Lweibdeh Mural | جدارية في اللويبدة

Lweibdeh Mural | Ayyam El Weibdeh
Project for building urban awareness

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Yesterday, and exactly at mid-day, we found ourselves drowned with colorful paint, dozens of brushes and happy children!

Weeks before, a project to evoke Urban Awareness about one of Amman’s culturally-vibrant neighborhood, Jabal Lwaibdeh, kicked off at a meeting at Dr Rami Daher’s office, Turath.

The project is a collaboration between “Friends of Jabal Lweibdeh Association and a group of NGOs and urban activists addressing awareness building regarding neighborhood heritage amongst the youth of the Jabal.

One of the layers of this project was to artistically express connections, relationships and memories of Lweibdeh, an opportunity we found most suitable for an urban artistic intervention done spontaneously by a group of children. The project was made possible by collaborating with Start, Laila Demashqieh and the aid of Friends of Jabal Lweibdeh Association and Dr Rami Daher, Turath and the members of Interruptions team involved; Rula Yaghmour, Dina Haddadin and Rawan Kakish.

A group of children were picked from schools in Lwaibdeh to paint a mural at a selected location, a spontaneous artistic expression laid over a more conscious layer as our friends Dina Haddadin and Rawan Kakish helped the children build a cluster of Lweibdeh houses. The contrast between the two layers merged both spontaneousness and consciousness as two levels of perceiving our urban contexts.

The result was closer to what one would expect when putting together Pollack, Picasso and VanGogh! Both conscious and playful, aesthetic and random, expressive and suggestive..

Ayyam El Weibdeh Exhibition:

The work done would be represented at the Ayyam El Weibdeh exhibition at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts.

The exhibition, which will be opened by HE Mayor Omar Maani at the National Gallery will exhibit representations of the various layers of the project, the heritage hunt, oral documentation of history and heritage, photography and art exhibitions.. etc

The opening will take place on Saturday April 24th at 5:00 pm

Join us to take part in celebrating ‘urbanity’, hoping this project will extend to reach for other areas in Amman through the coming years.

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Click here for more pictures of Lwaibdeh Mural

and here for more information about Ayyam Lweibdeh exhibition, opening, dates, activities and schedule.

(you can right-click to download pdf file)

The Archigram Archival Project

Six people stood behind one of the most seminal, iconoclastic and influential architectural avant-garde waves in the 60s; Peter Cook, Warren Chalk, Ron Herron, Dennis Crompton, Michael Webb and David Greene “created some of the 20th century’s most iconic images and projects, rethought the relationship of technology, society and architecture, predicted and envisioned the information revolution decades before it came to pass, and reinvented a whole mode of architectural education – and therefore produced a seam of architectural thought with truly global impact.”

Archigram was one of the motives behind Interruptions, their first published ‘magazine’ was made of two sheets of paper, printed at 400 copies but only distributed 50! Later, Cook invested the prize money he won at a competition to print a 10-sheet magazine and the project went on through 9 and a half issues! “The free-form magazine was designed explore new projects and new thinking which were overturning the strict modernist dictats of the 1960s.”

“As the magazine grew and its circulation spread, the six began working together on specific projects, such as the ‘Living City’ exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in 1963, and the Archigram name soon stuck to them as a group.”

The extent of Archigram’s influence can scarcely be reckoned. Archigram can be said to have redesigned the scope of experimental thought and teaching – and hence architectural practice – throughout the world, overturning established ideas and calling into question the idea of what architecture actually is.

The University of Westminster launched a project to recollect and archive Archigram’s work and make it available online as a “purely digital resource, displaying digital versions of works held in many different collections.”

Almost 10,000 items are included in this archive, including digital versions of drawings, collages, paintings, photographs, magazines, articles, slides and multi-media material, accompanied by original texts by Archigram.

The Archigram Archival Project (AAP) website was launched yesterday and is now available online.

Visit here

Counterparts | متناظرات : Exhibition

Join Counterparts opening reception on March 6th / 7.00pm at House No.28 in Rainbow Street!

Counterparts is a joint exhibition featuring:

Cattle Republic | جمهورية القطيع  _by Ahmad Sabbagh + Typism (Blouzaat)

Transit | انتقالي  _by Dina Haddadin

Counterparts is organized by Interruptions and supported by Makan, Zumot and MP Zaid al Qusous.

