Seoul chosen as 2010 World Design Capital

Last Oct. 20, Seoul was chosen the ``2010 World Design Capital (WDC)'' during the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design's closing ceremony. The WDC is appointed to the city that holds great design value or is to develop their city into a design oriented one. In a bid to successfully meet expectations, Seoul Mayor Oh Sae-hoon announced the ``U-Seoul Design 2010'' plan, in which the city will promote a design campaign that is ``Universal, Unique, Ubiquitous'' and apply it to streets, buildings and homes.

No more cookie cutter apartments will be put up starting from 2008, instead cities will collaborate with architects and build homes that are not only desirable to live in, but also to look at. The designs will mostly be artistic, minimalized and environment friendly. Renowned architects, such as Daniel Libenskind for Busan's I-Park and Jean Michel Wilmotte for Yongin's Raemian Apartments, will work on the new buildings and homes. Report from Korea Times.
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Using the Flash Audio Player on Blogger

I have figured out how to place this nifty flash audio player on Blogger but WordPress won't let me do it! GRRR... But check this out!



Also you can change your wav files to mp3 using ITunes. Here's how:
Go to Itunes menu> Preferences > Advanced and choose Import using MP3 encoder.

Now when you open a wav or aiff file in Itunes, select it, right click to convert to MP3.

Try it. If you still don't get it, come and do it with me.

Rome in a Day at the New Museum

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
Liz Glynn’s installation “The 24 Hour Roman Reconstruction Project” before it was destroyed. A video of the project is part of the New Museum triennial.

The rat, the rabbit and Yves St Laurent

"...two Qianlong bronze heads, of a rat and a rabbit, were looted from the Yuanming Yuan Summer Palace in Beijing by Franco-British forces in 1860 during the Opium Wars. They were two of 12 heads which adorned a Zodiac fountain, five of which have never resurfaced." more from Artworld Salon.
Have a look at the auction page from Christie's devoted to these sculptures.

Check this out. "Now Jackie Chan has added his two cents worth, according to Charles Bremner, the London Times’ Paris correspondent.

“ ‘They remain looted items, no matter whom they were sold to. Whoever took it out [of China] is himself a thief,’ he said in Hong Kong. ‘It was looting yesterday. It is still looting today.’
The star of Shanghai Knights and Rush Hour accused Western countries of stealing cultural relics from nations with ancient heritage such as China, Egypt and Cambodia and yet insisting they were doing so only to preserve them.
Chan said that he is planning a film about the search for and return of some of China’s stolen national treasures from the palace with filming scheduled to start next year.” From the National Post.

Jason Song Hats

As a young man, Mr. Song, 36, had no intention of taking over the business his parents, Han and Jin Song, started after emigrating from South Korea in 1982. After studying biochemistry in college, he left one semester short of a degree to pursue art studies at Parsons the New School for Design in New York. . .
An early success came in a hat he designed from a chicken-wire base and covered with silk, chiffon and trimmings. Word of the creation, which cost $200 and up, flew through the hat world. More...

Nick Cave, Sound Suits

YBCA presents the largest scale presentation of work by Chicago-based artist and former Alvin Ailey dancer, Nick Cave, featuring fifty of his "soundsuits"—multi-layered mixed-media, wearable sculptures named for the sounds made when the sculptures are worn. As reminiscent of African and religious ceremonial costumes as they are of haute couture, Cave's work explores issues of ceremony, ritual, myth and identity. He does this through a layering of concepts, highly-skilled techniques and varied traditions, using materials such as fabrics, beads, sequins, old bottle caps, rusted iron, sticks, twigs, leaves and hair. Mad, humorous, elaborate, grotesque, glamorous and unexpected, the soundsuits are created from scavenged ordinary materials—detritus from both nature and culture—that Cave re-contextualizes into visionary masterpieces.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco

Paik Nam June Art Center to Open in October

"Three Elements" (1997-2000) by Paik Nam June

Korea Times Art exhibit listing