ESPO Beautifies Dublin
May 15, 2008 | Categories: Art

Talk about subversion… ESPO last year was rewarded a Fulbright Scholarship to go to Dublin to work on a public art project. Well, the public is involved, and art is certainly involved, but I’m not sure that the Fulbright folks had the above kind of work in mind when handing over the grant. ANP has the project description which sums things up nicely:

Mr. Powers will combine his painting, writing, and publishing skills to collaborate with young adults aged 15 - 17 in Belfast’s Shankill Road and Dublin’s Fatima Mansion to create art work that will depict their lives and times and publish a magazine to share it with the public. According to Mr. Powers, “the Shankill Road and Fatima Mansions have the most incredible resources of rich histories, enduring legacies and resolute personalities that I have ever seen. I look forward to teaching the youth how to convert those resources into work for a lifetime.”

Be sure to check out more photos over on Supertouch.

Bobby

Time’s Design 100
May 15, 2008 | Categories: Architecture / Art / Clothing / Design / Furniture / Magazine

Time Magazine today released their list of the top 100 “most influential design,” a list that covers all aspects of design, or so they say. Reading through this list I wasn’t impressed at all. The list covers 16 different categories from all reaches of design, but I feel like overall they just wanted to make a giant list to seem “cool”, a word I’m learning to hate. It’s also a list heavy on “green” items which seems like a bunch of greenwashing to me, just trying to get some “cool” points on how in-the-know they are.

In their technology section the feature an electric lawnmower that helps save the environment… except that it’s electric, which means it has to be plugged into your home which still creates pollution. Plus the lawnmower isn’t even well designed, unless you get a boner over standard fare Sears merchandise. To offset this green trend, they feature a 6 foot by 11 foot wide television that is not only completely unnecessary, but I’m sure costs at least $100 a month to power, not to mention pollution factors. Not every category is like this though, some are better than others, but overall it seems like they pulled a bunch of things out of their asses.

The website section definitely caught my eye though, especially because Kitsune Noir was somehow not included! (C’mon, that was a joke, I had to…) But seriously, congrats to Grace over at Design*Sponge and Marcus over at Dezeen, they both totally deserved to be mentioned… but who the hell are these other blogs?! If there’s one thing I know it’s blogs and by god I’ve only heard of or read regularly Better Living Through Design. Looking at the list it seems to me like all they did was look at Design*Sponge’s link section and cut and paste them! And what’s with all the green blogs in this list? Green Home Guide is described as “A room-by-room guide for efficient, easy and stylish ways to live a green lifestyle and have a positive impact on the environment”… I’m sure it’s a very nice site and the people who run it are great, but that’s not what design is about, that is an aspect of design as a whole.

I guess if you care at all you can visit the complete list of “influential design” and see for yourself, but personally I think Time needs to stick to reporting on the news.

Bobby

The New Slimmer, Sleeker Jawbone
May 15, 2008 | Categories: Technology

Starting in California on July 1st, you’ll no longer be able to drive and talk on your mobile phone at the same time. I know that this law already exists in states like New York, I think it’s going to be insane to try enforce this law, especially here in Los Angeles where everyone is glued to their cell phones. Nonetheless, it’ll be the law, so it’s time to look into alternatives. Thankfully, Aliph has updated their already awesome Jawbone earpiece with a brand new version.

This new version is taking the place of the older model, and has been updated all over the place. The earpiece itself is 50% smaller, comes covered in leather rather than metal, and features 4 hours of talk time and an 8 day standby time. It also comes in black, silver, and gold and will be going for $130, which is kind of steep, but I personally think it would be worth. The only other wireless earpiece that I’d consider is Apple’s earpiece (which is also $130), but I’ve heard some not so great things about it.

For a hands on review, head over to Gizmodo to read their praise of how improved it is over it’s former self.

Bobby

Real Life Wall-E
May 14, 2008 | Categories: Films / Technology

I already know what I want for X-mas this year, and nothing else can possibly compare to it. The video above is a demonstration of a real life, honest to god, Wall-E!!! Seeing the movie is one thing, but being able to interact with a real moving and talking Wall-E would be the best thing ever! I’ve heard recently that Disneyland is starting to create more interactive robots like this that would be controlled by someone standing off to the side of the action. I really hope that Disney puts this little guy out onto the streets of Disneyland, I’d honestly go down there just to see him (and possibly try to ride him, try to stop me, I dare you!).

Found through /Film

Bobby

New ‘This American Life’ Animation by Chris Ware
May 14, 2008 | Categories: Art / Television

The new season of This American Life started on May 4th so they had the fabulous Chris Ware create another animated short for an upcoming episode called Every Marriage Is a Courthouse. The episode is mostly about marriages that fall apart, but the story he animates is about a couple who were walking through New York one day when suddenly they see Jackie Onassis waving at the wife. The husband tells the story, then the wife tells the story, but the thing is, in the wife’s version the husband was never there!

Chris’ drawings have never looked better, and seeing them animated again are real treat. Hopefully he creates more of these, like one every episode. They’re so damn enjoyable and pleasing in every way.

