A Napa Valley standout, Silver Oak‘s eco-focused winemaking and dedication to Cabernet set them apart year after year. The brand’s winemaker, Nate Weis, has created Timeless, celebrating the accomplishments of the brand’s co-founder Ray Duncan, in honor of his 85th birthday. With only 1,700 cases available, this limited edition wine is certain to sell quickly. Sold as a three-bottle set, this wine promises to age well.
Since its 2017 debut, the virtual reality competition within the Venice International Film Festival has showcased an industry-leading selection of diverse works from groundbreaking global talent. This division has become a beloved part of the esteemed event’s programming (with its own dedicated virtual reality island) and it consistently offers a glimpse at the future of storytelling. This year, however, health concerns led to a transformation: a name change—to Venice VR Expanded—and thoughtful accessibility efforts that intend to make these artistic works (and the medium itself) more available to viewers everywhere.
Venice VR Expanded’s programmers, Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac, selected 31 projects for the competition this year (and several out of competition projects, too). With runtime ranging from a handful of minutes to more than 70, the style and subject matter of these works vary from immersive narrative adventures to captivating documentaries. And an exciting new development sees three projects—Kiira Benzing’s Finding Pandora X, Jason Moore’s The Metamovie Presents: Alien Rescue and Gilles Jobin’s La Comédie Virtuelle: Live Show—embrace multi-user social experiences, wherein the avatars of live performers interact with the avatars of viewers. Rosenthal and Reilhac answered some of our questions about this year’s advancements—and offered their own list of highlights from this year’s outstanding crop.
Can you explain what the new Venice VR Expanded name means?
Liz Rosenthal: Because this year’s edition is fully virtual, as opposed to the previous editions where it was all physical on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio, our famous VR Island in the Venice Lagoon, we have tried to find ways to make it an opportunity to expand the ways we reach our audiences. Offering the whole selection remotely will potentially multiply the number of viewers worldwide as opposed to the previous editions where viewers had to come physically to Venice.
Further, there are no longer limitations in terms of booking your slot to view the projects. Unlimited numbers of viewers can watch the same projects at the same time, hence multiplying viewing capacity almost endlessly. Since fewer people were going to be able to come to Venice this year, we have decided to bring Venice to them: we have set up a network of 16 satellite venues in 16 different cities around the world where prestigious cultural institutions are setting up VR viewing lounges offering full access to our selection to their local audiences and press.
We viewed around 150 projects during a period of 10 days, spending around eight hours each day in headsets
Can you describe what the process has been like programming this year’s line-up amidst this hybrid transition and the remote locations?
Michel Reilhac: The selection was done entirely remotely with Liz Rosenthal being in London with the support of Target3D and me in Amsterdam with the support of WeMakeVR. We viewed around 150 projects during a period of 10 days, spending around eight hours each day in headsets. We had to communicate with the creators and producers on a regular basis to fine tune our understanding of what were only prototypes or works in progress at the time. We spoke every day to share our views and make our selection decisions. The teams behind the selected projects have been fine tuning and debugging their works up until the very last minute before opening on 2 September, with the most impressive support and help from our partners HTC Viveport, Facebook’s Oculus, VRChat and VRROOM.
The display of artwork is often essential to the experience of VR and AR exhibitions. How has the user experience changed in this year’s program?
LR: Several artists have had to redesign their experiences from a live set-up to a fully remote experience. In the process, they are finding out that designing an experience that can be serviced to anyone—anywhere in the world without a physical set up—tremendously helps their distribution model. That will accelerate the advent of a significant market with larger audiences accessing the content.
What projects are you most excited about?
MR: It is hard to pick only a few projects from such a wide and diversified selection, where we carefully selected every single work. It’s exciting to see that recognizable names from the film world are now producing innovative works in VR: John Favreau with Gnomes and Goblins, Rose Troche with We Live Here, prestigious casting with Baba Yaga from Baobab by Eric Dranell featuring Daisy Ridley, Jennifer Hudson, Glenn Close and Kate Winslet, or Paper Birds by German Heller and Federico Carlini featuring Archie Yates.
