20110928

Matt Pyke Universal Everything

Super Computer Romantics exhibition at Paris’s La Gaîté Lyrique

"Supreme Believers"

20110923

Roger Waters The Wall 2011 World Tour

An amazing visual display. Strong graphics. Cutting edge techology. All the ingredients needed for producing a utopian moment today. Despite the images used are mostly dystopian the overall feel of the event is utopian.

Ariston - Inside The Washing Machine Project

To announce the launch of Ariston’s new range of washing machines and let people experience what it feels like to be inside a washing machine, we designed a giant walk-in washing machine installation – complete with video projection, vibrating floors, jets of water and bubbles. The installation which welcomed over 10,000 people, let people experience something that is part of their daily routine from a whole new angle.

Ariston - Inside The Washing Machine Project

Advertising Agency: Draftfcb+ Shimoni Finkelstein Barki, Tel Aviv, israel

Executive Creative Director: Kobi Barki

Creative Director: Ori Ganot, Reuven Givati

Art Director: Liat Tsur

Copywriter: Eitan Glass

Industrial Designer: Reuven Givati

Group Account Director: Yosefa Galante

Account Supervisor: Michal Sever

Account Manager: Maayan Savion

Producer: Eti Naaman

Producer: Boaz Meiri

Film Director,Cameraman: Benny Mali

Post Production: Bunker LTD

Sound Design: Signal Music

Date of release: April 2011

Turda Salt Mine in Transylvania

Nikon D700 campaign

Nikon took its cue from our celebrity-obsessed paparazzi culture to launch the brand's D700 model in Korea.

At a busy Seoul subway station, Nikon mounted a huge interactive, light-box billboard displaying life-like images of paparazzi. Huddled together as if at a premiere, the "paps" appear to be jostling and competing for the best celebrity snap. The celebrities in this case were the passersby, who automatically triggered a deluge of flashing camera lights as they walked past the billboard. The accidental superstars then followed the red carpet all the way out of the station and into a mall - directly into the store where they could purchase the new D700. Mission accomplished. - Lisa Evans

Nikon D700 guerrilla style billboard

Homeless Dinner from a Trash Can

In a Guerilla Costume! Guerrilla marketing and services is a website with examples of guerrilla campaigns using urban environment for advertising.
http://inagorillacostume.com/

Homeless Dinner from a Trash Can

A dystopian theme used to draw the attention of the passers-by

Zaha Hadid Architects

Zaha Hadid Architects website has an archive that contains realized projects as well as masterplans for infrastructure, landscape and city planning.


London 2066 Masterplan

Kartal Pendik Masterplan, Instanbul

Sea View Kartal Pendik Masterplan, Instanbul

http://www.zaha-hadid.com/
http://designmuseum.org/design/zaha-hadid

Heathrow unveils driverless transport of the future

The UK’s biggest airport has launched the transport of the future – driverless battery-powered pods that provide hassle-free rides for passengers and their luggage.

A world’s first in modern transit technology, the Heathrow pod system is expected to carry 500,000 people every year on the five-minute journey between Terminal 5 and the car park.

A total of 21 Personal Rapid Transport (PRT) pods which use 70% less energy than a car will circulate around a 3.8km congestion-free track.

The vehicles can reach a top speed of 25mph and will eliminate the need for 50,000 yearly bus journeys around the airport.

It has taken 40 years to develop the concept of driverless vehicles and the technology piloted at Heathrow is expected to be rolled out across the world.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/heathrow-unveils-driverless-transport-of-the-future.html

20110922

Textile field at V&A

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2011/september/textile-field-va-bouroullec

Osaka Station City complex South Gate Building WATER CLOCK

Another exmple of utopic instalation created by local firm Koei Industry. Koei's Space Printer fountain shows a digital-style time readout, spitting out numbers and text, as well as scrolling patterns including floral motifs.
Link to Koei Industry:http://www.koeiaquatec.co.jp/

20110921

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi

Description from You-Tube: "This project explores the invisible terrain of WiFi networks in urban spaces by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs.

A four-metre long measuring rod with 80 points of light reveals cross-sections through WiFi networks using a photographic technique called light-painting."

