Hasta La Ideas

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pa href=”http://www.significantobjects.com”Significant Objects/a was founded by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker in 2009, as a quasi-anthropological experiment analyzing how inanimate objects become significant via narrativemdash;and it’s also turned into a literary journal secretly published on eBay. Most recently, it has become a fundraising outfit for good causes./p

pGlenn and Walker began recruiting writers to invent stories about doodads they had picked up in thrift stores or at yard sales. Their theory was that even imaginary narratives could add measurable value, and they tested this by selling the objects with their newly invented Significance on eBay. Once the experiment a href=”http://bit.ly/Tcsxd”proved their point/a, they realized we could convert this insight into positive force. Launching a new round of story + object auctions, they raised more than $2,200 for 826 National, a nonprofit that tutors young people in creative and expository writing. Presently, Significant Objects v3 is raising money for Girls Write Now, which mentors at-risk young women in New York City. Along the way, the project has caused a remarkable body of fiction to come into existence, with contributions from William Gibson, Curtis Sittenfeld, Myla Goldberg, Nicholson Baker, Neil LaBute, Bruce Sterling, Meg Cabot, Colson Whitehead, Lydia Millet, Lucinda Rosenfeld, Ben Katchor, and many others./p

pThis week’s objects were chosen and donated to the project by Paola Antonelli, senior architecture and design curator for the Museum of Modern Art. They have been given significance by Jim Shepard, Scarlett Thomas, Ron Currie Jr., Helen DeWitt, and Matt Brown./p

pThe series kicks off todaymdash; stay tuned for all of our cross-posts. /p

pFind out more about the Significant Objects at their a href=”http://www.significantobjects.com”homepage/a, on a href=”http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/significantobjects”ebay/a, and on a href=”http://www.twitter.com/SignificObs”twitter/a. Read about Girls Write Now, the non-profit this series will help support, a href=”http://www.girlswritenow.org”here/a./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/this_week_core77_significant_objects_16323.asp”(more…)/a
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pimg alt=”mp-forest.jpg” src=”http://www.core77.com/blog/images/mp-forest.jpg” class=”mt-image-none” height=”311″ width=”468″ /br /
img alt=”westofrome.jpg” src=”http://www.core77.com/blog/images/westofrome.jpg” class=”mt-image-none” style=”” height=”312″ width=”468″ //p

piAn indoor forest at Machine Project created by Sara Newey and Christy McCaffrey; Not For You, 2006, galvanized steel, dimmer, bulbs, West of Rome, 2006./i/p

pIf there’s one thing wide, sprawly Los Angeles can pride itself on having, it’s an abundance of space. But now, as I walk though neighborhoods filled with empty box stores and strip malls, I realize we may have far too much of it./ppLuckily, we’re also blessed with an abundance of creatives who have the desire to occupy it. a href=”http://www.westofromeinc.com/”Emi Fontana/a has filled vacant retail stores with art installations, and even used an empty modern house high in the hills above Pasadena to install a site-specific installation by Olafur Eliasson. In L.A.’s Chinatown, a href=”http://www.oogaboogastore.com/”Wendy Yao/a sells a collection of zines, handmade jewelry and records out of a miniscule strip mall, which has led to a variety of unusual temporary venues. Nearby, a href=”http://www.machineproject.com/”Mark Allen/a uses his small storefront as a place for a href=”http://machineproject.com/events/2010/03/12/bug-eat-bug/”identifying (and eating) edible insects/a, holding welding classes and orchestrating temporary takeovers of a href=”http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/alissa-walker/designerati/murder-under-alexander-calder-sculpture-and-60-more-clever-ways-get-p” target=”_blank”entire museums./a/p

div class=”article_quote”There’s a reason this is the age of the pop-up shop: space is available, and it’s yours for the taking./div

pLast month I saw these three visionaries speak as part of a L.A.-focused program at ARCOmadrid, Spain’s contemporary art fair. The panel featuring Fontana, Yao and Allen, and moderated by UCLA’s Russell Ferguson, was entitled “Alternative Spaces for Art,” but for me, it had a far more entrepreneurial tone than that. Each of them have filled a very real need in the community and turned wasted, overlooked spaces into destinations in themselves. The fact that these three creatives have founded true cultural centers emand/em succeeded in doing it in a place as notoriously scattered as Los Angeles makes me believe their concepts are true models for success./p

pI bring this up now because probably every designer, architect or artist I’ve ever spoken with has expressed the desire to open and operate a space: a gallery, a store, a classroom. And I would say this is the time. There’s a reason this is the age of the pop-up shop: space is available, and it’s yours for the taking. Use this moment when you’ve got a little extra downtime to inhabit the empty space next door, or some available space in your office that’s looking a bit lonely. Creating a space is the perfect opportunity to collaborate on a concept with other designers that helps all of you stay visible, busy, and creatively-fulfilled./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/real_estate_bust_how_creatives_are_carving_up_las_empty_space_16288.asp”(more…)/a
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pstrongFeatured Forum Topic of the Day:/strong a href=”http://boards.core77.com/viewtopic.php?f=5t=21225″Better ideas vs. better presentations?/a br /
by Dubya in a href=”http://boards.core77.com/viewforum.php?f=5″general design discussion/a/p

blockquoteI have been seeing and reading several posts/articles that give me a sense that there may be a difference of opinion among designers. It seems to me that some think a great presentation is better than a great idea/solution, while some think the opposite is true…So I am wondering what do people think? What value should we put on each aspect of design?/blockquote

