Milan 2014: Space Caviar’s algorithmic publishing project will be travelling to Venice for the architecture biennale, with the final issues from Milan design week now available to download – including contributions from Formafantasma and Martino Gamper (+ slideshow + download).
Joseph Grima‘s design research collaborative Space Caviar created a new realtime publishing algorithm, called Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), which combines text produced using voice recognition technology with text and images posted on social platforms like Instagram and Twitter.
The software debuted in Milan last week with a series of talks called On the Fly providing the core content for the resulting publications, which were printed instantly from a travelling publishing unit known as the FOMObile and based on an Open Structures modular system designed by Thomas Lommee.
Participants in the talks, which took place in Nike‘s Aero-static dome at Palazzo Clerici, included Martino Gamper, Clemens Weisshaar, Atelier Bow Wow, Bart Hess and Formafantasma. Members of the public from all over the world were also invited to take part by using the #OnTheFlyMilan hashtag on social media networks.
“The idea behind FOMO is to explore the potential of event metadata as source material for a performative publishing process, but the print component is important – the whole thing made a lot more sense when we bound it all together into a single volume at the end on the FOMO sewing machine,” said Grima.
The FOMObile will be in residence in Venice in early September and may also make an appearance during the opening weekend in early June.
“From a Dadaist perspective I think the Milan experiment went very well – almost everything about it was unexpected, such as how moments of intensity and moments of inactivity are revealed in the blanks and overlaps,” said Grima.
“What we’d like to do next is explore the other end of the spectrum, perhaps creating something that is indistinguishable from a conventional publication, for example working with the social media and physical interactions between people on a weekday in one of the piazzas of Genoa,” he said.
The project was inspired by a comment from futurist and writer Bruce Sterling, who said that “events were the new magazines”. Sterling was among the visitors to the project during Milan design week.
Milan 2014: design duo Formafantasma is presenting a collection of engraved drinking glasses that form new patterns when stacked together, at an exhibition curated by Rossana Orlandi in Milan
Commissioned by the MAK Museum in Vienna and produced by Austrian brand J.& L. Lobmeyr, the Alphabet collection of glasses and a carafe by Formafantasma are engraved with twelve different patterns.
The etchings reference motifs found in both J.& L. Lobmeyr’s archive and at the Geymüllerschlössel castle, in which the museum is housed.
Placed upside-down on the table one inside another, any two engraved patterns will combine to form a new pattern.
Delicate gold lines on each glass suggest the correct alignment. The bigger glass protects the smaller one like a crystal dome used to cover a still life composition.
“The design highlights the pleasure of diversity within a set of objects while revisiting the rules of table setting,” said Formafantasma.
The pieces were originally created for a site-specific installation called The Stranger Within for the Dining Room of Geymüllerschlössel.
They will be shown at the Rossana Orlandi-curated Bagatti Valsecchi exhibition, Via Gesù 5, in Milan from 8 to 13 April.
Milan 2014:a series of talks will launch this afternoon in Nike’s Aero-static dome at Palazzo Clerici, forming part of the FOMO algorithmic publishing project organised by Joseph Grima with Dezeen.
Three afternoons of talks called On The Fly will kick off today with Clemens Weisshaar, Atelier Bow Wow, Folder, Linda Fregni and Bart Hess discussing the theme of weightlessness in design.
The talks will take place at Palazzo Clerici inside a dome created by Arthur Huang, founder of MINIWIZ, which uses Nike’s Flyknit technology to create a temporary events space.
They are free to attend and each afternoon the speakers will tackle a different theme related to design practice, presenting a minimum of two images to accompany their talk.
During the talks a real-time publishing algorithm – developed by Joseph Grima’s design research group Space Caviar and called Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) – will automatically create written articles from live speech and social media streams using the #OnTheFlyMilan hashtag.
These will be collated in a PDF that will then be printed and saddle-stitched on the spot from the FOMObile – a roving publishing press with its own built-in power generator and solar-powered wi-fi hotspot. The resulting publication will be distributed for free in Milan and made available on the Dezeen website.
