Commercial and Nasty

"Electronic aids, particularly domestic computers, will help the inner migration, the opting out of reality. Reality is no longer going to be the stuff out there, but the stuff inside your head. It's going to be commercial and nasty at the same time."
Quote by JG Ballard

This Used To Be "This Used To Be The Future"

"This used to be the future" is a track from the bonus CD of the upcoming, new Pet Shop Boys album "Yes". The special gimmick: vocals are not only sung by Neil Tennant, but also by Chris Low and Phil Oakey from The Human League.

MARCH 23 UPDATE:
This used to be "This Used to be the Future": After the song was taken down due to our beloved copyright violation bla bla (after all there is no such thing as free promotion?!) there is now the "Ken Saint X-tended Mix", which is surprisingly good and very close to the "original" version. I wonder how long this will be up...

Last Train to Expo 67

In 1976 the geodesic dome "Biosphere of Man" that housed the pavillion of the USA at Montreal´s Expo ´67 caught fire during repair work. The wonderful structure that was built by Buckminster Fuller became another ruin on the field of world-expo ruins within minutes, when the fire burned away the acrylic outer shell. Anyway, the superstructure was kept intact and it is still standing until today.



This event became part of the art installation "Endgame" by Michael Rakowitz in Italy in 2006

Here, at StellaVista Towers - we celebrate the predecessor of Expo ´70 with some groovy Rocksteady goodness from The Melodians.

Hop on The Last Train to Expo 67 (click to play).

This is how it looked back in 1967


And lots of private and official videos on Youtube

Grounded

"Own a piece of aviation history", that´s the motto of California based custom furniture company Motoart, who make awesome and stylish furniture out of old airplanes.


I think the exhibits speak for themselves and it goes without saying that I want to have the cowlings, the chairs, the sofa, the wall divider and a few tables for my Ballard room. Oh, and the Pan-Am cuff links, please.



Seeing that the cuff links go for $ 220 - all other prices are on demand only - I guess that Ballard room will stay unfurnished for a while.



Click pics to enlarge or go to Motoart

Style!

Fashion stylist Devon Walker photographed by Altamira

I love how he manages to mix the look of Grace Jones, Kid ´n Play and Kim Jong Il without any trace of irony - and getting away with it.

Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds

Since the latest James Bond doesn´t have any gadgets, check Dustygizmos for your dose of mini recorders and other secret agent accessories.


Via Plan Blog

Atari Baby

The Minus World has re-thought contemporary video-games to see what they (aka the package) would look like if game technology and design would have been frozen in 1979.


Special care was taken to nail the essence of the game with the typical, short description that was given on the classic, corporate Atari design.


"Halo 3" invites you to "Teabag you enemy", and "Gods of War 3" tells you to "Look for the double nudity greek mythology!"



Click to make big! See them all here

Fantastic Argoman

The original title of the 1968 superhero spoof "Fantastic Argoman" translates to "How to steel the english crown" and it was shown as "The incredible Paris incident" in the USA.
The distributers have probably seen that the superhero angle was not all that promising in this more than goofy flick by Sergio Grieco.
Grieco was also directing under the names Sergio Allesandrini, and Terence Hathaway (how did he find this one?).

I always hate the "so bad its good"-approach to films and think it is pretty lazy but "Argoman" makes it hard to defend this position.
Script, acting and direction are bad but art-direction and the music by legendary Piero Umiliani are brilliant! Just look at the trailer and see incredible backdrops which totally overpower the stupid guy in the yellow sock-puppet outfit.

Expo 70: Theme-Park at the End of the Future

Astrorama


The best things about World Expositions is the aftermath! When the masses have gone home and the host-cities have to deal with the expensive, spectacular architecture that mostly serves no other purpose than being expensive and spectacular.

Expo-Architecture left out in the rain! These are the things the thousand dreams of Stellavista are made of.

Japanese Gas

Brussels, New York (twice), Montreal and Osaka are the Expos which interest me the most. While I guess that the early ones in Paris and London were certainly the most important, it´s the (post) space-age-spirit, the blatant gimmickry (which was heavily criticised) and the haunting leftovers of the big four that capture my interest. If you look at pictures and movies of the dense spectacle it is hardly imaginable that all this was only build for 6 months.

