May 2008
63 posts
Music For Mixed Feelings... →
Sound Effects From Blade Runner (Plus the whole... →
Healthcare Interior Design
Virginia Postrel, author and writer of the Dynamist Blog, points to a fascinating (and fascinatingly random - it’s from Healthcare Design Magazine) interview with Tama Duffy Day, the National Interior Design Practice Leader of Perkins+Will. In it, she offers an overview of the current state of environmental design within the medical field. She touches on a number of very interesting topics,...
Mother Russia I made this. It’s a cover of...
Media Archaeology →
An obsessive catalog of pre-cinema media technology. Not the best website layout ever, but densely detailed and fascinating.
Artist Admits He Didn't Actually Use GPS, DHL to... →
Fool me once…
Archinect Reviews: Design and the Elastic Mind →
Now that it’s all done and packed up, Archinet bookends the MoMa’s Design and the Elastic Mind with smart reactions from a variety of designers, architechts and thinkers. Worth a read for perspective beyond the starry-eyed. Via Loud Paper
The World's Largest Self-Portrait →
Courtesy of Marcel Molina via the inimitable Henry Seltzer
Talking Points: Dead Media Platforms
As the pace of progress quickens, so do the deaths of our media platforms. Compact Disks, answering machines, casette tapes, silver-gelatin film; all these things are grist for future archeologists. They will be pored over like insects encased in amber, each containing a tiny fragment of data, a low-resolution glimpse of the past.
Romanian Manga →
In case you were wondering: the kids in Bucharest like Anime
Buy-by Brian →
Taking the neurotic tendency towards conspicuous consumption to its hilariously logical conclusion, Brian Jones has been documenting all of his acquisions online, along with a brief product history, want vs. need, and his feelings about the purchase in retrospect. It’s a strangely bucolic look at a set of feelings we all share. via Murketing, which has a good interview with Brian
Andrew De Francesco @ SandboxStudio
In case you are looking for something artsy to do tonight, full of attractive people and free alcohol (I assume), you would do well to check out Andrew De Francesco’s photos at SandboxStudio. The studio is having a show and silent auction benefiting the International Center of Photography. Andrew shoots badass fashion photography, and if you go see his stuff this evening, you’ll be...
J. Dilla - Trucks J. Dilla, who has done beats...
Ed Park: Personal Days - Reading Tonight →
Ed Park wrote a book about the surrealities of office life. The prevailing consensus is that it’s really good. Go hear him read from it and get yourself a copy before everyone else on the subway does. McNally Robinson 52 Prince St. 7:00PM Evidently it’s an Author/Editor conversation along with Julia Cheffitz—Random House editor extraordinaire and on-again-off-again friend of my...
The Future, The Shill that Keeps On Giving
I came across this book, Future Files via Gawker (of all places) this morning, including this timeline of ‘future extinctions.’ While the timeline heavily caveats “not to be taken too seriously,” I can’t help but wince at the inevitable waves this will make in some corners of the marketing world. Here’s the thing: as a species, humans have failed consistently...
My Stupid Neighborhood →
Bedford Clowns Confront Earwax Employees via Gothamist
Talking Points: The Next Technology Innovation
We’ve now reached the point where the thing limiting our technological progress is us. No matter how fast processors get, we’re still constrained by our eyes and our fingers. As Nintendo has already demonstrated, the next set of technological innovations will not be in speed or power, but in how we interface with the technology that permeates our lives.
Kaori Sumi makes me want to be more creative
I recently had the opportunity to have a drink with Kaori Sumi, the talent behind art/fashion hybrid In Kaos. Kaori, a designer by trade, has been busy of late with her spring/summer 2008 collection, fashioning antique Japanese kimonos into all sorts of functional objets d’art. We met at Tokyo Bar where she has recently installed a series of kimono-based handbags, hats, and resin-cast antlers in...
In The Future:
We will all have to do our own PR.
Cut & Paste Brought To You by Lots of Sponsors
Wednesday evening I stood in line to get into the Cut & Paste party at the Stoli Hotel (technically in a parking garage). Primarily sponsored by Stoli, Wired, and Flavorpill, the event featured two designers going head-to-head to create on-the-spot photoshop/illustrator art, projected on giant screens. Part of a larger traveling series, Cut & Paste had also just come fresh from Miami,...
brand tags →
The ubiquitous Noah Brier recently launched brand tags, a sort of free-association exercise for brands. The site invites you to submit the first word or phrase that comes to mind when you see a logo. It’s a simple and brilliant way of collecting missives from the hive-mind, and keeping the marketing world on its toes.
