The Happiness Machine / Mark Lascelles Thornton

非常感谢Mark Lascelles Thornton将以下内容授权gooood发行。更多请至：Mark Lascelles Thornton on gooood 
Appreciation towards Mark Lascelles Thornton for providing the following description:

2012年，gooood曾经报道了康沃尔的艺术家Mark Lascelles Thornton的未完成作品“The Happiness Machine”的过程。”The Happiness Machine”是一幅长2.4米，高1.5米的巨幅手工画。画中集合了世界上闻名的摩天大楼，每一笔每一划都被一丝不苟巨细无遗的描绘，包括云彩。这位孤身创作作品的作家在线上得到了诸多的乐趣和释放。当时十分期待作品的完成。而就在上周，gooood收到Mark Lascelles Thornton的邮件，他告诉我们，这幅总共耗时3年以上的作品终于完成了！

了不起，请欣赏！

In 2012, gooood reported the creation process of “The Happiness Machine” of British artist Mark Lascelles Thornton. The painting was not finished then. Many famous skyscrapers all over the globe are gathered together in this masterpiece which is 2.4m in length and 1.5m in width. Every detail including the clouds is meticulously and perfectly expressed stroke by stroke. This great artist who creates independently harvests great fun from art creation. I has been expecting the finished works since then. Last week, gooood received a email from him, informing that the great painting spanning three years was finally completed!

It’s marvelous! May you enjoy!

城市越来越趋于图像化。标志性建筑往往会产生弱化社会意识和政治意识的麻醉效果。建筑设计正朝着以诱人外观博人眼球的肤浅方向发展；而居住的城市空间则变为以标志建筑为特征的空间体系。

“快乐机器”绘画作品提醒我们”空间”是丰富建筑骨架的肉身之躯。该系列作品向我们传达了”改变生活就是改变空间；而改变空间就是改变生活”的理念。

Cities have become increasingly obsessed with images and image-making. Iconic buildings often have a narcotic effect that diminishes social and political awareness. Architectural design is threatened to be reduced to the superficial play of seductive forms; while the urban space of lived experience has been downgraded to a codified system of signification.

The “Happiness Machine” reminds us that “space” is the flesh that flatters the bones of architecture. It brings back to light the fact that “to change life is to change space; to change space is to change life”.

英国艺术家Mark Lascelles Thornton描绘了一系列的城市建筑景观。他选取了伦敦、芝加哥、纽约、上海和台北等大都市为素材。这些城市的组成元素里不仅有钢筋混凝土，还有更为重要的思想。他将城市环境刻画为思想的体验。

British artist Mark Lascelles Thornton reclaims the cityscapes as a decisive “lived moment”. He approaches places of megalopolis (such as London,Chicago, New York, Shanghai, and Taipei) that are constructed not only of steel and concrete but of ideas. He engraves the urban environment as a thought experience.

“快乐机器”的故事始于遍布足迹的地面层，人们往往不会愿意将步行当做一种走马观花的行为，步行让我们深入城市，深入人群，深入生活。仅凭一个词远远无法打造一个居住空间或一个让公众信服的城市。它需要更进一步的阐述。而这种阐述便取决于塑造城市环境的能力。在多维的城市环境中，我们相互接触，我们传播思想。

The “Happiness Machine” story begins on ground level, with footsteps, with an artist, a citizen who resists to adopt the operation of walking as an activity similar to window shopping. After all a place cannot be made habitable or believable only by clothing it with a “word”. It needs narration. A narration that rests upon the ability to form an urban environment where we encounter with people and we project ideas.

该系列作品集合世界上最为标志性的建筑形成了一个虚构的大都市，将人们对建筑物的疑问从“是什么”转化为“怎么样”，从被动的视觉感受转变为主观的思考创造。作品强调了已被遗忘的城市价值：应将建筑重新定位为一种社会艺术来展示社会创造力；建筑应该是展现社会生活和日常生活的媒介。该系列作品告诉我们城市不仅仅只是物质消费品，更是一件艺术品。城市呼吸着大众的记忆，城市空间从对社会的反射转变为社会本身。

城市。了解一个城市是否需要用户手册？我们是否循序渐进地去了解一个城市？活跃的城市环境是否意味着思想的城市化？

空间。我们可以称之为城市空间、社会空间、实体空间……空间被占用、被商业化、被买卖、被使用和滥用、被创造、被毁坏。但是在“快乐机器”中，黑红相间的墨迹下隐藏着来自社会大众的细微询问声—他们的城市正在日渐衰落还是充当着文化交流的媒介。

The “Happiness Machine” by collecting the world’s most iconic architectural superstructures forming an imaginary metropolis, moves the question regarding architectural production from “what” to “how”, from objectification to connotative creation. The project highlights a forgotten urban value; that the social innovation for our cities should be visible through the re-establishment of Architecture as a social art; as a means of making society and everyday life visible.

By viewing this picture we recall that the city is an oeuvre, closer to a work of art than to a material product of consumption. Our cities breathe through the wave of citizen’s memories that flows in, and thus the spaces are being transformed from acting as a reflection of society, to be the society.

Cities. Do we need a user’s manual? Do we comprehend space as process and in process? Have we reached the point to where the “lived” urban environment means the urbanization of the mind?

Space. Urban space. Social space. Physical space… you name it• has been colonised, commodified, bought and sold, used and abused, produced and torn down. But underneath the black and red ink layers of the “Happiness Machine” project, lies the murmuring voice of society asking whether their city still exists as a vanishing act or a cultural dialogue.

Authorised article written by Maria Sfyraki (Architect/Urban Planner/Environmental Designer)

 

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