Canadian Pavillion

Pictures of Expo 70 in Osaka are some of my earliest childhood memories. Since my father had regular contact with Japanese scientists, I was exposed to many books and artefacts of japanese futurism at an early age. It was modern Japans first appearance on the international stage, proving that it had come a long way since Hiroshima and Nagasaki



Expo 70 really captured the spirit of the early post space-age. Concentrating on urban architecture, designs for modern life, robotics, and entertainment-culture that was a mixture of art and mass-media, both utilising the latest technological advances. Subsequent the Swiss and Canadian pavillions proved to be the most popular exhibits with their delicate kinetic sculptures and the introduction of the immersive IMAX-cinema.

Interior of American Pavillion

The architecture, at first glance all "showroom", "trade fair" and "theme park" was establishing japanese architects like Kikutake, Kurokawa and Tange (who was the chief architect for the project) on the world stage. Lightyears removed from the cliche of paper-walls and tatami mats, this multi-fractured architecture resonated heavily in europe.

Metabolist roof by Kenzo Tange

Larger-than-life-movies, receptive sculptures, synthetic music and hallucinogenic architecture. The planners of Expo 70 had realised that the moon was just a boring, far away rock, which ceased to capture our imagination one year after it was "conquered".
The central theme of the Expo was "progress and harmony for mankind". During its six month duration, it attracted 64 million people! Thats around 150.000 visitors per day (one peak day had reportedly 830.000 guests)! Disney must have been green with envy. People were lining up for hours to walk through the pavillions.



Only a few pavillions were "left out in the rain" after the gates closed in september 1970. One is the "Tower of the sun" which was also closed after the end of the Expo. When its state of deterioration became so bad that it was proposed to be torn down, many efforts were done to repair the tower and open it for a small number of visitors. Public interest was so strong that the openings were extended. Currently the tower is closed again, but will open in 2010 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Expo.

Tower of the Sun

Sadly most of the left over buildings were removed in 2004. The area is now a big green-zone, housing the Expo recreational park, sport facilities and parts of Expoland. The latter was the amusement park that was a part of Expo 70. It was kept open as a stand-alone attraction until a fatal rollercoaster accident killed one and injured 19 guests in May 2007. Investigations showed that the rides at Expoland were suffering from neglected maintenance. The park is currently closed for major renovations and is said to re-open sometime in the future...

These three aerial pictures taken in 1970, 1971 (one year after) and 1995 impressively show how radically the area was re-naturated. (Click to enlarge)



By the way: Expo 08 Saragoza opened last week. Did anybody hear anything about it?

Expo 70 was such a defining moment in recent japanese history, that it has become the subject for longtime scientific studies (pdf-doc) .

The massive interest to climb once more ontop of the "Tower of the sun" is a testament to the enormous power those 183 days still have on those who can remember the show.


While the actual tower fell in disrepair, prices for original memorabilia went through the roof, and artists were and are still inspired by this spectacle.

"Expora"

Superb japanese artist Kenji Yanobe, who was born in Osaka 1965, has taken photos of himself in an atomic survival suit in places like Chernobyl and on the grounds of Expo 70. He wanders through the debris like an alien astronaut in search of contaminated memories which are frozen in time.



Finally, some great visual reminders:

It Takes Me Higher

For car design "the future" was everything with a fin on it. For faceless studio musicians "the future" was wearing cheap alien masks and gold-lamé ponchos.

Enter Austrian "Space Disco"-Band Ganymed. Having access to the right machines and the wrong clothes at the right time, they immediately took off with their simple but effective debut single "It takes me higher".
Mixing Cerrone, Moroder, Munich Machine and fellow countrymen Supermax with embarassing Kindergarten antics gave them an instant million-selling hit. It´s camp and hypnotising at the same time and much funnier than Space, the French band that came from a similar wormhole.

"It takes me higher" is re-discovered every few years when people recognize the tight production and the full, atmospheric sound.

I used to play this over and over to my friends on dad´s brand new Grundig stereo, which was one of the first models with a wireless (ultra-sonic) remote-control. The volume- and bass-potis would move up and up, controlled by invisible hands and our ten-year old disco-minds would be totally blown by those space-warp syn-drum shots. I guess dad would have been impressed if he knew that his stereo was really capable of bringing the house down.