The On The Fly talks will be FOMO’s first test in a real-world environment. Anyone, anywhere will be able to take part by using the #OnTheFlyMilan hashtag on social media on Wednesday 9, Thursday 10, and Friday 11 April between 5.00 and 7.30pm CET.
Today’s event will be moderated by Joseph Grima, founder of Space Caviar and the former editor of Domus.
Talks on Thursday will be hosted by Gianluigi Ricuperati and will include Ianthe Roach, Pier Nucleo and Italo Rota, who will all discuss the theme “seamlessness”. On Friday, Marco Velardi will host Formafantasma, Martino Gamper and Anna Meroni talking about sustainability in design.
Scroll down for the full schedule for On The Fly:
9 April, Weightlessness with Joseph Grima
17:00 Clemens Weisshaar 17:30 Yoshi Tsukamoto, Atelier Bow Wow 18:00 Folder: Marco and Elisa 18:30 Linda Fregni 19:00 Bart Hess
Weightlessness will explore how external masses and strains, or lack thereof, shape the thinking and production of design. How does the experience of our environments impact on the design process? What does this mean for the final product? With a shifting landscape of outside forces, what does this mean for practice? What would freedom, or weightlessness, from this mean for our work and for us?
Seamlessness will ask whether consistency is good for design. Is a process, or product, designed without interruption a good thing? Is a perfectly consistent object or idea something positive? What can the messy convergence or merging of technologies, processes or people add to a project? How do these transitions and interfaces of design change or challenge us for the better?
11 April, Sustainability with Marco Velardi
17:00 Formafantasma 17:30 Brent Dzekciorius 18:00 Anna Meroni 18:30 Martino Gamper 19:00 Arthur Huang
Sustainability will take the practice of contemporary practitioners and explore the social, political, economic, and environmental aspects of sustainability. What is the impact of designing sustainably? How do we sustain interdependence between process, products and disciplines? These conversations will attempt to understand the life cycle of design, and the flows of work systems.
Milan 2014: objects made out of lava from Mount Etna in Sicily will be presented by design duo Formafantasma in Milan next week (+ slideshow).
Sicilian-born Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi of Formafantasma experimented with cooled lava from the volcano’s eruption last year to create the De Natura Fossilium collection, made in collaboration with Gallery Libby Sellers.
“When Mount Etna erupted on 20 November 2013, the dramatic event was broadcast by a haunting noise of rumbling stones and a vast plume of dark smoke that completely obscured the sun,” said the designers.
“Mount Etna is a mine without miners – it is excavating itself to expose its raw materials.”
After the eruption, the lava cooled and solidified into dark grey basalt rock. Formafantasma collected samples of the rock from Etna and nearby Stromboli, which they melted and blew to create glass, wove into fibres for textiles and milled into various shapes.
“When we experimented with the melting, mouth blowing and casting of lava, the research and tests took a really long time,” Trimarchi told Dezeen. “The difficult part was to understand the right cooling time of the material. We had thousands of tests made that just cracked during the cooling time.”
The pieces were used to create stools, coffee tables and a clock with linear forms that reference the work of Postmodern designer Ettore Sottsass.
Paired with brass elements, the rock has been cut to reveal strata and textures formed as it cooled quickly.
A crater of powdered stone forms the base of a circular clock, which has brass hands that turn inside the depression.
Sections of the tables and stools patterned by the air holes formed in the rock are held in place with brass plates and secured with threads.
The glass was mouth-blown into vessels or moulded into boxes shaped like the dwellings at the foot of the volcano.
A black mirror suspended on a string over a brass frame is balanced using a chunk of rock.
Formafantasma’s collection will be shown at Palazzo Clerici in Milan city centre from 8 to 13 April.
