Next Thursday, within the context of The Revolution to Smash Global Capitalism at Cabaret Voltaire Zurich I will engage in a discussion with Francesca Recchia around the topic of AZADI. In this workshop we will collects materials, images andwill also invite Twitter users to contribute under the hashtag of  #AZADI. We will collect tweets, images, live interviews via Skype with different people. This material will be organized, collected and distributed in a DIY zine that can be made with a PDF. The map of AZADI shown here below will also be  presented. This displays the amount of people who use AZADI in both languages that are officially recognized by the national authorities and  languages that are not. Hope to see you there.

Thursday Jan, 19th, 2012 2 – 6 am The Revolution to Smash Global Capitalism: Azadi – آزادی – आज़ादी With Francesca Rechia and Antonio Scarponi

Azadi is a Persian word that means freedom, liberty, liberation, independence. The word has a long history and a beautiful geography. Its roots can be traced back to more than three thousand years ago, to the ancient Avestan language. From Persia, Azadi started travelling: it went far and reached Afghanistan, Pakistan and India where it seeped into the local languages and it is now of common use in Farsi, Kurdish, Pashto, Urdu and Hindi. Azadi is about liberation as much as it is about liberty and hence signifies both the struggle for and the achievement of freedom; it does not simply describe a target, but embodies a process. Azadi helps therefore reflecting on the relation between freedom and liberation, on the necessary struggle that is implied in the idea of the achievement of freedom and on the sense of a collective responsibility that such a struggle requires.The word, however, has ever too often been appropriated in the political discourse as a symbol of Islamist ideology, separatist movements and extremist politics.But is it so? How many people do use the word Azadi in a non ideological way? What is the power of this word and what are the contradictions it carries? From the perspectives of design and geopolitics, Antonio Scarponi and Francesca Recchia will engage with these questions addressing the manipulation of innocence and the ways in which ideological interpretations “shape” meaning and reality. In a participatory manner, the conversation will take place on the 19th of January from 2 to 6 pm CET at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich as part of the exhibition The Revolution to Smash Global Capitalism. This will be accompanied by the realisation of a demographic map that shows the amount of people who use the word Azadi on a daily base. The physical event will also take the shape of an Internet happening through Skype and Twitter (hash-tag #Azadi) opening the debate to different people who have been engaged in the struggle for Azadi and for whom Azadi is a daily word with a political – rather that politicised – meaning.

As designers we give ideas a form and we transform them into things. We can’t certainly solve the world’s challenges, but what we can do is to create a concrete storytelling about them. A narrative.

Malthus is one of these tales. It is an in-home aquaponics unit designed for the next generation kitchen or living room. It grows one meal a day: a portion of fish and a side salad. Aquaponics farming is a technique that combines the cultivation of fish with the growing of vegetables. The fish provides rich fertilizer for the plants and in return, the plants clean the water from the tank. The fish and the plants co-exist in a symbiotic relationship.

Malthus is an appliance for the kitchen of the future that grows food right next to where you cook it. Malthus consists of a fish tank that holds 400 litres which can support more then 2kg of fish like tilapia, salmon, grey fish or carp. The water is pumped through three cultivated grow beds which filter the water for the fish.

Malthus is designed to optimize space and costs with indoor food production. The weight of the fish tank is comparable to the one of a full bathtub, its width is about the size of two small refrigerators. Its parts are made of elements available in most DIY stores.

Malthus #01 was built thanks to the collaboration of Ola Nilsson and presented for the first time at the 10^th edition of NESS – Nordic Environmental Social Sciences Conference – Stockholm 14^th -16^th June 2011 within the context of the exhibition “Power Landscapes” curated by Po Hangström. The theme of the conference is also the theme of an art project where the invited artists (Katia Aglert, New Beauty Council, Cristine Ödlund) presented works on design as a tool for social and environmental engagement.

Malthus has a planned production limited to 100 numbered pieces. The first piece (Malthus #00) is the prototype currently running in our office in Zurich, thanks to Laura Vargalyte, our intern. The design and the production factors of Malthus have been made possible by the technical support of Andreas Graber from UrbanFarmers and Head of the Aquaponics project of the Zurich University of Applied Science who has introduced us to urban farming and to Aquaponics techniques.

