Photo album of day 5 - The opening night

Day 5 of the Workshop - The opening night

The opening day of the exhibition has arrived. All the groups have finished their works and prepared for the final presentation. Before the official opening of the exhibition starts all participants of the workshop meet for dinner. It is finally 20.00 and the evening opens with a lecture by John Schneijderberg, a graduating student from the faculty of architecture of TU/e. The topic of the lecture is “Identity and decay”. John investigates the origins and causes of beauty in decay and how to preserve such qualities. The moment of the presentation of the works developed by our five groups has arrived. The exhibition space is crowed with people and colored spotlights are creating an intriguing atmosphere.

Group 4 is the first presenting. Four cylinders (built out of bubble paper) are hanging inside four metal frames. Through the bubble paper the viewer sees the shadow of hanging objects. Mirrors located directly under the hanging cylinder give a clear view of the hidden objects. Each mirror is partially covered with earth, wood and other materials in order to represent various subjective point of views.

“Change your prospective to see the beauty of decay.”

Group 2 is the second presenting. A paper tent hangs from the ceiling 1.50m over the floor. One side of the tent has a lifted corner, which invites the visitors to step inside. Black boxes are floating in the space created by the paper curtains. Each box has a quotation written on its side.  Holes are revealing to the viewer the content of each box. A box with viewing holes on opposite sides gives the chance to cross views inside the box. Group 2 tells through its work a fragment of the story of Chris (a man living in a boat on the canal) and his opinion about beauty of decay.

“I can’t stop the future, I don’t want to” - Chris

Group 3 is the third presenting. Different pieces of a frame are hanging from the ceiling. Fragments of the same picture are hanging behind the frame pieces. From a specific point in front of the frame the viewer will not be able to distinguish its fragmentation, but only percieve a complete frame and its picture. This deceiving perspective can be compared to the view of a landscape. An overview prevents the viewer to perceive the story behind each detail of the landscape. From the defined starting point the viewer moves in a straight line toward the hanging frame. Getting closer to the frame the he starts to perceive its actual composition, the different pieces and their imperfections. Each single piece has its own identity and story. It is in the intimacy of these stories that you can find the beauty of decay. 
“To be able to capture the beauty of imperfection is just a matter of perspective.”

Group 1 is the fourth presenting. A big frame is standing on the floor. The frame is crossed by ropes that can be pulled. Each rope moves a different object hanging inside the frame. The viewers are invited to move the objects and trace their stories. Through its work Group 1 investigates the relation between information and the space left to imagination.

“Set your imagination in motion”

Group 5 is the last group presenting. A tree is standing in the middle of the exhibition space, an empty frame hanging behind it. The leaves of the tree are colored, written and drawn.

A tree crosses in a year four different seasons. In spring the tree gets ready for summer. The summer of the tree is its most glorious season. In autumn rain and temperature are corrupting the triumph of summer,  but with the rain autumn brings also incredible colors. The colors are covering the tree and its surrounding. What happens to the tree in winter?

Like trees also buildings are living bodies. Buildings are crossing four different seasons in their lifespan. In its autumn a building gets color by nature (through decay) and by people (through art).

“What happens to the building in its winter? ....empty frame”

After the presentation the night continues for some more hours with music and beer…..

Photo album of day 4

Photo album of day 3

Group 2 in search of beauty

Day 3 of the Workshop

We are half-way through the week and the workshop is populated with wooden frames and scattered decomposed objects collected from the canal area.
Here is a summary of what they were working onn today.


Group 1: Relation between information and imagination
This group is working on an interactive frame to trigger your imagination about the canal of Eindhoven.


Group 2: Top-secret
This group still wants to keep what they are working on a secret... curious?


Group 3: Imperfection
The boys are working on the frames while the girls are preparing what will be inside them. The imperfection that will be portraid is a matter of perspective.


Group 4: Traces/Details/Path
This group is defining the path they want to create. The question is how to relate the collected material with a specific location.


Group 5: Seasons
At the time of this posting, this group is still nowhere to be seen. We hope their work is going well!

Updated version of the lectures at LCM

Other interesting links:


http://www.madlab.nl/?lang=en - Puls 2010 website
http://www.dutchdesignweek.nl - official website of the DDW

Day 2 of the Workshop

Hello everybody!
Students are working hard and their minds are simmering with ideas! Here is a short summary of what each group has been up to. 


Group 1: Relation between information and Imagination
The Beauty of Decay is the room it leaves for imagination and nostalgia. The question is: how can you trigger that imagination?


