Observation :

Bath pod

2009-02-10T19:19:00.000-08:00

I randomly found this amazing machine from 70's, washing machine for human being. Ahh. Perfect appliance for lazy human. I also wish they made pet version...

DRAWDIO

2008-12-07T22:00:00.001-08:00

old downtown LA axon view

2008-12-07T21:50:00.001-08:00

I was putting some stuff together for a friend, but while doing research, I found this image which seems like an old axon view of downtown LA. Almost looks like it came out of a history book. pretty cute!

Portfolio

2008-12-07T11:52:00.001-08:00

Get your own - Open publication

It took forever to put this together, I don't know why but I guess has to do with 50% self hatred and 50% of ego.

robot milling..

2008-11-11T00:32:00.000-08:00

This video was found at boing boing today.. I imagine multiple of these carving out a recycled plastic chunk to create dwelling.

The happy end of franz kafka's Amerika

2008-09-28T15:52:00.000-07:00

Moca is having a retrospective exhibition of Martin Kippenberger. I went down today to see the part of exhibition at Geffen Contemporary which showed one of his piece, the happy end of franz kafka's Amerika. Inspired from unfinished novel of kafka, Kippenberg recreated one of the scene which the protagonist goes to an interview in oklahoma. The interpretation of it was a big room transformed into soccer field, filled up with facing chairs and tables to represent the moment of interview.. The installation was quite whimsical in a way, that the collection of facing chairs are not necessarily identical, but in different shapes and heights - Also the context of the football field highlighted the idea of competitiveness - even made me feel like watching a furniture competition..

Cool stuffs!

man cat by alexander mcqueen

2008-09-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

the new collaboration of alexander mcqueen and puma has a futuristic character called man cat, the hybrid of puma and human... i don't know why i like this image so much - maybe because of the human skin over puma sort of shows the new possibilities of human physical ability..

pretty cool stuff..

holographic images in fashion.. way ahead.

2008-09-16T23:35:00.000-07:00

I was introduced to some cool holographic image videos from stage today, mainly in fashion and entertainment industry. It is way ahead in terms of representation, and seems like finally the boundary between real and unreal is somehow totally blurred and mixing together.

Fracture

2008-09-03T18:59:00.000-07:00

This is something I would like to see in Burning Man..

thinking about architect+ure..

2008-08-25T20:06:00.000-07:00

for now.. i think architecture is in between dream and reality. it is one step closer to utopia.. as zizek says, utopia is not about dreaming, but actually happening. that is utopia. and architecture seems like something that can make utopia possible. whether it's negative, positive or whatever.. doesn't matter. architecture, when it was proposed, doesn't exist yet gives a opportunity to actualize. when it is actualized, it is not a architecture anymore.. it is outcome of architecture. i think..

today's article on nytimes about lebbeus woods especially makes me think about this. yes 1960's over. we are not living in the world of dreaming reality anymore. actually everything is so damn real and starts to feel surreal.. who cares about dream or future, when everything is connected and circulating so fast to only indicate world and system is made based upon digits and number to follow, and that is what reality is.

magnetic field

2008-08-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

hairier and hairier, messier and messier..

earthquake rocks!!

2008-07-29T22:37:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, a rather strong earthquake of magnitude 5.4 hit east of Los Angeles county. Well, today's earthquake was one of the big ones I actually experienced, and for a little while, I thought the Northridge earthquake from '94 will be realized in front of my eyes, but well, it wasn't all that strong.

Personally, today's earthquake actually happened in right moment to remind me Robert Altman's movie Shortcuts. The movie includes 9 different group of people, who are going that are going through different sorts of conflicts which are somewhat connected or not. Almost at the end of the movie though, the conflict kind of magnified through a earthquake scene, which makes people somewhat look back and reunite. Well, events like earthquake is regional, that some people who are not living in rather stable plate will never experience it in their life, and also the based upon intensity, it can just end up as a happening, or disaster. Without knowing the origin of it, and magnitude, during that short moment of shaking, yeah, personally I went through the experience of life and death, disaster and aftermath. But after all that, when things calmed down, yeah - it was kind of liberating.

Now Festival at Redcat - Theater Movement Bazaar

2008-07-21T14:06:00.001-07:00

Theater scene in LA is relatively small, considering the emphasis on entertainment culture and art the city has. Probably has to do with the short history of the city and concentration of the movie industry - but also considering the fact that the theater is the origin of the actors dream, it is such a irony.

