Filed under: design, research, technology
April 3, 2008 • 5:01 am 0
Diesel Wall:Big ideas need big spaces
Filed under: art, culture, design, space/place
April 2, 2008 • 5:54 pm 0
SCR#002:Drop Clock
“DROPCLOCK” is an aesthetically intriguing motion clock screensaver. Every minute of real time is numerically expressed with heavy Helvetica dropping into water in super slow-motion. Be captivated as the contrasting elements of organic water and solid typography infinitely morph and mix.
[ text.img via SCR ]
Filed under: art, design, graphics, new media, technology
March 31, 2008 • 5:55 pm 0
Larry Lessig: How Creativity is being strangled by the law
Filed under: culture, design, films, opensource, people, technology
October 9, 2007 • 6:47 am 0
Awesome creatures
( text, images source: Awesome creatures )
” We love animals! Even the kind that don’t exist!
We’re on our way to creating a rich eco-system of funky, super-weird creatures. We’ve enlisted the help of talented artists and designers to create a line of sassy animal-themed t-shirts. Every few months, you’ll see a new (hopefully funny) take on animals popping up on our site.
Call it Noah’s Ark 2.0 – except we have more than two of a kind, and they’re all for sale!
Have a cool idea or need to get in contact with us? Reach us here!
Check out these places where we’ve been mentioned!
Stay Awesome! “
October 9, 2007 • 6:23 am 0
Fokus Fabrik
( text, images source: Fokus Fabrik )
” The world of Fokus Fabrik reflects freshness, purity and happiness – making you enjoy your existence. In addition to modern fabrics, the Fokus Fabrik collection includes ready-made products such as bags, clothing and bed linen. Fokus Fabrik´s fabrics can be used to create a unique living and working environment. All the products of the collection are ethically made in Finland. Designers Tiia Eronen, Eeva Heikkinen, Laura Järveläinen and Hanna Kerman started their co-operation in 2005. Their design studio is located at the old factory in Helsinki, Finland.”
October 2, 2007 • 1:17 pm 0
What’s in a word ?
( text, images source: computerlove )
Ever wondered what would happen if you substituted the word ‘design’ for another word in a well-known saying? Well, the answers are here. Designed by Lippa Pearce Design, What’s in a word? is a small typographic publication of 26 well known phrases. The opening introduction explains the exploration toward “…the power of words and the power of well-known sayings in our collective unconscious. Because the key word is ‘design’ it also shows how fundamental design is and should be in our thinking.”
Asking 26 writers from the writer’s group 26 to come up with the sayings, Domenic Lippa of Lippa Pearce designed the publication and typography with the assistance of designers, Paul Skerm and James West. Screaming it’s Pentagram influence from front to back, this is a beautiful must have for all designers, writers and design thinkers!
Originally written on Anamorphosis
May 27, 2007 • 2:05 pm 0
Wind chime alarm clock
( via neotrama )
Wake up with the pleasant tinkling sound of a wind chime. You can hear it in a video at the product site. Link -via Ursi’s Blog
Filed under: design
May 26, 2007 • 4:54 pm 1
Hack Your Brain – Make Video Podcast
( via makezine )
This weekend, learn how to hack your brain by making Mitch Altman’s Brain Machine! It flashes LEDs into your eyes and beeps sounds into your ears to make your brain waves sync up into beta, alpha, theta, and delta brainwaves!
Mitch invents cool things that make the world a better place. He’s well known for the TV-B-GONE and this brain machine is his latest project. One of the cool things about this project, is that it builds on an open source project. Mitch used Lady Ada‘s open source MiniPOV and switched out LEDs and added new capacitors and resistors and then rewrote the firmware to make it into the brain machine. It’s super cool when people make hardware open source so that others can work with it!
Make sure to take pictures of your build and of you in your brain machine and upload them to the Make: flickr pool.
Weekend Projects is sponsored by microchip.com. Check out their seminars and 16 bit contest.
Get the podcast and pdf downloaded automatically in itunes. – Link
Filed under: design, DIY, hack, space/place, technology
May 26, 2007 • 2:01 pm 0
Front Design receives 2007 Designer of the Future Award from Design Miami/Basel
( via core77 )
You’re probably most familiar with Front Design via the Sketch Furniture project, but it’s only one of many notable works by the all-female Swedish design group. Sofia Lagerkvist, Charlotte von der Lancken, Anna Lindgren and Katja Savstrom were awarded accordingly with this year’s Designer of the Future Award by Design Miami/Basel.
Each year in Basel, Design Miami/ recognizes an emerging designer who broadens our understanding of design by innovating new technologies, inventing new object-types, developing new approaches to the creative process or advancing new design philosophies…From initial concept to final product FRONT challenges traditional conventions of design with idea-driven work that powerfully reinterprets everyday objects.
__
For all those who missed the Sketch Furniture project, here’s the video :-
Filed under: art, design, physical computing, space/place, technology
May 26, 2007 • 11:47 am 0
Moving the Vatican Obelisk
( via pruned )
The epic choreography of moving the Vatican obelisk, as illustrated by Natale Bonifacio for Domenico Fontana’s 1590 manuscript Della Trasportatione dell’Obelisco Vaticano.
The obelisk was carved during the reign of Nebkaure Amenemhet II (1992-1985 BCE), and originally stood in the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis. The Roman emperor Caligula brought it to Rome in 37 AD as one of many tokens of the Roman conquest of Egypt, and was erected on the spine of his eponymous circus, later renamed for Nero.
