I just came across this project created at the Bezalel academy for arts and crafts, for the course “Food for Thought” in the jewelry department. This coffee grinder operates according to the users heart-beat rate and is intended as a critique to consumerism (isn’t consumerism linked directly to the fetishization of objects?). In their own words: “To use this object, you must caress it and hug it, much like as a baby is held, the user inevitably bonds with it, emotionally.”
Although the object is currently a one off, it could potentially become a mass produced product. Ultimately, it is a poetic approach to an everyday object/task, and makes us [re]think about the way we relate with objects. Whether I would want to bond with my coffee grinder or not, well, that’s a different story.
Visit Nastypixel to read more about the project. Check out some of their other projects while you’re there, pretty interesting stuff.
Just recently I came across Troika’s ‘Cloud’, an installation for British Airlines’ Terminal 5 in London’s Heathrow Airport . It uses a combination of digital input and analog double-sided disks (flip dots) to animate the skin of the sculpture. Absolutely fantastic.
I made it earlier today to the MoMA preview of Design and the Elastic Mind. I couldn’t really take enough time to look around, but it is definitely an impressive selection of interesting work..
I’ll post something more complete once I make it back to the museum and actually get to spend some time in the exhibition. But for now, here are some low quality phone pics for now.
Time froze in Grand Central Station last Saturday. Over 200 Improv Everywhere’s agents froze on the run in what has to be one of the most uncanny and interesting moments in the station’s history. Absolutely fantastic.
I made it last night to Bitforms gallery in Chelsea for the opening of Björn Schülke’s show on a tip-off by our friend Gil Aikos. The exhibit, Überschall, features 5 interactive sculptures/instruments which came to life every now and then by humming, playing their string, flying in-situ or exhaling low frequency ‘moans’. The manufacturing and wiring of the pieces was absolutely impeccable and it only added to the hybrid yet absurd and abstract nature of the work.
We got back last night from the Van Alen Institute after the opening of The Living City, The Living’s installation. It was pretty interesting seeing the ‘full’ prototype of their wall system up and running. The system is controlled by sensors placed in an office off site which measures air quality and then transmits data through the web to their prototype at the Van Alen. The data is then parsed there and it affects activates their system, which adjusts the opening of its ‘gills’ in real-time to the oscillations in air quality.
The opening for our good friends David and Soo-In Yang -aka The Living – at the Van Alen Institute is tonight. Their project ‘Living City’ will be on display from December 11th to January 18th.
Living City is about the future…when building’s systems react in real-time to dynamic stimuli and the buildings communicate with each other, creating a large network of ‘living’ organisms. Living City is a full-scale prototype building skin designed to open and close its gills in response to air quality.
SOFTlab collaborated with The Living on the creation of two videos featured in the installation.
More info on the project here and at the Van Alen site here.
We’ll be there at the opening tonight so I’ll post some images later on.
Japanese experimental fashion designer Aya Tsukioka has come up with new concept in urban camouflage, as a response to Japan’s fears of crime (although actual crime figures are shrinking, according to the NYT article). By lifting a flap and revealing a vending machine, women can hide behind their skirts and blend into the urbanscape. Not quite Thermo-optic camouflage but pretty close.
“It is just easier for Japanese to hide,” Ms. Tsukioka said. “Making a scene would be too embarrassing.” She said her vending machine disguise was inspired by a trick used by the ancient ninja, who cloaked themselves in black blankets at night.
Read the article here and view the slideshow here.
We made it back yesterday from the Scripted by Purpose exhibition opening. The place was jam-packed with people, a sign that it *might* have been a successful exhibit. It was definitely an interesting sample of digital work, made even more interesting by the fact that ALMOST everyone who showed stuff actually DOES the work. It was also good to see (a sampling) of the new generation of scripting gurus together.
Something I would’ve liked to see more though, is real-world implementation of some of these systems. A lot of it was the standard year 2000 digital-exploration type of stuff that just doesn’t get resolved.. It is still very interesting, but only a few people showed how these systems can be translated to physical form, and they did quite successfully, with even more interesting results.
The Scripted by Purpose exhibition, curated by Marc Fornes and Skylar Tibbits opens tomorrow Friday the 7th in Philly. SOFTlab is featured among other studios/people whose work is very interesting. If you’re in the area, go check it out. We’ll be there for the opening.
Seriously, this proves to be THE EXHIBITION, it’s getting a lot of attention so don’t miss it.
A very interesting looking exhibition will be opening this Saturday and running through Aug. 28. Here’s the blurb:
“Art and architecture collide on Madison Avenue. Project to Surface is a collaboration between five visual artists and an architect in rendering their visual concepts into three-dimensions through the use of cutting edge architecture software, fabrication tools and techniques.”
I am pretty sure they are holding the show in the gallery space of SHoP’s new building on Madison Avenue. So a there are quite a few reasons to check this one out.
Marc Fornes (theverymany) is curating “ScriptedbyPurpose”, an exhibition at the F.U.E.L collection in Philly.
The show brings together young and emerging offices/research groups/individuals in the field.
SOFTlab will be showing some stuff among Biothing, 4-pli, Aranda/Lasch, theverymany and a bunch of other amazing people.
View the beta version of the exhibition site here.
I recently came across this interesting experiment in Typographic genetics (?). It allows you to modify very common typographies and then breed them to create new Types. There is a lab area to alter traits of each type, which you can then breed to create a new race of super-Types. Quite an interesting experiment with even more interesting results. My font’s came out pretty gnarly, which leads me to believe, I’m definitely anything but an “Intelligent Designer”.
Here is a fantastic project by Tad Hirsch, a researcher and PhD candidate in the Smart Cities Group at MIT’s Media Lab.
Tripwire is a site-specific installation responding to the unique relationship between the Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport and downtown San Jose, CA. Custom-built sensors hidden inside coconuts are hung from trees at several public locations to monitor noise produced by overflying aircraft. Detection of excessive aircraft noise triggers automated telephone calls to the airport’s complaint line on behalf of the city’s residents and wildlife. Documentation of noise incidents is archived for later analysis.
Flight 404 has posted some images of an exhibition in Seattle with Barbarians. It is actually two installations, one on “Biomimmetic Butterflies” or in their own words, procedurally generated butterflies while the other has prints of magnetic structure pieces, generated through Processing and then visualized in Maya.
This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a while. My short blurb does no justice to the complexity of the installation, so read their own stuff here.
I had come across this experiment a couple of weeks ago but forgot to post it. Today, poking around my bookmarks I found it again.
It’s done in Processing and it displays about 3000 flocking elements. More on the project here.
And by all means, check the site All Manner of Distractions out. There are some amazing experiments in there.