Here’s some more information sent to us by the designers:
“When Mount Etna erupted on 20th November 2013, the dramatic event was broadcast by a haunting noise of rumbling stones and a vast plume of dark smoke that completely obscured the sun. After the smoke, black earthen debris began showering down over the villages and cities within the immediate vicinity of the mountain. From the highway through to the Greek theatre in Taormina, everything was covered with black. Mount Etna is a mine without miners – it is excavating itself to expose its raw materials.”
Studio Formafantasma, in collaboration with Gallery Libby Sellers, present De Natura Fossilium – an investigation into the cultures surrounding this particularly Sicilian experience to bring both the landscape and the forces of nature together as facilities for production.
As in their previous projects Autarchy (2010) and Moulding Tradition (2009), Formafantasma questions the link between tradition and local culture and the relationship between objects and the idea of cultural heritage. De Natura Fossilium is a project that refuses to accept locality as touristic entertainment.
Instead, the work of Formafantasma is a different expedition in which the landscape is not passively contemplated but restlessly sampled, melted, blown, woven, cast and milled. From the more familiar use of basalt stone to their extreme experiments with lava in the production of glass and the use of lavic fibers for textile, Formafantasma’s explorations and the resulting objects realize the full potential of the lava as a material for design.
In homage to Ettore Sottsass, the great maestro of Italian design and an avid frequenter of the volcanic Aeolian islands, this new body of work takes on a linear, even brutalist form. Geometric volumes have been carved from basalt and combined with fissure-like structural brass elements to produce stools, coffee tables and a clock. The clock itself is deconstructed into three basalt horizontal plates to represent the passing of hours, minutes and seconds. A brass movement spins around the plates, shifting three different ages of lavic sand that have been sampled from three different sites on Stromboli.
Lavic glass, procured by remelting Etna’s rocks, has been mouth-blown into unique vessels or cast into box-like structures that purposefully allude to the illegal dwellings and assorted buildings that have developed at the foot of the volcano. Drawing on their own vocabulary, these solitary glass boxes and mysterious black buildings have been finished with such archetypal Formafantasma detailing as cotton ribbons and Murano glass plaques. By returning the rocks to their original molten state Formafantasma are reversing the natural timeline of the material and forcing a dialogue between the natural and manmade.
A black, obsidian mirror that is suspended on a brass structure and balanced by lavic rocks continues this line of narrative, as the semi-precious glass like stone is produced only when molten lava is in contact with water. Formafantasma have also investigated the tensile properties of lavic fibre and woven two different wall hangings.
These pieces combine illustrative references to both the Greek mythological gods of Mount Etna and the microscopic views of lavic rock’s geological strata as ascertained through the designers’ collaboration with the Volcanologist Centre of Catania (INGV). As a sustainable alternative to carbon fiber, Formafantasma’s use of lavic fibre has effectively reappropriated a conventionally high tech material for artisanal ends.
While the collection focuses on a specific locality, the project has been developed in collaboration with a number of European experts: from the CNC cutting of basalt in Sicily to the scientific analysis of lavic stones at the INGV of Catania, through the experiments with lava as glass at both the Glass Museum in Leerdam and Berengo Studio in Murano, to the brass developments with Carl Aubock in Vienna and the textile works with the Textile Museum in Tilburg. The collection is also accompanied by a photographic series by long time collaborator Luisa Zanzani.
All works are part of an edition, available exclusively through Gallery Libby Sellers, London. Supported by Creative Industries Fund NL.
The self-titled book includes four years of projects by Formafantasma, the studio formed by Italian-born designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin after graduating from Design Academy Eindhoven.
Competition closes 26 March 2014. Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeen Mail newsletter and at the top of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.
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Cow-bladder lights, fish-skin stools and plastic made of beetles all feature in an exhibition of work by Eindhoven design duo Formafantasma.
The Prima Materia exhibition, at the Stedelijk Museum in the Dutch city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, looks back at work by Italian-born designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of Formafantasma.
The exhibition is organised in two parts. Videos, sketches and material samples along the entrance corridor give a behind-the-scenes look at the duo’s work processes before the finished pieces are viewed in the main space.