Group 2: Top-secret
This group has tons of ideas and they have been all day gathering information. They promised to fill us in with more detail on what they are doing as soon as they manage to create a coherent story.


Group 3: Imperfection
Beauty of Decay can be seen as imperfection. It is all a matter of perspective...


Group 4: Traces/Detail/Path
This group says that they don't want to emphasize the beauty of decay of a specific spot on the canal but a sequence of spaces to provide an image of the area's environment.


Group 5: Seasons
Decay is similar to the seasons. However, the beauty of the seasons is that, after Winter, it will start all over again. The question then is: how can an inanimate object start all over again?


Did you like what you read? Curious? Want to know more? Then visit us at the La Cittá Mobile! (Vestdijk 133
5611 CB Eindhoven)

Photo album of day 2

Lectures of the week at LCM

Monday (25/10): 

11.30 uur lezing Mario van Horrik

14.30 uur lezing Remco Roes

20:00 Walking Routes (Jozua Zaagman)

21:00 Reusing the City (Uri Ben-Ari)

22:00 Het landschap is een slagveld van belangen (Denis Dujardin)

Tuesday (26/10):

20:00-23.00 uur  ILO Instituut Licht Ontwerp

Wednesday (27/10):

20:00 - 22.00 uur Beauty of Decay:

N. Privileggio, M.A. Secchi

Dimitra Diana Babalis

Thursday (28/10):

20:00 Datacity Bridget Nicholls

21:30 Michel de Lange

Friday (29/10):

20:00 Attention (J Schevers)

Photo album of day 1

Day 1 of the Workshop

Hello everybody!
Today was the first day of the Workshop - Beauty of Decay. The brief of the workshop was announced and the groups were made. Check out on what the students will be working on during this week!

The beauty of Decay – Workshop

Brief: Highlight the piece of the canal of Eindhoven that, in your opinion, best portraits the beauty of Decay and should not be forgotten or remain anonymous to the public. One should question if this beauty lies in the nostalgic feeling it brings to our memory; or in the undiscovered potentials that it insinuates to whoever is willing to be its audience.

Outcome: Students will produce a wooden frame to show the piece of the canal that they have chosen. With the location framed, students need to think of how to highlight said beauty. It can be in the form of sketches, collages, modeling, materials, etc. The model at the scale of 1:1000 done in the studio of prof. Curulli will be used to indicate the location each group chose along the canal.

Practical matters:

• Each group will be provided some wood to construct their own frame. The frame should have as dimensions 2mx2,5m. This base can be constructed and used in whichever way the group sees fit.
• The material and tools for building the frame will be provided to the students. Any other material that the students want to use has to be obtained by their own means. Remember that the topic of the workshop is the beauty of decay; hence it does not make much sense to buy new material (which would have to come out of the students’ pockets). Each group should use their own knowledge of the industries located along the canal to hunt for extra material. (Most of these industries have a lot of left-over which they can dispense)

Timeline:

• Students will be in the workshop the whole week developing their concept and making decisions on what piece of decay they want to emphasize, why and how.
• The time of the workshop is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., time in which it will also be open to the public. However, this time is flexible: while some students can be sketching the group’s ideas, others can be building the frame or hunting for any extra material that they might need.
• During the week there will be some guests that will give some lectures (also open to the general public) and advice to the work in progress to the students.
• The lectures will be in the evening, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
• Final presentation will be on Friday at 7 p.m. (open to the general public). Party will follow.

Participants:

• Tutors: Irene Curulli and Jan Schevers
• Students: 40 students that will work together in groups
• Guests: Invited artists, lecturers and experts that will give advice and criticism to the students during the process

List of Participants:

Group 1:

Yan Hang Lo

Edwin Caspers

Elena Chochanova

Stijn Kuipers

Martin van Overveld

Quentin Deyirmendjian

Omyra Mingels

Group 2:

Tomas Durdis

Eleonora Zanetti

Guy Steiner

Doruk Ozcifci

Niels van’t Oever

Bas van Geffen

Bart Hellings
John Schneijderberg

Group 3:

Remko Kroes

Begun Yilmaz

Philip Weibhauser

Veronica Sykorova

Chiara Garri

Rik van den Elzen

Ricardo Ploemen

Group 4:

Luca Vallicelli

Sebastian Gernhardt

Eric Pijffers

Futura Falistocco

Daniela Gheorghiu

Meslec Mihaela

Leroy

Group 5:

Ralph Vleeshouwers

Karsten Seifert

Manuel Aust

Pedro Snow

Jaime Ramila