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We’ve seen several creative applications for shipping containers in the past, and the fact remains that these steel structures are unparalleled in terms of durability and availability for a recycled building material. Friend of CH …

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Storytelling across four art forms at the Conference on Creativity

The cast of speakers who take the stage at Design Indaba each year always present a range of unique positions on creativity, but a natural theme tends to emerge from among their respective processes. This year the common idea on everyone’s minds is that of the narrative—from food to scent there seems to be an infinite number of ways to artistically tell a story. Below are four standouts that touched upon this concept at Indaba.

Once cheekily called a “seal fucker” by his peers, Noma head chef René Redzepi has changed the way people view his work over the past few years, opening people up to the true beauty of Nordic cuisine. Redzepi talks about using ingredients as “letters” to create a language that weaves a narrative through food. “Why be happy with just A, B and C?” he asks, obsessively foraging and experimenting in order to build new stories that express his vision on a plate. The innovative chef explained to the Indaba audience that he purposely keeps his warehouse-turned-restaurant slightly barren and painted a muted earthy color so the food can really speak to the few lucky diners who get the chance to eat there each evening.

Taking her sense of smell beyond its emotional ties, Norwegian sensory linguist Sissel Tolaas travels the world capturing scents as an effective way to communicate a location, object or time. Part chemist, part artist, Tolaas’ wild approach to odors is founded in abstract molecules, which she uses to develop smell codes that then convey a certain meaning when released. The Berlin-based artist works from her SMELL RE_searchLab, where she has more than 2,500 molecules from projects like dissecting David Beckham’s shoes—which are exactly on par with an extremely stinky cheese—or recreating the scent of World War I. Tolaas experiments with aromas because, she says, one’s sense of smell packs an even greater impact than vision, which creates a memorable connection and relays an inexpressible description.

Filmmaker Chris Milk is interested in creating narrative music videos that can somehow match the emotional relevance of the song they depict. Presenting at Indaba with his frequent collaborator, digital artist Aaron Koblin, Milk produces visual stories that not only coincide with the feeling of a particular track, but are themselves poignant and deeply memorable. His concept for the Johnny Cash song “Ain’t No Grave“—an interactive and communal art project—or the Arcade Fire song “The Wilderness Downtown“—an HTML5-built interactive video that allows you to customize your experience to your own address—reiterate his mission to give people a personalized experience which enables their own narrative around the song.

Fascinated by the amount of time people put into making a product, Eindhoven-based furniture designer Piet Hein Eek skips the design stage and starts off in production. Though he cites practical reasons—”labor costs nothing, material costs a fortune”—his method of building from scraps is a conceptual move as well. According to Hein Eek, the remnants lay a foundation for a chair’s story more purely than would his own stylistic vision. Therefore, benches are determined by the size of their beams and chairs are covered in fabric found around the derelict buildings near his studio. The names of pieces like the “99.13% cupboard” or “96.7% cupboard” reflect the amount of materials that were not wasted in their production. Hein Eek’s transparent design and simple approach give furniture a personalized narrative that its future owner can continue to build upon.

A story-centered approach to collaborative retail

Taking the principles learned from NYC-based start-ups, retail consultant Rachel Shechtman quietly unrolled A Startup Store last night in the shadow of the High Line. “A Startup Store has the point of view of a magazine, but it changes like a gallery and it sells things like a store,” she says. Shechtman calls the concept “transactional storytelling,” placing a narrative at the center of a retail venture. The store will be completely reinvented every four to six weeks, with a different theme guiding every detail.

The first story is “Beta.” Shechtman asks, “If a website can be in beta, then why can’t a store be in beta to work out its kinks?” As workers walked around setting up displays and adjusting light fixtures, the first few customers browsed the selection of goods from five NYC startups. Birchbox, a subscription retailer of beauty products, is displaying their monthly collection with a range of items from both couture and grass-roots brands. Also featured is Quirky, an online community that selects products to invent based on user votes.

Shechtman grew up around trade shows and as a girl wanted to shop for a living like the buyers she met. Six years ago, the idea for this new retail concept was born. A simple conversation with Shechtman essentially offers an education in retail, and she sees a clear path for the future of story-driven consumption. “As people have less time, they want more from their experiences,” she says. Dedicated to crafting new business models and forecasting trends, Shechtman wants to create an experience that is as much about the process as the final product.

In a display case near the back of the store is BaubleBar jewelry’s range of original neckwear. Nearby you can check out the goods from Joor, an online professional matchmaker for designers and retailers. The site is a valuable resource for up-and-coming brands as well as bigger businesses looking to reach boutique audiences.

Shechtman plans to launch a complimentary online shop that, with a fixed name and web address, will ironically have a more permanent feel than the polymorphous brick-and-mortar location.

Until recently, the interior was masked by massive eyes plastered by anonymous artist and TED prize-winner JR. Now, the current exhibition is displayed on modular furniture made from 90% recycled paper by Way Basics, and Mark Kusher of Architizer will curate the furniture of each new installation by matching architects to the theme. The back wall of the space holds artwork from Artspace, an online marketplace for affordable pieces from top contemporary artists.

As the store evolves, a permanent name will be attached and graphic designer and typographer Stefan Sagmeister will provide the logo and branding—a rare treat from an artist who rarely does this kind of commercial work. Each upcoming installation will be underwritten by a brand that fits with the overarching theme. The store launches officially in February as a “Love” story.

Designer David Benqué examines the role of imagination in computer-generated folk tales

Giving mythical tales a modern makeover, designer David Benqué has created The Infinite Adventure Machine, a story-generating program that merges fairytale narration with digital computing. Modeled after the 31 functions of folktales identified by the philosopher Vladimir Propp, The Infinite Adventure Machine generates timed visual cues and synopses for imagining your own story. Propelling the plot is a formula that denotes each of the 31 functions, such as “Trickery” and “Guidance,” with a letter and a number to create a story that is equal parts craft and code.

Inspired by Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi novel, “The Diamond Age,” Benqué set out to create an adaptive book that informs the pacing of composition enhanced by the user’s own ingenuity. The speculative project was commissioned by Microsoft Research (Cambridge UK) and a participant of the Future of Writing project, The Infinite Adventure Machine signals a rise in narrative science that contemplates the speculative future of fiction. Although automated archetypes provide storytelling signposts, imagination still remains a fundamental element of the process. Benqué states, “I wanted people to question the extent to which reducing stories to a system is a meaningful quest and what part of our brains will remain an enjoyable mystery.”

The Infinite Adventure Machine is a featured project under the collective exhibition, Glitch Fiction. The show will be held at the Cité de la Mode et du Design during Paris Design Week until 18 September 2011.