Well, now.. I have to introduce this non-profit theater group "Theater movement Bazaar" and their amazing work in progress piece, "Model Behavior" which was inspired by the story Jekyll and Hyde.. The reason I was so blown away by this play, although there's nothing new about the story itself, is because of the composition of the play itself in terms of sounds, movement and dialogs of the actors. The play is carried on as 2 eight male vs. female teams, which they represents the different aspects of human behavior - mostly dark side. The dialogs is fast and whimsical, and the humor is sarcastic. everything I would love...

The play shown at the redcat last Friday was work on progress piece, but the more developed and finalized version of this play will soon to be come. Again, I am also happy to get to aware of another serious non-profit group and especially in Theater - and hoping the revival of theater in LA.

update about myself.

2008-07-17T23:47:00.001-07:00

so.. it's been quite a while since i actually updated something, but i kind of feel guilty of not posting anything - whether somebody read this or not. i decided to update some stuff about what is going on in my life briefly but it's not the most interesting thing in the world so bear with me....

i've been out of school for the first of my life - i actually did something called 'thesis' although now i think it could have been better.

well, school life wasn't all that easy but now i realize more that the life outside of school is way more rough and serious. duh. but yeah.. to make it in real world - that's how people call it the life outside of school but i don't like the term that much.. what is real anyway? - i need to be way more disciplined and rigorous about what i want and where i want to be.. that i realize big time.

other than that, i started to work in a small LA firm, and after a month, i also realized that i want to move beyond that. also have been catching up with some of close friends and enjoying the moment while going through some ups and downs with my own emotional thoughts about life and relationships.

other than that, i got another speeding ticket and getting ready to give up the previledge of driving in LA.

and also i've been discussing and criticizing manifestoless LA scene.

and also listening to lots of NPR news - it's not the best time these days and things are definitely changing or getting ready to change.. mainly power structure and energy source.

hmmmm what else?? well, definitely, i am trying to clear out lots of my brain which still has unnecessary remnants from the past life, and getting ready to move beyond - walk out of the door and entering a new phase..

great sense of humor

2008-07-01T22:43:00.000-07:00

This picture was taken one afternoon driving on 10freeway to the west side of LA.
The only thing this truck is carrying is a toy version of a truck - which brings up lots of different thoughts.... lists are below.

the intension of the driver - somebody most be bored.
scale issue - extreme contrast
real and unreal
original and fake
mama and baby
silent performance
unexpected delight
......

Design and the elastic mind

2008-06-03T23:48:00.001-07:00

Flight patterns by Aaron Koblin

There was the lecture at the LACMA tonight by the curator of recent MOMA exhibition Design and the elastic mind. The curator, Paola Antonelli, was able to deliver clear and sharp explanation about her approach to the curating as a tool of education for general public by pointing out the most recent design movement happening across the world, mainly the collaboration between art, design, and science. Most of the projects she mentioned, which was part of the exhibition, is one of the very inspiring and first work in design field from sensory interaction to biology and nature inspired algorithm processing.

Although the content wasn't that new for me, I am glad that this show happened in very right time when the design discourse started to diverge itself from modernist view to something that doesn't have its title yet. Well, it is hard to put any title since a lot of design outcome is not only from single person or single field, but borrowing ideas to apply into the relavent context. At the same time, her explanations of the intention of the show and list of the project, which was simple enough to understand was also another great part of the lecture. Yes, this is happening as a new flow, and not that many people are aware of it...Although once introduced, and after changing paradigm of how to design, which is not single goal oriented, but more of engagement or inspiration from different fields, this will happen everywhere by everyone.

One thing that reminded me from this specific show, and how technology oriented design is happening, and how all things will be easier yet harder, kind of makes me think how this will change not only people think but also change the social or economical structure of the world - which reminds me reprap project... Right now, it is barely making the baby step, but if things goes more open and user oriented, maybe we may not buy any more stuff, but we will start to make what is necessary for ourselves.. with simplified manufacturing system aided by rapid prototype.

On the other side, all these things also can end up as one of utopian dream - I am thinking of story of babylon, that when people spoke the same languages, it became total chaos.. technology, which is universal, is another same language that we can all speak.. hopefully - or there will be some kind of hierarchy oriented by the access to the technology or understanding level of it to use or appropriate it for individual purpose.....

Exhibition Website

Alisa Miller - Why we know less about the world?