RSVP at Facebook Event here | الدعوة عامة جداً

Join Interruptions Network for more updates.

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Counterparts | متناظرات
تردد مرئي ما بين الواقع و الممكن, الجامد و المتحول, المتتابع و المتقطع, المنمط و الاعتراضي: الواقع و نظيره.
أعمال أحمد صباغ و تايبزم (بلوزات) و دينا حدادين تجسد نظائر المدينة بثقافاتها: الجمعية و الضمنية و المضادة من خلال إسكان فني في مكان مهجور ضمن روايتين متمايزتين.
Visual dithering between the actual and the possible, the rigid and the dynamic, the incessant and the ruptured, the standardized and the interrupted: reality and its counterpart.
The work of Ahmad Sabbagh and Typism (Blouzaat) and Dina Haddadin embodies counterparts of the city: the collective, the sub and counter cultures presented through an artistic-occupation of demolished space through two distinctive narratives.

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Cattle Republic | جمهورية القطيع
يا غنماتي أولوا وراي…
Ahmad Sabbagh and Typism (Blouzaat)

We blame it on rigidity and we borrow the tools to break from it.

We borrow Nietzsche’s hammer for a world over-dosed with dogma.
We steal art from the mainstream and crucify it for the original sin of ugliness.
We unveil the sin from the fake whiteness of a canvas.
We snatch the city from its rapid abuse and project it frozen as an instant memory.
We rip the tape outline off a crime-scene to seal the mouth of the living.

The work of Ahmad Sabbagh and Typism (Blouzaat) escapes the traditional orders of art and radicalizes visual expression to better speak for a world in-flux, a world of tensions: a world guilty of rigidity.

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Transit | انتقالي
Passing quickly into and out of existence.
Dina Haddadin

A place of transition; for some it’s a non-place: neither the container nor the contained, the inside nor outside, what was nor what’s to become.
But in this single transient fleeing moment, real or figment, it’s a place of in-betweenness; a state, and edge, a border, a threshold, an ephemeral space of a moving impetus; a momentum of an entrusted change; the Transit.

the story is told at a house-in-transit; which alike the city strives be other than what has been; a house which identity is less ‘concrete’ than the components of its being, a house in a city which scaffolds are its people who constantly shape and reshape its being.
The house will pass these moments of transit soon, taking with it the echoes of the story exhibited.
But the city, is forever, at a moment of transit.

Jazz in the Air | Chapter 11 @Cafe de Paris

(photos by Lina Ejeilat)

Reflections on Chapter 11′s latest Jazz gig
I was privileged to have attended Chapter 11’s latest Jazz gig at Café de Paris with the company of all the good friends.
I have been receiving Yacoub’s invitations for quite a while but I was deterred by life’s off-beats from retreating into its grooves. But the recorded sounds of Jazz that I listen to daily strive to break from monotonous repetition, from continuing to be what it once has been.

Jazz calls for a narrator, an interpreter as it is a novel built in sound; so I headed to Café de Paris last Friday to capture the sound, built into stories by five wonderful musicians.
The first notes struggled to depart from the passive aura of the city, crowdedness and dissimulated noise. They picked up the sounds, played chords and then jumped into modes, built up a melody and suddenly it’s Stan Getz’ Girl from Ipanema! The music pulled the people slowly into its domain, harmony was sensed in the air ruptured with few missed notes every now and then.
The music was soothing, yet doubtful – each had expectations, musicians and audience. Even alcohol had to anticipate the buzzing mood!
The break after first session was a gap for tidying up, it was as if everyone recaptured the moment, revised what has been played and re accumulated their senses and the rest was something else!

My friend asked them to play Cantaloupe Island, a Jazz standard by Herbie Hancock- and there it was breaking from and building back into melody, and at each time it broke to free-formed solos it picked layers of energy, passion and collective vibes lifting it at every verse to a complex state of musical ecstasy!

All I could say is that there was Jazz in the air!
Thanks to Chapter 11 for taking us there- Yacoub, Aram, Shadi, David and Tareq; all the energy, groove and good vibes sent your way!

Join Chapter 11′s Facebook group here
Catch them every Tuesday at Canvas and every Friday at Cafe de Paris!
Join the group for all information, gigs and reservation details!

