Hasta La Ideas

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pGet water, check the mail, step outside, feed the cat, make some tea, look for a snackmdash;these are typical distractions for people (like me) who work at home. The Sidetrack table, designed by Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design students Jennifer Kay, Jacek Barcikowski and Martina Pagura, tracks these patterns, allowing you to keep tabs on your ADD and compare your domestic wandering from day to day./p

pNot that domestic wandering is a bad thing, necessarilymdash;the concept arose from the idea that being ‘sidetracked’ is a healthy way to alternate the static day of professionals who work from home, with little social interaction or change throughout the day. /p

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pThe table tracks your activity in different rooms throughout the house with the “presence sensor,” a mystic pyramid you put somewhere on your desk, kitchen table or etc. Meanwhile, with a hybrid of old printer and turntable parts, a pen plots your daily routine. The user may switch out different pen colors for different days, for comparison./p

pFor more information, see the project a href=”http://ciid.dk/education/portfolio/idp09/courses/tangible-user-interface/projects/sidetrack/”website/a./p

pMore pics after the jump./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/videos/track_your_add__16460.asp”(more…)/a
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Artist Chris Levine is exhibiting a series of 3D portraits of Grace Jones at The Vinyl Factory in London from Friday…

The portraits are the result of an ongoing collaboration between Levine and Jones, which began after the duo were introduced by Philip Treacy, who art directed Jones’ live show at the Royal Festival Hall in 2008. Levine went on to create some original laser work for her tour, including a high-beam laser that was aimed at a Treacy-designed crystal bowler hat worn by Jones, which showered the audience in shards of light.

Levine has previously worked with Massive Attack and Antony & The Johnsons on live shows, but stresses that his input is not simply a case of setting up a lighting system that someone else can operate. “Each live performance project has different visual objectives,” he explains. “If you are looking to create original work, it’s never straightforward as it’s likely not to have been done before. For me the frustration is that unless I play the beams live and tune the installation personally on site, the end result often seems to be compromised. It’s difficult to mechanise what I do.”

The lasers reappear in Levine’s 3D portraits of Jones, which follow his much-admired holographic portrait of the Queen, a still from which was featured on the cover of the CR April 2008 issue. “I shot these using a similar technology to my Queen work,” he says. “Essentially the images are captured using a digital camera moving along a linear rail. These images are processed to create a lenticular artwork such that your left and right eyes see a stereo pair of images and you perceive depth. The artworks are mounted onto LED lightboxes.”

Levine spoke highly of his experience of working with the notoriously fiesty Jones. “She is so much more than a singer, more a performance artist – a one-off superstar,” he raves. “Like me, she is always reaching out into new sensory territories and combined we have a good chemistry. From the moment my laser hit her crystal bowler at the Royal Festival Hall it was like ‘OK, what else can you do?’. One thing led to another – it’s a journey. I think we have a way to go yet.

A selection of images from the 3D portraits are shown here. A series of limited edition prints from the collaboration between Jones and Levine will be on sale at The Vinyl Factory from Thursday, alongside a limited edition version of the Hurricane LP, Grace Jones’ first album of new material for 19 years. The LP will include two superweight vinyl records as well as a print of Levine’s Superstar image of Jones, shown top. The art and vinyl editions will be signed by both Levine and Jones. More info is at vfeditions.com. The exhibition at Vinyl Factory will run until May 14, details are here.

A friend recently sent me the following confession in an e-mail:

I just cleaned out my storage unit that I have had for 7 years. (I think I opened it when I moved from the townhouse to my apartment.) What a bunch of crap! I saved a couple boxes of books I’d been missing, and some high school stuff I pulled out — medals, trophies and plaques.

So, I did the calculations on what this storage unit cost me. 7 years = 84 months times approximately $120 a month = over $10,000!!!!! I am flabbergasted I spent so much on storing what was basically crap. It’s just so easy when it’s $120 a month. Think of what I could have done with $10,000! That’s a costly uncluttering lesson!

I think that self storage is a good idea when used temporarily, such as for a few months when settling someone’s estate or if you’ve sold your house and are staying in a hotel while you’re waiting to settle on a new house. Once the word years is involved, though, it’s no longer temporary and uncluttering is in order.

Had she tossed out all of what was in her self storage unit seven years ago, my friend could have repurchased the box of books and even commissioned someone to remake her medals, trophies and plaques, and still had more than $9,000 left in her bank account. (I doubt my friend would have had someone remake her medals, though, I’m just saying she could have and it still would have been far less expensive.)

If you have a self-storage unit, consider taking the time to clear it out and save yourself a good amount of money. If the idea of cleaning out the space overwhelms you, hire a professional organizer to help you. The fee you’ll pay to the professional organizer will be less than what you would pay to continue storing your stuff.

More facts about self-storage:

1. The state of self-storage in the U.S.
2. Organization facts from Mother Jones

Spend some quality time at the Rob Roy Kelly American Wooktype Collection.

“The Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type Collection is a comprehensive collection of wood type manufactured and used for printing in America during the nineteenth century. It is comprised of nearly 150 faces of various sizes and styles, including examples of the most popular printing types in use between 1828 and 1900, and represents a period of history marked by a rapid transition to new printing technologies.”

“The noted design educator, collector, and historian Rob Roy Kelly (1925–2004) collected wood type from local printers for use by his students at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. He began gathering the types in the late 1950s and continued adding to the collection over the next decade.”

The site design is excellent with the content being scholarly but also interesting. Bookmark this resource!

Collab. tra Ed Banger ed Etnies. Il modello si chiama Ednies e ne verranno prodotti solo 300 esemplari. Soletta interna disegnata dal solito SoMe.
[Via]