Sunday, November 1, 2009

If you like Music

Next stop Ve-Nice!  Not Venice beach in Cali but Venizia, Italy.  But before Venice we stopped at the Cemetery Tomba Brion.  Fun Fact: Cemeteries are considered some of the first examples of Landscape Architecture.  Anyways this Cemetery was very different than any I have ever seen.  The designer used inspiration from Egyptian tombs, Syntax design principles, and some feng shui.  This place was bitchin’, you would have to press a hidden button at the bottom of the door just to pass through, I felt like I was in a real life video game.  Speaking of real life video games, did anyone see that Jake Gyllenhaal is going to star in Prince of Persia?  I don't know about that broke back.


 

When we first arrived in Venice I was so amped to see the ocean, the endless water disappear into the sunset... I miss the beach.  Venice was an amazing city.  It was so different than any place I have ever been.  While walking around you feel like you are constantly on a shipping dock.  But I guess in a sense you are because the metro system is a series of water taxi's running around from island to island.  The housing colors in Venice are bright vibrant pinks, purples, cyans, yellows, oranges, and reds my type of color pallet.  Venice specialized in extraordinary glass sculptures and elaborate mask, I wanted them all.

 

The Freedom Fighter, I loved how this land art piece changed through out the day with the tide.


On our visit we attended the Biennali exhibit.  Every year the Biennali host an exhibition with works featured from countries all around the world.  It switches off each year from Architecture exhibits to fine art exhibits, I was stoked when I heard that this year would feature fine art. 

It was a great to see how different each countries art was.  Each countrie(s  ex)hibit had a completely different mood, tone, and objective to it.  I felt like a kid in a candy store here running around from country to country for 7 hours.

 

On the last day of Venice we were in attendance for the first Aqua Alta.  Aqua Alta is when the water rises up over the barriers and floods… EVERYTHING.  Basically Venice is going to be completely under water someday because of Aqua Alta.  All us tourist had to walk on theses 4 feet wide beams with umbrellas in the rain, to escape the 1 foot deep sea/poop water below us.  It was pretty chaotic to be honest.  And walking around with poop water shoes was not that enjoyable either.


Venice was a spectacular city; it seems to me more like a place for lovers, with the beautiful scenery and the constant “Con Te Partiro” by Bocelli blasting in the background.  There was no nightlife at all in Venice, but that was fine because I was sick. I was able to recover for the insane trip to Spain.

Fosl, Richard, Corona, J.R., Bourne, Coral, Burrow, Jonny Boy, and I flew into Girona Spain and stayed for a night.  What an epic night this turned into.  After getting situated in our hostel we headed out and there were people break dance fighting in the plaza and these guys with a d.j. turn table set up in the back of their pickup truck driving down the road, passing out free Sangria.  This party truck led us to a full blown Carnival.  It was basically like we decided to stay in small town Brea for one night, and it just so happened it was during the Saint Angeles Fair, but this was no Saint Angeles Fair.  This Carnival was huge, with the most crazy Carny rides ever, I think I went on the craziest ride of my life actually.  I probably shouldn't have told the guy “buono y rapida” when  I handed him my 5 Euro.  This ride spun you so fast in a circle with a radius circa 50 feet, right in-between these branches, absolutely insane.

After Carnival games and some beer we decided we needed to use the rest room.  So my friend FosL walks off into the woods and I think to myself, “I should pee in the woods too, sounds awesome.”  So I walk through these shrubs and discover a smelly still pool of water that has a bunch of trash floating inside it, and decide, "this is my spot."  After finishing up urinating into this pool of toxic water I see my friend FosL hiding behind those Carny trucks that they always set there booths up in front of.  He's making all this commotion frantically moving around saying “O shit man I fucked up, o man, o man, I’m that guy, I’m that guy, AAAAAHH this isn’t happening, I’m not that guy.” (Excuse his language)  I reply “Whats wrong Fos, whats going on?” He responds with a smile on a face still confused about what just occurred, “I fell in shit water! I thought it was concrete but it was just the glare, I’m never this guy!”  Still confused I ask “That water over there?  I just pissed in that water!”  At this point we all are laughing hysterically, falling on the floor, while FosL is pulling green moss and who knows what else off of his face, poor guy, I'm usually the guy that does that. 