It’s just as exciting to see new talents delivering truly innovative works: Penggantian by Jonathan Hagard, 4 Feet High by a brand new Argentinian team, Ajax All Powerful by Ethan Shaftel, Here by Ashton Lysander and produced by Intel studios, Fan Fan’s Killing a Superstar, Kinshasa Now by Marc Henrj Wajnberg and 1st Step: From the Earth to the Moon by Joerg and Maria Courtial.
Where can Venice VR Expanded be experienced and what does the audience at home need to be able to experience this year’s program?
LR: All info is available on the Venice Biennale site. Most of it can be experienced for free by anyone with a headset or a PC. Additional content can be experienced if the viewer purchases a VR Accreditation for 100 euros, available directly on the website. Then there is Facebook’s Oculus projects, performance based pieces accessible through a booking system. All social events and program inside the Garden area of our Venice VR Chat world. And there is the network of 16 satellite institutions.
Hero image courtesy of Poncio Perazolo
There is something about looking into flames that brings us closer to our inner self and keeps us transfixed there. However, with the advent of electric heating devices, we no longer get to sit and relish this experience at our homes. There are many who still keep a traditional fireplace or a gas stove in their houses. But, their purpose is limited to either heating or cooking and the flames are always entrapped in a black industrial frame that does not do justice to their spell-binding liveliness.
Designer Jeong Kim has taken a rather unique approach to this idea by designing a stove that showcases the flames in their captivating brilliance. He has created ‘Contact Surface’, a stove that also works as an ornamental piece to go with your furniture. The design is as much attractive as it is functional. The body features a glass door with various color gradients and a lever on the side which locks and unlocks the door. The action of opening however is vertical, keeping the hot glass safely away from the user’s touch and in steady movement instead of having it swing around randomly. At the top is also a regulator which controls the flow of oxygen into the stove. It also comes with a removable bin to collect and dispose of any ash or other particles that might accumulate.
The designer felt that traditional stoves made a rather abrupt break between flames and their surroundings. And thus, was born ‘Contact Surface’ which gently eases the separation between flames and the space around them.
Designer: Jeong Kim of Weekend-Works
Oak, grey stone and yellow-tinted glass are some of the materials that Norm Architects has used in its minimal makeover of the menswear section of German department store Alsterhaus.
Alsterhaus is situated at the heart of Hamburg and first opened its doors in 1912. Spanning 24,000 square metres, the department store offers a mix of fashion, accessories, beauty products and homeware.
Norm Architects was tasked with refurbishing the long-standing store’s menswear section, which featured lack-lustre white walls and herringbone walls.
The practice was keen to create a “unity of different universes” across the men’s section that would offer customers a richer experience than shopping online – but also wanted the architecture and material palette of the space to look inherently “pure”.
The work of American-German architect Mies van der Rohe and Austrian-Czech architect Adolf Loos became a key point of reference.
“A department store is a visually busy place and we realized early in the process that the design needed to be pared down and clear conceptually – ruling out strong patterns and ornamentation,” said Sofie Thorning, associate partner at Norm Architects.
“We looked to Mies van der Rohe and Adolf Loos for inspiration on natural materials with inherent characteristics that form textures and colours while evoking sensations of warmth, cold balancing feelings of soft and hard to the touch,” she told Dezeen.
The menswear section is now orientated around a colonnade comprising a sequence of oakwood frames.
It leads off to various brand concessions that are each fronted by gunmetal signs denoting their name.
While some areas boast plush carpeting, a majority of the floor has been clad with pale-grey Ceppo di Gre stone tiles.
“This balance between richness and restraint affords the user a unique and engaging shopping experience, relying on a considered quality of materiality and space,” added Thorning.
Garments hang from rectangular black-metal frames that descend from the ceiling, while smaller accessories like shoes or lifestyle items are presented on bespoke steel or dark-wood shelving units.
Pops of colour are offered by yellow-tinted glass clothing stands and blocky display plinths crafted from milky-green natural stone.
Norm Architects has been established since 2008 and was founded by Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen and Kasper Rønn Von Lotzbeck. Its most recent projects include the creation of a Copenhagen hotel that doubles as a showroom and the refurbishment of a pair of Tokyo apartments.
