:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Monday, March 29, 2010 ::

Free Association Blogging

A Terry Gilliam original presented to photographer/assistant director Mark Egerton on completion of 12 Monkeys. Picture taken at Mark's "Images" exhibition at Photographique in Bristol, 11-24 Feb 2010. He's a thoroughly nice chap and hopefully doesn't mind me posting this here. Please follow the link to his site and check out his work.

I've just been reminded of this by the publication of Sylvain Margaine's book, Forbidden Places: Exploring Our Abandoned Heritage, which among many other fascinating abandoned spaces includes shots of the power plant used in the film, with 12 Monkeys stencils still sprayed over it.

Review spotted in the Jan 19 issue of the IET's E&T magazine.



And while I'm on the subject, check out the current issue's analysis of mash-up cultures potential in buisness:



"Different meanings and applications of mash-ups."

"Mash-ups are widely available for public use on the Internet, but are only just beginning to fulfil their potential in business environments. Organisations are looking at ways in which they can integrate mash-ups with existing software to display information collected from multiple data sources in order to aid business efficiency."

"Maps used to be simply scaled-down aerial diagrams of places containing navigational information. Now they contain layers of changing digital information, and it's a serious management issue, E&T explores."

"Mashup standards: crucial to enterprise acceptance"

"Mashup tools: enterprise enablers for the mashed age"

"Open-source ideas. Want to tap into new business? The old way was to brainstorm, but that's so last year. Today we set up reward-based 'ideagoras' - effectively a 'mash-up' management strategy. And it works."

"When Web 2.0 sneezes, everyone gets sick. Web 2.0 facilitates greater communication. But where consumers gather, so will the fraudsters and patterns are emerging on how fraudsters are utilising the weaknesses in social networks and Web 2.0."

The day I hear a board director in my office use the phrase mash-up I will fall off of my wheely chair. It doesn't look like this but I like the picture.


[source]

Labels: Art, Film, FOSS, Maps, Mash-up, Photography, Technology, Urban Exploring, web 2.0

:: Dan 29.3.10 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Concrete Mushrooms looks at what Albania’s are doing with the the 750,000 concrete bunkers built in the cold war to protect again the West. The trailer is online now and the full documentary expected in Jan.
[via pied-a-terre]

Labels: Urban Exploring

:: Dan 13.12.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Video release. This is a quick 10 min version of the 45min Databent UrbEx live set I played at Bash Out at the Black Swan, Bristol on 20th June 2009.

All photographs and image & audio manipulation by Dan Gusset.
Cover image courtesy of Lisa Furness

Source audio: Field recording of metal roof in the sun by Nick Adamson, MC Prof C and MC Doc G from Radio 4, Floreo De Lamas by Guamary, The Collier's Rant by Bob Davenport, Rubik's Cube: 10.56 seconds, Grow Grow Grow by PJ Harvey @ 33RPM, The Training of O, Mothers Talk by Tears For Fears @ 17RPM, White Chalk by PJ Harvey @ 33RPM.

Labels: BashOut, Databent, Film, Gigs, Gusset, Photography, Urban Exploring, Video, WEFT

:: Dan 4.7.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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main room: jungle & multi core

the outside agency
[aka dj hidden and eye-d - live bristol debut]

twinhooker & paulie walnuts
[mad dem sound usa: soldiers in the streets tour]

duranduranduran
[cock rock disco, planet mu - live birthday set!]

ely muff
[headfuk/deathchant - live]

boep
[aka schemeboy vs randomoidz - adverse camber]

bashout allstars
[resident badmen]

upstairs: staggering bass abuse

rogue state ft. mc deadman
[r8 recordings - bristol debut]

lief ryan
[growth recordings - bristol debut]

noyeahno
[rag’n’bone]

big d’s dancehall clearout

diode
[aka el kano vs magimix - adverse camber]

davey t
[dissident]

back room: the bashout lectures

dan gusset and friends

dubboy vs beavis inna rootstyle

& more tbc...

sat 20 june 2009
black swan, bristol
10 til 5,
£8 b4 11, £9 after...
tickets: £6 [plus booking fee]




The Bash Out Lectures with Dan Gusset and Friends

Dan Pope (aka Gusset) will be presenting an A/V performance of data bent versions of his urban exploring photos alongside a live drone/glitch soundtrack in room three of Bash Out at the Black Swan, Bristol on Sat 20th June (10pm – 6am).