A special acknowledgement goes to Stefano Massa for making things run smoothly throughout the project. This text has been kindly edited with the collaboration of Liz Henry Economou of Nuance Words.

Fish and Crops is an aquaponic unit that grows one meal. Directly where it is cooked. Aquaponic is a farming technique that combines the cultivation of fish in a symbiotic environment with crops: fish fertilize the water that nourish the plants. Plants clean the water from organic waste in return.

Conceptual Devices is pleased to announce that the results of the first Design Royale Workshop will be exhibited at Fuori Salone in Milano during the design week. A big thank you to all the students who participate to this workshop: Tommy Bett,  Katie Ogden, David Rose, Elizabeth Tschirhart, Joshua Wilson, Darren Yeo Jun Xian.

Design Royale is an on-line workshop, a party-in-progress, and the best mind-boggling night of the Milan Design week. It’s an ongoing project built through human relationships & lots of fun. 21 days of digital work using social media (facebook, twitter, flickr). 14 days of physical work in Milan hideaways 7 days of play and hard work and games on-the-spot …and 1 long night at the giardino segreto – a magical hidden space of tricks where everyone is invited. An extravaganza of elephants, a sauna, a hot-air balloon kitchen, tarot cards, inflatable sumo suits, friendly bento boxes, rope ladders, nets and hammocks, a household aquarium, and a coffin experience + much more… 15th april, via della Moscova 28, Milan (from 11.00 pm through the night).

Yökalenteri means, in Finnish language, “Night Calendar”. A calendar that displays the minutes of night time in Helsinki throughout the year. Yökalenteri hosts “Rêvalités”, a work of Finnish Poet and writer Cia Rinne.”Rêvalités” consists of 36 mini prose pieces, dreams recorded during the time span of a year, which thematically deal with a variety of issues.

Yökalentari (Inkjet on paper 375×154 cm) will be on display at “Terra Infirma“, curated by Chiara Sartori, visiting curator at ISCP, NY. “Terra Infirma” gathers the works of six international renowned artists, exploring the ways in which a geographical context is able to affect emotions. Addressing feelings of melancholy and sorrow, the exhibition tentatively links attempts to interact with, modify and understand natural phenomena, landscapes and geographical codifications with the subtle and ephemeral emotional dimension of human existence.

Participating Artists: Rosa Barba, Laurent Grasso, Alban Hajdinaj, Marie Velardi.

Opening Reception: Thursday, January 14 6-9 PM
Gallery Hours: Friday, January 15, 2-16
Open weekly until February 14 every Saturday and Sundays 2-6 PM

ISCP. International Studio & Curatorial Program
1040 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211
www.iscp-nyc.org

[with K_maps_Emanuele Bompan + Riccardo Pravettoni]

Malthus’ is a project designed for an Exhibition called FAMA/FAME (Hunger/Fame) The concept “to become famous” focuses the ambition of the artist to be accepted in the art system and, at the same time, the need to survive in everyday life. It represents symbolically all relations between life, love and success, money and the actually basic need of the human being.

Malthus’™ Products reflects on the debate about food crisis and are inspired by the observations of the British demographer Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) who wrote in 1798 an Essay on the Principle of Population. In his treatise he argued that demographic growth would have led to cultivate less fertile soil, bringing to a consequential shortage of means of sustenance and a halt in economic development, due to a faster geometric growth in population, in opposition with an arithmetic growth in the availability of food. Malthus™ products are designed to redistribute and optimize resources in a world with more than six billion inhabitants; to restrain resource-generated conflicts due to over-population.

