although we human beings have the capacity to feel all those sets of emotions, we are living trapped in a limited emotional environment. We are no longer able to feel as we desire; the society is getting numb, so the people.
I am questioning all these by thinking about spaces, society, power and the agency.
So, I will be blogging about our "urban situations", I will try to "feel " as much as possible and will let you to share that.
Let the life be complicated, as long as we are involved in.

*Img. Ladder Labrynth, Constant Nieuwenhuys