Latest news with #Flos
The Star
20-05-2025
- The Star
Searching for threats to undersea cables off the Dutch coast
The laying and operation of underwater cables was long the preserve of large telecoms operators but the Internet giants have largely taken over in recent years, as they strive to keep up with ballooning flows of data. — Image by freepik SCHEVENINGEN, Netherlands: Gliding through the glistening waters of Scheveningen Harbour near The Hague, a sleek green tube only a few metres (yards) long scans the seabed searching for threats to underwater cables. The vessel is part of an exercise bringing together six countries and more than 20 companies and researchers hoping to stay ahead of the enemy as the danger to Europe's critical underwater infrastructure rises. From gliders flying low over the sea surface to detect anomalies to a "crawler" deployed on the seabed to remove mines, the vessels are tackling a variety of challenges in a testing seabed measuring 10 square nautical miles. The possible sabotage of undersea cables has hit the headlines in recent years due to a series of incidents, with the finger often pointed at Russia and China. The most recent of these came in December, when the EstLink 2 electricity cable and four telecoms cables that lie on the seafloor linking Finland and Estonia went offline after suspected sabotage. Suspicion fell on the Eagle S, an oil tanker flying the Cook Islands flag but thought to be part of Russia's so-called "shadow fleet" – ships that carry Russian crude oil and petroleum products embargoed due to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. "It's not a question any more of if it will happen. The question is when the conflict will start," said Rear Admiral Paul Flos from the Dutch navy. "We have to be ready for it. And that's what we're doing here today," added Flos in an interview with AFP. He said attacks by Russia and China on Europe's undersea infrastructure were "absolutely increasing" and the lessons learned at the testing centre were helping to counter the threat. The systems were being challenged to detect another vessel snooping around a pipeline, spot a tiny mine laid beside a cable or notice something on the seabed that should not be there. The advantage of the test centre in Scheveningen is that visibility is very poor and the seabed is extremely sandy, meaning the conditions are harsher than in the North Sea. "If it works here, it works everywhere," said Flos, 58. "At the moment, we're blind. And with what we're doing today... we are trying to find out what kind of equipment can best support us and to make sure that we're not blind any more," said Flos. 'The effect is huge' Another high-profile incident came in September 2022 when the Nord Stream natural gas links, which run along the Baltic seabed between Russia and Germany, were partially severed. A field of bubbles formed on the surface above the pipelines as gas flowed out. Seismic records later indicated there had been a series of underwater explosions just before the leak was discovered. European officials declared it an act of sabotage and blamed Russia but more recent media reports have linked the incident to Ukraine – an accusation Kyiv has strenuously denied. In response to the growing threat, NATO hastily pulled together the Baltic Sentry patrol mission early this year. The laying and operation of underwater cables was long the preserve of large telecoms operators but the Internet giants have largely taken over in recent years, as they strive to keep up with ballooning flows of data. About 1.4 million kilometres (nearly 900,000 miles) of fibre-optic cables are laid on the ocean floor, enabling the provision of essential services such as trade, financial transactions and public services around the world. The impact of a major attack on Europe's critical infrastructure could be devastating, said Carine van Bentum, head of the SeaSEC (Seabed security experimentation centre) testing hub. A country could be brought to a "complete standstill", the 48-year-old told AFP in an interview. "If we do not have power, we as a society are not resilient anymore. We have no idea what to do. If we do not have Internet, we cannot pay. So the effect is huge." – AFP
New York Times
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
In Milan, an Artist's Surreal ‘Playhouse' Filled With Weeping Statues