“We wanted the exhibition to be more than just about the final pieces or the making of the objects,” Trimarchi told Dezeen. “It was important to show how our projects are ‘vessels’, and show the context and concept behind the work without being too literal.”
The designs are displayed on simple wooden tables and stands, arranged in clusters around the gallery. The exhibition opened on 15 February and runs until 15 June. Photography is by Inga Powilleit.
Read on for more information from the museum:
Prima Materia – design by Studio Formafantasma Exhibition 15 February – 15 June 2014
After Wieki Somers, Maarten Baas and Scholten & Baijings, the Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch presents the design duo Studio Formafantasma: Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin– two Italian designers from Eindhoven.
The exhibition Prima Materia – design by Studio Formafantasma is the first survey of the oeuvre of Studio Formafantasma. Since graduating from the Design Academy Eindhoven, these two Italian designers have received invitations from all over the world for their unusual use of material, forms and design concepts.
Studio Formafantasma is highly productive: within a period of five years they have presented 14 projects and collections, worked for design labels like Fendi, Droog and Vitra Design Museum, and put on presentations during the Salone del Mobile in Milan, Art Abu Dhabi and Design Miami Basel. Museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Art Institute of Chicago have purchased their work. This retrospective will focus not only on objects and installations but also on the creative process of Studio Formafantasma.
The title of the exhibition Prima Materia refers to alchemy: the transformation of everyday raw materials into precious goods. Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin do something similar as designers. An extensive research and work process results in products and installations that raise questions about the role of industry, globalisation and sustainability. Thus the Botanica collection arose from the question of what plastics can be made of when there is no more oil. For this purpose they developed their own vegetable polymers (plastics) for making vases, bowls, a coffee table and lamps.
The designs of Studio Formafantasma offer an alternative vision to today’s consumer society and the role that design plays in it. Their unique, handmade products (table service made of a flour based material, stools made of fish leather and sea sponge, bottles made of resin) are statements about material and function. By opting for natural materials and pre-industrial (traditional) techniques and combining them with new possibilities of use, Studio Formafantasma makes suggestions for an alternative, democratic design method: what they offer is a kind of manual for getting to create yourself.
Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in our next movie from Eindhoven, Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi of Formafantasma show us their experiments with unusual materials including fish skin, cow bladders, animal blood and even lava.
Italian designers Farresin and Trimarchi, who met at Design Academy Eindhoven and set up Formafantasma in the small Dutch city after graduating, have become well-known for their interesting use of materials.
The duo’s latest project involves melting down volcanic rock from Mount Etna in Sicily.
“We are conducting some really simple experiments by remelting lava,” Farresin tells us when we visited their studio during Dutch Design Week.
“We are working with basalt fibres, which is this really interesting material that we found. It is similar to glass fibre, but is entirely produced by the melting of lava. Because of the chemical components of lava, you can create fibres with it.”
Farresin shows us two applications of the material, a textile made from woven threads of basalt fibre as well as a ceramic-like material, which is made from layers of this textile heated in a kiln.
“We put it in a ceramic oven and control [the temperature] so that the basalt fibre does not melt completely and turns into a more structural material,” Farresin explains.
“What we like about these skins, which we got from a company in Iceland, is that they have been discarded by the food industry,” he says. “We are actually continuing the investigation of these materials and are [currently] designing a piece for a company using fish skins.”
The Craftica collection also included water containers made from animal bladders, which Trimarchi shows us next.
“These are from cows and, again, they come from the food industry,” he says. “Usually these are used in Italy to make cases for mortadella [an Italian sausage].”
Farresin adds: “We still find the material fascinating, so we thought to use them in lighting. We made a construction using the valve of a bike so that we can basically dry the piece and inflate it directly on the LED light source.”
The first is bois durci, a nineteenth-century plastic made from sawdust and animal blood. Then he shows us pieces of shellac, a natural polymer secreted by lac bugs, a small parasitic insect native to India and Thailand.