The practice also is longlisted in the interior designer of the year category in this year’s Dezeen Awards.
Photography is by Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen of Norm Architects.
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South Korean electronics company LG has integrated electronic fans and HEPA filters into a face mask, in order to turn it into a wearable air purifier.
Unveiled at the IFA Berlin tradeshow, the release will make LG the latest in a slew of companies including Adidas and Burberry that have made forays into face coverings in recent months.
This comes as several countries, including the UK, have made face masks mandatory in communal spaces like shops and on public transport to help stem the spread of the coronavirus.
As an extension of LG’s PuriCare line of air purifiers, the design features two fans, one on each side of the face, that circulate fresh air into the mask.
The air is cleaned using H13 HEPA filters, which can block 99.95 per cent of airborne particulates as small as 0.1 microns.
According to LG, the product was designed to resolve “the dilemma of homemade masks being of inconsistent quality and disposal masks being in short supply”.
“At a time when consumers are seeking ways to make life safer and more convenient, it’s important that we’re able to offer solutions that add measurable value,” said Dan Song, president of LG’s home appliance and air solutions arm.
The coronavirus is approximately 0.125 microns in diameter, meaning it technically falls within the catchment area of the mask’s HEPA filters.
However, the brand has made no claims about whether the design could protect the wearer from being infected with the coronavirus or whether the mask would also filter outgoing air to help prevent transmission to others.
Representatives of the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), as well as the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, have previously made it clear that masks with exhalation valves or vents do not prevent the wearer from expelling “respiratory droplets”, which could infect others.
When reached for comment, a representative of the company said that further testing was needed before details can be made available.
LG claims that all of the mask’s constituent parts are recyclable and replaceable, in contrast to the disposable masks that are increasingly polluting our oceans.
The product features a patented respiratory sensor, which detects the speed and volume of the wearer’s breathing and automatically chooses one of three fan speeds to match.
This also allows the fan to speed up when inhaling and slow down when exhaling, in order to reduce resistance.
A 820 milliamps per hour battery can power the mask for up to eight hours on the lowest and two hours on the highest fan setting.
The mask, which is set to be released later this year, comes with a matching case to charge and store it in between uses while integrated UV-LED lights “kill harmful germs”.
Although ultraviolet light has been shown to kill other coronaviruses, including the ones that cause the respiratory syndromes SARS and MERS, the effectiveness of this technology is highly contingent on the duration and intensity of UV exposure.
Another company that recently placed its bets on the future potential of UV light is Italian lighting brand Artemide, which integrated the technology into its lamps to turn them into room sanitisers while people are not around.
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For many years, the world of sustainable branding found itself firmly stuck in the eco-cliché trap, where environmentally friendly brands – be they health food shops or beauty ranges – typically conjured up images of green rolling hills, earthy tones, and the obligatory leaf motif. But this is changing, writes Aimée McLaughlin
The post How to brand a sustainable business appeared first on Creative Review.
Emergence was originally launched in 2019, during Sundance Film Festival, but has just been re-released via Steam as a free-to-download virtual reality experience for anyone that owns an Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or Valve Index headset.
Players assume the role of a glowing person, hemmed in by thousands of other people all reacting to their movements. The virtual figures are designed to mimic real-world behaviour, meaning Emergence is as realistic an experience of a crowd as most of us are likely to get at the moment.
“Our work often depicts abstracted human forms and movements, using a single figure or a duet,” says Universal Everything founder Matt Pyke. “With today’s graphics technology we can expand into choreographing an entire crowd.
“By programming each crowd member with intelligent behaviours – such as avoidance, following or mimicry – we can reveal elaborate patterns of human behaviour at a huge scale.”
The game is accompanied by a soundscape designed by Simon Pyke, which uses layers of vocals sampled from remote field recordings of tribes.
Together with the hordes of digital people, it makes for a surreal experience and an intriguing look at where virtual reality can take us – particularly considering the current ongoing social distancing we are all facing in our real lives.
The post Universal Everything’s Emergence recreates the crowd experience in VR appeared first on Creative Review.
Our agony aunt Anna Higgs offers advice on how to get due recognition – and maybe even an awards mention – when you’re a freelancer
The post Ask Anna: How can I get the recognition I deserve as a freelancer? appeared first on Creative Review.