Underwhelmingly Good | Apple iPad

By hadi alaeddin
Originally Posted On aslittledesign
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iPad is good… Wait, stop wining and let me explain you ingrateful geeks! (This is how Steve Jobs should’ve started his presentation)

Apple launched the iPad yesterday night, never felt geekier as i sat there checking out the live feed on gdgt.com clicking refresh every 30 seconds, stopping on every execs’ statements, and analyzing every picture. I was impressed by how good of a product it is, but it felt funny!

Bear with me on this ok… Now today, I woke up to a new apple homepage, and as usual they followed the keynote with the product showcase video, i thought after watching it, that strange feeling I had yesterday would go away, but still it didn’t.

You can get as much information as you want about the iPad, and all the features in depth, and here is an overview of what the iPad is for those with no idea what we’re talking about here.

But that’s not all what this post is about, this is a collection of my thoughts on why apple will one day rule the world! Oh really? yes really!

So, Two and a half years ago the iPhone was released, five years before that, the iPod, and three years before that was the iMac.

I still remember the hype over the iPhone, as I was still getting into knowing more about industrial design – I majored in 2006 two years after starting college – and in that time it was completely true when they said words like revolutionary, magical, innovative. I watched that video for six months not believing it will be produced until it was released in july 2006, then all hell broke loose.

iPhone, like the iPod and the iMac before it were in fact revolutionary products. They did not only change Apple as a brand, but they literally changed what people thought they need, they changed behavior, instilled loyalty, and gained popularity with people perceiving it as the way cooler, way better looking, way smarter kid that no other kid liked to play with! A show-off they called him! Some kids even called him an elitist, i have no idea where you’ll find a kid say that word but nevermind that!

That’s over-simplification i know but I’ll try to jam in all the info i need to get my point across…

What i mean by changing behavior can be explained by a couple of examples…

You bought an iPod while you have a pc at home, you’ve never used iTunes because you either haven’t heard of it or because you can never find any songs on it, unknown artist being the most dominant artist name in your library! but you don’t care, as long as you have an iPod it doesn’t matter, you can adapt!

Another example. You’ve had a long list of discarded mobile phones, but you’ve never really felt the need to open up your e-mail on those phones, online connection wasn’t that much fun was it, but you get an opportunity to buy an iPhone and suddenly you’re the busy, life on the go, all work no play type, with multiple e-mail accounts, calendar appointments, and to-do list applications installed. You changed, maybe to the worse or maybe to the better, but you changed.
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Now let’s talk about one of the more important things Apple did. As an industrial designer I’m always asked what I do and I always answer based on who is asking and when and why he’s asking… In this case, the definition of design given by the ICSID (international Council of Societies of Industrial Design) fits perfectly.

Design is a creative activity whose aim is to establish the multi-faceted qualities of objects, processes, services and their systems in whole life cycles. Therefore, design is the central factor of innovative humanisation of technologies and the crucial factor of cultural and economic exchange.

Since 1998, Apple has been taking gigantic leaps in innovation, risking massive losses with every new product launch, never compromising, never negotiating terms, and most importantly never disappointing (yes even the apple tv)

It’s now 12 years and Apple is now selling music, movies, applications, ebooks, publishing podcasts, treating software developers very well, and their retail customers better, designing the best accessories, while opening wide opportunities to the infinite amount of third party accessory companies, and doing that at very affordable prices (respectively) and above all that, guaranteeing the best user experience across all mentioned platforms!

“Objects, processes, services and their systems in whole life cycles.”

That’s why after this much growth and change on both ends of the company and the customer, this was the perfect timing for a product like the iPad, a product that’s not necessarily revolutionary in technology or aesthetic, but definitely in it’s positioning. it’s easy to disagree with this but iPad is the product the brings the apple brand to a full circle.

There you have it… I could have ranted and went on and on how un-amazed i was. I could’ve went on about the app icon layout, the big screen smudges, no usb, no camera, no multi-tasking, no new groundbreaking efforts in changing aesthetics, and i definitely could have shortened this post to one sentence that the iPad is a giant iPhone with iWork!… But I didn’t because the iPad is good! even if it is underwhelmingly good for now.

This is what the short-sighted review woul’ve looked like:

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Finally, you have to know by now… Look where the iMac, iPod, and iPhone were back in the day and where they are are now. So far it seems, the iPad might have the biggest prospects of any Apple product ever made! That is definitely worth waiting for!