Finally in 1585, Pope Sixtus entrusted Domenico Fontana of moving the 330-ton Aswan granite the quarter mile or so to St. Peter’s Square. The operation was carried out using hemp ropes and iron bars weighing 40,000 pounds, plus 900 men and 72 horses, and took about 5 months to complete. It was no easy move. Nevertheless, the entire event proved to be a spectacle, captivating the city’s populace.
We would be remiss if we didn’t briefly mention that the relocation of the obelisk capped the tail end of the slow but nevertheless epic reconstruction of the city of Rome by the papacy after the Western Schism.
When the popes returned from their Avignon sojourn, they found the city nearly deserted, a hulking heap of trash, the center having the look of a backwoods country. It looked beggarly; or as Petrarch described the one-time center of the world, “a matron with the dignity of age but her grey locks disheveled, her garments, and her face overspread with the pallor of misery.”
Starting with Nicholas V in the mid-15th century, the popes as master urban planners set about returning the city back to economic prosperity and to pastoral preeminence in Christendom. Old roads were opened up, and new ones built. So were new palaces, churches, and piazzas. Entire neighborhoods were razed down, others cleaned for re-habitation. Monumental schemes were planed, re-planned, and then finally executed. Broad, straight roads swept through the landscape, irrespective of the hilly terrain and existing grid, connecting all the mother churches to the city gates, with each other, and to various other holy sites.
Pilgrims soon circulated about the city in a sort of dynamic theatricality. From one church to another church, from one relic to another, praying, chanting, giving offerings and receiving absolution, traversing the urban landscape as if it were a stage, and using the vast store of saintly sculptures and monuments as props.
It was as carefully choreographed as moving the Vatican obelisk.
We would be remiss as well if we didn’t briefly note that most art historians seem to like to comment that not only did the obelisk provided the ideal visual anchor and spatial coherence to a large, open public space but, with the mounting of a cross on the summit, this once trophy of Roman imperialism became a trophy of the Catholic church. The triumph of Christianity over paganism, etc., as it were.
Of course, one can only wonder who will make this trophy of a trophy into their own trophy one thousand or so years from now.
Or in a bit of performance art inspired by Busby Berkeley, will Maurizio Cattelan steer through the Baroque avenues of Rome four parade balloons in the exact shape and dimensions as the minarets of Hagia Sophia? With a cast of thousands and the entire content of Bioparco di Roma? It’ll be a new Roman triumph, passing through the Arch of Constantinople. The minarets will get stuck and so must be deflated. Cities in Western Europe and Muslim countries will riot.
(Also read about Ramses II’s 10-hour journey through the streets of Cairo in this BBC News article. Apparently tens of thousands of people lined the streets to witness the spectacle.)
Della Trasportatione dell’Obelisco Vaticano
Filed under: architecture, art, design
May 26, 2007 • 5:32 am 0
Arm band allowing women to track their fertility in an easy and stylish way
The Ovü, developed by Kathryn Bauer, is made up of a lace arm band, with a highly sensitive thermistor attached on the inside that picks up changes in the Basal Body Temperature (BBT) of a woman.This method of tracking fertility allows a dataset to be gathered of the woman’s cycle (which can be quite allusive at times.) This dataset, collected using actual sensors, allows women the tools to have more control over their bodies. There is no need to think and worry about babies all day long. Women go about their life as the temperature is tracked and uploaded to their online database.
The Ovü frees those women trying to become pregnant from having to be so focused on their cycle. The partner is involved in some way and the accuracy of the readings improves the chance of finding the right time to have a child.statistics and more research can be found in the PDF.
How it works:
1. Wear the Ovü on your upper arm.
2. The thermometer constantly takes in temperature in the underarm & tracks changes.
3. When the change is significant enough to imply a hormonal change (typically during ovulation), the device sends a txt message to your partner’s mobile phone.
More on the trials and tribulations of the thesis process can be accessed on the artist’s blog.
Filed under: art, design, new media, physical computing, technology, thesis
May 26, 2007 • 5:00 am 0
COOL MEDIA HOT TALK SHOW
( via networked_performance )
Cool media hot talk show : D.I.Y. talk show on art & media ::
TOPIC: New Media Art Mythologies ::
SPEAKERS: Geert Lovink and Armin Medosch :: QUESTIONS: ask-it-yourself now and during the show here :: June 5, 20.30 CET :: Video stream and interface for online participation :: Location: De Balie, Amsterdam (bring your laptops and mobiles)
New Media Art Mythologies…to be questioned… :: Recent discussions about (new) media art concerned a wide range of issues: starting from the validity of the term itself and ending with questioning the very premises of the modes of distinction through which the (new) media art field constitutes itself as a form of art, cultural practice, social context, institutional domain, and discourse. The feeling of a certain Rubicon, provoking self-introspective reflections, was expressed by many.
The coming edition of Cool Media Hot Talk Show on the topic “New Media Art Mythologies” will welcome persistent critical voices of the media art scene – Geert Lovink and Armin Medosch. They will present their judgements and arguments regarding the current critical stage in the development of new media art. The debates will address socio-cultural position of new media art in a historical perspective, which both speakers are discussing extensively in their writings. Preliminary suggested focal points are:
– The marginalised position of new media art within the broader cultural context.
– New media art vis-`-vis changing trends of cultural policies.
– Discursive troubles: in search for mediatory theories and media art criticism.
– New media between aesthetics and politics.
Filed under: art, design, DIY, films, new media, social, space/place, technology
dérive 