The album "Takes you higher" rode the space-theme to death. Lots of cringe inducing filler material ("Come on and dance with me") stood against tightly produced electro-funk like "Movin´on a disco planet", "Music drives me crazy" and great instrumental italo-space disco "Saturn".

Here is the stupendous 12" version with an edited appearance in legendary German tv-show "DISCO":


Ganymed released two more pretty mediocre albums with more half-assed space-oddities, but there were more and more earthly themes sneaking into their songs. "Dancing in a disco"(!) and "Rollerskater" must have been attempts to cash in on current fads. In 1980 not only disco was dead, but Ganymed proclaimed "Death to the alien".

They would disband in 1981. By then their bass player was a young, ambitious musician by the name of Johann Hölzel. One year later he would become Austrians biggest pop-star since Mozart: The late FALCO.

Devorah Sperber: Highly commercial

I am not a Treckie, but artist Devorah Sperber most likely is.
Her "Mirror Universe" works are remakes or copies of iconic Star-Trek-scenes, The last supper and the Mona Lisa. In a somehow hilarious but ultimately contrieved way she choses glass beads, chenille stems and spool threads to turn these images into curtains.
In a mixture of op- and pop-art, postcard painting, kitchen-curtain furniture and "Ministeck" techniques she creates a piece of work that is commercially accessible, abstract and a total pisstake on supposedly "female art" like knitting, needlepointing and so on.

"Spock (Beaming in) 1" consists of 25.000 glassbeads strung up on monofilament. The idea and execution is great. The curtain simulates the semi-transparent look of Mr. Spock materializing in a) an art gallery, or b) your flat.
The work and cost that goes into these objects will probably prevent their cloning for a mass market. And I do know some Trekkies who will certainly be sad about this and I would gladly use it as a kitchen-curtain if I wouldn´t have an open kitchen.
For "Holodeck: Simulation Programm..." she used close to 10.000 coloured spool threads in a similar way. And with the help of 27.648 (!) chenille stems, she re-creates still shots such as "Uhura and Sulu (the game has rules)" to a photo-realistic perfection (as far as the chenille stems allow.).
She reflects on the recurring science-fiction-theme of alternative realities, parallel universes and mirrored identities. But to play even further with the space-continuum she lines up spools in distorted order so that the image can be only seen properly with the help of a perfectly placed hemispherical dome mirror.
In older works she did a huge upside-down display of the Last Supper out of nearly 30.000 spools, and mimics the laterna magica (and maybe even some helping techniques used by the old masters) by putting a viewing sphere in front of it.

New Yorkers can see her "Mirror Universe" exhibition until April 26 at the Caren Golden Fine Art Gallery, but I still secretly hope that her "beaming in" - curtains will find their way to Ikea or habitat. I think they are so POP, they belong there

All of Sperbers works and more can be seen here

My Psychotropic Dream Home

...it consisted of six huge aluminum-shelled spheres suspended like the elements of a mobile from an enormous concrete davit. The largest sphere contained the lounge, the others successively smaller and spiraling upward into the air, the bedrooms and kitchen...

The agent, left us sitting in the car... and switched the place on (all the houses in Vermillion Sands, it goes without saying, were psychotropic). There was a dim whirring, and the spheres tipped and began to rotate, brushing against the undergrowth.

...I got out and walked over to the entrance, the main sphere slowing as I approached, uncertainly steering a course toward me, the smaller ones following.

...As I stepped forward, it jerked away, almost in alarm, the entrance retracting and sending a low shudder through the rest of the spheres.

It's always interesting to watch a psychotropic house try to adjust itself to strangers, particularly those at all guarded or suspicious. The responses vary, a blend of past reactions to negative emotions, the hostility of the previous tennants...

...[The agent] was fiddling desperately with the control console recessed into the wall behind the door, damping the volume down as low as possible...
He smiled thinly at me. "Circuits are a little worn. Nothing serious..."


These incredible HDR photos were taken by Cypherone. They show an abandoned holiday resort in Sanjhih on the north coast of Taiwan.

According to the photographer the whole resort was abandoned 20 years ago. Apparantly this future architecture was made partly from fibre glass and could not withstand the harsh coastal weather. There are also stories that the place was haunted after somebody had died in an accident.
Click on the pics for bigger size.


The text excerpts are taken from The thousand dreams of Stellavista by J.G. Ballard.