Gregor Calendar by Patrick Frey
Industrial designer Patrick Frey’s “Gregor Calendar” poignantly illustrates the unbearable lightness of being by slowly unraveling with the passage of time into a useless heap on the barren floor of infinite nothing.
Available for purchase here. | via & via
panoptICONS
To protest the irritation of constant surveillance, Thomas voor ‘t Hekke and Bas van Oerle, working under the name “Helden,” conceived of a project called “panoptICONS,” which involves placing “camera birds” — half-bird, half-surveillance camera — throughout the city of Utrecht.
“”panoptICONS addresses the fact that we are constantly being watched by surveillance cameras in city centres. The surveillance camera seems to have become a real pest that feeds on our privacy. To represent this, camera birds – city birds with cameras instead of heads – were placed throughout the city centre of Utrecht where they feed on the presence of people. In addition, a camera bird in captivity was displayed to show the feeding process and to make the everyday breach of our privacy more personal and tangible.” | via
Berlin bombed with 100,000 poems
On Tuesday, August 28, the Chilean arts collective Los Casagrande dropped 100,000 poems from the sky onto the Lustgarten in Berlin to celebrate poetry and condemn acts of war. The action was their contribution to one of Berlin’s most popular cultural events, A Long Night of Museums. | via
Arcade Fire Teams With Google Maps for Interactive Video
Go and type in your childhood address at thewildernessdowntown.com to play the new, interactive video for the song “We Used To Wait” by Arcade Fire. You’ll get the best experience with the Google Chrome browser. The video was directed by Chris Milk and built in HTML5.
Read more about the project in this Wired article.
Tuned Pale Ale
Tuned Pale Ale is a product that explores the musical affordances in everyday objects and promotes social spontaneity. While drinking beer, people become musically encouraged and often start making start making music with objects around them. This product aims to promote more of this type of social interaction. This product aims to inform users about the musical qualities of existing bottles and to make the bottle a better instrument. | Via
UK’s first 3D Arachnophobia Clinic created by Sky
Sky 3D launch UK’s first arachnophobia therapy programme with Denise Van Outen.
Sky is using the power of 3D technology to tackle one of the nation’s most common phobias – spiders! About 50% of the population admit to being scared of spiders, so to help them face this fear head on Sky has created ground breaking new footage of these creepy crawlies in 3D. more images here… | via
Racer
Racer is an analogue recreation of a coputer racing game in the style of the classic WipeOut.It consists of a modified vintage arcade machine, a RC model car with a wireless camera,an a self-constructed racetrack/game level made entirely from cardboard. | Via & Via
Seat Savers – A tale of New York marketing ingenuity
Some enterprising chaps in New York have turned a simple replica food product into a potential money spinner. The Seat Savers concept comes from a simple idea – that people won’t disturb or use a chair with a spilled beverage or foodstuff on it. The original products come from the Silly Spills range of replica foods sold at New York’s Jeremy’s Place, and are converted by the simple addition of a marketing sign saying ‘Seat Savers’ and a price tag of $2.00 each. See how easy it is? What a marvelous world. More here. | Via
Underwater jump!
The world champion freediver Guillaume Nery and his colleague Julie Gautier have realised this spectacular video of an underwater jump by using a Canon 5D Mark II! Enjoy it!
Requiem for a Thought
Text message in the thoughts of the strange character lurking along the wall. The interactive bubble reveals the characters inner thoughts, as it tracks the characters movements. A collaboration piece between Paul Notzold’s TXTual Healing and Jared Gradinger with Pictoplasma. This piece was made during Les Grandes Traversees festival in Bordeaux France in July of 2010. | via
VR/urban: “SMSlingshot”
The SMS slingshot is a device designed to create digital augmented realities in urban space.
The device is shaped as a wooden slingshot with a build-in mobile phone display, a keypad and a laser. Users can type a text message and shoot it straight at a large facade. A projector pointed at the facade will show the message as a colour splash with the message written within.
The project is designed by VR/URBAN, a group of digital intervention-activists based in Berlin. They will demonstrate the device at various media-festival in the next couple of months. Check their website for dates and technical specs! | via & via
Buttons by Sascha Pohflepp
Buttons in a project by Sascha Pohflepp playing on the notion of the camera as a networked object. Unlike a conventional analog or digital camera, this one doesn’t have any optical parts. It is a camera that will only capture a moment at the press of a button by recording only the time it was pressed. Quickly after it begins to continuously search on the net for other photos that have been taken in the very same moment and displays on the screen. Essentially, it is a camera that – using a SonyEricsson K750i hidden behind the boxing – takes other’sphotos. Photos that were created by someone who pressed a button somewhere at the same time as its own button was pressed. | Via