When the Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli was in his early 20s, he lived in the back room of an office in an 18th-century building in the middle of Milan. It belonged to the lighting brand Flos, and Piero Gandini, then the company's owner, 'was a patron of mine in the 15th-century sense, in that he was literally paying for my bed,' the artist says. Nearly 20 years later, when he came across an apartment for rent in the same building, he immediately took it. 'It was the greatest gift. I already knew how the space worked,' says Vezzoli, now 53. 'The fewer things you have to worry about, the more you can dedicate to your [art].' He now also uses a unit on the floor below as his studio and gallery. 'If the same slice became free on another floor,' he says. 'I'd get it just for the sake of it.' Vezzoli's apartment and studio are his 'playhouse,' as he puts it — populated by his own cast of artistic muses and celebrity idols. His 1,600-square-foot home has glossy, amber-toned parquet floors and is dimly lit. And the few lamps there look like biomorphic sculptures; among them is FontanaArte's egg-shaped Uovo model from 1972, which sits atop a 1939 Meret Oppenheim table with spindly, bird-shaped legs. In the living room, cream-colored venetian blinds block the persistent glow from nearby billboards. 'I know what a great view is, and I know I can't afford it,' Vezzoli says, 'but I can build my own little universe inside my place.' Since the late 1990s, Vezzoli has been known for making films, embroideries and performance works that deftly satirize pop culture and art history. In his 2009 faux advertisement 'Greed, a New Fragrance by Francesco Vezzoli,' he cast the actresses Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams as two ingénues who brawl over a perfume bottle. For his 2024 exhibition at Venice's Museo Correr, he reimagined Classical paintings with embroidered details and renderings of Hollywood actors: His version of Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus,' for example, stars a strutting Richard Gere. In Vezzoli's home, a surprising range of cultural references and figures similarly collide. He calls his living room the 'Ladies' Room' because the walls are adorned with several archival images of formidable women, including Barbara Bush, Betty Ford and his own mother, all embellished with Vezzoli's signature needlework tears. His life-size bronze statue of Sofia Loren, cast in 2011 and modeled after the Metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico's robed muses, presides over the center of the room. In the adjoining dining area, surrounding a round, black lacquered table and dramatically high-backed wooden chairs by the Scottish Art Nouveau architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh are collages from Vezzoli's 'Olga Forever' series, featuring Pablo Picasso's first wife, the Russian ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova, weeping tears that morph into Cubist figures. 'I would hate for people to say this is an expensive apartment,' he says. 'I would love for people to say it's special because Francesco has created his own weird narrative.' In addition to Vezzoli's own art, both his apartment and studio are full of vintage Memphis Group pieces; he's been infatuated with the design collective's furniture and iconography since his early teens. 'I was very precocious,' he says. 'I was a Fiorucci kid, a Studio 54 kid, a Memphis kid: all of these things I [was too young to experience] but was desperate to grasp.' At 14, he competed on an Italian quiz show — he ended up winning the episode — and wore a Memphis tie for the occasion. After graduating from university in the mid-90s, he moved to Milan, where he was introduced to Memphis's founder, Ettore Sottsass, at a dinner party. The designer soon became a mentor, and Vezzoli recently curated an exhibition on Sottsass and one of his most prolific collectors, the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, at the Almine Rech gallery in Monte Carlo. Among Vezzoli's Memphis acquisitions are ceramic Yantra vases by Sottsass, inspired by Hindu diagrams; a blocky wood-and-laminate Palm Spring table; and a V-shaped club chair. There's also a 1970 Studio 65 sofa modeled after the actress Mae West's lips and a 1990 Masanori Umeda armchair that looks like a blooming flower. Vezzoli's most surprising finds, however, are his most understated. Over the past five years, he's accumulated roughly 200 vases by the Italian designer and sculptor Giovanni Gariboldi, who began working for the porcelain company Richard Ginori in the 1930s under the mentorship of the brand's artistic director at the time, the renowned architect Gio Ponti. In Italy, until the second half of the 20th century, 'the bourgeoisie would give these kinds of vases as wedding gifts,' he says. 'I like the fact that few people know Gariboldi's work, because I'm likely the biggest collector.' Vezzoli has color-blocked the vases on shelves throughout his space: shades of teal in the living room; red in the studio's hallway; and white in the bedroom. He's as much a collector as he is a director, each carefully sourced piece furthering the plot of his own surreal story.