2008-05-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

Not that I am trying to criticize, but yes, American culture is lacking the sense of internationalism. It is kind of oxymoron to me that most of the commercial globalisation is rooted from American investment - from starbucks to nike. Yet, in day to day life, it is really hard to live in America and exposed to what's going on in rest of the world than something like Britney dropped her baby to Brangelina had a pillow fight. or whatever.

This TED talk reveals the truth behind that - in the end it all comes down to the profit and money making behind the media. Talking about local celebrity gossip is cheaper than talking about what happened in Africa. Most of the giant media company cut down the budget for the foreign news department - means that they don't have direct news source. Now, most of them just rely on the sources like reuters.

But what do we get? By now, it is really obvious that the everyday life of average joe is highly affected by over exposed media. It controls the general opinion and behavior of people by telling what is right and what is cool. Not to mention Ballard's subliminal man, we are consciously or unconsciously controlled by media.

And what's behind is again, money. By veiling themselves under the role of delivering information, the fact that content of information is limited and profit oriented is unknown. The solution? Don't believe what is shown. There is always something more and something behind. especially giants.

joy of gardening - edible garden

2008-05-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

these days, one of my joy is watering the back yard expecting my babies to grow with their fruits that will feed me.. hopefully saving some money for food and gas. not only regarding the fact of global food crisis to lack of green spaces in los angeles, i found it really fun and relaxing to garden something around.

although the awareness is rising, we are not really susceptible to plant side of nature than animal side. there's new term plant blindness, which calls out people who considers plants as the backdrop of animals, and even not able to perceives plant around them. yeah, with emerging media and computerization and so on, we are way more reactive to the influences that has strong impact on our sensory system. like.. dogs are easier to pay attention than some weeds growing backyard cause they move and bark.

coming back from side track.. so it's been almost 3 weeks since i planted some edible plants in my backyard. i water them everyday, and not all of them are doing well, but knowing it is the hardest time for them, i just water them and giving them eye of loving and caring for the mental support. ..... can't wait to eat them!!

final movie.

2008-05-12T22:24:00.000-07:00

This was part of my final presentation - the movie that explains the experience of stock exchange.. well, i need better editing skill for sure - and need to drop the habit of working last minute.. but yeah it was fun to work on this.

Disasters Disasters and disasters..

2008-05-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

So, I was listening to NPR today, and it was kind of scary to hear the bullet point of the recent series of disasters happened in the world.. Cyclon in Myanmar, earthquake in China and Tornado in Oklahoma....
This kind of reminds me the cheesy movie plots that world is ending and one or two science researcher type super heroes are the one saving the world by completing extreme missions like going to the sun to bury a dynamite, or doing down to the core to boost up the rotation of the earth.. or on and on and on..

Well, I don't know whether this is happening because of the global warming or 2012 or it's about time, or it's just coincidence. But for sure, I have a feeling natural disasters will happen more often than what we think, and those who are not ready will be the one that will be sacrificed. Probably some of that has to do geological locations, and some of that has to do with current technology. But yeah, for sure, the part of the world that are not prepared for this kind of extreme attack of nature are the one who gets most damage.

For those who lost their living ground, it is really sad and will be hard to raise up the foundation from the ground. The broken hierarchy of the system will self organize, or not sooner or later, but till then, the chaos and confusion that are way more complex than molecular level reaction will happen.. Sooner than later, there will be another disaster for sure, comparing the frequency of the disasters happening these days than past 10 years, this kind of processes will happen often than any other time in the history - building and rebuilding.. and destroyed.

While being thankful that this hasn't happened to me, I hope things will get better for those who lose everything.. and asides from that, I wonder when is the time for us as mankind to come up with a social structure that are flexible under the attack of disasters...

The space..

2008-04-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

Well, the semester long thesis is almost over, and my presentation is almost at the corner.. no matter what the criticism is, I had pretty good time with it. Now I think, I could have done more, but also at the same time, this is not it, and I will carry on what I am questioning at this point, hopefully throughout my carrier...

So, with my project, I am at the point of making presentable format of my idea - the whole exploration of using media as a collection of fragmented perception from the past, and recreate the sequence of the space from the recorded media. What it does? I don't care.. well, I do, but at this point, let's just say this is not something that will save the world. Whole point of me doing this project was to actually create extremly personal space, and using the method that is personal yet can be shared. Let's say the use of the space I designed, which is nestling inside of abandoned building, is kind of like a sanctuary or secret spot for a lost soul in urban environment.

Fragmented Experience

2008-04-06T18:02:00.000-07:00

Ever expanding memory - the remembered space is connected fragments, and in memory, they mutate their original form and even recreate reality.

where is architecture?

