This project was done at RISD sometime during March 2007, for a design studio based around Detroit City. The prompt for this two week project was to make a movie based upon our preconceived notions of the D. Cezar Nicolescu, Brian Hildebrand, and yours truly set out to expose the fallacy of downtown revitalization via casino development. Ironically, the film ends up portraying gambling as a rewarding and lucrative investment. Thomas Gardner and Matthew Miller were our critics for this project.

Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky

Cezar Nicolescu put me onto this...

So this picture was taken in 1911, YES 1911!!!!! I know, color photography was not available until the mid 20th century, but some lone Russian genius discovered to record scenes in full color. Tragically, he just did not know how to save them on a physical medium such as paper. The images he captured could only be viewed by projecting them onto a surface temporarily.


The Czar was so impressed with this mans skill that he funded an expedition by train to transport him around Russia from 1905-1914, so that he could document the vernacular.

Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky posting up by a river for his self portrait (1912).

click images for a ridiculous amount of detail.


The images were taken by three monochrome cameras, through three colored filters. Full color images were reconstructed by overlaying the three filtered projections.


Kama River, 1910.

The Library of Congress got a hold of these and is going through the process of projecting and permanently recording the images that were taken. More can be found
here...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Prokudin-Gorsky

This is a notorious Archigram project that might have been influenced by the SSF (below). Essentially, Archigram were a group of Radical 60's architecture hipsters who created iconic-futuristic-utopian-visions. Their drawings have a splash of the Beatles Yellow Submarine on them, as well as formal vision tied to large megastrucures created for war/industry. From one Ron Herron (no relation to Johnny Herron), I bring you "Walking Cities".

Shivering Sands Fort (SSF)

This is the Shivering Sands Fort, built in the Thames estuary off of the coast of England during WWII. Its main purpose was to serve as a last line of defense against an aquatic invasion by the Germans. Constructed out of steel boxes that sit upon prestressed concrete piers; it acted as a platform for a variety of weapon systems including cannons and machine guns. All of the "orbiting pods" connected to an inner "control pod", while the furthest pod contained a spot light.

These units soon fell into disrepair by the 50's and were commandeered by DJ's as pirate radio stations in the 60's. Sometime later a stray ship crashed and collapsed one of the towers. Recently (2005) a lonely artist stayed there for a period of time documenting some of the things he came across, his blog is linked here http://www.seafort.org/blog/index.html

You can see in this picture that one of the towers is missing. Also the saltwater quickly corroded the steel, eventually bringing down the catwalks that connected all of the "Pods"(I think).

My new blog.

This is my new blog through which I will share my interests in art, architecture, design, urban archeology, and music as well as many other tangential facets that cannot be conceived of at this point in time. I plan to post some of the art/architecture/research work I did at RISD; in the vein of an informal digital portfolio of course. All will be invited to publicly question, praise, or denounce my work, albeit only in the context of post-RISD existence.