Alicia Framis Presents: Shanghai Moon Life Concept Store
The Moon Life Concept Store will feature 21 productions and conceptions that will represent future human life in space.
Time: December 11th, 2010 to January 9th, 2011
Public Program: December 12th from 2:00 to 5:00 pm
Opening Reception: December 10th
Location: 171 Jianguo Middle Road, Taikang Terrace 3rd floor
Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00 to 7:00 pm
Designed by Shanghai-based Byn in collaboration with Alicia Framis, Moon Life is an itinerary show/pop-up shop with ideas, concepts, prototypes, products about daily life on the Moon, due to open in Shanghai on December 10th. See the full press release below. Participating artists, and practitioners from Arthub Asia network are: Pan Jianfeng, Yan Jun, Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen, Wang Yuyang and Law Yuk Mui
A Special Tribute to the Moon: Sunday December 12th from 2:00 to 5:00 pm
Artists and scholars gather to reflect on the role of the Moon in imagining new realities, as they relate to Chinese lore and mythology. Pan Jianfeng will expand on his logic and process for creating a typeface for the Moon, while participating sound poet Yan Jun will perform Music for the Listening on the Moon, specially commissioned for Moon Life. Buddhist Studies scholar Francesca Tarocco will conclude the program with an illustrated talk on moon-inspired practices in Chinese religion and visual culture.
Introduction by Alicia Framis. Organized by Defne Ayas (Arthub Asia.)
Background on Moon Life by Alicia Framis
Moon Life is an interdisciplinary arts project that speculates on the possibility that humans will live in space in the future. With this thought in mind, the project is a stimulus for artists, architects and designers to create futuristic, radical, and political but humane concepts for an extreme lunar environment.
Moon Life has based its primary concepts on an intensive period of research by Archis Foundation, who published the Moon Life Handbook in the spring of 2010. The Handbook is an essential preparatory tool for the workshop and lecture programme Moon Academy that takes place in association with the European Space Agency (ESA) from April to August 2010. Moon Academy is open for students of various disciplines from fashion design, art, industrial design, architecture and sonology, and is hosted by ESA and SMART Project Space. The Academy functions as a platform for idea exchange; participants are asked for product/prototype proposals that can be implemented in the next phase of the project.
The Moon Life Product Development phase took place between June and August 2010. Fifteen renowned artists, designers, architects, fashion designers and concept designers were commissioned by Moon Life Office. Six Moon Academy participants who have presented the best ideas during the workshops were selected; a total of 22 proposals were developed into presentable objects, prototypes and concepts that will be presented in the Moon Life Concept Store opening in Shanghai in December 2010.
In 2011 the Moon Life Concept Store will travel to the Netherlands and will be reconstructed at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in Rotterdam, where it will be open to the public in March 2011, supplemented with new products/concepts and a parallel programme of events with dance performances, concerts and fashion shows. The Moon Life Base Camp is a culmination of the projects outcome and will take place in Amsterdam in spring 2011.
Participating Artists and Introductions to their Works:
Music for Listening on the Moon by Yan Jun
Working in the field of sound and language, Yan Jun is known to move effortlessly from poetry and installations to performing and recording music, which runs the gamut from chance improvisation to subtle conceptual environment sound/music. Music for Listening on the Moon is specially composed for the occasion of Moon Life and printed under Yan Jun’s own record label Sub Jam/KwanYin. It is based on everyday life’s sounds and explores the concept of listening without searching for meaning.
Moontage based “on distance/thinking the same/looking at the same object” by Law Yuk Mui in collaboration with Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen
The idea of Moontage (moon and montage) is developed by Law Yuk Mui, a Beijing based artist whose work lies at the cross-section of visual arts and experimental film. Moontage is an approach to catch the moon on film, and the exploration of the mirrored relationship between old Hong Kong and old Shanghai.
Salute to Feng Zikai: The Moon that Shone on our Ancestors by Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen
Based “on distance/thinking the same/looking at the same,” young conceptual artist Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen, known for original and playful works that poke at the unknown, is looking for all the suns and moons from a Shanghai bookstore and making a bookmark on each book.
Anytime, any place, the sun and the moon in the camera are the same one.
The Moon Landing Program by Wang Yu Yang
Interested in obsolete technology, an aesthetics of the broken, and material waste, the artist analyzes the relationship between body, experience, and cognition with The Moon Landing Program, presented on two LED screens.
