GUILLERMO ARANDA-MENA

City Concoct 1333 mm x 2012 mm Acrylic on canvas Private Collection Signed lower right:  ARANDA-M  Painterly city patterns in figure-ground pictorial technique. The above piece was inspired by a number of life experiences and art observations I made in recent times across the five continents. I specially wanted to depict a type of mosaic containing a diversity of cities, a type of fingerprint , barcode or chromosome  encoding inherit characteristics on human activity. Life patterns reflecting urban societies, humans subsisting closely together [citizens or urbanites] in this great invention we call 'the city'.   Patterns which are the reflection of daily life over the years, centuries or millennia, patterns crafted and synthesised in acrylic strokes over canvas (1333mm by 2012mm) bird-eye view of a City Concoct. Content: The resulting piece is a morphing metropolis combining city centers and neighborhoods such as those from Brasilia, ...

        2012 is here. I am not sure how to take it, how to begin this post.... what does it mean to be in 2012? Life continues and the globe keeps rotating I suppose. We need to keep going, to keep the momentum.... remembering the past and perhaps, we could try - for first time - to "remember the future". Few events have taken place in the last couple of months - putting on a side major political and economical turmoil I perhaps can think of the death of people that somehow had an impact on my life/career. The Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta (1931 - 2011) and Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011). Both have been long influential indirectly - perhaps more than I imagined - influential in the sense of aspiring for a life long pursuit for SMART architecture - a life long effort to perusing architecture and the use of Information Technologies and the Internet. Some stayed in the material world only - some in the virtual world only but the cu...

          Architecture with a twist is what I experienced over the last few days. Standing on the border of architecture, industrial design and computer science. Designing the Dynamic was the theme of our studio hosted by Mark and Jane Burry. Hugh Whitehead Director of Foster+Partners was invited to Australia to be  our 'Capitan'! Re-thinking the design of a sailboat was our mission - increasing speed our objective. For that we had to clearly understand the dynamics of sailing such as wind factors and all the variables around. Aspects of digital virtual simulation and analogue testing with physical models. We spent time in the lab, the pool and Phillip Bay, Melbourne for testing, validating and enjoying sailing. "...sailing is a natural-science, sailing is a social-science, sailing a  non-science but the experiential and emotional act of engaging with nature on a man-made artifice to take advantage to what is given to us - w...