Trimarchi says that, since the Botanica project, they have been looking into better methods of producing the material as well as ways of using it.
“Something we are really trying to investigate is to make the production process of shellac more efficient,” he explains.
Farresin adds: “Nowadays it is just farmed by small communities in India and Thailand. We see a parallel between this and silk production, but the farming is really difficult.”
“We are interested in getting in touch with institutions in India to see if we can participate in improving the bug farming there.”
We drove around Eindhoven in our MINI Cooper S Paceman. The music in the movie is a track called Family Music by Eindhoven-based hip hop producer Y’Skid.
by Stefano Caggiano Formafantasma—a studio based in Eindhoven, Netherlands—is run by Italian designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Ferrasin, who have become famous over the past few years for their alchemical approach to design and their use…
As part of Peroni Nastro Azzurro‘s series of talks on Italian design, Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs will chair a discussion with Italian designers Formafantasma at the RIBA in London on 26 April.
The talk will focus on their work and trends in Italian design, leading to a discussion with the audience. Tickets are free but must be booked in advance – email peroni@77pr.co.uk to request tickets.
PERONI NASTRO AZZURRO CELEBRATES THE VALUES AND FUTURE OF ITALIAN DESIGN THROUGH ITS “PERONI COLLABORAZIONI TALKS”
Peroni Nastro Azzurro’s Collaborazioni Talk brings together two of Italy’s most influential product designers to celebrate Italy’s unique values whilst discussing the future of Italian design
What: The Peroni Collaborazioni Talks: with FormaFantasma When: 26th April 2012, 7-9pm Where: RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London, W1B 1AD
Italy is globally renowned for its ability to consistently create some of the most iconic pieces of design. Indeed, the country boasts a long list of well known designers who have become global names in their own right including Fabio Novembre, Alessi, Mendini and Piano. Their success has been built from a unique set of values and traditions that result in beautiful, stylish yet ultimately practical products.
The Peroni Collaborazioni Talks celebrate these values and traditions of craftsmanship, passion and attention to detail so often found in Italian culture and trends by bringing together the collaborative design duo Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin. They will share their view on what lies ahead for the future for Italian design and its role in product design.
The evening will offer a unique insight into the personal reflections and anecdotes from FormaFantasma focusing on their combined interest in Italian craftsmanship, whilst creating and encouraging an audience discussion and debate around the importance of Italian design, its values and heritage.
The two met during their BA in communication design and their interest in product design developed during their Masters degree at the design Academy Eindhoven. Their combined love for classic craftsmanship has lead them to analyze and re-evaluate the relationship between “local cultures and global contexts” – translating those crafts into industrial processes and pushing the boundaries by working with unique and unusual materials, including bread. More recently the duo has embarked on a project with Fendi, working specifically with leather and looking at the complex relationship between humans and nature as part of Design Miami.
Jason Maling, Marketing Director at Miller Brands UK commented:
“Peroni Nastro Azzurro has always exemplified the traditions of Italian craftsmanship, passion and flair. It naturally reflects the unique style that permeates Italian culture, where these values are reinforced with sublime attention to detail. With last year marking such importance for Italians, Peroni Nastro Azzurro wanted to honour Italy’s creative futures so we’re delighted to be working with FormaFantasma to close our successful series of talks. We’re looking forward to an enlightening evening of debate and discussion celebrating Italian design values whilst also recognising Italy’s contribution to design and asking provocative questions about its future.”
Peroni Collaborazioni will be hosted by renowned design journalist and critic Marcus Fairs and is the last in a series of talks which examine the past and future of Italian style and design. Previous speakers include Fabio Novembre, Angela Missoni and Anna Dello Russo.
Viewers can watch previous talks by visiting www.facebook.com/peroniuk. For those unable to attend the talk can post questions by using the twitter hash tag #PeroniTalks.
