the last ice merchant...

For over 50 years Baltazar Ushca has harvested the glacial ice of Ecuador’s Mount Chimborazo (the closest point on eart to the sun!). His brothers, both raised as ice merchants, have long since retired from the mountain. This is a story of cultural change and how three brothers have adapted to it.

Director/Cinematographer: Sandy Patch
Producers: Jeremy Yaches, Rodrigo Donoso
Editor: Josh Banville
Supervising Editor: Jeremiah Zagar
Music: Andes Manta

Official site: http://thelasticemerchant.com
http://www.facebook.com/TheLastIceMerchant

learning from peace...?

1. Wars begin in the minds of men (and women) and are often based on the lies of leaders.
2. Politicians and generals send the young to fight and die.
3. Wars are not heroic; they are bloody and terrifying.
4. Wars now kill more civilians than combatants. 
5. Long-distance killing and drones make wars far less personal. *(At this point... I don't get the point: what does the author understand about a war much more personal?!)
6. Any war today carries the risk of a nuclear conflagration and omnicide (the death of all). 
7. The terms of peace after a war can plant seeds of peace or the seeds of the next war. *(In any case it sure plants someone's patented seeds!)

from: 1914-2014: Lessons learned from peace 
by David Krieger, Truthout, 07/23/2013

 * (personal thoughts)

the custom handcrafted orchestra...

by Diego Stocco

"I always been fascinated by the raw musical power that an orchestra can express, so, after creating a series of videos where I'm performing a multi-track piece with an instrument I designed, I decided to take the concept a step farther and create my own orchestra made of unusually unique instruments. The project started by handcrafting a diverse selection of instruments, then I wrote a composition where I could fit them all in and finally performed each part. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed doing it!". Diego Stocco

Produced by Diego Stocco
DP: Gianfilippo De Rossi
Thanks to Andrea Bedendo for help with graphic layout

Jesus upside down... (?)

suggestive mural offering a lot of metaphors... it's up to you to make your own one... or not!

The "Breakdancing Jesus" mural is the result of a contest held by The Canteen, a local in Stokes Croft Street at Bristol, and won it by Cosmo Sarson.

Cosmo has done in the past this other "breakdancing Jesus". 

The paint will be there for two years, until the next contest, sharing space with one of the most popular Banksy's graffiti: Mild, mild West... 

a take-it-home wind power generator...

the Wind-Cube designed by Liao Hsun Chen and Wen Chih Chang of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Wind Cube is a modularized wind power system for cities. The concept uses three-dimensional wind fields to make up for the insufficiency of two-dimensional ones. Each Wind Cube unit can automatically creates a circuit with the power it generates. The power can be directly provided to families for the purpose of saving energy and reducing carbon use.

The way these “cubes” work is to be attached to a wall (outside) with three screws, click the switch to activate, and sit back to enjoy the power your mother earth is providing. Multiple cubes can be connected to not only generate more power, but strengthen their collective structure, and the fans can be pulled out or pushed back and away depending on the weather.

2011 International Design Excellence Awards

9 questions (about architecture)

"The following film has been shot by the architects, constructors and dwellers involved in the nine selected works. Each take is their answer to nine key questions we asked them. Each of these answer becames a new imaginary place. By editing their answers, we take you for a brief moment to these places.":

Architects are not artists but technicians. Our job is to help others, making things easier, saving time, energy and matter.

1. Shouldn't architects be more necessary in times of need than in times of plenty?

(Casa a Bunyola. Francisco Cifuentes)

Doing architecture is a collaboration and an act of empathy between a place, a community and some particular techniques.

2. Shouldn't architects listen more and talk less?

(Llar d'infants a Pratdip. Núria Salvadó y David Tapias)

So far, the work or architects has caused an entropy increase on earth.

3. How can we become an agent that decreases this entropy?
(Escola d'art y Disseny a Amposta. David Sebastián y Gerard Puig)

The architect develops techniques that help making human habitats, transformimg the least energy and matter to provide maximun health and happiness.

4. Why do we forget about this so often?
(Casa Collage. Ramon Bosh y Bet Capdeferro)

Architecture is the act of dwelling. Otherwise, it is just logs and stones.

5. How come architecture is a noum when it should be a verb?
(La Seca. Meritxell Inaraja)

Architects are not important. What they do is not so important. What matters is the consequences of their work.

6. Can we design foreseeing what we will cause?
(Casa per a tres Germanes. Jaume Blancafort and Patricia Reus)

It is well known that architects say one thing but do the opposite.

7. Ins't it enough to do things honestly?
(Ampliación Institut Sureda i Blanes. Aina Salà and Alberto Sánchez)

Mankind can live happily without architects but not without architecture.

8. How will we work for now on?
(Piscina, Vestuario y Sala de Deportes en Jesús. Olga Felip and Josep Camps)

All this has already been said many times, a long time ago.

9. Why do we forget?
(Can Ribas. Jaime J. Ferrer)

a colorfull making of...

as many times the process is more beautiful than the result. This mt-masking tape installation from Koji Iyama looks to promote its use across Japan...

designing favelas...

Favela Café, at Art Basel, created by japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata and swiss architect Christophe Sheidegeer as a part of a commissioned installation for Messeplatz. "Kawamata’s aim is to turn these environments inside out, and present the viewers with a completely fresh view of their surroundings."

A way to confront people with other reality... on danger of be turned into a fashionable art/architectonic design rather than into a kind of re-freshing (view) social art(?).

While the installation remains under institutional control, everything (everyone) is cool, but at the moment its ocupation escapes and turns into a collective and freely use of the public space, for some the 'social' art  becomes to much unsocial... and the confrontation is not as 'refreshing' as desired (for those 'some')...  so it's necessary to re-control it with... tear gas (another refreshing-repressing system for reality).

And finally reality comes... again... when citizens made use of that commissioned created space as the intentioned real 're-freshing' place. What a paradox!

To read more: ARTLEAKS

women and men thinking of themselves...

women: you're more beautiful than you think...

men: you're less beautiful than you think...