Opposites Attract
The Art Directors Club and UnderConsideration are hosting a series of design ‘face-offs’ where stylistically-opposed figures have a conversation (moderated by Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio). Thursday’s face-off features Sam Potts and Martin Venezky, who both do awesome, layered, compulsively detailed designs in wildly different aesthetics. Definitely worth checking...
Method Pop Up Store - PSFK →
The fine folks at PSFK have got some great photos up of the new Method Pop-Up store on Broadway (btwn Prince & Spring) in Soho. The brilliant part is this: as part of ‘chemical amnesty,’ you can bring your super-toxic housecleaning products in and exchange them for lovely and healthy Method replacements. You know you want to.
Talking Points: Technology and Certainty
Every technological revolution presents society with twin opportunities: either to re-evaluate those beliefs we have long held as unwavering truths, or to take our progress as a further sign of their absolute certainty. It is unfortunate that the decades following the computer revolution have been marked more heavily by the latter than the former.
On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening... →
WorldWideTelescope.org
Microsoft is launching an ambitious new project to let you explore the universe from the comfort of your own computer screen. From the advanced buzz, the app looks badass. According to Alexander Szalay, astronomy and physics professor at Johns Hopkins (as quoted in the NYT): “Exploring the virtual universe is incredibly smooth and seamless like a top-of-the-line computer game, but also the...
daaaamn →
In The Future:
We will know more but remember less.
Assume Vivid Astro Focus →
The Deitch Studios’ Long Island City outpost has an excellent new exhibit of ‘brain-dead apocalyptic futurism for the New Rave, cocaine-orgy set’. And if that weren’t enough, the gallery will double as ‘demolition disco’ with a full performance schedule. Through August 16th
Bklyn Designs
Like 99.9% of people who live in New York and have a blog, I went to the Brooklyn Designs fair in Dumbo this weekend. Rare woods, playful lamps and expensive furniture abounded, along with a pervasive emphasis on green manufacturing and sustainably sourced materials. Some highlights: McCullah Design Nicholas Furrow Design Phosphoria Design Vexell City Joinery Obviously there were lots...
I Like Synths (loadedquestions.muxtape.com) →
Things You Should Go To This Weekend: The Super... →
Talking Points: Mass Culture
For years we have lived with the fear that mass-production inherently led to the homogenization of culture. And yet, exactly the opposite is true: mass culture’s ever accelerating drive to produce more than we can dispose of has spawned a limitless variety of aesthetics, each imperfect and impermanent. Let’s not forget that those objects (tail-fins, bakelite, polyester) manufactured in...
MIA launches clothing line; liberal arts school... →
Biopiracy
Regine Debatty, the force behind We Make Money Not Art, guestblogs on Worldchanging about Biopiracy. Although it is unfortunately not ‘new news’ that western corporations patent the biological material of the developing world (plants, food, human tissues, drugs), Debatty identifies a growing trend in art and literature towards exposing this modern day colonialism to which much of the...
Fine & Raw Chocolate
I recently had a chance to sit down with Daniel Sklaar, the brains behind Fine & Raw Chocolate, a project intended to rescue chocolate from its highly processed, mass-produced form, and reintroduce it to people as a simple and celebrated food. He explains: “We are just now moving beyond the point where people see food purely as fuel. So many foods today make claims about their contents, with...
In The Future:
We’ll take shorter showers.
City Farmers’ Crops Go From Vacant Lot to Market →
Great article about the nascent Urban Agriculture movement in New York, in which residents turn vacant lots into growing fields and sell their produce back to the community. It’s a fascinating example of how the failue of large-scale social-services is spurring a kind of forced innovation at local levels.
Core77's New York Design Week Guide →
Core77’s really helpful overview of all the New York Design Week events. Because, you know, there are a lot of them.
Urban Outfitters is Expanding into Gardening
You know what’s hip these days? Gardening. Thank god Urban Outfitters’ new venture, Terrain, will now be bringing that to the youthful masses Terrain on PSFK Terrain Photos on Flickr
Flock - The Social Web Browser →
Evidently this is where the kids are hanging out (online).