Revealing the hidden urban techology - art and technology blended into Utopic vision

First things first manifesto

http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=18&fid=99

Target Fashion Kaleidoscopic Fashion Spectacular at The Standard NY

Example of creating an event that is a moment of Utopia.

20110920

The Venus Project

The Venus Project advocates an alternative vision for a sustainable new world civilization unlike any socio-economic system that has gone before. It calls for a straightforward redesign of a culture, in which the age-old inadequacies of war, poverty, hunger, debt, and unnecessary human suffering are viewed not only as avoidable, but totally unacceptable.

http://thevenusproject.com/

20110916

Utopian and dystopian sci-fi films

Sleeper

Miles goes to the doctor for an ulcer problem and wakes up 200 years later after being cryogenically frozen. The United States no longer exists and people seem to be subdued by consumerism. But he was brought back to life for a reason.

Guy Debord - La Refutation

Situationist International movement

"On the Passage of a few People through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International 1956-1972" (1989) film by Branka Bogdanov [NTSC-VHS 22 min.]

A video documentary combining exhibition footage of the Situationist International exhibitions with film footage of the 1968 Paris student uprising, and graffiti and slogans based on the ideas of Guy Debord (one of the foremost spokesmen of the Situationist International movement). Also includes commentary by leading art critics Greil Marcus, Thomas Levine, and artists Malcolm Mac Laren and Jamie Reid. Branka Bogdanov, Director and producer.

According the Situationist International movement one of the key techniques to change the world is “the drift”. It means people wondering trough cities being pulled in by the attractions or repulsed by the ugly things. The mini climate of the city (buildings, streets, parks) will guide people. They were interested in “Integrated city creations”, “Pshychogeography” – play is free and creative activity. They talk about so called “Society of the spectacle” and how we are going to design our lives.

V for Vendetta

Big Fish

Blade Runner

Rick Deckard is called out of retirement when a few replicant androids come to earth in hopes of expanding their lifespans. Deckard is supposed to terminate the replicants. While dystopia doesn’t seem to be the theme as far as dialog is concerned, the overall depiction and feel of the city and bureaucracy give you a real eery feeling that things are bad and wrong.

I, Robot

H. Bosch - Garden of Earthly Delights

Wikitopia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia

Landscape+Urbanism

http://landscapeandurbanism.blogspot.com/

Utopias Illustrated

The City of the Sun, 1602, by Tommaso Campanella

Few more utopian cities at:
http://www.santa-coloma.net/voynich_drebbel/utopias/utopias.html

The Mobile City: Mobile media and urban design

Broadacre city by Frank Lloyd Wright; a city based on a new mode of transportation

http://www.themobilecity.nl/adaptation/reports-of-designing-the-hybrid-city/session-4-self-expression-in-the-hybrid-city/session-4-2-%E2%80%93-utopian-city-plans/

Utopian city project blog

The official website of the Utopian City Project of the Danube Foundation. Created by Wouter van den Bos

http://theutopiancity.blogspot.com/

"The Republic" by Plato

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/150/pg150.html

"The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61/pg61.html

"Animal Farm" by George Orwell

The book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalinism before The Second World War. The novel addresses the corruption of the revolution by its leaders and how indifference, ignorance and greed destroy any possibility of a Utopia. How problems within a revolution could allow horrors to happen. As Orwell himself explained: "it is the history of a revolution that went wrong"

Animal Farm

"Brazil" a Terry Gilliam film

The world operates in a list of rules, procedures, administration and bureaucracies. One man is arrested because of a little problem in the bureaucracy and Sam Lowrey attempts to fix the problem. But, as bureaucracy goes, he finds it a mess to work through and before he can fix the problem, he has become mistaken as a criminal by wasting the Ministry’s time.

Definitions

Utopia
1: an imaginary and indefinitely remote place
2: a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions
3: an impractical scheme for social improvement
4: an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. The word was first used in the book Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More.
The opposite of dystopia (Oxford Dictionaries)

Origin: based on Greek ou 'not' + topos 'place'

Dystopia
1: an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.
The opposite of Utopia (Oxford Dictionaries)