While we were at this festival some Spaniards told us that at two in the morning a really legit band would come on.   And they were right, probably my 2nd favorite concert I have ever been to, right after Roger Waters at Coachella.  This band seriously had a unique sound; it was like a blend of Pink Floyd, Radio Head, Techno, with an overall upbeat Latin vibe.  For some reason the Spaniards don't like rocking out, so I was there front row head bangin’, jumpin’, and rockin’!  Sooo EPIC!  They are called “El Columpio Asesino” aka The Assassins Swing, sick name, so IF YOU LIKE MUSIC check this band out.  Yes it is in Spanish but there are people all over Europe singing perfect songs in English without a clue to what there singing, so drop the ego and indulge.  Favorite song …Vamos… http://www.myspace.com/elcolumpioasesino 

Finally we arrived in Barcelona at our 11 story hostel complete with an entire floor dedicated to partying.  The first thing we all wanted to do was relax on the nude beach.  Why is it that the only people that participate in the whole nude beach scene are the people you would never want to see naked?  For example: the middle aged man that rides his bike completely naked up and down boardwalk all day.  He gave a whole new meaning to the banana seat.

The architecture in Barcelona was amazing, land art everywhere, extraordinary parks, and amazing buildings.  That night we attended a Barcelona Match.  It was great to see soccer at its finest, the game was a lot of fun, it was a regular unimportant game but it reminded me of a Clipper playoff game!  Barcelona squashed the team 7-1.

The architecture and designs in Barcelona were amazing.  Exactly the types of works I want to get involved with.  Some of the coolest sites were connected to a waste management buildings, or an electricity power plant.  I really enjoyed the fact that every building was important enough to have an interesting design, it seems in the states the only projects that are worthy enough of an interesting design are hotels or sports arenas.  Why can't the public storage facility look creative and fun? 

 

What an awesome basketball court.

Recycled material to create sculptural pieces

I also liked how Barcelona would mix modern design and historic structures together.

I just wish I grew up with cool parks in Europe!

Another bad ass play ground.

I thought this jetty was on the money.  I mean why waste natural rock when we can make jetty's out of concrete.  This is way more visually stunning and it saves natural resources.

Fun walls for people to be active on, bikers, skaters, anyone can enjoy themselves.

To be honest I wasn't that big of a fan of Gaudi.  He was an artist that created these impressive organic structures, but I don't know, they didn't really make me feel anything special.

This is the entrance to where they held the Olympic games.

Got Hops.

 

The Olympic stadium had some great pieces of art.  It was cool to see a space that was designed to be occupied by 1,000's of people at one time.  Especially when you stand in it while it is empty, the space makes you feel so small with huge towers, 100 foot wide stairs, and Mammoth sized sculptures.

Because we are true plant nerds we went to the Botanical Gardens.  I love them plants.

Be on the look out for Mo Cities Album droppin' in Spring. Titled "Life's a Bridge"

After 5 nights in Barcelona I really felt at home.  The clubs were wild, once again I felt like the only person that really dances but who cares, I was that guy, that guy thats going to hard at the club.

We arrived late in Madrid on Thursday night.  Let me back track to Barcelona real quick, so in Barcelona it was 5 of us in a room with one extra roommate that we didn't know.  Our first roommate was a kid from Wisconsin that smelt really bad.  Our second roommate was this old guy from Argentina who was way chill.  He even partied harder than us, he would leave before we left in the morning, and wouldn't even come back to the room until midnight.  He even ended up being on our same flight to Madrid, which was weird.  So when we checked into our Madrid hostel we were all curious to see what kind of a character we would be living with this time.  Our roommate was already in the bathroom when we arrived.  When the door opened, and we saw the same old man from Argentina walk out of the bathroom we almost died, it was insanely weird!  I mean what are the odds?!

I know I've seen the picture featured below somewhere before?  Somewhere I feel at home...

Since we only had one day in Madrid we decided that we didn't care about all the historic stuff and we would only go see the Modern designs.  I'm so glad we did this too because I am getting sick of this historic stuff.


