The role of the Associate Industrial Designer is to help develop ceiling fans and accessory product designs. This is a full time position based in Memphis, TN. Essential Duties and Responsibilities • Conceptual development of ceiling fan and accessory product designs under direction provided
Co-founder of the influential Studio Ghibli, Isao Takahata has passed away at 82 years old. Takahata (who started the studio with Hayao Miyazaki) wrote and directed some of the most magical and poignant animated films of the past 50+ years—including……
Continue Reading…
The masters of surrealism left a strong mark on a whole generation of Chinese painters. Born in 1971, in the Southern province of Guizhou, Zhong Shan—like many artists of his generation—was inspired by surrealist masters, and a very eclectic sense……
Continue Reading…
Researchers at MIT Media Lab have developed a wearable gadget that transcribes and responds to conversations users have with themselves in their heads.
Comprised of a wearable device and a small computing system, AlterEgo enables users to “silently converse” with a computing device without talking or making any recognisable movements.
It uses electrodes to pick up neuromuscular signals in the user’s jaw and face that are triggered by internal verbalisations.
These signals are then sent to a machine-learning system that has been trained to associate certain signals with certain words.
A pair of bone-conduction headphones included in the device transmits vibrations through the bones of the face to the inner ear. As the headphones don’t obstruct the ear canal, this means the system can pass on information to the user without interrupting a conversation or interfering with the user’s aural experience.
By vocalising internally, the user can communicate with other devices, the internet, AI assistants or applications to receive certain information, or make commands.
The developers hope that this will fuse these digital interfaces into human personalities as a “second self.”
“The motivation for this was to build an IA device — an intelligence-augmentation device. Our idea was: could we have a computing platform that’s more internal, that melds human and machine in some ways and that feels like an internal extension of our own cognition?” said MIT research assistant Arnav Kapur.
If the user were to internally question, “what is the time,” the AlterEgo headset would register this, and feed the answer back to them through bone conduction.
This means the user doesn’t have to look at a screen and type in words to find the answer to their question, or to control a device.
“We basically can’t live without our cell phones, our digital devices. But at the moment, the use of those devices is very disruptive,” said MIT professor Pattie Maes – who led the project.
“If I want to look something up that’s relevant to a conversation I’m having, I have to find my phone and type in the passcode and open an app and type in some search keyword, and the whole thing requires that I completely shift attention from my environment and the people that I’m with to the phone itself,” she continued.
For this reason, Maes and her students experimented with new technologies to develop something that would allow people to benefit from the information offered by these devices, but in a way that allows them to “remain in the present.”
AlterEgo is the latest concept to come out of MIT Media Lab – an interdisciplinary research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded in 1985.
Some of the centre’s more recent projects include a range of “living jewellery” that roams across the body as a tiny personal assistant and a tattoo ink that changes colour according to varying glucose and pH levels inside the body.
The post MIT’s AlterEgo device “silently converses” with the voices in your head appeared first on Dezeen.
American studio Fiedler Marciano Architecture took cues from vernacular architecture in New England while designing a pair of small, sculptural buildings for an artists’ nature retreat.
The studio buildings are located on the campus of the I-Park Foundation, an organisation that offers a renowned artist-in-residence programme. The campus covers 450 bucolic acres (182 hectares) just outside of East Haddam, Connecticut.
While conceiving the structures, the architects took cues from regional design traditions and merged them with a contemporary aesthetic.
“The two freestanding studios are a modern take on the traditional New England vernacular of pitched roofs and wood siding,” said Fiedler Marciano Architecture, a New York City-based practice founded in 2006 by architects Mark Fiedler and Martin Marciano.
“The design is driven by I-Park’s intention to provide an exceptionally private work environment for visiting artists, free from distraction, while also connecting them to the surrounding natural environment and the community of creative residents,” the firm said.
Each studio, where artists spend up to four weeks working on projects of their choosing, is approximately 1,000 square feet (93 square metres). Rather than creating simple boxes, the architects angled one side of each building, and topped them both with asymmetrical pitched roofs. The result is a sculptural form intended to convey a “dynamic sense of interaction”.
