Sunday, May 30, 2010

Murakami Chair by Rochus Jacob

Designer's own words:
I was looking for opportunities to generate energy through activities we naturally do. The final result is a rocking chair that enables the user to experience production and consumption of electricity in a gentle and rewarding way. An abstract process becomes tangible and eventually cultivates natural awareness. Complexity is covered by simplicity. Advanced nano-dynamo technology which is built in to the skids of the chair and more efficient light sources such as the newly developed OLED generation makes it possible to build a rocking chair with a reading lamp running on electricity generated from the rocking motion. During daylight the energy gets stored in a battery pack. The construction of the flat and bendable organic light emitting diodes allows new form factors such as using the traditional shape of a lamp but instead of having a light bulb the lampshade himself turns out to be the light source. To have a drastic reduction of consumption the big challenge will be to make consuming less feel like getting more.
http://www.designboom.com/contest/view.php?contest_pk=28&item_pk=33866&p=1

Balloons from The Big Picture at Boston.com

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Thousands of biodegradable balloons released by Sao Paulo's Commercial Association fly over Sao Paulo, Brazil, on December 30, 2009. (NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images)
Click to Enlarge
The Buzz Lightyear balloon prepares to make the turn at the corner of 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009, in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
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Balloons with messages attached released by Palestinian children are seen in the sky during an event organized by UNICEF to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Friday, Nov. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

Other great shots from this series here:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/lighter_than_air.html

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) Mountain Dwellings



The 'Mountain Dwellings' are located just outside of Copenhagen. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), they are calling this bright green and liveable design 'architectural alchemy'.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me

Richard Wilson

20:50, 1987

In 20:50, one person at a time is invited to walk along the walkway out into the room. Because of the proportions and symmetry of the space, it is at first unclear that there is anything unusual about the room at all. You then realise that the ceiling and the floor are exact mirror images, that the walls are vertically symmetrical, and that the clouds outside the windows are drifting past in doubles. There is a moment when you realise that you are standing waist-deep in a room that is full of thick, perfect, reflective liquid. Suddenly, the room has a vertiginous quality, dizzying and strange. The room is filled half-way with used sump oil. The reflective surface spreads right up to the edges of the walkway, where the still oil brims on the lip of a space that before looked like a drop to the floor.
Wilson does incredible things with space and the perception of space, and instigates a playful and resonant meshing of architecture and art.

Creative Suite Cushions

Amazingly nerdy and colourful Geek Chic cushions. Available here.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Sigh Collector


How to make the Sigh Collector on Instructables:

Slimblimb



On his pretty great website, Chris Kerr says that his work explores the connection between illiteracy and text based art. Legend.

Vachel Lindsay's Gospel of Beauty


THE NEW LOCALISM

The things most worth while are one's own hearth and neighborhood. We should make our own home and neighborhood the most democratic, the most beautiful and the holiest in the world. The children now growing up should become devout gardeners or architects or park architects or teachers of dancing in the Greek spirit or musicians or novelists or poets or story-tellers or craftsmen or wood-carvers or dramatists or actors or singers. They should find their talent and nurse it industriously... They should, if led by the spirit, wander over the whole nation in search of the secret of democratic beauty... Then they should come back to their own hearth and neighborhood and gather a little circle of their own sort of workers about them and strive to make the neighborhood and home more beautiful and democratic and holy with their special art. . . . They should labor in their little circle expecting neither reward nor honors. . . . In their darkest hours they should be made strong by the vision of a completely beautiful neighborhood and the passion for a completely democratic art.

During his lifetime, Vachel Lindsay embarked on several walking tours of America in which he exchanged poetry for food and accommodation, distributing his pamphlets to the rich and poor. He was a renowned entertainer, eccentric and one of America's most famous poets. Written in 1912, Lindsay's Gospel of Beauty is a dream for a new localism that is increasingly relevant and exciting in a world where localism can transcend physical neighborhoods.

The Bearded Cap by Vik Prjónsdóttir


Saturday, May 8, 2010

Jason Polan



Heaps of great project-based art.

Wu Tang Pizza

Killer Bees Make A Swarm.

Cornelia Parker


Cold Dark Matter (1991)
I first saw Cornelia Parker's work at the Tate years and years ago.
Cold Dark Matter is stunning.

Maybe (1995)
Tilda Swinton having a nap in a glass box at The Serpentine.


Friday, May 7, 2010

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Theo Jansen creates new creatures | Video on TED.com

More great machines.

PS22 Chorus "LISZTOMANIA" Phoenix

Autistic License 2: Fake Eyebrows for Birds


Found this invention at the questionable http://cuteoverload.com/

Game Over Project - Guillaume Reymond - NOTsoNOISY creative agency


Tetris


Pole Position

The Way Things Go

Ok Go - This Too Shall Pass


Der Lauf der Dinge ( Fischli und Weiss) 1987



Domino World Record



Animal Cruelty / Poodle Art / Crudel Art / Autistic License



Someone has taken the phrase 'artistic license' way too far into the Animal Kingdom / Middle America.
Must have taken ages, though.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Great Bookcase Designs




I met the Walrus

David Lynch presents Interview Project

http://interviewproject.davidlynch.com/

A really great documentary project that Lynch has thrown himself behind. Interview Project involved a road-trip through the U.S with a small team of filmmakers interviewing normal people about their lives. A new short interview gets posted every three days on the site.

John John Sesame Street

New Michel Gondry clip: Mia Doi Todd "Open Your Heart"



And an oldie but a goodie: