I’m sure you’ve all heard already: Hyperlapse, the new app from Instragram that can replicate “[w]hat was once only possible with a Steadicam or a $15,000 tracking rig is now possible on your iPhone, for free.” As in the case of DSLRS, smartphone cameras, and–of course–Instagram, Hyperlapse represents the latest in innovations reducing cost and craft for the Average Joe. The trick is elegant. A gyroscope in the machine reorients any stumble of the hand, shakiness in step. Whether Hyperlapse will reveal itself a gimmick imitation is still up for question. For now, enjoy the ride–a record it too.
It’s kind of typical of Miranda July to announce that she is currently working on her first novel, but what she’ll come around with is a messaging app instead. This lady is all over the place, one might think, and is there anything she hasn’t done yet? But of course there is this unmistakable charm that is entirely her own and that makes everything so uniquely Miranda July. The same goes for Somebody App, which has complete strangers delivering your message for you, in person. Kind of weird, kind of funny, kind of Miranda July.
Restraint can be a tricky thing sometimes when it comes to design, especially when you have to capture someone like Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill, with more than 30 years of a turbulent career and over a hundred built projects in just about as many styles to his name.
For our current issue mono.kultur #36, we had the unique opportunity to have access to Bofill’s archives, with literally hundreds of images that had never been published before, so it was obvious to us to treat the issue as a sort of visual rollercoaster ride through the many little quirks and spleens of Bofill’s architectural oeuvre, zooming in on details, creating unexpected pairings and cross references, without any explanation whatsoever.
So what about those naked frolicking bodies that illustrate the text, you ask? These are stills from some experimental films that Bofill made in the 1970s, and felt so appropriate for the decadence and grandeur surrounding the Bofill clan; architecture often feels like such a sterile profession devoid of any sexuality, and if anyone has an antidote to that particular predicament, then it must be Ricardo Bofill.
Bofill’s career undertook a sharp turn in the 1990s, when he started working with steel and glass, materials he had dismissed before; similarly, his office began building more corporate environments: hotels, airports, company headquarters, in addition to the social housing projects he had become famous with. Our designers John McCusker and Vela Arbutina reflected this shift beautifully by incorporating high varnish gloss throughout the issue, but one only one of the pages of a spread, bringing together elegantly the wild diversity of the images while creating a clash between glossy and earthy, a suitable contrast of materials that is so significant to Bofill’s work. It makes for a striking effect that brings the entire issue together – and sometimes it is as simple as that.
Autumn is in the air, and Fink will do just fine when the days shorten and the trees turn brown, with his latest album Hard Believer true to form, and not just one but two videos to support his new single Looking too Closely. Choose your own poison.
If you are a fan of McSweeney’s like we are and if you ever wanted to publish a short story with them, now you can do it: IF you are a student (undergraduate or graduate) living in the US and have a story which doesn’t have more than 7,500 words…Submission ends on September 30, 2014.
The winner of the contest will receive $500 and their story will be published inMcSweeney’s 51, in August 2015. You can read more here.
We’re suckers for exhibitions where the gallery space is in itself transformed, rather than just being decorated – and so must be Olafur Eliasson, who is, of course, a master of transforming space. His latest experiment is on view at the renowned Louisiana museum in Denmark, where he turned the central space into a natural landscape with a little river flowing through it.
Other transformation highlights come to mind: Elmgreen & Dragset’s Powerless Structures Fig. 111 with its warped floors and ceilings, or Florian Slotawa’s grand Bonn Ordnen, where he moved the (functioning) offices of the Bonner Kunstverein into the exhibition space and showed his works in the deserted offices.
I’m so overly excited about Blonde Redhead’s forthcoming album Barragán. Their latest single The One I Loveis just fantastic (so was the first track to be released No More Honey) and it takes me straight back to obsession of this fantastic band. The album was recorded with a lot of old analogue synthesizers and Kazu herself described it as ‘analogue heaven’. Barragán will be released September 2nd by Kobalt (not 4AD this time) and a tour throughout Europe and America will follow during fall and winter.
Tonight opens the 2014 installment of Berlin Atonal – a legendary festival of 1980s West Berlin pioneering electronic music that went on hiatus after the fall of the wall, only to return again in 2013 in founder Dimitri Hegemann’s new space, the impressive former power plant Kraftwerk Berlin. Launching with Ensemble Modern interpreting Steven Reich, the 5-day-festival will host a range of diverse electronic and experimental artists, from Cabaret Voltaire to Biosphere, who will showcase along with others a new 4D sound system. Either way, the location is worth going on its own, and filled with music, it is simply magical.
You have arrived at mono.blog by mono.kultur magazine. mono.blog is a rather eclectic summary of the things that are currently on our collective minds.
Bless all eaters of #CAKE. Bless 
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