Shanks for the memory?

Dave Vickers. Art Entry 23rd Feb 2009

Image courtesy of www.curlby.com

If you get caught short anywhere
near london’s tate britain gallery, there
is a solution, but one that’ll have you
grappling with all kinds of long-buried
discomfiture issues.

You thought that the practice of relieving yourself in the wide-open ouitdoors was restricted to the realm of bad dreams; and how wrong you were.__________Artist Monica Bonvicini has created Don’t miss a sec, a one-way reflective glass toilet
cubicle that’ll test the resolve of even the most confident cable layer. As
onlookers nose the glass to see if they can get a glimpse of the mysterious
cubicle contents, the ‘user’ can see it all – a 360o clear view of... everything.
So in many ways this cubicle is pretty much akin to any telephone box
in London, but the idea of zombie- like observers clamouring to get a
glimpse of you going about your business is not everyone’s idea
of comfort, and that is the whole point. Monica insists the installation
is designed to make us “question our own environments.”

Personally, when it comes to commodes, I have walked in on a few questionable
environments, but never one as brass as this. This installation is genius, and
on entry, even the most cross-legged, wide-eyed desperado would have to
question going through with the full operation. So, in truth it should flush
out the men from the boys and open the lid on a few cases of agoraphobia
while enhancing any mild cases of rest-room stage fright. Whatever
it does, the Don’t miss a sec public cludgey certainly yanked our design
chain, and for pure innovation, we think Monica Bonvicini deserves a
CBE or something – then she could see how she handles visiting a throne
surrounded by clambering idiots. x

© 2008 Dave Vickers. All rights reserved.

Urban Kaleidoscope

The Crystal City Mind photographic World tour.

Dave Vickers. Art Entry 23rd Feb 2009

Image courtesy of wejetset.com

Usually, only kidnapped garden gnomes are afforded the luxury of such a detailed photographically catalogued world tour, and anyway, we very much doubt there’d be room for this incredible objet d’art in a round-the-world prankster’s backpack. But the effect that the Crystal City Mind urban tour is having on the world of architecture is far more pronounced than any minor trauma inflicted on some poor unsuspecting West Country couple who happen to miss their favourite garden ornament for a month or five, it’s downright colossal.

Looking like a misplaced landing craft from some highly advanced outer-galactic planet cluster, or a strangely abstract and elaborate anti-urinal corner plate in Covent Garden, The Crystal City Mind has enjoyed an incredible gap-year. Conceived by architects Coordination Berlin and photographers diephotodesigner.de, this “multi-faceted design object” originally toured the fresh turf where once only the Berlin Wall dominated the skyline. Now, it has been photographed in more lateral locations than Ewan McGregor and Michael Palin put together. Breaking all the rules of geometry, Crystal Mind’s mirror reflective shards of polished steel intersect at unexpected coordinative points and subsequently pierce the surrounding cityscape with as much astonishing effect. From every viewpoint the Crystal City Mind belays a different narrative, gracefully absorbing the new with the old and flashing back a complete local history of architecture. The jumble of urban reflections form an ingenious amalgamation of the skyline - and by coexisting on the same platform - create a dense congregation of modern- day and older time-worn structural imagery. Interestingly, in some cases old assimilates new, reflections function easily together in the same space, in others, the startling contrast initiates a design dance-off, a debate between modern and retro architectural ideals. Whatever the effect, only within the refractive confines of the Crystal City Mind can such a debate truly exist, because only here can the differing eras be observed at
the same instant.

All getting a bit complicated? Okay, put it this way, who is the best footballer of all time? It’s an impossible question. Under no circumstances can Stanley Matthews, George Best, Pele and Wayne Rooney share the same field in a shoot-off or run circles around the same centre-back. Only by fusing the decades could
you truly compare, and that as we all know, is completely impossible. So in effect, the Crystal Mind is a time machine of sorts – or perhaps a compelling visual vortex that transcends the architectural timeline, a portal for observation and critique, or a complex Tetris for study.

But what’s the point? Well, as we know with art, there doesn’t really have to be one, but perhaps by observing this impressive ‘merging of the ages’ can we learn how to build for the future and avoid the aggressive incompatibility of impending urban skylines. I’m sure we’ve all been somewhere and likened a mish-mash of street-side façades to a bad set of teeth,and let’s face it; once it’s built, unless you begin with nitro-glycerine
surgery, no amount of bracing or veneering is going to put things right.

Crystal City Mind was part of The Design Exhibition
Create Berlin Goes London which took place in
September 2008. x

© 2008 Dave Vickers. All rights reserved.