Facades are wrapped in dark-stained cedar, while galvanised metal was used for the roofs. Both studios have large, north-facing window walls that usher in natural light while affording views of the picturesque landscape. Sheltered porches offers a place for artists to take in their peaceful surroundings.
“A ‘front porch’ incorporated into each studio accesses a network of pathways through the woods and serves as a flexible indoor/outdoor space for the artist to use as they like,” Fiedler Marciano said.
The interiors are meant to feel bright, warm and fluid. Each studio has a large room and a small enclosed workspace, with exposed wooden ceilings and concrete flooring. To support mounted artwork, continuous plywood blocking was installed behind the painted sheetrock walls – a strategy often used in galleries.
“This provides artists with the ability to attach or hang things anywhere on the wall’s surface, as opposed to having to find a stud to attach to,” the architects said.
Fiedler Marciano Architecture has also developed an overall masterplan for the property, which envisions additional studios, a performing arts venue, workshop space, and a residence hall.
Fiedler did a two-week residency at I-Park in April 2016, giving him an in-depth understanding of the campus from a resident’s perspective.
“It was a surprisingly intense and wonderfully fruitful way to get to know and appreciate the physical surroundings, and even more importantly the residency culture that makes I-Park such a special place for both artists and art,” he said.
New England and neighbouring New York state are a popular regions for artist studios and retreats. Others in the area include a bright red gabled building in Connecticut, a pair of his-and-hers volumes in the Hamptons and a barn-like structure in Upstate New York.
Photography is by Chris Cooper.
The post Fiedler Marciano creates artist studios in a forest clearing in Connecticut appeared first on Dezeen.
The powerful imagery of afrofuturism suggests what could be possible if the ambitions of black architects and designers are realised, says Ekow Eshun.
I recently started an Instagram account dedicated to afrofuturism. Even though the concept behind the term remains fairly obscure, it seemed the right time to do so.
Afrofuturism refers to work that reimagines the black experience through the fusion of science fiction, fantasy and history. Such as, for instance, retelling the story of the transatlantic slave trade as a tale of alien abduction.
The figures gathered under afrofuturism’s banner are varied. They include the science-fiction novelists Samuel R Delany and Octavia Butler, pop stars Erykah Badu and Janelle Monae, the graffiti artist Rammellzee and the jazz musician Sun Ra. What unites them is a shared sensibility that looks to conjure fantastic dreams and new myths out of the everyday drama of black life.
The idea of afrofuturism was first coined by writer and critic Mark Dery in 1993 and has been avidly discussed ever since, albeit chiefly in academic circles. But that all changed in February of this year. That’s when Black Panther, the Marvel movie based on the first black superhero, brought the concept dramatically closer to the mainstream.
Afrofuturism has particular relevance when it comes to questions of architecture and urbanism
There are many noteworthy aspects to the film. A dynamic cast, a captivating soundtrack by Kendrick Lamar, a sharp storyline that balances weighty consideration of white supremacy and black nationalism with moments of wit and effervescence. But the real delight is the film’s depiction of Wakanda, the Black Panther’s fictional African homeland.
Wakanda is a place of wonders. The country has never been invaded or colonised and, untroubled by Western interlopers, it has become the most technologically advanced nation on Earth. Wakanda’s people are proud and beautiful. They worship ancient gods, drape themselves in gorgeous attire and fly hypersonic aircraft of peerless sophistication.
To bring the country to life, the film draws on visual cues from across the continent – from the thrusting cityscapes of modern metropolises like Nairobi, Johannesburg and Lagos, to costumes inspired by tribal peoples such as the Igbo of Nigeria and the Omo valley peoples of Ethiopia and South Sudan.
The vision of an ultra-developed, utopian society summoned by the make-believe Wakanda prompts an existential question that also haunts Africa in real life: what would the continent be like without the legacy of colonialism?