Data bent images are intentionally corrupted digital images where the files have bits altered, cut around, have channels moved or filtered, and are otherwise bastardised to cause all forms of distortions and bizarre effects. Often the results are disappointing fields of black or images that refuse to open at all but persistence and luck can lead to intriguing results.

Like it's close relative circuit bending, where any electronic sound making device, usually a cheap children's toy, is dismantled and its circuitry randomly rewired, it's something that anyone can try. It may just be noise with occasional recognisable hints of what it once was, but there is a beauty to be found in there either by close study or by allowing it to wash over you.

Among the friends Dan has filled the rest of the line-up with will be a Dub Boy & Beavis - Inna Rootstyle, films from public space hijacker and Occasional Cinema organiser Badoni, and beatless soundscapes from Freq.

Labels: BashOut, Bristol, Databent, Electronica, Film, Flyer, Gigs, Gusset, Photography, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 3.6.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Hafodyrynys colliery’s "unique washery slurry tower"



More info @ Forlorn Britain

Navigation Colliery Buildings, Crumlin



More info @ Crumlin colliery transformation now 'unlikely'

Labels: Urban Decay, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 1.6.09 [Arc] [1 comments] ::
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trespassingtheolympicsite.blogspot



"If you've been reading a lot and know the area well then you may by now have worked out that over the time of these trespasses I became a creature of habit, only venturing into two areas of the site once the fence was up. One near where the main stadium now stands flanked by the Greenway, the other alongside the canal. These choices were pragmatic, I had two tried and tested entry points and with the ground changing so fast there was no need to try to cover the whole terrain. Sufficiently terrified from my last jaunt on the Greenway side (see two posts down) I opted to return to the canal side, where, by now, two windows had been cut into the fence to allow the passers-by to glimpse the transformations afoot. My trusty tree was still standing so getting in was no trouble."

Trespassing Bristol

"I have, as usual, rushed into things and need to take a quick achronological detour before returning to the Olympic Site. The first stop on this quick backtrack is Bristol. Horfield to be precise, was the second stop in developing the trespassing practice. I was spending a weekend with old friends and thought I would take advantage of the city-break to test my trespassing mettle against a less hostile metropolis. I had researched (google earth again) two convenient locations: the substation and water plant local to my friends' house (I was at the time a little obsessed with energy politics) and even 'drawn' a little map of my intentions. Walking through Bristol, however, I passed the site of a recent demolition, nothing epic, probably a housing development."

Haha, that's so close to my house too.

Labels: Urban Exploring

:: Dan 27.5.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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My post about Barrow below shows how many Urban Exploring websites there are out there. That was just examples of people/groups who had visited one site in the UK.

Thanks to Seth for this US based link, Infiltration, which is HDR heavy and doesn't feature light painting work than most of the US sites I was previously aware of.


KAUPPA

Labels: Photography, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 27.5.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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A couple of weeks ago five Second Look photography group members decided to spend our Saturday afternoon poking around the former Barrow Gurney Mental Hospital on the outskirts of Bristol. It was shut down in 2006 after being declared the dirtiest hospital in the UK. One of our number gave us a quick Health & Safety briefing as we trudged out way there, "Don't lick anything," he said. That was it.

The site is partially demolished and is guarded by a very big dog. And there's asbestos around. And lots of broken glass and unsafe floors. Don't go there unless you're stupid.

We've got some great shots and as a bonus a female passenger in a passing car flashed her breasts at us as we made our way back to civilisation. All in all it was a fairly surreal afternoon.

My photo set is here.
Many others have been there before and you can chart the sites decline through these links. In no particular order:
County Asylums
Derelicte
Whatever's Left
UrbEx Forums
Silver Stealth
28 Days Later [Many threads]

Labels: Photography, Urban Decay, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 23.5.09 [Arc] [1 comments] ::
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Detroit’s Beautiful, Horrible Decline by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre


Detroit’s main train station, opened in 1913 has not been used since 1988.

Labels: Photography, Urban Decay, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 13.3.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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"Xmas morning is the only time that London is (almost) empty of humans - so a morning spent cycling around town taking photos."

