Refresh
Posted on August 3, 2006 in site news
It’s too damn hot. Things need to be lightened up a bit—clothes shed, bags dropped, drinks iced, and designs de-frocked. So, next year’s model is here, or something. Please refresh your browsers. Update your RSS feeds. Lighten up.
Actually, the unbearable weight of design struck one before the unbearable heat of the concrete world did. It seems so hard to escape the Brand. It seems that to design is to brand, to reduce for consumption, to package so nicely, and to sell, to be instantly apparent. One wishes to be clear and to convey information in a reasonable, digestable manner: one brands oneself. “So step back a bit,” one says to oneself. It can be clear and structured—and there can be a spot of blue!—and maybe not so much the identity package for a luxury sedan. (Although, next year’s model is already available here.) It might be a lost cause. These days, to give the thing a name is to begin the descent (or ascent) to Brand Hell (or Heaven).
Maybe the overheated argument is more plausible. It’s just too damn hot, and you gotta lighten up.
Meaning Building 2005
Posted on February 13, 2005 in site news
All right, all right. Attention visitors: please refresh your browsers. Meaning Building has a fresh face for 2005.
This redesign has been a couple months coming, and I almost scrapped it a few weeks ago (as can often happen in a too-lengthy design phase). I was (and still am) feeling very antagonistic towards the rigid templating which seems a prerequisite for “good” web design, especially when a CMS is involved. However, in the end I reconciled my frustrations with standardization in the realization that the information I want to convey in my site and the audience I am conveying it too really do require a recognizable architecture. I will just have to look forward to other concepts for sites which allow for a more organic and non-repetitive design and structure. Something with a bit more narrative potential.
There are probably some holes left in parts of the site (I really needed to just get it up here) and I have been less a stickler about validation, too. But, for the most part, everything should be pretty OK. Again, if I haven’t said it already, thanks for looking and reading.
New work
Posted on September 25, 2004 in site news
A recently completed series of collage drawings has been uploaded to the practice section of Meaning Building: El pais: souvenir intimes! ¡Viva Espagna!
Terra Incognita
Making visible the impact of the University of the Arts on land use in Center City Philadelphia and our role as active inhabitants of these spaces.
Place In Place Of: Alexandria
A set of site-specific interventions, performances, lectures and documents created in Alexandria, Egypt that included a workshop with local art and architecture university students.
The Think Tank that has yet to be named
Acting as both the Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of Meaning (DIM) and the Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of Radical Pedagogy (DIRP), much of my practice falls under the rubric of the Think Tank that has yet to be named.
This Was Lost, This Was Found
Mapping and marking lost clothes found on the streets and sidewalks of Philadelphia.
A Typology of Mess Punkt
A photographic series of Mess Punkt, or measuring points, reveals an alternative cartography of the city and the memory of my experience of it.
Unbinding Boundaries
A series of projects which explores the socio-spatial divisions and potential connections between two adjacent districts in central Champaign that are bisected by the north-south railroad.
Place In Place Of: Berlin
A web-based project which uses the weblog format to present concurrent and collaborative investigations and interpretations of Berlin.
Provisonal Monument
A performative exploration of place, architecture, memory, provisional communities, provisional meanings, provisional monuments, the gloved hand of a construction worker swiping away gravel from a window sill...
More Projects
del.icio.us Links
- Punakea | nudge:nudge // like delicious for your files in OS X
- Rosemary Cubas (Community Leadership Institute) on the Philadelphia's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative
- All For The Taking » Blog Archive » The Community Leadership Institute and INCITE Philadelphia?s Anti-Displacement Solidarity Committee; Origins and Current Work
- 2314 N. American St 19123 - Google Maps // Former superfund site
- Pennsylvania, 2314 N. American Street | Mid-Atlantic Superfund | US EPA
- The Philadelphia Empowerment Zone // American St. zone
- New Support but Few Gains For Urban Enterprise Zones - New York Times // article from 1992 mentions American St. zone
- Velluire, Vendée, Pays de la Loire, France - Google Maps // Toussaint Baudry's ancestral home. He emigrated to French Canada in 1664.
- Fiefbergen, Plön, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany - Google Maps // Plambeck (Grandma Beaudry's maiden name), Klindt, Holst, and Hebbel ancestral home. Peter Plambeck emigrated to the US via Ellis Island in 1899.
- Subtopia: Getting Ready for a Radical Roundup in Denver
Browse more links at del.icio.us/jbeau
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