The Black Panther’s homeland made its first appearance in Fantastic Four, issue 52, July 1966, the same comic in which the Panther himself debuted. The character’s creation occurred at the height of the civil-rights struggle. It’s unlikely that Panther creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had politics in mind when they came up with him. But the Panther is a figure of his times. Four months after July’s Fantastic Four, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton formed the Black Panther party. The choice of name was unrelated to the superhero, but both perhaps were drawing from dominant cultural representations of black masculinity in that period. Similarly, the design of Wakanda reflects the way that black people in America were increasingly taking inspiration from the battles against imperialism taking place in Africa.
The make-believe Wakanda prompts an existential question that also haunts Africa in real life: what would the continent be like without the legacy of colonialism?
The country’s soaring towers and glass domes are powerfully reminiscent of the extraordinary modernist structures built across Africa, as nation after nation gained independence from colonial rule – buildings such as Ghana’s flying-saucer-like International Trade Fair Center or the extraordinary La Pyramide market hall in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
Such buildings are a reminder that afrofuturism has particular relevance when it comes to questions of architecture and urbanism. From America to apartheid-era South Africa, black communities have historically been victim to policies of segregation, redlining and housing control that have forced them into closed-off, under resourced ghettos and townships. These densely populated inner city areas are typified in popular culture as terrifyingly alien worlds. The plot of Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities, for instance, hinges on the moment its pampered hero takes a wrong turn in his Mercedes and ends up breaking down in the Bronx.
But the same inner cities have also become a fertile source of afrofuturist social commentary in movies like Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 and Kibwe Tavares’ dystopian short film Robots of Brixton. Similarly, Detroit techno artists such as Jeff Mills and Derrick May have famously drawn on the struggles of their post-industrial home city as source material for their music. Last year, artist and curator Ingrid LaFleur even ran for mayor of Detroit on an afrofuturist platform that called for the regeneration of the city, through technology allied to social purpose.
Afrofuturism is a subject that feels especially resonant for now. The initial inspiration for starting my Instagram account, The Afrofuturist, was to gather together some of the abundant references the Black Panther film draws on. But my scope quickly broadened. I now regard it as a way to think aloud, in public, about the themes and tropes informing black creativity around the world today, in everything from art, design and architecture to music and fashion.
Wakanda’s soaring towers and glass domes are powerfully reminiscent of the extraordinary modernist structures built across Africa, as nation after nation gained independence from colonial rule
On a given day that might mean drawing imagery from the grand, stepped ziggurat that forms the centrepiece of architect Francis Kere’s masterplan for a new national assembly building in Burkina Faso (pictured); or from Afronauts, Francis Bodomo’s short film inspired by the true story of the 1960s Zambian space programme. It could involve pointing to the ornate, gold-leaf patterned portraiture of British-Liberian artist Lina Iris Viktor or the video for Outkast’s Prototype, which features Andre 3000 as a white-robed alien touching down to Earth from an interplanetary geodesic dome.
In their own way, each of these works seems to me to have something to say about how we live now, however fantastical they seem. At its most powerful, afrofuturism intertwines the personal and the political, so that a film or a novel might be grounded in the intimate detail of ordinary life while also grappling with larger themes of race, power, gender or sexuality.
The combination of fact and fiction typical to afrofuturism offers a way to ponder complex issues of black life and identity: what does it mean to live with the collective memory of the slave trade? How does it feel to experience the microaggressions of racism every day? What’s your reference point for pride or self-worth when black bodies are a locus point for fear and loathing in western culture?
In this respect, afrofuturism is about inner worlds as much as outer space. It’s not a movement or a genre so much as a tendency, a shared perspective among a diverse set of artists, to position black experience at the centre not the fringes of a story.
Afrofuturism is not a movement or a genre so much as a tendency, to position black experience at the centre not the fringes of a story
One of the more commonplace, and dispiriting, experiences that many black people hold in common is being told to limit your ambitions. The comment might come from a teacher or careers adviser at school, or from a boss at work. But the message is the same – know your place.
The images I’ve been gathering on Instagram tell a different story. Individually and collectively, they reveal an impatience with the boundaries of the real and the prosaic, an impatience among black people at the idea that our lives should be lived at a humble, quotidian pace. Instead they reveal a desire to make the world over, to create imagery more fantastic, music more resonant, buildings more audacious, than ever previously witnessed.
