Archive for April 2008

This new art exhibition at Ad Hoc Art Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn, takes a look at the ‘temptation of possibility’ - resulting in a pastiche of images and experiences from people standing on the brink of change, hope, or peril. The month-long exposition will feature the works of Josh MacPhee, Billy Mode, Chris Stain and The Polaroid Kidd, as well as various found material and industrial detritus. Inside visitors can also experience a lifesize railroad shanty town (or at least the recreation of one), with photographs from the prolific Polaroid Kidd filling the walls, offering a candid glimpse at boxcar culture. The exposition will run from May 2 - June 1.

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We’re noticing more examples of design making a difference in educational facilities. Here are three recent projects that have used interesting architecture and design to inspire and facilitate learning.

Copenhagen, Denmark has seen remarkable growth in teens living in the city and the current number of educational facilities couldn’t keep up. The Municipality of Copenhagen needed a new college and looked to 3XN Architects to design the new building. The architects created a dynamic interior plan based on four boomerang shaped balconies Each balcony contains a study zone that can be adjusted to create different spaces, and learning environments that can fit different group sizes. The ground floor contains several elevated lounge areas complete with giant beanbag chairs that create a comfortable place to study….or maybe nap.

The University of the Americas in the city of Concepcion, Chile employs a colorful and translucent exterior facade to define the building. Inside, D+ Arquitectos Asociados created a series of vertical shafts to bring natural light into the building while the exterior screens filter the suns heat. Planners knew the area where the school is located would shift from being a fairly quiet area to becoming a centralized area for new development. The school would be a foundational community asset.

No doubt few went to a high school with a cafeteria as cool as this. HHF architects completed a temporary integration of a cafeteria into a existing open lobby of a high school building in Basel, Switzerland. The architects devised a system of wood ribbons that were installed within the space and could be removed without damage. The ribbons extend outside to form a canopy for dining al fresco. The school is located in a land-marked building designed by Swiss architect Hans Bernoulli.

Yanko Design (Ørestad College, The University of the Americas)

World Architecture News (Cafeteria Kirschgarten)

Festo, a leading industrial automation developer, has produced a beautifully designed electric drive jelly fish – only it floats in the air. The fully-automated ship is electrically powered by battery and is controlled by an intelligent, fully adaptable mechanical system.

We’re positive that this will benefit mankind in some extraordinary way, but for the moment it’s just very pretty to watch.

[via Engadget]

Twistori is a new social/art experiment by Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs that distills the thoughts, feelings, and hopes expressed in twitters around the world, running them in an ongoing ticker on Twistori.com. The site, following closely in the footsteps of Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar’s “We Feel Fine” project, picks out six keywords - love, hate, think, believe, feel, wish - from all the free-floating twitters buzzing about the web and runs them in a constant stream of anonymous tweets, divided by keyword. Drawing data from the Twitter search engine Summize, Twistori is a pretty captivating diversion; a quick scan of the “believe” section revealed one person’s excitement over a new episode of Law & Order (”I believe I’m watching the best ep of Law and Order SVU EVER!!!!”), another’s relief after semester finals (”I believe I pulled off a B in Corporate Finance.”), and yet another’s simple proclamation of hope (”I believe!!!!!”).

Twistori

Some of you readers are probably aware of Russell Davies’ Interesting conference - a bunch of folks turning up to talk and listen to other folks about what they find interesting. A day off to recharge the batteries and get the brain thinking a little more passionately. It seems to be a rather attractive proposition - this year’s Interesting London sold out in 3 hours! The event is also being held in Sydney and Amsterdam.

A long time collaborator of Russell Davies is planning to hold an Interesting New York. David Nottol is looking for volunteers and speakers to help. Details here.

[We'll update this page as we get more details]

UPDATE: Dave says:

Thanks for the huge outpouring of support.  We have more than enough
volunteers for the planning committee.  I'll send all of you an email about
a time and place to meet up next week to choose a conference date, venue and
who we know that can help us with specific things like website design and
hosting, stage lighting and sound, etc.  Thanks again everybody.