p a href=”http://boards.core77.com/viewtopic.php?f=5t=21225″read and reply/a/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/core77_forum_topic_better_ideas_vs_better_presentations__16286.asp”(more…)/a
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div style=”align: right;”img src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2010/03/thebigrethink-panel.jpg” width=”468″ height=”312″ alt=”thebigrethink-panel.jpg”//div
div style=”align: right;”img src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2010/03/thebigrethink-audience1.jpg” width=”468″ height=”312″ alt=”thebigrethink-audience1.jpg”//div

pIt’s a sign of the times when emThe Economist/em, the house journal of the global business elite, holds a conference in London on ‘design thinking’ (official Big Rethink site a href=”http://www.economistconferences.co.uk/redesigningbusiness/home”here/a). Having attended the conference, produced in association with The Design Council and held over 11-12 March, I was left wondering one thing: why is design thinking such a hot topic with business leaders, given that it leaves so many designers cold? /p

pThe conference’s brilliant chair, Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, a global correspondent for The Economist and author of a href=”http://www.zoomtothepeople.com”Zoom/a, began by throwing down a hefty gauntlet to design. He explained that the world faces crises on many different levels, not only economic and environmental: politicians and corporate leaders are also experiencing a profound crisis of trust and legitimacy. This, in turn, has triggered a loss of confidence in the old ways of doing things and has led business and governments to cast around for new ideas. As design thinking is offering itself up as a process to solve many of these problems, what has it got to offer? Gulp! /p

pSo, how well did the conference fare, given such a preamble? The short answer is that the speakers largely sidestepped the crisesmdash;and sidestepped, too, the subject of design thinking. /p

div style=”align: right;”img src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2010/03/thebigrethink-vijay.jpg” width=”468″ height=”312″ alt=”thebigrethink-vijay.jpg”//div

pemVijay V. Vaitheeswaran./em/p

pbr /
bThe big sidestep/bbr /
The format didn’t help. There were too many rapid-fire sessions. Some were only 10 minutes long, leaving little time to develop much more than a sound bite or two. The Work Foundation’s a href=”http://www.theworkfoundation.com/aboutus/directorsteam.aspx”Will Hutton/a took a few bad-tempered minutes to tackle the economic crisis and make the case for more investment in RD. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Robin Bew concisely delineated all the crises, but, sadly, had been briefed not to show any graphs. Would that really scare the designers? /p

div class=”article_quote”There’s something odd going on when business and political leaders flatter design with potentially holding the key to such big and pressing problems, and the design community looks the other way. /div

pA number of speakers, mostly from outside the world of design, addressed sustainability. They rehearsed familiar themes (cutting waste, apparently, can also save you money!). Tellingly, they made few connections with design thinking, apart from Jeff Denby. He made a memorable presentation on his sustainable underwear a href=”http://www.wearpact.com/”brand/a, and its on-trend ethical marketing practices. /pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/design_thinkingeverywhere_and_nowhere_reflections_on_the_big_re-think__16277.asp”(more…)/a
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pimg alt=”manchildmyfriend.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/manchildmyfriend.jpg” width=”468″ height=”351″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pKurt Manchild was an author and inventor born in Jackson, MO in 1952. /p

pFrom a fairly young age Manchild found that he had ridiculously vivid dreams of finished inventions. He spent his teenage years thinking that dreams like this were normal. It wasn’t until the ’72 National Sleep Science Association (N.S.S.A.) convention that he found out his dreams were unique. He spent the next few years talking with bartenders, clergymen, and designers about his deep sleep brainstorms and formed a whole new philosophy. Armed with this knowledge he wrote his first and only book, emSilent Brainstorm: Ten Dreams That Every Designer Should Have at Least Once a Week/em. In the book he describes ways to trick your brain into certain dreams. He writes about the “Garage Sale Dream” where you go to a garage sale and see new products and then wake up and draw them. He also writes a lot about “Museum Dreams” where you would go to a design museum and it would be filled with amazing stuff that again, you would draw out upon waking. His book was a best seller in most of Europe and was available in two editions. The black version is semi-rare./p

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pSome say his last name sort of made him destined for this, but in the 1980’s Manchild got into both the toy industry and the video game industry. He released a series of toys called “REM Constables” in 1988 with a video game for the NES released in 1989. The toys were not a success. Most people attribute the failure to Manchild’s insistence of having constable as part of the name instead of warrior. The tag line for the series didn’t do it any good either (see picture below). One innovation was that each action figure came with a patch that was intended to be sewn on the child’s pillow. In this way the constables were supposed to be able to help children in their dreams and protect against nightmares./p

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pimg alt=”manchild4.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/manchild4.jpg” width=”468″ height=”351″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pIf the toys were a failure, then the video game was a disaster. It was never sanctioned by NES, was played during sleep, and nine times out of ten got stuck on a horrifying screen that featured a portrait of Manchild saying “Good Morning Tobias”. The game came with a unique pillow controller. The idea was that someone would put the game in the system, lay down on the pillow, sleep, then wake up in the morning to see what happened in the game. The pillow was supposed to monitor alpha waves as well as movement although most people that have tried it would disagree. Both the video game cartridge and pillow controller are extremely rare./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/design_fancy_kurt_manchild_16269.asp”(more…)/a
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