This green wall had Hydrangea's and all sorts of plants that I had no idea could survive on a green wall.  It was pretty amazing.

The Madrid Train Station had an entire Garden with turtles and palm trees within the station.  Why aren't there more gardens indoors?  I would love to watch turtles gliding in the pond while I'm waiting in the train station for hours.

We went way off the map in Madrid to find Social Housing projects.  These housings are usually funded by the government in order to be more affordable for lower class citizens.  You would normally assume ghetto project type housings, but this is Europe and these houses are awesome looking.  I feel like people would pay big money to live in them.  They are all have very unique qualities to them, the social housing above had bamboo along the building facade.  It was an interesting building because the windows and the facade of the building blended together, there was no distinction between the two which could make the building look different at any given moment.


This Social housing looked liked a rubix cube, definitely would not mind racking my brain there.


This Housing looked like pods from outer space.  Probably my favorite project.

I loved all the bright colors they used in Spain.  They weren't afraid to step outside the box.

Reflection mind trick at the Madrid University.

After running around all day we almost bailed on this last site.  I am so glad that we did not.  Our final stop we went to Parque Lineal de Manzanares, designed by West 8 (A legit Landscape company.)  This is definitely the coolest park I have ever been to.  The park use to be an Olive Grove, instead of designing something completely new they used inspiration from the linear qualities of olive grove.  The also incorporated probably the coolest Land Art installation I have ever seen at the top of this huge hill.  I saw it in the distance and immediately hiked up to the top of it.  I had this extreme feeling of happiness standing next to this swirling head of madness.  It was a piece of art that I think everyone can relate to, its a reason why people should go outside more, to clear their head.


As night came in Madrid we took a siesta and woke up around midnight to go out on the town.  Its so weird how each country you visit has a different time for partying.  We literally walked into a club around one and it was pretty dead.  After dancing to some techno Jams with the friends we realized around 4 in the morning that we had been at a gay club all night...

 

I loved the food in Spain, tapas, burgers, fries, eggs, bacon and ketchup!  They didn't give you buns though, I didn't care, I was so excited to eat a beef patty.


We arrived back in Castiglion Fiorentino on Halloween.  We went out on the town that night because we heard that Halloween was pretty popular here.  I was pretty surprised to find out that I was the only one that dressed up?  People were giving me some serious stares but I didn't care.  I never broke character from Bob Dylan all night.  How could I not dress up after spending three amazing years in Santa Barabara, I had to do Halloween justice.

Here was my work for Urban Artistry class, I'm curious if you can see what I intended to create.

D.J.T.P.- You asked me about the small size of the sculptures tally wackers last week.  I'm not too sure but I'll give a shot...  If the sculpture was created in the Renaissance period I'm sure there was a certain standard for every rocket sculpted since they were obsessed with everything being perfect in that period.  So i guess the banana that was chosen was probably proportionate to the grapes, making it somewhat small.  If the sculpture was created in the Mannerism period they sculpted it exactly how it was.  With no exaggeration, and I can only imagine the model would get a bit cold after hours of posing nude making his sausage grow small.  And if the sculpture was created during the Baroque period it would be elegant and grandiose.  Now I don't think people usually like seeing red rockets, which is why in this period people were usually sculpted in robes that have thousands of folds in them.  Don't quote me on that but I hope that helps.

3 comments:

  1. 1. Mad hops for sure. :P
    2. Daaammnnn what a sick Dylan tshirt. haha



    I'm excited to hear of all your stories!

    <33

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  2. Such a solid post, don't even know where to begin. You really are seeing a lot of the stuff that I saw which is tight cuz then i know what you're talking about. I'm pumped that you go outside-the-box and check out modern art and scope out all the land art stuff... really treading the unbeaten path. Its cool to see you come into your own man, I'm really seeing that this is like your career and that you're going to be damn good at it. Stick w/ the passion man and drawing/creating trippy art and you'll ball outrageous. Looking forward to seeing you soon t-bag.

    dj tp

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  3. Excellent blog, Travis. Entertaining read and great photos - I would like to see more of your art though.

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