As a character in a novel by Samuel R Delany, the godfather of black science fiction, once put it: “We’re planning to pluck all the best stars out of the sky and stuff them in our pockets.”
The post “There is a desire among black people to make the world over” appeared first on Dezeen.
Coffee roasting has a pretty interesting history. There was a time when the Arabs had control over pretty much all the coffee cultivation in the world (Arabica beans come from Ethiopia, where they were originally cultivated) and in order to maintain their monopoly, the Arabs would export coffee beans worldwide but would roast them beforehand. These roasted beans would be packed with flavor, and would create the coffee craze we’re familiar with around the world, but it would also mean heavy dependence on Arabia because you couldn’t grow the roasted beans. This was until a few lucky people managed to smuggle raw beans out of Arabia and to places around the world (like Baba Budan who would carry beans to India in the 14th century where he would set up a massive plantation in and around the Malabar region). The practice, however, of roasting beans before shipping them stuck around (in order to preserve them better and increase their shelf life), creating a sort of brand dependency in the modern world.
Coffee connoisseurs believe that the beans are best consumed immediately after they’re roasted, and while they do last longer after roasting (resulting in a higher shelf life), their flavor gradually deteriorates. Kelvin hopes to change the status quo, by letting you roast your beans just minutes before you consume them… giving you not just the freshness you deserve, but also the freedom to choose how strong you want your roast to be. Roasting your own coffee also helps you directly support the coffee-growers by buying the raw beans from them, and giving them their share of the profit.
The tabletop roaster uses air to evenly cook your raw coffee beans to a beautiful toasty brown consistency. Occupying a palm’s width of space, the Kelvin (named rather appropriately after the unit of temperature) allows you to be in control of your roast, choosing your roast time. A simple knob is the only UI on the device. Twist it to set the roast time and the Kelvin takes care of everything else. It heats the beans right up to the correct temperature, giving you a well-balanced roast, filters out any of the chaff/husk that comes off during the roasting process, and even cools the beans down post-roasting, making them ready for the grinder.
Partnering with various farmers, Kelvin also delivers the green beans straight to your doorstep. Designed to be an ecosystem rather than a simple product, Kelvin gives you the freedom of choice, letting you choose beans from different regions and having them delivered to your home. The freedom to roast the beans to a desired level is the second step in enforcing customer choice, so you don’t need to rely on store-bought beans anymore. In doing so, Kelvin claims that you won’t just have better tasting coffee at your fingertips, you’ll end up saving money too, by not pandering to big-brand-markups and their packaging/logistical charges, while contributing directly to the livelihood of the coffee growers, who often live at the mercy of these big brands.
The Kelvin Coffee Roaster is a winner of the iF Design Award, the IDEA (International Design Excellence Award), and the American Good Design Award, for its innovative and compact roasting process, clean design and interface, as well as its holistic system design.
Designer: IA Collaborative
Click here to Buy Now: $229.00 $329.00
Kelvin lets you custom roast fresh beans, explore new flavors, save money, and reduce waste. Kelvin helps to unlock the advantages of home coffee roasting for even the most novice coffee drinker.
Try new types of beans, styles, and intensities of roasts. And blend them.
Kelvin is the first home coffee roasting system that also provides a curated selection of green coffee beans delivered straight to you. By putting the entire process into your hands, you have the control and range to experiment with multiple bean origins, roasting times, blends, and flavors to experience a new side of coffee from first crack to French roast.
Save money. Unroasted beans are often half the price of craft roasted beans. Unroasted beans also stay fresh for months, while roasted coffee can lose its flavor in days. No more trashing stale beans. No more wasting money.
With Kelvin, fresh green beans are brought directly to you, without the costs of professional roasting and handling. This leads to significant savings that helps Kelvin pay for itself in less than a year.
Kelvin is for everybody; designed for the first-time explorer to the seasoned do-it-yourself coffee aficionado. It’s now easy for everyone to experiment and discover the amazing complexity of craft coffee with set-and-go, perfectly roasted beans at any time of the day.