About Peroni Nastro Azzurro
Peroni Nastro Azzurro has been brewed in Italy to an original recipe since its creation in 1963. Peroni Nastro Azzurro is brewed with the same Italian passion that goes into the country’s iconic exports to create a clear pale lager made from the finest spring-planted barley and Italian maize combined with malts and hops to create the highest standard of premium beer. Visit www.PeroniItaly.com for more information.
Milan 2011: Eindhoven designers Formafantasma present this range of plastic vessels resulting from experiments with natural polymers at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan this week.
Called Botanica, the project was commissioned by Italian foundation Plart, a research institute dedicated to preserving plastic works of art and design.
The designers experimented with making plastic from natural resins, rubbers, shellac, wood and animal products.
These materials have been combined with traditional materials like wood, ceramic metal to furniture, lighting, vases and bowls that have shapes and details derived from natural forms like pine cones or seed pods.
Botanica is the latest project by studio FormaFantasma, commissioned by Plart, an Italian foundation dedicated to scientific research and technological innovation in the recovery, restoration and conservation of works of art and design produced in plastic. Maria Pia Incutti, founder of Plart and Marco Petroni, curator of the project, commissioned the studio to create their own personal interpretation of polymeric materials.
The perception of plastic materials has drastically changed over time. Initially considered the material of the future, synthetic polymers are now seen as the symbol of a not anymore exciting oil era. Scientific research is increasingly looking to find sustainable alternatives or ways to make plastic biodegradable. In opposition to this, the Plart foundation is addresses another necessity with its activities and research: to preserve plastic-based art and design pieces.
The tension between the need to find valid alternatives to an extraordinary material, and to preserve the artworks of the last century underlines how deeply both the qualities and disadvantages of plastic have penetrated into our culture. Most of the objects we use daily are made of plastic, and though the material may take a different form, plastic will remain relevant as we move forward.
With Botanica Studio Formafantasma is giving its personal homage to plastic materials by investigating the history of polymers.
About the project
Botany, as a discipline, began with early human efforts to identify edible, medicinal and poisonous plants, making it one of the oldest sciences. More then two centuries ago plants started to be categorized also for their secretions, a possible source of material. The objects displayed in the Botanica collection are designed as if the oil- based era, in which we are living, never took place. Almost as if historians, Studio Formafantasma investigated the pre-Bakelite period, discovering unexpected textures, feelings and technical possibilities offered by natural polymers extracted from plants or animal-derivatives. The designers researched and hunted for information, digging into the 18th and 19th centuries, when scientists began experimenting draining plants and animals in search for plasticity.
Rosin, Dammar, Copal (a sub-fossil state of amber), Natural Rubber, Shellac (a polymer extracted from insect excrement that colonize trees) and Bois Durci (a 19th century material composed of wood dust and animal blood), are amongst others, materials investigated by the studio. The organic details and plant-like forms of the pieces underline the vegetal and animal origins of the resins, while the palette of colours is based on natural amber tones in combination with traditional materials such as wood, ceramic and metal.
The natural textures and honey-like colours of the resins evoke the memory of 20th century bakelite objects, however, the finish and details are somewhat archaic yet contemporary. In Botanica, plastics are used as precious details, in an attempt to develop a new post-industrial aesthetic.
Today, we can be said to be moving towards a new post-oil era, the pre-oil era is starting to be globally re discovered in search for alternatives. Online blogs and archives are constantly collating and updating information challenging consumers to produce their own plastics, while an American University is currently importing Russian Dandelion flowers, reigniting the lost tradition of extracting rubber from the plants roots. In line with this attitude, Studio Formafantasma looks to the past as a source of inspiration, while delivering a body of work with a contemporary twist. With Botanica, Studio Formafantasma offers a new perspective on plasticity, reinterpreting centuries old technology lost beneath the impeccable surface of mass production.
Credit photos: Luisa Zanzani Project:Studio Formafantasma – Andrea Trimarchi, Simone Farresin Commission by : Plart Foundation Curated by Marco Petroni
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