2008-03-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

so at this point of my thesis, the question that where is architecture started to come up. architecture, which implies building in the context of the question, is not quite yet taking place in the whole argument i built up. it's not because i don't know how to build or design a building, but honestly, i truly believe that there is lots of other way to explain what i think as 'architecture' is without making a building proposal. architecture, which is generally understood as building design, project delivery and construction is actually happening in lots of different aspect of our life, culture and different fields of studies in different scale - sometimes, the format of architecture is metaphysical and sometimes the form of architecture is super nano scale that can't be perceived without any other complicated process.

well.. so architecture, for me, after 5 years of study, is a way of exploring things. the reason architecture can't be or shouldn't be defined or limited under the term building, is because at the point that happen, the richness of architecture itself will be lost. building or built form, physical matter is one example of architecture, but not all.

Process update

2008-03-03T11:27:00.000-08:00

Statement 2.0

Memory is intersection between mind and matter – Henri Bergson.

The definition of memory is always limited to that which has already happened, The soonest that memory can ever able to explain is perhaps that which is current, and never what might be. There have been various philosophical and psychological attempts to explore what memory is, in relation to the cognitive system to social context, but none of the attempt was satisfactory. For example, at the end of the discussion of remembering, Bertrand Russell lamented that “this analysis of memory is probably extremely faulty, but I do not know how to improve it.” At the same time, the universality of memory makes it possible to share the consensus and its importance not only in factual way, but also in experiential and perceptual way.

Although memory exist as one concept, it is hard to grasp memory as one thing. Memory in fact, is composed of different layers of mind, perception, physical and mental ability and filtering process through out time. Memory itself is not solid and can be mutated or erased from our mind.

Yet, with the development of storing tools, memory can be stored in different format for unlimited amount of time, as long as the tool doesn’t fail. However, the unlimited capacity of storing diminishes the quality of memory. Also, the storing and retrieval process of memory from the given tool also eliminated the value of memory itself. For example, to store more, the format of memory is changed into simpler version like text or images, which mutates memory into mere data. When mutated memory as data is retrieved, the quality of memory is gone already, because it is often sacrificed for the efficiency.

This thesis proposes sets of processes that engage the idea that memory is not permanent existence, but rather evolves through forgetting and mutation. Memory itself is limited in spatial and personal experience, and throughout the process, obtained and recorded memory changes its form either intentionally or unintentionally. Knowing that memory itself can’t easily defined, but also understood in unconscious, this thesis tries to tie that idea while criticizing the current way of treating memory as sets of data. By arguing that we are still human, the goal of this thesis is to find a way to trace the mutation of memory and share that process to register that as another memory.

aging.

2008-02-20T18:02:00.001-08:00

This diagram is the representation of aging process of individual - human as a biological being. Interestingly, the diagram also contains the information that can be somewhat called "life pattern", which makes me think, all the attempt to be little different from given trajectory won't be eventually that different in the end, other that subtle variation. In the end, once the biological pattern is ignored, human is not human anymore.

By the way, this website called the diagram has been posted some really simple but mind challenging diagrams on the website. I've been a silent supporter of their work - because when the diagrams are taken out from their existing context, and only presented by itself, it totally gains different meaning than the fact it contains inside. Like this diagram above - if it was in biology text book, it would have been looked at very limited perspective.

Spore

2008-02-16T21:37:00.000-08:00

This new game designed by Will Wright just excites me so much, and I am totally planning to dedicate part of my after thesis life to this game once it comes out. I am not really sure how intelligent the game is, but the complexity of the game advances along the evolution of the creature created by user - and the last stage is space..... which makes me wonder whether things eventually goes back to the state of particle - and being advanced matter and even create different world? or dimension? or something.. hmm. never ending perpetuation.

still wondering what is the intelligence structure of the game and how big will it grow.... and eventually evolve from itself.

anyway, it seems like terminologies from evolution theory or biology are widely appropriated in different fields nowadays. in art, architecture, technologies, sociology and even games. pretty interesting...

Spore Website

Recreating the memory - process 1.

2008-02-13T05:48:00.001-08:00

Ok.. another video as a part of new process..
This is a edited footage that I took during last summer in an old building in downtown LA. The building was abandoned for almost 20 years, untouched.

The objective of the video was to examine the instant perception and capturing of the image and recreating the memory through the editing.

After this, I am going to create a physical model off from the video - so the memory of the building is literally recreated through the filter of the video in physical term. Ah... it's gonna be crappy for sure though.