Pan Jianfeng
Pan was born into an artistic family and prefers to investigate all areas of human concern as a vehicle of conceptual expression. He now applies his free wheeling originality to reveal a new kind of understanding of the Chinese lunar calendar, resulting in an artistic output that is full of vigor, yet at the same time whimsical and highly imaginative. The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. It is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures. It is often referred to as the Chinese calendar because it was first perfected by the Chinese around 500 BCE. For the Moon Life Concept Store, Pan Jianfeng has created an updated Chinese Moon Calendar, with a custom-made typeface of his own invention for the group’s 12 days on the moon.
Moon Life, Full Press Release
First shop on Earth to buy things for life on the Moon opens in Shanghai
Do you have your Earth passport to travel to the Moon? Do you want to try the prêt a porter collection for the Moon? Do you want to know how a 360 degree soda bottle will look? Or your holiday house on the Moon? Do you want to use Moon currency: Mooneys? You can purchase these items and more, try, and experience it all in the Moon Life Concept Store–the new work of Alicia Framis.
Alicia Framis will open the first Moon Life Concept Store in Shanghai, on the 11th of December 2010, with items, products, installations, prototypes, videos from 24 architects, designers, artists, as well as fashion designers from the Netherlands and China (Chinese participants organized by Arthub Asia). All products are unique and made specially for this extraordinary shop that opens first in China, and after that will open in pop-up shows in cities around the world: Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Moscow, Paris, Lerida, New York. Visitors to the Moon Life Concept Store can explore and test or experience the products and concepts that will represent future human life in space.
Alicia Framis encourages artists, designers and architects to create new concepts for living and extreme design. The Moon Life Concept Store gives way for a revolution in thinking about art, architecture, design and cross disciplinary thinking, and allows us to imagine and design an environment that stimulates new ways of thinking and solutions for our earthly problems. People have the desire to think beyond borders. Our generation likes to look back, to our relationships and already existing modes and values, such as recycling, re-enactments, etc. We seem to have accepted our limitations and the planet we live on. In this way the project can be seen as a prompt to explore a new territory in design, art and architecture through our lunar imaginations.
A fascinating part of this shop is the Moon Academy that Framis created with scientists, artists, designers and architects. The Moon Academy is free and open to anyone who has an interest in attending workshops and lectures, learning and exchanging knowledge about life on the Moon and in the new space–spaces that in just a few years we will be inhabiting. The Moon Life Concept Store and Moon Academy want to democratize the Moon and most importantly, open discussion about how we want to live in space; what things will we copy from life on earth and what things will we leave behind? The Moon Life Concept Store is a critical place in which visitors are challenged to think about our future. Moon Academy is a cooperation with the European Space Agency ESA.
Shanghai based architects, byn are the designers of the Moon Life Concept Store. In this pop-up shop the floors and walls will all be set at different degrees and angles to give visitors a unique experience in spacial architecture.
The products specially produced for the Moon Life Concept Store are:
Compass: it always points to Earth, created by Paula Ampuero and Maria Serret
Tableware: glass and porcelain tableware symbolizing the random bursts of energy on the moon, visualising the energy of an impact, moon craters, and freezing pressure waves; created by EDHV
Moon shoes: a flat-packed carbon fiber platform that customers can assemble themselves when they reach the Moon; created by United Nude
Moon Anthem: music composed by Monica Tormell
Telephone: a small sound amplifying device which will enable future generations of humans living on the Moon to listen to sound in a vacuum; created by Tao Sambolec and Brian Mckenna
Moon Fireplace: radio waves are received and transformed into sound, which in turn is used to modulate LEDs; created by Tao Sambolec and Brian Mckenna
Moon Dictionary: a 360 degree concept map with an open verbal-diagram on the concept of the Moon [mu:n], that shows the relationships among individual concepts; created by Alicia Framis
Coloring Book: created by Sandra Gnjatovic
Moon Vogue: a bootleg version of the Vogue magazine for 2050; created by Maryme and Jimmy Paul
Moon Dust: a model for a sustainable base on the Moon with sealed chambers that are strong enough to withstand radiation and solar storms; created by John Lonsdale
Moonworld: a jewel that is a nano-representation of a cemetery, scaled at 1:400,000,0000 in silver; created by DUS architects