Calling the Cuzen Matcha an ‘Instant Matcha Maker’ is as accurate as calling an airline pilot a chauffeur. I mean, it’s accurate in the fact that they both help transport you, but there’s still a vast difference in the scope of what they do. The Cuzen Matcha brews matcha tea in mere minutes, but it does so with the ritualistic expertise that’s often associated with brewing Japanese Matcha Tea. Unlike an instant coffee maker that just combines coffee grounds with water and filters it through, the Cuzen Matcha literally, mechanically conducts the matcha brewing ritual from start to finish.
The incredibly sleek looking device comes with a vertical chamber that houses a ceramic mill that finely grinds the leaves, mimicking the effect of a stone grinding mill. The matcha powder is collected in an aluminum container and is then dispensed into a cup of water with a magnetic whisk at its base that rotates to emulate the process of bamboo-whisking the powder into the water, giving you a perfectly brewed cup of fresh matcha tea. The entire process replicates/automates traditional practices, and by manually grinding and whisking the matcha, you’re left with a cup of tea that tastes as authentic and organic as it gets.
The matcha brewing process is simplified to just two button-presses. One button to start/pause the matcha grinding/brewing process, while the other button allows you to determine the strength of your beverage. The Cuzen Matcha comes with its own sachets of matcha leaves that get poured into the hopper inlet on top. The ceramic mill then grinds the leaves to a fine powder under 20 micrometers in size. This powder is then dispensed into Cuzen Matcha’s proprietary whisking cup that comes with a rotating whisk at the bottom. As soon as that happens, the whisk begins spinning (thanks to a magnetic motor controlling it from below) to perfectly incorporate the matcha powder into the water. The freshly brewed matcha can then be poured into your drinking cup, onto ice, or in cream to create a whole variety of matcha-flavored drinks.
Cuzen Matcha makes matcha-brewing incredibly easy, while still remaining true to the traditional process of matcha-making. Unlike your regular Nespresso/Keurig machines that just pump pre-brewed coffee from metallic pods (which generate tonnes of waste), Cuzen Matcha follows the matcha-brewing technique without any compromise. The leaves are ground right before they’re dispensed into each cup, resulting in fresh, organic, authentic Matcha every single time. Besides, the Cuzen Matcha appliance itself channels this incredibly calming Japanese minimalist aesthetic too, making it just the most beautiful and innovative take on this classic beverage with a cult following! Authentic Japanese Matcha is now literally just a button-press away.
Designers: Naoya Edahiro & Ayumi Ostrowski
Click Here to Buy Now: $333. Hurry, less than 48 hours left! Raised over $100,000.
At the push of a button, the Cuzen Matcha produces a fresh cup of matcha with their shade-grown organic Japanese tea leaves. It’s authentic matcha reimagined for the modern world.
They engineered this machine to maximize freshness and reproduce the qualities of a traditional stone mill and bamboo whisk.
Ceramic Mill – A complex groove pattern and super strong ceramic components set at high pressure produce a fine powder (under 20 micrometers) equivalent to a traditional 130-pound granite mill.
Tea Leaf Hopper – A brushed aluminum chamber that holds up to 20 cups of matcha leaves and prevents the leaves from losing their freshness by limiting their exposure to oxygen.
Wooden Lid – The key to keeping matcha leaves fresh for a longer time is a lid that seals tight and prevents oxidation.
Magnetic Whisk – Rotates at high speed, synchronized with the ceramic mill to produce the same effect as bamboo whisking by hand.
Platform – The other half of the magnetic whisk. Features matching notches that slide into the bottom of the whisking cup.
Strength Levels – Pick how strong you want your matcha. A single, one-and-a-half, or double shot.
Grind-Only Mode – Perfect for those who want to whisk freshly ground matcha the traditional way. Also great for cooking and baking with matcha powder.
Error Indicator – Gives you an LED error message if something’s misaligned in your Matcha Maker’s mill or cup.
Easy Clean Up – A quick rinse to wash out the whisking cup. For a less frequent, deeper cleaning just pop out the magnetic whisk and clean the cup.
