an application for internship

Whew. And that was a tough term…

Lucky for me I am on break now and have some time to prepare for the next term. Part of the requirement of the 1st year of my MA is to participate in a professional internship.

For the first time in the history of the course, Karin, Alex and I are applying as an R&D team collectively for our internship. Our course director refers to us as “the 3 for 2 deal”, we hope to continue our collaborative strategizing and development that has been fostered at the course and contribute to a creative organization we could be happy to work for.

One of our dream companies that we have collectively approached is the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, also know as OMA and their alter-ego, AMO.

We have prepared a portfolio for them based on our past work, and details on a new collaborative work we specifically developed for the OMA application. We have bound and printed 5 copies of the book so far but if you would like a copy, let me know and we can work something out ;^)

A little more about OMA: OMA is the architecture firm of Rem Koolhaas and was founded in 1975 along with Elia Zenghelis, Madelon Vriesendorp and Zoe Zenghelis. They are the architecture firm responsible for some of the coolest buildings and interiors, and have published books as their brainy thinktank alter ego, AMO.

In order for us to meet the deadline of application, Karin, Alex and I had to produce and publish a book in less then 5 days. In the end we had it bound before jumping onto a plane to do a re-branding project in Benidom, Spain. The final assembly of the package was done on a sunny beach on the Mediterranean. Our cover letter was written on a postcard addressed to our Oma, which happens to be German and Dutch for grandmother. There were a lot of grandmas out and about in Benidorm, BTW. Now cross your fingers. Thanks!

in the mean time…

as you may have noticed (or may not have noticed… nuts to you) i have been a little inactive.. i am currently in toronto enjoying time with my family and friends, so i haven’t really been perusing the metaverse as frequently as i would like to, but here is a vid to keep you entertained;

to use this great music video by weird al called white and nerdy as a lubricant; in october i will be starting my new studies in london, england so until i am fully prepared to face the new challenges ahead of me, i probably wont be updating this weblog too frequently, or at least less frequent than what is commonly perceived as frequently… which would make this authors frequency of posting not so frequent after all. i hope you enjoy this video like i have so frequently. stay tuned for more use of the word “frequent” real soon.

(^_^)

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ensche-daze AKi endexam 2006

i recently had a chance to return to enschede and found myself back in the city of my alma mater, and paid a long overdue visit to the community that raised me so well at the aki. i also spent a few days at the offmess (a former military air base turned squat house that i lived in during my final year in the aki) to help my friend danja vasiliev, aka binary.koala construct his endexam installation, PowerOnOff.

calling upon my much sought after skills of messy soldering and bad jokes, i helped danja where i could (like lifting things) and even picked up a few new skills (like putting things down) and also helped out with the much neglected process of documentation OF process (something all artists have problems with during the heat of creation… haha, i said “heat of creation”… uf.. too much family guy).

about the installation: the concept as i initially perceive it; for i wont get to see the end result until the end of the month at the opening, involves translating how ones actions in a virtual space (i.e. surfing the web) can affect the real-life or actual world.

about the artist: danja vasiliev – super cool (russian) guy, MPC colleague and brotha-from-anotha-motha. what can i say, like all good artists his work speaks for himself. he recently was invited to join the masters program at the piet zwart institute in rotterdam. congrats to you, man!

back to the installation: parts of the installation consist of an interface that is familiar, like a standard laptop and a common web browser, and also a custom built computer consisting of a GNU/linux installation and 7 optical relays that control the power given to all the chosen house hold devices that make up of the rest of the installation; hence the name PowerOnOff.

as an experience, the installation draws the viewer into an inclosed space initially deprived of light. once given a chance to ajust to the slight sensory depravation, an arrangement of standard household devices used everyday will become apparent in the space, presented on a stage. situated before the stage will be the laptop where people can surf. on another screen, an ascii readout of the behavioral patterns of the participant will be tracked.

as you surf you build credit for visiting certain websites. this credit is translated into energy that powers for instance the lights, fans, an old school audio tape reel recorder, a washing machine, etc., thus providing the resources to do things we take for granted every given day.

it is an installation that reveals the ever increasing transparency between our online and off-line existence, and also tries to address the fact that what we do in these two seemingly separate worlds (real and online) does in fact have an effect on one another, making the world we live in and the world we have “created” as one..

..well that was a’lil esoteric i suppose. anyways its soooo freaking cool (LOL!!) so check it out if you are in the neighborhood, OK?. visit the AKi’s webpage for more details, and i will of course follow up with updates on this humble weblog, eventually.