Everyone loves a good mystery. Artists Gilbert and George’s latest exhibition, called “London Pictures,” at the White Cube Galleries, features displays of newspaper sellers’ posters from around London, organised thematically (Guardian). One of the artworks features a collage of headlines such as: “Driver’s mystery death”; “Search for mystery naked reveller”; “Arrest as cops probe mystery…More
Tag Archives: Heidegger
What buildings want
Architect Louis Kahn (1901-1974) used to ask “What does the building want to be?” In talking about light, shadow and silence he’s also reported as saying, “Everything you make is already too thick. I would even think that a thought is also too thick.” I assume the kind of thick thinking to which Kahn refers is where…More
Inconspicuous architecture
Are first impressions important? Architect Peter Zumthor thinks so. I enter a building, see a room, and — in a fraction of a second — have this feeling about it. Buildings inevitably impress us in some way. Many buildings stand out immediately. People make snap judgements on their beauty or lack of it, their functionality…More
Why ask?
Cambridge University has launched a campaign to celebrate the physicist Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday in January 2012. You can Tweet (or email) questions to #AskHawking. The questions appearing so far are a mix of the extremely clever, sensible, predictable, witty, sarcastic and vulgar. Hawking is here serving as an oracle, a role often expected of…More
After affects
How do surveillance cameras, and increased monitoring and security procedures affect you? Such causes have undoubted effects on material circumstances and well-being. Actions affect things, and thereby produce effects. The verb, to affect, results in a noun, an effect. But there’s also such a thing as an affect, as a noun. Last Friday I attended…More
Sequel-baiting
Sequel-baiting is the practice by film-makers to construct their plots in a way that encourages audience demand for a sequel. As well as cliff-hanger endings, there’s the technique of introducing characters and subplots that require follow-up once the main story is over.More
Being practical
The recent raid at Abbottabad has shown President Obama to be a leader capable of decisive action after all, as opposed to just an academic (ie a “dithering nerd-in-chief”), at least according to critical commentators (The Guardian, 7 May 2011, p.21). Having read Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, I’m hard-pressed to think of Obama as an intellectual…More
No-thing as it seems
You can treat things as “mere objects,” but things can’t be “mere things.” Thing already carries connotations of significance, history, meaning, memory.More