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While you’re waiting, don’t forget to check out this video, and ask yourself how on earth does Apple think they’d get away with a name like the iPad!?

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Profile: Ammar al-Beik

“Documenting Life as it is” Published on, Syria Today.
Words by Nadia Muhanna.
Visuals exhibited at Ayyam Gallery; Damascus 1-19 May 2008.

Art should do more than imitate life. It should capture
and document it, says Syrian filmmaker Ammar al-
Beik whose unconventional films and documentaries
have won international praise.

The Strong Believers (Series of 7) 2008

Maximum Alert (Series of 7) 2008

The Soldier's Wife Ride (Series of 7) 2008

Syrian filmmaker Ammar al-Beik’s early start in the industry was less than successful. As a 12-year-old, Beik
auditioned for a role in the movie Dreams of the City by noted Syrian director Mohammad Malas. He failed to make the cut. Some 19 years later, however, in an ironic twist, Malas would hire Beik as his assistant director for the film Bab al-Makam, released with the English title Passion in 2005, giving Beik his big break.
Beik has charted an unconventional approach to filmmaking and it shows in his work. The 36-year-old avoids working with large film production companies which he believes restrict creativity by imposing a rigid framework of rules and conditions. Instead, he prefers to just grab the camera and shoot, letting his spontaneity guide him. He has been particularly influenced by French director Robert Bresson’s book Notes on the Cinematographer. Beik directs and produces all of his own work and insists on employing amateur actors. “Famous actors are spoiled by the movie industry,” he said. “Cinematography requires amateur models that are pure and intact, ones that spontaneously give themselves rather than actors who perfectly perform a role.”

The Lost City 2 (Series of 3) 2008

Showing me a bulging book filled with olive tree branches and stones collected from Jerusalem, Nazareth, Acre, Gaza, Haifa and Nablus, Beik explained that he asks Palestinian directors to bring a piece of their homeland to the international film festivals he attends. His documentary film Samia tells the moving story of Samia al-Halaby, a 72-year-old Palestinian painter who returns to Ramallah after spending years in exile. Most of the film’s footage was shot by Halaby herself as she carefully selects a stone from the neighbourhood she used to live in to bring back to Beik. “The video was so spontaneous and touching that it had to be turned into a movie,” Beik said. “Samia reflects the destiny and lost dreams of many Palestinians who were forced to flee their country 60 years ago.”

Abu Ghreib (print ink ultra chrome on canvas)

Beik believes the role of art is to represent life as it is. Consequently, he uses it in his documentary style films to portray the everyday problems of ordinary people in society and politics. “If I avoid breaking taboos or crossing red lines in my work, creating art only for art’s sake, the result will be fake because it doesn’t reflect my inner self,” he said.
I Am the One Who Brings Flowers to Her Grave, produced and directed by Beik and formerly exiled Syrian director Hala Alabdallah in 2006, is his most famous film to date. The 105-minute long film, part documentary and part fable, examines the fate of three Syrian women who face social and political oppression, prison and exile to France.
Interviews with the three women alternate with various footage: the desolate island of Arwad; paintings by
Alabdallah’s husband Youssef Abdelke; and his emotional return to Syria to see his mother after 24 years of living in France. The film pays a highly emotional tribute to the rejuvenating power of poetry and beauty in general. During the movie, the viewer sees Beik cleaning the camera lens, Alabdallah directing the actors, and a little boy re-filming his scenes, without much success. These small details bring out humour in the film, without detracting from the moving story line. Shot in black and white, the film has won a number of awards, including the Documentary Prize at the 2006 Venice International Film Festival.
At present, Beik is working on a film which focuses on the bloodshed and instability in Baghdad, Jerusalem and
Beirut. “The Palestinian-Israeli crisis and the chaos in Iraq and Lebanon affect every detail of our lives in Syria,” he said. “As a Syrian, they are present in my life and therefore in my art.”
He has also been setting the wheels in motion for a movie which will feature film directors from all over the world in front of the camera, including Manoel de Oliveira, Jia Zhangke and Bernardo Bertolucci.
Despite his success, Beik maintains he never believed his childhood dreams would become a reality. “When I was a little boy peeking at the director from backstage, I couldn’t imagine I might get into the heart of film-making,” he said.

