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earlier this year i visited the moholy-nagy/albers exhibition at the tate modern. these two men were part of the teaching staff at the bauhaus, the twenties german interdisciplinary design school which rewrote the rules of aesthetics [along 90 degree angles]. reading back today through some notes i made at the exhibition, i came across this [edited] passage:

the exhibition is marked by a near absense of humanity. these images are null, a mid-grey creates a depthless paradigm, an endless monotonous note. it’s not boring because it’s not anything much. e and i feel that it’s [partly] a [subconscious] reaction to WWI; a state of stunned shock, a coma, a withdrawal from humanity now that humanity has shown the worst it is capable of. is it any surprise that gropius, in this state of shock, went on to sack the beardy-weirdies, go cubic and export his new right-angled paradigm to the boardrooms of capitalist america, where a lack of humanity is a veritable virtue?

now let’s meet our housewife:

(more…)

this morning, on my way to work, i was wondering whether my statement ‘treat nature in the form of the cube’ might be better as ‘treat culture in the form of the cube’ for that is a more accurate description of what is happening. we are building cubic urban landscapes etc., not training the rural landscape to follow right angles.

once i arrived at work however, a colleague sent me a link to this article on the cultivation of cubic melons.

perhaps then we should ‘treat everything in form of the cube’?