WIP - Process

2008-02-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

Abandoned Man made Structures in urban context – Ruins

Abandoned man made structures self proves the failure of given programs by silently existing in the urban context. Once celebrated as the ultimate solution for the progress, abandoned man made structures failed foresee the rapid speed of change aided by technological advancement. Now, without its context, abandoned man made structures quietly claiming its existence without any recognition. By living in the past and existing in the present, abandoned man made structure decays its memory within itself.

Programmed architecture

It is always considered that the program of architecture gives the meaning of existence to the building. From the site to the organization of the space to ornament, the programmed architecture is designed to enforce the presumed experience to the user to create limited memory. At the same time, by keeping what is given on its body, programmed architecture remains static neglecting the flow of time and changing requirement. The programmed architecture exist as a complex machine as a memory of the past.

Memory + Change

Progress always involves reference back to the past. In that sense, memory, as ability to remember plays carries important value as information. Knowing that, the accumulation of memory has been emphasized as an important task for the civilized cultures. The medium to collect the information has been changed from written characters to the code to condense as much as information possible in most efficient way. As a result, we now have the enormous amount of unfiltered memory as data in our hands. With the accelerated processing power and communication tools, the duration of delay to interact with memory has been reduced, and accelerating the speed of change.

At the same time, the meaning of memory has been changed from the remembering to storage. What is valued is the ability to capturing the moment through the extension of our own perception and processing of the captured data from the where its stored. The scale of device doesn’t involve physical endeavor anymore, compare to past that to access to the memory always requires spatial experience of going to the place and looking through it.

What is missing during the changing notion of the memory is the experience of accessing to the memory and the importance of space. Although we are living in highly digitized society, we are still tied to geo specific location. At the same time, with the developed tools in our hands, we now have extended physical boundary to recreate the reality and memory. (Vrillio – vision machine)

This thesis is an attempt to examine the memory and space in modern term. Knowing that assigning program won’t be necessary anymore considering the rapid change, what does it mean to create a space that can be remembered? As a attempt, this thesis tries to find a way of creating perception through the tools inside of a abandoned space that doesn’t exist in the memory. The collection of the perception is then analyzed as memory. The memory is then recreated as an experience. Together, the process would propose a new way of analyzing the architecture, away from the old idea of program, organization and circulation.

It all started from here.

2008-02-12T18:34:00.000-08:00

This is the video I made during the thesis prep phase. Well, the intension was to show the idea of decomposition and recomposition through repetition, but the interpretation from the viewer varies.

From my first review, I kind of noticed that I can't get away from this video by narrowing down my idea by proposing the modular project that would save the world. What I intentionally ignored was the idea of memory and object, the process of destroying and recreating it.

MGMT

2008-02-05T14:38:00.000-08:00

My friend totally hooked me onto this band - MGMT. I listen to them when i run in the morning, when i rewrite thesis and all the other occasions - like taking a dump, boiling water to make teas and so on.

Anyway, the music is good and what they are saying about the future of mp3 files is interesting.

"Kids are going to be inheriting their parents MP3 collections, and, in that aesthetic, corrupted MP3 files will be like the way people glorify scratched-up records now. In 20 years, people will listen to these 30th generation MP3s and say, 'I love that sound!'"

Hmm.. yeah- all those stuff that's around right now as new technology, new media and so on. what will be their future? are they going to be another obsolete object or totally disappear? Are we gonna fancy the ipod touch like old mercedez?

the function driven technologies, in my opinion doesn't have any quality to capture the time in them. once it defies its given limit, that's it. time to be forgotten. Yet i think it's quite interesting to impose nostalgic futurism onto them.. anyway, future can be talked forever, but no one will see it anyway - what is so called 'future' is no more than planned present.

African fractals and the origin of computation

2008-02-02T12:11:00.000-08:00

Ron Eglash, Ethno-Mathmatician researches the mathematics behind the culture of ethnic groups. In this specific lecture, he talks about the fractal systems in African culture s and philosophy about life (of recursion and perpetuation). But what was really interesting was the last few sentences when he draws the connection between fractal systems in an African religious ritual and the invention of binary system... Obviously, the inspiration for the binary system was this specific ritual, which eventually lead to the von Newmann's Universal constructor. The conclusion is that it all started from Africa.

So, this fact has been facinated me for a while, and now I think about it, it is all about aspects of life that how things repeat and perpetuate. The idea of fractals and recursion used in the cultures are specifically pointing this out - and if the computation is the inspiration for that, it totally makes sense why it is there now.