The Fountainhead

By Rusaila Bazlamit; originally published on Reflect Upon on July, 22, 2008

So finally I have read [The Fountainhead] a novel that I knew many people praising… Once I started reading it I couldn’t stop till I finished it…
The novel is written by Ayn Rand… in the novel Rand chose Architecture as a form of self-expression…

Gary Cooper as Howard Roark; Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

I can’t understand why during my 5 years studying architecture none of my professors recommended the book… It is such a good book and deals with architecture in a new critical way… allowing us to interpret the history of architecture and the modern practices of it in a new way…

Many of the main characters are involved in Architecture whether they are architects like the main character Howard Roark or they are critics of architecture like Ellsworth Toohey…

The Fountainhead; Ayn Rand

The Fountainhead; Ayn Rand

The novel talks about selfishness, egotism and altruism through another perspective which shakes some of the bases of how societies are led to approve or condemn actions that are defined as virtues or sins by other people for whatever agenda…
As you are reading there will be many sections which you forget you are reading a novel but you concentrate on the ideas presented… again gaining more insights about architecture and society.
I liked the way Rand has used architecture as a medium to convey her own philosophies…
The novel is definitely a must-read… especially for architects and architecture students…
The novel had been made into a movie in the 1940s but I’m always disappointed when a novel is turned into a movie… so I recommend the novel… having said that I found this video of Howard Roark’s speech toward the end of the movie… is worth seeing… [ full Howard Roark courtroom speech]

Howard Roark: A building has integrity, just like a man.

The Fountainhead; Ayn Rand

The novel also tackles some of the ideas related to Capitalism and though I’m myself an anti-capitalism to the core… I have to say that I had a new understanding of Capitalism that made me reflect more about some of own ideas related to man, freedom and wealth…
Also the concept of self, self-sacrifice, selfishness made me think about the concept of the self in my own Islamic beliefs which I’ll talk about some other time…

It is a mind opening when we understand the hidden driving forces that shape, create and re-create some of our basic cultural and societal patterns…

The Fountainhead one of my best novels of all times…

10,000 Bananas & Some Glue

by Yazan Baggili

First, a Banana Edition… Then, a giant Banana Wall… I wonder what will follow the Noise Edition! Just came across this art installation on [Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far] at Stefan Sagmeister‘s exhibition at Deitch Gallery in New York City.

In the Banana Wall, Sagmeister used green bananas to create the motto: ‘Self-confidence Produces Fine Results’, with ripe banana as the background. The interesting thing about this installation is that it changes over time. As the banana ripen further, the motto disappears and the background becomes brownish-yellow. The whole banana-wall gradually decays over 24 days of the exhibition.

Happy Pictures of People at Amman’s Centennial Parade

Amman Centennial Parade, the people’s celebration of the city took place Friday October 9th in downtown Amman from the Roman amphitheater to the Municipality’s City Hall in Ras Al-Ein.
A happy event, with happy people celebrating Amman in an urban festival that the city has been thirsty for.

Nothing “booombastic” about the organized event, not even fireworks! But people exchanged ‘vibes’ with their city. I tried to capture faces which TV cameras usually skip, so here’s some pictures- no rights reserved!

Jordan Property ‘meows’ out Interruptions Workshop!

Jordan Propety Aug/Sep 09 Issue29

Interruptions Catatonia featured on JP's Issue29

It was a very pleasant surprise finding Interruptions Catatonia workshop poster featured on the latest issue of Jordan Property.
We weren’t even notified by Jordan Property of this feature and it was only by coincidence that I found Cats:Workshop poster (designed by Ahmad Sabbagh) on a full page at JP‘s FYI with a beautifully written caption which reads,

[With our world busy with the complications of politics, aftermaths of wars, and financial market indices, a group of young designers and architecture graduates and students in Jordan are turning the public eye to a different corner in the dark. It's a secret design mission!
Trying to think outside the box, these young people have organized a week-long workshop with the participation of designers from multiple backgrounds, The activity is aimed at reforming an urban setting, not for people, but for cats!
The workshop symbolically calls for liberating the mentality of designers from prescriptive typologies. It also triggers professionals to explore potentials for multi-disciplinary design approaches.
Designing for parallel creatures and thinking differently, the workshop was organized and carried out by "Interruptionists" as they call themselves, referring to their interactive website.]

Interruptions is also going to collaborate with Jordan Property as a content provider for their upcoming releases as an attempt to extend reach through other platforms both printed and online based.