Motorway Map of the UK in the style of the London Underground Map

[^ both via lmg]

From BLDGBLOG:

In the winter of light
"There are architecture photographers [who] refuse to photograph anything from November up to February," Michiel van Raaij writes on his blog Eikongraphia. "In their view the long shadows and dimmed light intensity of the winter season compromises their work. The effect is that – in the architecture media – not only the sun always shines, but that it is also never winter."

Architects of the Near Future
Check the stills from the Dan Farmer film.

Warmed by Crematorium
I recently worked on the design of a retirement home next door to a crematorium. It seemed a bit presumptuous, if inevitable. This goes several steps further, but I like the green credentials.

Labels: architecture, Environment, Maps, Photography, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 5.1.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Wed 17th December, Stokes Croft, Bristol



This will be my first proper photo exhibition (ie more than one shot! I've got 56 in there I think) so I'm really excited about this. I'll also be DJing my favourite ominous film scores as well as some of Gusset's lesser heard soundtrack work after Manufactured Landscapes to close the night. Can't wait!

Labels: Bristol, Electronic Music, Gigs, Photography, Urban Decay, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 9.12.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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"Tollgate House is a now derelict 19 story building in the centre of Bristol"
A little out of date. It's been demolished and replaced now, but these photos are great. Shame they are so small.



I think the green carpet could catch on you know.

Labels: Bristol, Photography, Urban Decay, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 4.9.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Urban explorer pays for his hobby with his life

"To urban explorers, it's known simply as Hearn, one of Toronto's top destinations for camera-toting adventurers with a fondness for abandoned buildings. From now on, they will also know it as the place where a fellow enthusiast died after a three-storey fall into a coal hopper on the weekend. ...
Now that there's been an accident, he expects things to change at Hearn, and if that comes at the expense of [the] hobby, so be it."

RIP

Labels: News, RIP, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 23.6.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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New Urban Exploring shots from a disused kennel on Flickr


Disused Kennels 11 Dogs Eye View
Originally uploaded by gusset.



Disused Kennels 02
Originally uploaded by gusset.

Labels: Flickr, Urban Decay, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 12.5.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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glasgow00291
Originally uploaded by gusset.

On Nov 29, 2007 7:27 AM, Ville Takanen wrote:

"Hi

I just wanted to thank you for sharing your images with a CC/SA lisence.

I'm using a picture from your flickr collection for my art roleplaying
project here (in Finnish)
and I tought I should let you know about it.
--
Ville Takanen"

Hi Ville.
Thanks for letting me know.
Glad you appreciate it.
Cheers,
Dan

[via that link...]

Underground ‘terrorists’ with a mission to save city’s neglected heritage

Last year the Untergunther spent months hidden in the Panthéon, the Parisian mausoleum that holds France’s greatest citizens, where they repaired a clock that had been left to rust. … When the clock began working again, officials were horrified. The Centre for National Monuments confirmed that the clock had been repaired but said that the authority had begun legal action against the Untergunther. Under official investigation for breaking and entry, its members face a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a €15,000 (£10,500) fine. “We could go down in legal history as the first people ever to be prosecuted for repairing a clock,” said Mr Kunstmann.

Labels: Art, Flickr, Underground, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 29.11.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Always a fan of anything underground (eg Paris catacombs, London vaults, Nature's underground music, Corsham bunkers) I'm now excited to be working on a job somewhere above the Corsham bunkers. Although doing the acoustic survey isn't going to get me access to the underground areas I'll at least get to poke around the area. Maybe I'll find something to add to my Urban Exploring photos at least.

The geo-tech people in the office have the far more interesting job of trying to work out exactly where the tunnels cross the site and how deep they are. In the process of their research they have found this BBC article and this article on the Secret Underground South West site. [Thanks for the links!]

For anyone interested in a very brief overview of everything underground around these parts, I highly recommend Sally Watson's book Secret Underground Bristol, which also covers areas out as far out the Box Tunnel and Bath's Combe Down mines, albeit in a slightly cartoonish way.

For more extreme urban exploring check out the 28dayslater forum.
This report of buried Minis saddened me.
And for the socially conscious, here they are cleaning up a site.

Labels: Underground, Urban Exploring

:: Dan 2.7.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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