360◦ Moon Perfume: A unique odor that triggers distinct memories from our childhoods or later in life, includes both positive and negative emotional moments; created by Paula Ampuero, Maria Serret and Alicia Framis
Space Suit: protection from an organic war, could be used to withdraw on the Moon for alternative living; created by Atelier van Lieshout
Ready to Wear: 18 different garments with various expert-specifications, such as a built in emotional connection to Earth, protective material, communicative qualities and comfortably fitting; created by Marina Toeters
Music for Listening on the Moon: composed for the occasion of Moon Life by Yan Jun
The Moon that Shone on Our Ancestors: is based on the idea of moontage: moon, montage; developed by Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen
The Moon Landing Program: presents two LED screens that interrogate the relationship between body, experience, and cognition; created by Wang YuYang
Chinese Moon Calendar: an updated Chinese Moon Calendar, with a custom-made typeface for the Moon; created by Pan Jianfeng
Moontage: Law Yuk Mui’s approach to catch the Moon in film
Salute to Feng Zikai: a book that looks for all the “suns” and “moons” from a Shanghai bookstore; created by Pak Sheung Chuen
Handbook Moon Life: a manual to learn about daily life on the moon; created by Archis Foundation
Catalogue for the Moon Life Concept Store: an overview of all products that are sold in the Moon Life Concept Store; created by Volume/Archis Foundation
The shop is open to the public from the 11th of December, 2010 to January 9th, 2011
Tuesday to Sunday 11:00 to 7:00 PM
The Moon Life Concept Store was developed in cooperation with: Byn Studios; Arthub Asia; Tai Kang Terrace; Smart Project Space; Volume; ESA.
Special thanks to the Consulate of Spain in Shanghai.
This project wouldn’t have been possible Without the generous support of: Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, Consulate General of Spain in New York, Ministerio de Cultura Spain, Fundacio LLull per les Art Catalunya, Rabobank, Archis Foundation, Mondriaan Foundation, Consulate General of the Netherlands in Shanghai, Netherlands China Arts Foundation, AECID, Art+Shanghai Gallery, Helga de Alvear gallery, Annet Gelink gallery, Barbara Gross gallery, LWEG (Lunar Special Program) and Beca Acin dip. Support for Chinese artists and the production of their works came from FarEastFarWest LTD.
Moon Life Concept Store
For the project we defined 7 criteria of human life that are used as the core methodology and research categories, to be studied and represented:
– Living: Housing, interior design, sleeping, reading, food, gardening, tools
– Daily life: Fashion, health, fitness, leisure, work
– Public life: Music, community life, sports, advertisement, dance
– Cities: Architecture, urban planning, transportation systems, space structures
– Industrial: Food production, energy sources, use of natural materials on the moon
– Environmental: Develop life support systems, waste
– Humanity: Preserving human civilization, preservation of culture, space law
All results from the workshops and commissions will be presented together in a singular environment–the Moon Life Concept Store–that will create its own futuristic world. Alicia Framis will develop the Moon Life Concept Store, which will integrate the Moon Life Atelier. The Moon Life Atelier will work more or less conceptually–as a critical place to think about our future. The Atelier brings together products and the public.
The NAI will present the Moon Life Concept Store–complete with new products–in Rotterdam in the spring of 2011, supported by a parallel program of fashion shows, sound performances and lectures.
Thinking About the Future: Europe-Asia
The relationship between Europe and Asia displays an interesting contrast in terms of future thinking. Whereas in Europe, the confidence in the future appears to be waning by lack of utopian visions or even the inability to envision a horizon at all (Europe seems mainly focused on preservation by culturally and historically defined standards, values and identities), Asia seems to have the future within their reach. Asian countries have been modernizing in a rapid tempo, have the fastest growing economies and the largest financial reserves. Countries such as Japan, China and India have an extensive space programme of their own. China’s current space program is focused entirely on the Moon and an (unmanned) Moon landing is scheduled for October 2010. In view of the different perspectives on the future, the exchange between China and the Netherlands in Moon Life promises to be highly productive and interesting.
This project should bring us a step closer to the utopian idea of orbital life and ideas like those of the experimental physicist Gerard O’Neil. O’Neil who was convinced that we can solve the main problems that we are facing on our planet (over-population, scarcity of energy and raw materials, security and global warming) by creating habitats in space. Following the Association of Autonomous Astronauts who are promoting the idea of ‘zero gravity communities’ and peaceful, democratic and creative space aviation, instead of a space program that is backed by political infrastructures. Moon Life wants to connect to the above intentions by placing our hopes and aspirations for a utopian society on the Moon.
