Glasgow (f)Art Scene

Last art experiences I had was travelling to Glasgow to inspect the artistic delights that is Glasgow art scene. This included admiring the tattoo pieces that can be described as "Glaswegian doodle". It is hard to get away from seeing this body art as most fat sweaty men walk around without their tops on -in a similar manner to the nudest beaches of our neighbours in mainland Europe.

Must sees include the pre-drinks bar Glasgow Courtyard which sells the local's drink "hobos tipple" including 3 shots of Buckfast, 1 shot irn bru and 1 shot of Bells Whiskey. It was nice place until someone farted in the corner of club : the smell resonating to the beat of the bass. This made everyone move towards the courtyard area where projections were put onto the inner walls. Later walking to the west end I met some of my hipster friends ( one with a large forehead) who took me to the glue factory (22 Farnell Street). The beats were pumping without the flatulent effects.

Other places to check out Sauchiehall Street , Centre for contemporay arts and ARTeries gallery.

Graphics of China

This is a graphic of the 'The Long Tail of China' showing all the cities with a population over 1million. Check out more work at Chinfographics.com

Popaganda. Less Chilling More Killing

This is work that was posted up in New York. Its anti-consumerist posters work well. In Belfast all illegal posters are painted over every couple of days leaving black rectangles all over the City. If the council put local art work or street interventions over the illegal posters it would make a big difference.

Check out some more street interventions at Popaganda.com

Below is an interesting trailer for a posters intervention film.

Happy Birthday Pac man

Its Pac mans 30th birthday. I just found out from Googles home page where you can play the game with the maze based around there logo. Pac man is a classic game. I was too young to remember Pac man when it first came out, but I remember it from video arcades as an old school classic. Now I can appreciate the brilliant pixel design.

Satellite photos of earth

Garden City, Kansas

This image is similar to the pixelation of the Cellular automa that I was looking at a few days ago. There are some images at this website satellite photos of earth that will blow your mind.

'Cellular Automata' City

Paul Coates took 'The Game of life' concept further when applying it to the design rather than natural evolution of the built environment. He has enabled the user to change the input to suit their own requirements. His design ‘Cellular Automata’ uses 4 states of pixel, the unbuilt state, a road, house and a garden. It follows 5 rules similar to 'The game of life'. For example :

“‘If a cell is empty and there is at least one road cell and less than two
garden cells among four bordering cells, then make the cell a road, with 50%
probability, otherwise a house’”. P188 Marshall, Stephen, Cities Design & evolution

The rules are complex enabling results that are something that can be recognised as urban.The user can input specific reference points described as “a scatter of ‘seed’ locations” P189, Marshall, Stephen, Cities Design & evolution, density of the site and road ratio to the rest of the area.

This concept could be developed further allowing the public or non-urban designers to produce complex plans created through inputting specific criteria to the area. Also with the changing of specific criteria such as local planning policy variations of designs or outcome probabilities it could be further developed as required.

Paul Coates 'Cellular Automata'

The Game of Life

John Conway's game of life was created in the 1970's. From 4 simple rules life seems to develop through a 2d grid.

1. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if by loneliness.
2. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
3. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives, unchanged, to the next generation.
4. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours comes to life.

If you want to play the Game of Life yourself check out

http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

This concept when developed with Urban Planning can take the development of the City in a completely different direction. This idea has been developed to create Voxopolis by The masters of Advanced Studies in CAAD at ETH in Zurich.