Tom Weber of the Buzzwatch blog over at the Wall Street Journal was one of those folks who went out and bought the GTA IV game yesterday. He’s written some of his key learnings from an afternoon of stealing cars and creating mayhem on the streets of Liberty City - we think the ‘complex games fuel the need for simple games’ is a cracker:

1. GAMES KEEP GETTING MORE LIKE THE MOVIES - GTA IV’s central character, an immigrant named Niko, isn’t in a life of crime for the fun of it. He has complex motivations, and even remorse.

2. VIRTUAL REALITIES ARE REACHING A NEW LEVEL OF IMMERSION. - a 52-inch flat screen TV and cutting-edge game adds up to a virtual world that’s captivating enough to block out real life for a while.

3. MUSIC STILL MATTERS - What’s a movie without a soundtrack? Just as with the earlier Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, music sets the mood with radio stations.

4. COMPLEX GAMES REINFORCE THE NEED FOR SIMPLE ONES - Games like this, which peg the far end of the spectrum for complexity and layered stories, only serve to emphasize why easy-to-play “casual” games have caught on.

5. THE CELLPHONE’S VICTORY OVER OUR CULTURE IS COMPLETE - In GTA IV, the cellphone is practically a character on its own.

Buzzwatch : Grand Theft Auto IV: What We Learned Playing the Hottest New Game

Maybe we all got a little too excited by the success of it all… when Radiohead launched their album In Rainbows with a pay-what-you-want online promotion and album length video on Current TV, they were heralded as music-industry saviors - guys who got the web and the changing attitude towards content. An interview with Thom Yorke in the Hollywood Reporter may suggest that the band may not be the crusaders we were all hoping for as they won’t repeat the pay-what-you-want promotion again. The THR says:

“I think it was a one-off response to a particular situation,” Yorke said of the band’s downloading policy for the album “In Rainbows.”

“It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do,” he said. “I don’t think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time.”

Radiohead’s decision to allow fans to pay into the online equivalent of an honesty box for the album came shortly after the band walked away from troubled record label EMI, sparking a slew of comment about the future direction of the music industry and the dwindling revenue pot from CD sales.

Thom Yorke: Radiohead’s stunt was ‘one-off’

For Brooklynite Scott Ballum that’s a question he’s decided to take a hard look at and to share his findings online. The Consume®econnection Project is Scott’s year-long effort to make some personal connection with someone along the production chain of everything he consumes.

The plan at the outset is to spend the next year, my 30th as it happens, hyper conscious of every consumer purchase I make. For every transaction, there must be a personal connection with someone along the production chain. Whether its the designer, factory worker, chef, farmer, or maybe even trucker, being aware of the lives touched by every product I buy will certainly enlighten me, probably surprise me, possibly shame me, and absolutely provide me with some good stories.

Scott admitted to dedicating more effort to discovering goods created somewhere near Brooklyn. But two months into the project and he’s already drove twenty-nine hours to Loretto, Kentucky to visit the Maker’s Mark Distillery. Ducking away from a tour, Scott met Jude who works as a barrel-roller.

Given that all of the Maker’s Mark Bourbon in the world is distilled in Loretto, and that Jude is one of only eighteen people who move these barrels, there’s a high likelihood that much of the Maker’s I’ve consumed in bars or at home, and will continue to consume, was aged in barrels he’s rolled.

He hopes to make more distant connections as the project progresses. He hasn’t ruled out buying something made in China at some point.

Good Magazine: Consume®econnection Project

This past October, we linked to a story concerning the growing island of trash in the Pacific Ocean. It seemed hard to believe that there was  floating pile of garbage twice as large as the State of Texas, but now we can’t refute the fact – especially now that Spike Jonze’s online-broadcast network has picked up a documentary series reporting just that.

In order to sate our own curiosity, VBS joined the crew of a research vessel studying the trash and sailed out into one of the most remote spots of open water in the world, the North Pacific Gyre, in search of this mythical garbage island. What we discovered once we got there was an ecological disaster beyond any of our expectations and possibly the single worst thing human beings have done to the planet and ourselves. Hope you’re into cancer and sex-reversal!

For more info, check out the Vice Magazine article by show creator, Thomas Martin.

Garbage Island on VBS.tv