James Taylor-Foster
Selected writing 2015 – 2021
  • About
  • Category
  • Title
  • Publication
  • Year
  • Writing
  • No Time to Stand and Stare
  • 2020
James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
Selected writing 2015 – 2021
  • No Time to Stand and Stare

The changes to the ground were first made visible through graphs and diagrams.
The curves spoke for more than exponential spread. They signified desertion and collapse.
On the ground, the human footprint on the planet suddenly lightened.
Beacons of the human experience revealed themselves as fragile.
A gaze betrays. The side-eye, a glance up or down, draws the line of a confession.
People paced, walked, jogged and ran,
resisting stillness, and resisting shame.
Spring, springa, ursprung.
Subsidy became a form of subsistence,
and new dependencies bloomed
in the long, distant present.
As some marched forward, not glancing back,
others found solace in close-looking and close-listening.
Whatever direction we choose to face, we tend to fix forward.
Like the predators we are, our sight observes distance to mitigate risk.
As libertarian governments curtail freedoms,
decades of relentlessly increasing pressure begins to abate
and the fog, the smog, the belts of pollutant that smother and cloud, dissolve
to allow the once unthinkable to be conceivable.
Emergency begets emergence,
kindling, triggering, inducing, inspiring,
proximity between strangers, separated nonetheless.
A poor life this if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.



Fig 1. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.

Fig 2. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.

Fig 3. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.

Fig 4. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.

Fig 5. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.

Fig 6. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.


Read at source.
First published in System (No. 15). © OK-RM, Esther Cloe Theaker, James Taylor-Foster (2020).

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James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
  • CuratorialI.
  • ProjectsII.
  • PublicationsIII.
  • SpeakingIV.
  • WritingV.
I.Curatorial
  • Studio Ossidiana: Utomhusverket 20212021
  • WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD2020
  • Architecture Projects: Skeppsbron2019
  • Cruising Pavilion2019
  • The Craft of Swedish Videogame Design2019
  • Sigurd Lewerentz: Freestanding2018
  • Space Popular: Value in the Virtual2018
  • Boxen at ArkDes2018
  • You Are Not Alone2017
  • In Therapy2016
  • Keeping Up Appearances2015
II.Projects
  • Comfort Sessions2021
  • Plug-in Poesi2020
  • Pillow Talks2020
  • 〰️ Interdependence, a portrait of Stockholm2020
  • exhibiting architecture, exhibition models2020
  • Future Architecture Rooms2020
  • SOFT GOSSIP2020
  • alvedon series2020
  • asmrology2020
  • Mukbang Veneziano2020
  • Körper2019
  • Architecture on Display2018
  • Planetary Protocols2018
  • The Stones of Venice: A Kimono2017
  • Misunderstandings (A Reliquary)2016
III.Publications
  • Living on Water2017
  • Faith2016
  • Elemental Living2016
  • Abundance2016
  • Clairvoyance2015
  • People, Place, Purpose2015
  • Defiance2015
IV.Speaking
  • Future Architecture CEx2020 Focus Talks2020
  • ASMR at ArkDes: a Virtual Vernissage2020
  • Modevisningar är den flyktigaste formen av arkitektur2018
  • Attention, Accelerated2017
  • Exhibition Models2017
  • Conversation with Kenneth Frampton2017
  • Interview: “Profil” (RTV4 Slovenia)2017
V.Writing
  • What’s Mine Is Theirs: an interview with Max Lamb2020
  • No Time to Stand and Stare2020
  • 〰️ Screen Glow Sedation2020
  • 〰️ Don’t Fear a Snowflake2020
  • Making Believe with Charlap Hyman & Herrero2019
  • Foreword: On the Manifesto2019
  • On Practical Futurology2019
  • 〰️ To Speak As If In Capital Letters2019
  • In Riga, A Conference On Architecture and Migration2019
  • Baltoscandia: A Complex Utopia2018
  • On the Cruising Pavilion2018
  • 〰️ A Weak Monument2018
  • A Diary of Virgil Abloh’s First Louis Vuitton Show2018
  • 〰️ The Boat is Leaking. The Captain Lied.2018
  • 〰️ Virgil Abloh, Editor in Brief2018
  • Sigurd Lewerentz: Villa Edstrand2018
  • 〰️ On Liquid Modernity2017
  • 〰️ #003399, #FFCC00; The Meaning of a Flag2017
  • Pillars of Society: “Jantelagen”2017
  • Exhibiting the Postmodern2017
  • Future Architecture and the Idea of Europe2017
  • Domains of Influence2017
  • Concrete Mountain2017
  • Ingress: Black Rock City2017
  • In Dialogue With Gravity2017
  • Rem, Redacted2016
  • Media States, Or The State of Media2016
  • A Piece of England to Call One’s Own2016
  • Upon This Rock (I Will Build My Church)2016
  • The Design of the Species2016
  • Venice Isn’t Sinking, It’s Flooding2016
James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
Selected writing 2015 – 2021
Writing
  • No Time to Stand and Stare 2020
  • with OK-RM, Esther Cloe Theaker for System Magazine, Issue 15
Back

The changes to the ground were first made visible through graphs and diagrams.
The curves spoke for more than exponential spread. They signified desertion and collapse.
On the ground, the human footprint on the planet suddenly lightened.
Beacons of the human experience revealed themselves as fragile.
A gaze betrays. The side-eye, a glance up or down, draws the line of a confession.
People paced, walked, jogged and ran,
resisting stillness, and resisting shame.
Spring, springa, ursprung.
Subsidy became a form of subsistence,
and new dependencies bloomed
in the long, distant present.
As some marched forward, not glancing back,
others found solace in close-looking and close-listening.
Whatever direction we choose to face, we tend to fix forward.
Like the predators we are, our sight observes distance to mitigate risk.
As libertarian governments curtail freedoms,
decades of relentlessly increasing pressure begins to abate
and the fog, the smog, the belts of pollutant that smother and cloud, dissolve
to allow the once unthinkable to be conceivable.
Emergency begets emergence,
kindling, triggering, inducing, inspiring,
proximity between strangers, separated nonetheless.
A poor life this if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.



Fig 1. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.

Fig 2. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.

Fig 3. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.

Fig 4. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.

Fig 5. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.

Fig 6. From System Magazine (15) by OK-RM. Photography by Esther Cloe Theaker.


Read at source.
First published in System (No. 15). © OK-RM, Esther Cloe Theaker, James Taylor-Foster (2020).

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