War and the landscape - Bosnia - Simon Norfolk

Simon Norfolk - Bosnia

Bleed by Simon Norfolk .

A river running red with blood! This is a site of a secondary mass grave where the bodies of thousands of murdered people lay hidden. The red water is caused by oxidization and appears to be the blood of those who were massacred during this conflict. This is a beautiful and surreal image which is both beautiful and haunting

War and the Landscape - Afghanistan - Simon Norfolk

Simon Norfolk

Simon Norfolk a photo journalist turned landscape photographer chose to photograph the aftemath of war - the devastation and destruction of the landscape in both urban and rural areas. He says

'These photgraphs form chapters in a larger project attempting to understand how war, and the need to fight war, has formed our world: how so many spaces we occupy; the technologies we use; and the ways we understand ourselves, are created by military conflict'
www.bldgblog.com.

Norfolks photos reveal half-collapsed buildings, destroyed cinemas, and unpopulated urban ruins...... http://www.bldgblog/


Afghanistan, Simon Norfolk

Once a beautiful building, now riddled with bullet holes, a desolate empty and lonely place.

Norfolks imagery serves to remind us of mans power to create and then to destroy. What would have taken a long time to construct took minutes to destruct...a place that was once a hub of activity and housed many now nothing more than a shell with nothing more than dirt and rubble as its occupants.


The following link gives further information on Norfolk and his work. http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/warphotography-interview-with-simon.html


King Amanullah’s Victory Arch built to celebrate the 1919 winning of Independence from the British. Paghman, Kabul Province."




Another image of a building destroyed by warfare.This time a magnificent archway that was built as a monument to celebrate independence from the British .. a bit ironic considering it was the British who helped to destroy it.







Norfolks huge colourful plates show the

devastation and destruction left behind on the

landscape and the environment, ruins of once majestic building and places that were once a source of livelihood. This image was taken in Afghanistan and shows the mangled remains of what was once a place of work, residence or worship… an image which leaves the viewer wondering not only about its purpose but at mans ability to destroy.

Another image showing the bombed out shell of a building. The circular structure symbolic of huge rings of stones from the past, smilar to stonehenge, which were used as places of worship or sacrifice. This structure however is not an ancient relic from a past people it was once a building which provided a livehood of a modern people and is now a ruin caused by modern man. ..the ruin of a livehood and a way of life.

For more images follow the following link

http://blog.camera80.ro/simon-norfolk-afghanistan-chronotopia-chronotopia-chronotopia



Burned out and blackened flats - this image is

similar in style to the work of Andreas Gursky.

City Scapes

City Scapes




Cities are places that are full of life and activity. They are not for those who seek peace and quiet. Cities now house a huge range of cultural and ethnic groups and are great for those who want non stop entertainment and business.



New York

The following information gives you an outline of what an
amazing city New York is.

New York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment. As host of the United Nations headquarters, it is also an important center for international affairs.

The most beguiling city in the world, New York is an adrenaline-charged, history-laden place that holds immense romantic appeal for visitors. Wandering the streets here, you'll cut between buildings that are icons to the modern age – and whether gazing at the flickering lights of the midtown skyscrapers as you speed across the Queensboro bridge, experiencing the 4am half-life downtown, or just wasting the morning on the Staten Island ferry, you really would have to be made of stone not to be moved by it all. There's no place quite like it

http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-191501980-new_york_city_vacations-i

Dubai

Dubai at night

Is this a mirage in the Middle East? Seemingly out

of nowhere emerges an ultra-modern city in the middle of

a desert. Dubai City is currently undergoing an

unbelievable transformation right in the heart of the Arab

world. www.ssqq.com

This fast growing amazing city is full of unusual buildings and currently the tallest in the world is under construction.

For more information and photogrpahs on how this city is being build take a look at the following link.http://www.ssqq.com/ARCHIVE/vinlin23dubai.htm

More images of famous cities in the world - all reknowned for their beauty, lifestyle and culture.

Cape Town - a fast growing city built around the base of Table Mountain.

London

Paris

Rome



All these cities have famous places and sites to visit - Paris and the Eiffel Tower, Rome and the Vatican, London - Buckingham Palace.

