Collaborative project with Joseph Popper. We were tasked with investigating the idea of philanthropy and design in the context of the changes happening in the Vauxhall area of London. Focusing on the building developments in the area, we conducted a series of experiments and finally a film examining the social impositions that the new, elite developments would put on the area.
Architecture naturally instigates social changes and a lot of the planned developments seem to be enforcing a divide between the current world of Vauxhall and it's denizens and a future utopic worker-dreamscape as envisioned in the plans for the area.
In a world where the interest of politics and commerce drive science, there is little place for the darker, exploratory edges of physics. With no official support or funding, and with negligible chances of success, a handful of enthusiasts continue the hunt for the Dark Matter that makes up 83% of matter in the universe. In basements and garages around the world, using equipment and knowledge from the now-dead fields of theoretical physics, these explorers continue our spiritual quest for knowledge, and our place in the universe.
Democratic governments dread election time, they need sciences that can produce presentable, obviously beneficial results before their term is up. The rising industrial and technological powers such as China and India are interested in sciences of direct benefit to their economies and the fulfilment of their industrial demands.
Dark matter is a substance of unknowns. But it is known that it has no palpable use for humanity. It represents a metaphor for our desire to learn and explore and grow as human beings. We study it not for financial gain or resources but because the desire to understand an unknown quantity that outnumbers everything we know about existence by 5 to 1 is too great.
Thanks to: Dr Malcolm Fairbairn, Aonghus Weber, Joana Espirito Santo
Any robot brought into the domestic environment must not be seen as a mere addition. It creates a biosymbiotic relationship between the robot and the owner. Two humans, living together, can easily understand the implicit signals of the other and can use their own knowledge of that person and themselves to make informed guesses about their future behaviour.
The robot relies on patterns and behaviours in it's charge in order to perform it's duties. It is not as adaptable as a human and can only understand explicit changes and instructions in it's environment. Any non-explicit duties it performs are calculated averages
The Norse legend of Jormungandr specifies that the great serpent encircles the whole of the earth, binding it together. When Thor kills him, the world begins to fall apart, sounding the beginning of Ragnarok, the Norse armageddon. Myths are created to explain the unexplainable, they are handed down through verbal and written tradition, mutating and transforming a they go, exposure to them formed ancient knowledge of the world and became the basis for major religions and systems of belief. In the same way, careful editing and exposure to diffrent information through the internet and mass media outlets shapes our beliefs in the world around us.
Based on the work of the notorious 'Pataphysicists, this clock shows us a different view of time and the flaws and potentials of the constructions we use to measure it. One minute is trapped forever on the clock, the body winds the minute in as each second hand winds it out. Time remains the same at any one point and to move through time, the user must walk around the clock, releasing the minute from its eternal bondage. A clock is only our best representation of time and our best attempt to tame it, the 'Patachronic Clock extends that metaphor, creating a minute in captivity.
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City of Glass uses a webcam to reflect the visual world in the language of Paul Auster's novel of the same name. The piece deals with issues of identity and reflection in the city
All copyright Tobias Revell 2012