I am not saying that now we should make computation as new religion or something, but at the same time, it is a big portion of daily life, culture, economics and even society. Although the format of that had been mutated so much from the beginning....

A blurb from Georges Bataille

2008-01-25T12:09:00.000-08:00

Before I forget about this blurb, I had to post it to remind myself to look into the theory behind energy sooner or later. Just after watching Juan Enriquez's talk from TED (he argued that we need to find the other way to use energy other than burning - is it possible for non living organism? i don't know..) this became really interesting field to look at for me. In the end, energy is the origin for us and I think it is important to know and think about the nature of them, and how to obtain and consume without causing any harm, or accepting the fact that certain sacrifice is necessary. Below is the quote.

"The living organism, in a situation determined by the play of energy on the surface of the globe, ordinarily receives more energy than is necessary for maintaining life; the excess energy(wealth) can be used for the growth of a system; if the system can no longer grow, or if the excess cannot be completely absorbed in its growth, it must necessarily be lost without profit; it must be spent, willingly or not, gloriously or catastrophically." (From the Accursed Share by Georges Bataille)

1965 - 1975 The exciting time.

2008-01-25T11:52:00.001-08:00

I am taking this class called "radical experiments from 60s and 70s", and really enjoying it. I knew that it was one of the time that the idea of technology and future is established, along with the networking, communications and even cybernetics. Concepts of evolution, complexity and self organization is also started at this time. Even though these are part of my personal and academic interests, I never actually looked into the publications from this time, because it's just old.. But yeah, I under evaluated the value of originality.

I just had a chance to look into AD magazine from 70s, which has extensive collection of the works of archigram, fuller and all other celebrities.. (my current favorite is yona friedman.) It is just amazing to feel the accumulated time, and also how ahead of time those proposals were. With the new materials like polymers and resin in their hand, those frontiers of architecture performed the hands on experiments that goes beyond our imagination. Even the theoretical arguments are really interesting to look at. Most of them are proposing the flexible spaces considering social changes aided by technology.

Personally, it is very exciting yet sad to look into this time of the history because the arguments and proposals made at this time seems worthwhile to test out yet nothing happened and everything ended up as a echo in the dark sky. The ability to imagine is sacrificed by the agenda. The dream is gone. Is this time ever going to happen, or now do we have too much in our hands so everything is too obvious to experiment? Are we predicting the possibilities by using and processing data in the digital realm, or are we presupposing without considering the variables? Even variables are calculated.. Yet we don't know everything in the world..

Thank you.

2008-01-23T18:34:00.000-08:00

I personally appreciate that there are so many articles warning the support of biofuel without considering the possible negative outcomes like mass land usage and food shortages. Not that I did something for this, and yes I am against the carbon emission, but my argument is that there should be theoretical guidelines for the idea of energy.

My personal reason for being against ethanol is the trajectory of it exactly follows the media play over the environmental crisis. It is super easy to understand for people the idea of fuel coming from daily food which doesn't seem like cost that much in the market. Yet, lots of ethanol advocacies ignore possible outcome of the future when we starts to depend our fuel consumption to the ethanol.

I am not supporting the idea of fossil fuel, but there were certain advantage of using fossil fuels because the location of resource was below the surface, which means that the process of obtaining the fuel didn't have massive impacts to the ecology of the surface. My argument is then, the idea of planting and obtaining the fuel need to come from the resource that doesn't threaten the survival of living organism in any other way.. like solar, or bacteria, or trash.. and there are tons of research going on to propose the substitution for the biodiesel, so not using ethanol is not the end of the world.

* The biofuel section of the technology review has extensive data about the ongoing research for the alternative energy source.

Olafur Eliasson at SF MOMA

2008-01-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a while already that I saw this show, but now I feel like write about it. Well, simply, the show was really great - and what I like the most was the collection of landscapes photographs as reference to the built forms. Geometric forms are beautiful as they are, and the blown up size of the cellular structures are amazing, but what made it more interesting was that by showing the array of landscapes as textures, he makes clear statement that his art work is an attempt to draw parallel effect between nature and artificiality.

Olafur Eliasson

Anyway, this is just my reaction, and I have no idea what the artist is actually saying though.

And this is side track, but Virgin America as a new airline company has pretty interesting service, targeting specific age group as a potential customer. Somehow, the atmosphere including service follows 70's spaceship cliche, and the option for the entertainment is similar to the 70's disco club. Wondering whether their customer target is late 50's or early 20's.......

