Unusual Life

The French city of Nantes recently became host to extremely strange and fascinating sculptural display: “Les Machines de l’Ile Nantes”, designed by François Delarozière and Pierre Orefice.

Via Dark Roasted Blend

A sleepy east side street scarred with abandoned houses and weed covered lots in Detroit's depressed lower east side has become the center of a controversy involving a volatile mingling of ruins, art and politics.

Begun in the eighties by artist and Heidelberg Street resident Tyree Guyton the Heidelberg Project, as it came to be known, developed into a block long environment consisting of free standing found-object constructions and abandoned buildings and trees adorned with found objects. Much of the area and works are are simplistically painted upon with multi-colored polka dots being the signature icon.

Via Detroit Yes

Artists Madeline Gins and Arakawa say that their house in East Hampton, N.Y., opposes death and may extend life. Originally called the Bioscleave House (Lifespan Extending Villa), they say its architecture makes people use their bodies in unexpected ways to maintain equilibrium, and that will stimulate their immune systems.

The couple also built nine “reversible destiny” loft-style apartments in Mitaka, Japan.

The house on Long Island, which cost more than $2 million to build, is their first completed architectural work in the United States – and, as they see it, a turning point in their campaign to defeat mortality.

The house, which is still unoccupied, was commissioned in the late 1990s by a friend who sold the property to an anonymous group of investors after the project dragged on and costs mounted. But it is ready, Arakawa and Ms. Gins said, to begin rejuvenating whoever moves in.

In addition to the floor, which threatens to send the un-sure-footed hurtling into the sunken kitchen at the center of the house, the design features walls painted, somewhat disorientingly, in about 40 colors; multiple levels meant to induce the sensation of being in two spaces at once; windows at varying heights; oddly angled light switches and outlets; and an open flow of traffic, unhindered by interior doors or their adjunct, privacy.

All of it is meant to keep the occupants on guard. Comfort, the thinking goes, is a precursor to death; the house is meant to lead its users into a perpetually “tentative” relationship with their surroundings, and thereby keep them young.

A House Not for Mere Mortals from the New York Times

Immortality House Audio Slideshow

(Thanks to Earl and Rhonda Brown for the tip!)

I wrote an article for this months issue of MAKE Magazine (http://www.makezine.com/) about folk artist Martin Sanchez and the environment he created out of found objects (including a beer-bottle chapel) and I’m going to be featuring some of those photos with commentary this Thursday 4/10 at See Sound Lounge on 1st and Blanchard in Belltown at 6pm.

Pecha Kucha Night was conceived in 2003 as a place for designers, architects and artists to meet, network, and show their work in public, and it has spread virally to over 100 cities across the world.

Give a mic to an architect or an artist and you may be trapped for hours. The key to Pecha Kucha Night is its patented system for avoiding this fate. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

Pecha Kucha (which is Japanese for the sound of conversation) has tapped into a demand for a forum in which creative work can be easily and informally shown, without having to rent a gallery or chat up a magazine editor.

http://www.pecha-kucha.org/cities/seattle

http://www.UnusualLife.com

Artists and presenters for the evening are Marlow Harris, Alex Steffen, Cameron Hall, Sage Saskill, Elizabeth Buschmann, Karen Lorene, Jesse Harris, Dawn Clark, Ross Leventhal and Michael Franz Horner

Liberace Museum

In 1966 Liberace opened Liberace Interiors and Objects d’Art,” in Hollywood, California. No surprise for he had quite a flair for decorating, and spared no expense when it came to one of his many homes. He even offered his interior design services to clients!

He had several homes around the country. Here are a few pictures from his Hollywood Hills home, completments of Bob’s World of Liberace.

Bob’s tribute to the

Glitter, the Glitz, and the Camp of America’s most flamboyant entertainer, the one and only “Mr. Showmanship®”, Liberace!

is not to be missed and feature incredible photos of Lee Liberace’s many homes.

Christmas was Lee’s favorite times of the year and he spent thousands of dollars decorating his home. He had custom Christmas cards made for himself every year, sometimes costing up to $4 a piece, and he had a mailing list of 7,000.

Bob’s Liberace Christmas Card Collection