Andrea Gursky


German artist Andreas Gursky is best known for his billboard-sizephotographs that inhabit a space between painting and photography,landscape and human concern, animate and inanimate. He often placeshis large-format camera at a high-angled distance from his subject,creating images that suggest mapping stills from outer space orcyber-technology. Sometimes computer manipulated, his images ofcorporate architecture, environmental contemplations such as pebblyearth, and mass groups of people freeze-framed mid-motion oftenreference the geometric forms of Minimalist Art and the "allover"quality of a Jackson Pollock painting. Our eyes dance across hisdense, often slightly abstracted images, which display strong formalelements as they blend relationships between nature, culture, andtechnology. He is particularly concerned with capturing motion andcreating a moment of stillness in that space.
http://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=46442


The following images are photograhs taken by Gursky
showing the way of life for many people. They are large fine art prints
showing architecture but incorporating geometric design and
patterns.

Public Spaces: Architecture and Landscape

Public Spaces and Public Places

What is a public space and why is important to
have them.
Definitions of public spaces

A public space refers to an area or place that is open and accessible to all citizens, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level. One of the earliest examples of public spaces are commons. For example, no fees or paid tickets are required for entry, nor are the entrants discriminated based on background. Non-government-owned malls are examples of 'private space' with the appearance of being 'public space'.
Public Space has also become something of a touchstone for critical theory in relation to philosophy, (urban) geography, visual art, cultural studies, social studies and urban design. Its relevance seems to become more pressing as capital encloses more and more of what were thought of as 'commons'. The term 'Public Space' is also often misconstrued to mean other things such as 'gathering place', which is an element of the larger concept.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_space



I have included a number of images of some of the most famous buildings in the world which are public places. they are also some of the most innovative designs.

Lyon Railway station, France - shaped like a swooping hawk



Sydney Opera House, Australia - shaped like shells

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain - shaped like a ship



Burj al Arab, Dubai - shaped like a billowing sail
These iconic buildings are used for public enteratinment, transport and pleasure.




Whilst researching I found this site which list a lot more public buildings and monuments around the world. http://luciensteil.tripod.com/katarxis02-1/id30.html

Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson: Corner Mirror with Coral

The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 270
Smithson's three mirrors in a corner create a structure both lucid and elusive: as each mirror reflects the space around it, it multiplies the reflections in the other mirrors, creating an image with the symmetry of a crystal. Mirrors appear often in Smithson's art, as do fragments of the natural world—here, there are pieces of coral piled in the angle where the mirrors meet. Smithson also combined mirrors with heaps of sand, gravel, and other rocks, matching nature's brute rubble with its precise visual twin. (The delicacy of the lacy pink coral is unusual in his work.)

The pairing of matter and reflection corresponds to another duality:

on the one hand, unshaped shards of stone or reef; on the other, art,

culpture, and the indoor space of the gallery.

One of the earthworks artists of the 1960s and 1970s, in other pieces smithson manipulated the natural landscape, sometimes simply and temporarily, through mirrors, sometimes drastically, with a bulldozer. Corner Mirror with Coral relates to his "Non-Sites," indoor works containing substances from an outdoor site elsewhere. Both cerebral and powerfully material, his art shows a fascination with entropy, the tendency of all structures and energies to lose their integrity. In this work a perfect form—the mirrors make three sides of a cube—is made illogical and illusory, for the coral seems to float in midair.

London

This was a trip to london with some friends during February and I used the time to take some architecture shots as London has so many more interesting buildings/places to photograph.
This images shows the juxtaposotion of old and new - the old buildings lining the street leading down to the new high rise modern office block. I like the how the buildings frame the building in the distance giving a sense of the old heralding the new.




Derelict buildings fascinate me - what was their previous purpose, why are they now abandoned? Old buildings made of red brick and full of architectural design features became redundant with the rise in modernism and with new factories and warehouse being built many companies moved buildings with updated technology and space. This left many beautiful old buildings left to deteriorate and fall down or be pulled down. This happened a lot but now more and more of these buildings are being preseved and turned into state of the art appartments.







This unusual building is one of the very old ones that because of its unique shape and position managed to stay in use

.






I really like the shape/design of the glass created on this building, like a giants steps.

Smithson is also interested in derelict sites. This is a former industrial site which has fallen into disrepair and neglect. What was its purpose - was it a factory - why did it become abandoned.? Again the questions of what and why - again possibly it could be due to a number of factors - possibly lack of business, economic decline or the need for more modern facilities.