烏瞰圖詩第四號

2008-01-13T17:06:00.000-08:00

患者의容態에관한문제.
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謬斷 0 : 1

26.10.1931

以上責任醫師李箱

The problem related to the state of patient.
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Diagnosis 0 : 1

26.10.1931

Above is the medical opinion by Lee Sang.

This is a poetry written by korean poet, Lee Sang during the the era of Japanese occupation. It is a series of poem in same title, and the one above is the series 4. I was looking into it and surprised that how visually artistic the poem is with the numbers and organization of that. This guy is also famous for using geometric vocabularies to express certain situations he imagines. Most of the interpretation of his poem is related back to the occupied state of Korea, but I think there are more meanings behind it - like state of human mind, architecture, geometry and so on.. maybe string theory?

Anyway, this whole thing was brought up because I had to go to a dinner party which theme is a poetry, and this will be my presentation - it's a good one isn't it?

More info about the poet and his poem will be up here soon.

Century of self by Adam Curtis

2008-01-08T16:17:00.000-08:00

I've been hearing about Adam Curtis, but never had time to sit down and watch his documentaries till yesterday.

Century of self is a in depth observation over after world war 2 period when the focus on human mind gained its importance to treat the psychological aftermath of the war. Starting from Freud, who started to look into the human mind, the of psychology develops into the idea that psychology can be controlled by tuning the environment and make the people behave based upon the required conducts. By the way, all of these experiment and research are starting from the premise that human beings are evil deep inside. (i know i am. are u?)

In the end, the whole experiment and effort turned out in vain. Marylin Monroe committed a suicide and the type of psychotherapy she was getting was one of those - re programming the subconscious. Lots of brainwashing experiments were never successful either. Eventually what they figured out was that human mind is way more complex than mere system.

What interests me in this specific episode is the idea that human conscious can be controlled and programmed, which is coming from the idea that everyone is same. Now, with the same tools that is available, we are required to use the same code to communicate and be connected in the net. But aren't we losing our ability of being human? We were the creator of machine yet we are required to speak and think like machine to be part of it.

For me, being a human beings, yes, there are some factors in biological way that can be analyzed in bits and pieces. But the sum of bits and pieces are not exact but more. It's like 1+1=4 or maybe 10. Human possibilities are limitless, and it is such a pity that the technology or social systems are the one that equalizes us as simplified matter.

Bioenergy

2008-01-05T19:53:00.000-08:00

I just had a chance to watch TED talk by Juan Enriquez, one of the thinker that draws the connections between technology, economy and society. Actually I am so psyched that what he was talking about on this talk is explaining the thoughts I've been having over the flow of energy in global level, and being anti about ethanol as substitution of the energy.

The definition of bioenergy by Juan Enriquez is a smarter, or respectable way of using the energy that we attain than just burn it up. He references the idea of biology, that everything is related with each other to sustain it's own system. The system of production by the way, is just one way to the dead end type, which just uses up the condensed form of solar energies like oil, coal or gas.

It kind of sucks that this short talk doesn't contains the proposal for the new system other than referencing back to the DNA system which is way simpler than the complex social system we are living in. But the idea is something to keep in mind i think.

More thoughts on greens..

2008-01-04T18:04:00.000-08:00

I am glad that more and more people are eco conscious, and willing to save the earth. What can they do anyway, when there are tons of data threatening us that the world will end some time soon because of the environmental pollution? At the same time, I am also little pissed off to see some of premature attempt to save the world or going green. Like biodiesel.. or some other green products, that doesn't really necessary to be produced. Well, if I put it in different way, yes, it is good to have varieties of products that are organic, eco friendly, and doesn't do any harm. But what is the cost of substitution? Aren't they going to be another landfill? Just because the light bulbs in the house is not energy saver doesn't mean that we should throw all the light bulbs in the house and get a new one.

At the same time, even though the efforts are made in domestic level, if the industry doesn't change the way they operate, and the law doesn't get enforced strict enough, what's the point? I am not saying that all the efforts we make as consumer, buying green products, and not using plastic bags and recycling is not necessary. It is necessary. But if there are still tons of plastic bags are produced out of petroleum, and factories emitting carbon dioxide plus using tons of energy from the grid, then all the efforts being made from the bottom is not doing anything.

Being green is also expensive. Organic milk is more expensive than the one that is not. I know. It is harder to produce. But also it is hard to forget, that all the technology and advances in the food industry came up to feed the exploded population.