Found through Drawn!

Bobby

Micro-photos and Nudibranchs
May 14, 2008 | Categories: Science

I stumbled across some really rad nature stuff so I thought I’d lump them both into one post. The first thing I found is called Eye of Science, a photo pair made up of Oliver Meckes and Nicole Ottowa who take micro-photos of all sorts of crazy stuff. Like the two bottom images are crystals magnified at 620 and 650 times the original size. The colors and composition of these images are really amazing, like tiny sculptures that seem impossible to make.

The other cool thing I found my boyfriend sent me after he saw it on Boing Boing. It’s a gallery of National Geographic of images of nudibranchs, which are toxic sea slugs that are just as beautiful as they are deadly. There are 9 images total, but they look so amazing! They’re all brightly colored, a good sign that something is highly toxic or tastes horrible, but so amazing to look at. The one above is a Bornella anguilla, which “flees danger by folding in it’s appendages and swimming like an eel”, how crazy is that? I totally want one of these as a pet!

Bobby

Today Is the Day
May 14, 2008 | Categories: Blogs / Design / Music / Photography


Today Is the Day by Yo La Tengo

For some reason I woke up this morning with a hankering to hear a certain Yo La Tengo song, but I couldn’t remember which one it was. I finally remembered that the song was Today Is the Day, a song that was off of their album Summer Sun. But they released a Today Is the Day EP as well, and instead of putting the original version on there, they put this amazing sped up version that destroys the original. Seriously, if you don’t want your ass kicked by Yo La Tengo right now, don’t listen to this.

On a sidenote, I made that cover above because I couldn’t find a large image of the original. The background and letters are made up of images from Michael Surtees’ New York City Colour Study project. Basically he takes a picture of the sky over Manhattan every morning around 7 am every day, documenting how different the sky can look day to day. I figured since the album was titled Today Is the Day it was kind of fitting. Also, Yo La Tengo is from Hoboken, New Jersey which pretty much shares the same sky as Manhattan, so it works for me. Probably not the most creative of the covers I’ve made, but it’s very conceptual, something I don’t do often.

Also be sure to check out Michael’s blog DesignNotes, it’s a good read.

Bobby

The Desktop Wallpaper Project featuring Olimpia Zagnoli
May 14, 2008 | Categories: The Desktop Wallpaper Project


Last week a reader named Sarah wrote in the comments that she’d like to see a female artist here in the DWP, so Sarah, I’d like to present this week’s contributor, Olimpia Zagnoli. Olimpia is an Italian illustrator who’s work I posted about recently and immediately wrote her to see if she’d make a wallpaper. I was immediately drawn to her linework and color choices, and I knew she’d come up with something amazing.

As you can see above, her wallpaper turned out awesome. The simplicity of the the wallpaper is awesome, and the shapes are totally beautiful. And it’s such a small detail, but I would never have thought to put a pink circle thing at the top corner like that, but for some reason that little detail really makes it pop. I kind of feel like the wallpaper is telling some sort of Godard-esque tale about cheating lovers in Paris, couldn’t you see that? Okay, maybe I just have an overactive imagination…

I’m not sure what next Wednesday’s wallpaper will be, so if you have something you’d like to see I’d still like all of your suggestions. I have so many wallpapers still to give away, so I’m sure I can make a couple of you at the very least! ;)

Bobby

Dan Funderburgh’s Work at Fellow Traveller
May 13, 2008 | Categories: Art / Design

I wrote in my art show round-up last week that Dan Funderburgh was having a show in Brooklyn, so he was rad enough to send me some photos of the work he had up. He had mentioned to me that he was making “40 tools” for the exhibit, but I wasn’t really sure what he meant until I got to see these photos. As you can see, the ‘gunbrella’ from The DWP was turned into a real, giant sculpture! How cool is that?!

As you can see from the photos he went crazy, making grenades, files, saws, wrenches, a staple gun, a chainsaw, a gas can, and even a boomerang! The details are also totally amazing, like I can’t believe he had the patience to make all of those. I have a bunch more photos under the cut, so be sure to check all of them out. If you’re in the Brooklyn area as well, be sure to check out the show in person, I’m sure it’s even better!

Keep reading Dan Funderburgh’s Work at Fellow Traveller…

Lillies: Solar Lily Pads
May 13, 2008 | Categories: Technology

Moving away from the last past and out of Mordor is a brilliant little concept simply called Lillies. Lillies is alternative idea to the usual roof mounted solar panels, this time being placed in the River Clyde in Glasgow and resembling giant lily pads. The lily pads would be tethered to the river bed where they would slowly rotate throughout the day to get the optimal exposure and suck up as much as energy as possible.

I think this is a really great idea as long as it was executed in an artistic way. I think it would suck to have a bunch of ugly metal discs sitting out in the river not doing anything, but the idea has serious potential. There are no plans to build the lily pads yet, but the idea is being pithed to the Glasgow City Council where a test project could be developed. What do you guys think, does the idea float? (Ugh, I’m sorry, that just popped into my head and I had to write down, haha…)

For more information you can read the BBC article.
Found through Inhabitat

Bobby