Roast with confidence —We’ve engineered Kelvin to roast and bring out the best quality from any raw coffee beans, using a vortex-drive bottom-up air roasting technique that will lead to a more even roast — so your cup is delicious no matter how you brew.
Roast for a pot, or just a cup —The ideal batch size for Kelvin is 100-120g of green coffee beans— enough to brew about 4-6 cups of coffee— so you can roast just enough for your morning pour over or for a whole pot. This flexibility enables you to make fresh coffee for any occasion, and all in under 10 minutes.
Unlimited outcomes — Set the roasting time by simply turning the control knob, push to start, and Kelvin does the rest. You can also add or remove time mid-roast, to make it easier to personalize your flavor. Combine different beans from around the world with varying roasting times, and the flavor possibilities are endless.
Roasting to different levels allows for coffee beans to express different qualities, based on how lightly or darkly they’re roasted. It’s easy to uncover each variety’s range of flavors by experimenting with small batches.
Simple cleanup —Collecting chaff is no hassle with Kelvin’s built in filter. It easily slips into the roasting chamber, capturing chaff efficiently and in one place. Bonus—you can even compost chaff for an eco-friendly cleanup.
Click here to Buy Now: $229.00 $329.00
Monthly Unique Visitors: 4.3 million Background: Many shelter publications focus on showcasing homes that are crammed with exquisite (and outrageously expensive) items. So, while their pages may be fun to look at, they’re not very useful to consumers who don’t have multiple thousands to spend on interior decorations. Lonny came onto the scene…
The post How to Pitch: Lonny appeared first on Mediabistro.
A l’heure où trouver un emploi demande d’être de plus en plus ingénieux et créatif et où on est nombreux à tenter une aventure en freelance ou en start-up, on s’aperçoit plus que jamais de l’importance du réseau. Shapr surfe sur la vague des applications mobile type Tinder pour tirer assez brillamment son épingle du jeu par rapport à Linkedin et ses comparses. L’objectif : rendre ludique et surtout authentique l’étoffement de son réseau.
Shapr reprend les codes de la célèbre application de rencontres Tinder et les intégre à une interface minimaliste, intuitive où le “swipe” est le maître mot. L’application propose des profils à l’utilisateur, basés sur les centres d’intérêts comme le #Marketing, le #Design, le #Cinema ou encore la #Photographie, et l’objectif professionnel de chacun. Le principe est simple : un “swipe” à droite, l’utilisateur est intéressé par le profil, un “swipe” à gauche, le profil proposé ne correspond pas aux attentes. Si les deux utilisateurs souhaitent se rencontrer avec un objectif professionnel et des intérêts communs, c’est un “match”. Il n’y a plus qu’à prendre rdv pour se rencontrer.
Shapr a réussi à créer une atmosphère de rencontre favorable et propice au succès. Elle rassemble des membres qui ont des projets et qui sont dans une démarche bienveillante d’ouverture et d’échange, ce qui rend les choses plus simples pour briser la glace.
Une application idéale pour les artistes et créatifs toujours à la recherche d’inspiration.Un exemple, le photographe français Ludovic Baron, connu dans le monde de la publicité, a convaincu l’une de ses amies de se faire photographier. Par l’intermédiaire de l’application Shapr, il a rencontré la meilleure ouvrière de France en création de lingerie, qui a accepté de créer une collection sur-mesure pour le modèle de Ludovic Baron.
Alors que ce soit pour trouver enfin le job de ses rêves, des projets, des clients, des partenaires, des mentors… ou tout simplement de l’inspiration, vous y arriverez toujours mieux en rencontrant les bonnes personnes. Et là, Shapr, peut vous aider.
Téléchargez Shapr gratuitement sur ios et android
(NB : une version premium vous permet aussi de vous téléporter où vous voulez dans le monde depuis votre canapé)
Michael T. Meyers est un photographe actuellement basé à Chicago. Dernièrement, lors d’un voyage à Cuba, il a photographié à différents moments de la journée, l’atmosphère chaude et accueillante de la ville de la Havana. Et le rendu est magnifique. De quoi nous donner envie de prendre l’avion aussitôt. Son travail est à découvrir sur Instagram.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