* in memory of Elisabeth Mumelter, who believed that the creation of another world was possible…

Human Rights Marketing. [with Peppe Clemente]

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Installation, 2003_PVC tubes, tape, dropping water sound. [Collaboration with B. Galassi]

Vanishing Water displays the main problem related to the luck of drinkable water in the Sicily region, the losses. PVC tubes for urban pipes, are used as histograms that visualize the gap between the water available for the population, and the amount of water which has been paid by the users. The gap illustrates the water lost or stolen from the infrastructures. Data refers to the ISTAT population survey of 2001 and to the ‘Relazione sullo Stato dell’Ambiente in Sicilia 2002’ (Sicily Environmental Report 2002). Vanishing Water is an installation produced for the exhibition “Forme d’acqua. Visioni, Vicende e Pratiche nel Mediterraneo”, Palazzo Belmonte Riso, Palermo,2003.

Hand knotted carpet, 2003-2004_270 x 270 cm_private collection, Prato, Italy.

Hand knotted carpet_2003-2004_180 x 300 cm_Private Collection, Firenze, Italy.

Polis is a carpet that symbolically represents the entire population of the World. Each section contains the flags of the continent proportionally enlarged to the population of the States they represent. A knot in the carpet stands for 23 people.

Inject print on paper_150 x 370 cm

Valokalenteri (from Finnish language “Light Calendar”) shows the minutes of light at the latitudes of the finnish territory. Horizontally there is months and days of the year reported in the official finnish national spoken languages: Finnish and Swedish. Vertically there is the hours of the day: the white space is according to its duration – from sunrise to the sunset – the dark space represent the night.

This calendar is based on the capital helsinki, the coloured lines stands for the main cities along the same meridian. The drawing is a scale representation of time. In its length one centimetre stands for a day and in its height one millimetre represents a minute.

Yökalenteri means, “Night Calendar”. A calendar that displays the minutes of night time in Helsinki throughout the year.

Yökalenteri hosts “Rêvalités”, a work of Finnish Poet and writer Cia Rinne.

“Rêvalités” consists of 36 mini prose pieces, dreams recorded during the time span of a year, which thematically deal with a variety of issues.

Installation, Lasipalatsi Gallery, Helsinki, 2004.

EU 2004 is a European Union portrait devised to represent the inclusion of eastern countries. Each head of state’s portrait is displayed proportionally in relation to the size of the population they represent. The installation is a rear projected slide show on a main gallery window to establish a direct relation between the gallery space and the street. The image’s used are downloaded from the official government web sites.

Human Camouflage is a pattern that shifts the aim ‘disguise’ from a military to civilian purpose. The design allows a civil servant in today’s multicultural environment to blend in with their new society.The pattern is composed of countries depicted dimensionally proportional to their population. Each country’s colour is a sample of the State Head’s complexion, and the geographical shapes are then ‘casually’ assembled one next to the other, so that the geographical boundaries are no longer recognisable. The process produces a skin coloured camouflage that will disguise citizens in a multiethnic society. A fist edition of Human Camouflage of 150 numbered exemplars has been produced in February 2007.

Human Atlas. 1 px = 1000 people

Human World is an Atlas that represents the world from the point of view of it’s population: people the unit of measurement of cultural and political information. Human World maps the area of each State proportionally to its population – 1 pixel = 1,000 people. As in Alighiero Boetti’s works, each state is represented by its national flag, but in Human World each flag’s dimension is related to population, not to the actual territorial dimentions. Human World applies political and cultural information to population rather than territory.

Population in World Conutries introduces this project and displays the amount of citizens of each country of the World.

Death Penalty Enforcement in World Countries, displays (in colour) the amount of people living in countries where the death penalty is practiced (Amnesty International, 2007).

Population in Free* Countries displays (in colour) the amount of people living in considered 100% “democratic” countries (*Freedom House, 2007).

Population represented by female Head of State (2006).

Internet Users in World Countries 2001, displays the amount of people connected to the internet. Each country of this cartogram is proportional to the connected population (Nua, www.nua.com).

This animated map shows the trend of growth of Internet users world wide. The animation starts in 1993 and stops when -if the trend does not change in the future – the whole population will be connected. This is an improbable scenario that allow us to represent, today, the nationality of the actual connected population or, on the other hand, the deepness of the so called digital divide.

Cartogram-flag of the political elections of 04 November 2008. Obama campain, among many other things, revolutionate the political map of the United Stated of America. This is a proposal for a Flag that represent this historical change.