They produce two different blends of matcha. Both are from shade-grown organic harvests, with their own flavor profiles and intended uses.
After three weeks of shade growing, their leaves are a vibrant green and full of umami flavor—only then are they ready to be picked for harvest. The leaves are then steamed, dried, prepared, and sealed so they stay fresh right until your drink is made.
Straight Matcha – Enjoy a freshly made cup of matcha. Premium Matcha Leaf is recommended.
Matcha Latte – Pour 6 oz of steamed milk into a double or triple shot of fresh matcha. Signature Matcha Leaf is recommended.
Sparkling Matcha – Mix matcha shot into sparkling water for a refreshing drink. Signature Matcha Leaf is recommended.
Just pour leaves in the hopper, fill the whisking cup with water, select the strength you want, and push start. Once your cup of matcha’s ready, you can make a matcha latte, sparkling matcha, or add it beer, white wine, or cocktails.
Unlike tea that you steep for a few minutes and throw away, drinking matcha means you ingest the entire leaf. Because you’re eating the whole matcha leaf, we think it’s important to harvest only the healthiest, most nutritious, and flavorful leaves—which is why we partner with organic tea farms in Kagoshima, Japan. Their farming process uses no chemical fertilizers and no chemical pesticides, so you enjoy the real taste of matcha.
Before harvest, our leaves are shade grown for at least three weeks until they’re vibrant green, lightly sweet, and full of umami flavor. Once they’re picked, the leaves are steamed and dried, prepared and sealed so they stay fresh right until your drink is made.
Click Here to Buy Now: $333. Hurry, less than 48 hours left! Raised over $100,000.
London-based Useful Studio has connected a tube station to a business park in Chiswick, west London, with a pedestrian bridge made from weathering steel.
Named Chiswick Park Footbridge, the pedestrian bridge forms part of a route between a London Underground station and the Chiswick Business Park.
“The bridge is designed to enable better connectivity and a safe enjoyable journey between the business park and the wider community along with access to the transport network and Chiswick Tube Station,” explained Catherine Ramsden founding director of Useful Studio.
The bridge was built from three weathering steel arches that increase in height from west to east as the spans grow. This means that the path curves around an existing building, creating the most efficient route.
Useful Studio chose the material due to its durable nature as the bridge’s location over train lines means that any maintenance needed would be costly. The studio aimed to create a “zero maintenance” bridge.
“Bridges typically have a 120-year life which puts a huge performance demand on the materials and detailing,” said Ramsden.
“Network Rail enhances this demand by restricting access for ongoing maintenance and retrofit. Work over live rail lines require a formal possession – these are exceptionally costly and require a long lead time for scheduling. Therefore it is better to design out this need by using materials that are self-weathering with a long life.”
The weathering steel arches are connected by angled steel support ties to the bridge’s deck to create a network arch structure.
The use of inclined support ties, which are linked together, creates a stiffer more stable structure meaning that less material was needed and mass dampers to control the vibrations of the footbridge were not needed.
“A network arch structure is the combination of the arch, the deck and critically, the tied inclined hangers. The network is achieved with the angled cables which are linked at their intersection,” explained Ramsden.
“This system increases the stiffness and the stability of the structure,” she continued.
“This solution emerged to provide stability to the very thin arch – in the pursuit of minimal material use – and to control the dynamic behaviour of the footbridge.”
Although network arch structures have several benefits they are not often used for footbridges as they involve complex engineering Ramsden added.
“Network arch footbridges are sophisticated structures which require a very good understanding of the structural behaviour, detailed care in the architecture – in particular at the hangers intersection, and precision during construction – especially for the tuning of the hangers,” she said.
“It requires very close collaboration between the design disciplines and the contractor to ensure success.”
To construct the bridge Useful Studio created a “kit of parts” so that it could be largely fabricated off-site. Each of the arch sections was brought to site in five sections before being assembled and lifted into place.
This limited the amount of time spent working above the rail tracks.
Chiswick Park Footbridge has been longlisted in Dezeen Awards 2020 in the infrastructure category. Cullinan Studio and McGurk Architects energy building that captures excess heat from the London Underground to help warm over 1,000 buildings was also longlisted in the same category.
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