:: I was in the market for a new bookshelf and now that search is over. These are cheap and environmentally friendly –– can’t go wrong. For more cardboard furniture and things, check out Giles Miller, a cardboard designer. //
[ is a guest contributor on 56minus1.]
:: as often noted within the depths of these posts, design, technology, and communication are evolving — quickly. Our perspective, on this side of the globe, is within the spectrum of an emerging culture that is making leaps across traditional communication, travel, and technology barriers. The experimentation, chaos, and expressiveness that often characterizes modern art and design in china fits nicely into the Tate’s new concept — altermodern.
In his keynote speech to the 2005 Art Association of Australia & New Zealand Conference, Nicolas Bourriaud explained:
“Artists are looking for a new modernity that would be based on translation: What matters today is to translate the cultural values of cultural groups and to connect them to the world network. This “reloading process” of modernism according to the twenty-first-century issues could be called altermodernism, a movement connected to the creolisation of cultures and the fight for autonomy, but also the possibility of producing singularities in a more and more standardized world.”
I also pulled the Altermodern manifesto from the Tate Britain’s exhibition which is fascinating and insightful especially as it relates to emerging artists within China:
A new modernity is emerging, reconfigured to an age of globalisation – understood in its economic, political and cultural aspects: an altermodern culture
Increased communication, travel and migration are affecting the way we live
Our daily lives consist of journeys in a chaotic and teeming universe
Multiculturalism and identity is being overtaken by creolisation: Artists are now starting from a globalised state of culture
This new universalism is based on translations, subtitling and generalised dubbing
Today’s art explores the bonds that text and image, time and space, weave between themselves
Artists are responding to a new globalised perception. They traverse a cultural landscape saturated with signs and create new pathways between multiple formats of expression and communication.
I would be interested to hear how you think emerging Chinese artists fit into this paradigm…is it relevant? //
[ is a guest contributor on 56minus1.]
:: on Sunday, I found a great lazy weekend spot, Bovo Mondo in Shanghai (427 Dagu Lu. 大沽路427号). I was especially impressed with their selection of foreign design books and magazines. The books are not for sale and are actually the owner’s personal collection. He travels the world finding interesting items to bring back to the shop. He has over 2,000 titles and 50 subscriptions. My new favorite magazine, Monocole, is available. This month it features an article on business development in Kunming. //
[ is a guest contributor on 56minus1.]