For me, it is really disappointing that I hear all the effort I can make to make the world better, which is not even that hard. But I don't know or hear that often that any dramatic changes in the industry or code happened in terms of restrict the pollution level. Even though the trashes are separated for the recycle, what is the point if they don't end up being recycled?

The ideal model would be the precise prediction of production and consumption, so we don't create any waste - to reduce the landfill and save the resource as long as we can - lowering the level of entropy. How long can we extend the end of the world? I don't know..

Questions..

2007-12-27T14:57:00.000-08:00

After living in the present for a while without looking into the future, I finally realize that the speed of future is getting faster and faster and it is hard to not look into it. What is the connection between present and future, and how will it look? What kind of architecture need to be performed and what is the architecture of future? This is the ongoing question I am keep asking myself and trying to find clues.

This is what I know so far. The speed of technological advance is exponential, according to the Moore's law. If this rate continues, it's not going to take that much time to achieve so called singularity in our society.

Compare to 10 years ago, we are way more connected. It is not that hard to go beyond the physical boundary anymore, aided by the networking technology. The faster communication speed creates the collection of intelligence. The limit of capacity of storage is getting bigger and bigger to not to miss any of these changes.

Speed, networking and connection. Exchange of information and communication.... and what kind of environment will this happen? For sure, the notion of architecture and environment will change drastically from static sense to more temporal meaning. How does it operate? How to feed what is happening in virtual world into physical world? and What will happen once we lose the connection to the net?

I don't have answer for any of those, but trying to find answers..

Anti Biodiesel

2007-12-19T15:57:00.001-08:00

It's all good that we can save the world by not emitting green house gases in our daily life. Especially in LA - Where the limit of the city sprawled just so much and without cars, living a life is just not possible.

But I want to point out something. Those biodiesel cars... that suppose to burn any vegetable oil from all those restaurants.. I know several people driving biodiesel cars and being really proud of themselves driving biodiesel powered motor vehicle. And I don't blame them, actually I respect them as taking initiative to make our world better by not burning any other fuels that creates pollution. Especially I know that they are one of the people who really cares about the place we live.

I want to blame the one who is using the innocent intention of those who want to make cleaner earth. I know that there's this restriction that it is required to use qualified biodiesel, which is not the vegetable oil from Chinese restaurant. I am little lazy right now to dig up the google to find the specific data of that, because I am on brake from school - so I may not be able to back my self up with the scientific data. But this is as much as I know..

To use qualified bio diesel, which cost above $3.00 / gallon, the user need to go to specific location to fill up their tank. Those biodiesel are provided by specific company which processes / produces the biodiesel from genetically transformed corns grown from land. And I know that to drive certain mileage (as I remember something like 1000 mile), it takes 1acre of land amounts of corn. I already know that the the seeds of the corns are from the big biotech companies like Monsanto - and those are not cheap either..

So those people + government who are trying to control over the alternative energy source... and the idea of getting the energy that requires big agriculture - they are the stuff I am against. Still, I am glad some are trying something else to make things better. Yet, unless there's truly free energy sources and the way of using it is freely available, I don't think it is right way to call it alternative energy source, and there's nothing really cool about it.

By the way, I am also anti green movement. :p

Zeitgeist and conspiracy theory

2007-12-16T22:46:00.000-08:00

So, I finally watched this online movie - zeitgeist. It was quite eye opening and well made movie - way beyond my expectation. At the same time, it is hard to believe - that the world is controlled by those few who has access to everything. It has been like that and now it is getting easier with the power of network. First, religion was the tool of manipulation, and now, since people figured it out, money is power of manipulation. and war. and politics. and media...

Ok. The network. The social network. The more connected the more exposed. It is kind of like this spiderweb that the more the bug moves, the more they are trapped. And at the corner, there's this spider waiting to get the dinner. Now, I kind of feel like those social networking stuff is one of the trap. Let's see - facebook is being sold to microsoft. and myspace belongs to some big company that i don't remember the name. Network is an asset and now i think because it is so easy follow the trace of the past and predict the future. Is everything is connected is necessarily good or another tool of manipulation to make people join into this network - otherwise u can't survive.

Be aware - they are watching you. They want to get most out of you. They want to slave you by controlling and creating the illusion that you can't live outside of the system they created. and everything is just coming out of their own greed. like how all of us are. isn't it kind of scary that the strongest always control everything, no matter what? in the end we are all animals. either be a bottom feeder or go along with the flow.....

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/