small Bizarres No. 14 - Shadow Men with Multi-color Eyes...

A small shadow man appeared on my blank laptop screen the other day... A man with a rotating (hypnotic..?!) multi-color eye... His nerdier brother, below, showed up a bit later...

The Extraordinary Ordinary - Venice Laundry...

Some photos of laundry in Venice - evidence that even in a city almost fully defined and dependent on its cultural, touristic and historical settings there still, nevertheless, exists a fully domestic realm (a side of it that actually epitomizes - fulfills a conspicuous and fundamental role in the benign 'branding') of/in the city...

One could claim that Venice laundry embodies the ambient quality that places like the Villaggio Mall in Doha aspires to capture (but clearly will never achieve - at least in their current format)...

Misty/ Dusty Day at Education City, Doha...

A picture taken through my office window here at the top floor of VCUQ this morning... I'm not too sure if its mist or dust in the air, as the temperature and humidity would suggest the former, whilst the smell/ fragrance and color of the air (a pixellated light-gray) would indicate the latter. Perhaps there's a bit of both...

The 'ring' in the center of the picture is my camera lens being reflected in the double-glazing...

The image below was taken less than ten minutes later than the image above... Here the sun has already managed to burnish off most of the mist/ dust... These events don't take place too often in the region, which, even according to local weather reports, seems to be a nuance free and constant 'sunny & hot'. Consequently such, brief as it was, amiably atypical moments as this morning's 'ground-cloud' are always highly appreciated...

The Extraordinary Ordinary - Venice Moss...

A few images of moss - on statues, walls, trees, sculptures, rocks - taken during a recent visit to Venice...

The Extraordinary Ordinary - Korean TV...

Korean TV - its soaps, news broadcasts, advertisements - so different, yet so the same...

VCUQ - Opening of New Wing...

View of the ad-hoc 'logo' from the studio entrance...

Today VCUQ has the inaugural opening event for the school's new wing. The shots above and below are a few, somewhat off the cuff, photos taken from various locales up here on the top MFA floor.

In the upcoming weeks more blog entires will follow from my recent trips to Bahrain, Venice and London...

Constantin Boym, the Department head of the MFA Program, making some last minute adjustments to MFA Student Robert Canak's Anamorphic installation...

The 'stretched' anamorphic blocks that form the colored areas/ highlights of the text...

A, somewhat aligned, view of the words highlighted by the anamorphic blocks of color in the background space...

A MFA student's studio space that's gradually beginning to look a bit like a design studio space should...

Some students looking down, into the atrium, from the MFA floor...

View from the student lounge on the MFA floor...

Small Bizarres No. 13 - Sports for Plants in Seoul, Korea...

Came across the curious scene above during a recent trip to a stadium in Seoul, Korea. Perhaps the plants were there to watch grass 'speed-grow' across/ along the running track (see image below)...

Shirin Neshat at VCUQ...

Portrait of Shirin Neshat (for source of image click here)

We had the rare privilege yesterday of having Shirin Nashat, the Iranian/ American artist, photographer and film-maker, and her partner Shoja Azari, as our (the MFA students & faculty) guests here at VCUQ... During our roughly hour long, quite intimate, debating session many very relevant political, social, cultural, gender role based topics were covered. This was followed by a public presentation, which was a joint effort organized both by VCUQ and the Doha Film Institute/ Doha Tribeca Film Festival. Her work, which explores some of the topics mentioned above, has a fragile and delicate quality to it. Her movie 'Women Without Men' has already won a trophy-chest full of awards and will be screened today here in Education City at Northwestern University Qatar between 2.00 pm - 5.30 pm... For a link to the film's web site click here...

For samples of her photographic work click here...

Included below is her video piece 'Turbulent'...

Small Bizarres No. 12 - Sign in Seoul Metro...

WEEEEeeeeeeeeeeehHheeeeeeeeee...!!!

The Other Salhiya, Kuwait...

A post on the back streets of the up-market Salhiya has been posted on this blog's sister-site, smarchitecture. The blog-entry can be accessed by clicking here...

The Extraordinary Ordinary - Blinds at the VCUQ ID Department...

A few photos taken of various blinded windows in the extended studios of the Interior Design Department here at VCUQ during different times of the day.

The Extraordinary Ordinary - Baseball Batting Range in Seoul, Korea...

A short video from, this time (see earlier related post by clicking here), below a baseball batting range in Seoul, Korea...

Small Bizarres No. 11 - The Chinese Dollar...

Ain't that da truth...

(Image taken off one of my daughters' card-packs)...

Small Bizarres No. 10 - Wrapped Wrapping...

Came across this strange, call it 'meta-wrapped' artifact at a Starbucks in Seoul...

The Extraordinary Ordinary - Golf Hitting Range in Seoul, Korea...

I've just returned from Korea a few day back, where I and a group of students and faculty from VCUQ visited this year's World Design Capital Seoul (next one will be my home-town-capital Helsinki, Finland in 2012). The included video was filmed from below a 'golf ball hitting range' (as I'm not a golfer - well, occasionally I play mini-golf - I'm not aware of the correct title for the locale in question) in Seoul. A car-park occupied the space below the range...

A number of future Extraordinary Ordinary as well as Small Bizarre submissions are going to be made on notions experienced whilst in Korea which, at least for me, were all quite curious events...