Hasta La Ideas

The wise RISD president dispenses personalized advice in a live exhibition at London’s Riflemaker gallery

Today John Maeda, digital design guru and President of RISD, drew my destiny in the sand at the Riflemaker Gallery in London’s Soho area. Playing my part in Maeda’s four day consultancy performance piece “John Maeda is the Fortune Cookie” was a brief, but rather unforgettable experience.

There was little eye contact from Maeda as I was ushered reverently into the room by a lab-coated gallery assistant, he was busy stamping down the sand to create his newly blank canvas. His quiet presence was authoritarian, accentuating the impression of consulting an oracle. The sandpit arrangement, with him on the inside and me on the outside, created the necessary space between us. I am the outsider. The challenge? Can I break down the boundary with my presence and words?

In my allotted ten minutes I told him the fortunate story of how an outing for a cookie one afternoon last week led me to the Riflemaker gallery space and provided me with the opportunity to book a slot in his “fortune-cookie” performance. He liked the poetry of that.

While Maeda traced my story in the sand, cookie and all, I asked him “From one interdisciplinary person to another, how do you find a harmonious balance between the long + deep and the wide + shallow?”

I struck a chord. Maeda said he also experienced the discomfort of being interdisciplinary, but that he had gotten over it because he was happy in himself.

He then recounted a visual reference he once got from a Japanese designer, who contrasted the Eastern view of building a wide sturdy base with a shallow elevation (Maeda drew Mount Fuji—Hokusai style—in the sand), with Western narrow tall constructions that topple over (he then drew a vertical line that immediately resembled a skyscraper).

In summary John Maeda’s advice to me consisted of these salient points: Be confident enough to forge your own path, build a wide and sturdy base, be happy in yourself, don’t let other people take you down, move out in front of the pack, be a leader and a role model, enjoy your cookie.

I left, as Maeda hurriedly erased my sandy story with his feet, clutching a signed print out of one of his tweets (a poetic embodiment of making the digital physical). The tweet, for which I paid the princely sum of £2, says “The shortest communication path between two people is a straight talk.” Precisely.

Robot music and a volcano visualization in London’s digital and interactive arts festival

Walking into the recent Onedotzero Festival, you might be forgiven for thinking you’re walking into a romanticized version of the future. Celebrating the best in digital creativity, this year the London event presented a diverse program within its Adventures in Motion subset—such as the stimulating talk from Information is Beautiful‘s David McCandless, as well as radical moving images and beautiful audiovisual installations.

The festival’s Robotica category featured a selection of short films “exploring the ethics and social effects of a world shared with robots and androids.” While mostly dominated by boys with toys and exploding phallic robot animations, Robotica’s exception was the fantastically-conceived video of simple machines making music entitled “Instrumental Video Nine.”

Ultimately capturing everyone’s attention at Onedotzero was an incredible audiovisual installation of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano created by Joanie Lemercier of AntiVJ. Giving the impression of a 3D volcanic wire-frame landscape by light mapping the wall’s 2D surface, Eyjafjallajökull’s power pulled from the fact it never exploded—instead just pulsating with light, energy and sound.

Dutch designers Studio Makkink & Bey present furniture and household appliances combined with packing crates at Spring Projects in London.

Called the Crate Series, the designs were inspired by mobile shops and workspaces made from crates in India.

Every model has a specific function combined with objects like a vacuum cleaner, cabinets and sink, bath or bed.

The show will run from 5 November until 16 December.

Here’s more information from Spring Projects:

Spring Projects presents The Crate Series by Studio Makkink & Bey

5 November to 16 December 2010.

The Crate Series re-defines functional, ordinary objects by infusing them with new narratives.

Shipping crates usually used for temporary storage and freight are transformed into containers for living, domestic cabinets rich in detail.

The result plays with our ideas of value; the container becomes the content, a by-product is metamorphosed into the product.

Re-interpreting the container, Studio Makkink & Bey engage our perceptions of what a product’s purpose is. These shipping crates, normally used to temporarily house goods, take on a more solitary role as sized down household units.

The Crate Series was inspired by a trip to India, where Rianne Makkink noticed how people used crates to make mobile shops and workspaces.

At that time Studio Makkink & Bey were housed in an enormous industrial warehouse, the seemingly endless space in the high-ceilinged hall was the incentive to create workspaces on a more human scale.

The first crate dwelling was conceived. A crate cupboard placed on an old desk, its doors shielding the user from sights and sounds, allowing greater concentration, in a space solely providing room for the absolute essentials.

In its original guise as freight packaging, the crate protects its contents, but as furniture it also becomes a means of personal autonomy. These wooden retreats can be used to seclude oneself from the outside world, but when unfolded they can become furnishings inside an already furnished room.

Whilst travelling, they form familiar spaces within unknown spaces. The various models encompass a specific function, concentrated inside the crate and in the material finish.

The leather wrapping of the Bed Crate can be folded up as a wall panel or a headboard making it possible to adjust the furniture to varying personal needs for privacy.

The Bath Crate transforms into a sauna or dry cleaning room when closed off.

The Sink Crate is a wash unit for personal hygiene for enormous spaces, when bathing facilities are not close at hand.

The crates change in status from commercial to domestic is further emphasized by the striking decorative motifs on their exteriors.

The Vacuum Cleaner Crate wears its dusty content seemingly on the outside.

This crate is covered with a layer of grey fibres flocked onto the surface of the crate.

See also:

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WashHouse by Studio Makkink & Bey	House of Furniture Parts by Studio Makkink & Bey	Silver Sugar Spoon by Studio Makkink & Bey

Some of the Soviet’s toughest prison tattoos in a new London exhibit

A rare glimpse into the dark world of post-Soviet prison life, the London show “Russian Criminal Tattoos” features a series of photographs of prisoners and their artistic tattoos. From the cells of Russian prison settlements in far-off places with names like Nizhny Tagil, Perm and Chelyabinsk, many of the tattoos were forcibly (and disgustingly) removed by other inmates who disagreed with it or by authorities, since the art form was illegal.

Photographs shot by Sergei Vasiliev compliment drawings by Danzig Baldaev, who from 1948 to 2005 collected 3,000 drawings created by prisoners. Both Vasiliev and Baldaev worked as Soviet prison wardens, providing them easy access to the works. Despite that the KGB still had to consider the project, finally giving Baldaev permission to document and study the works as part of Soviet history.

The Guardian’s article about the tattoos includes the fascinating backstory about “grins”—tattoos depicting communist leaders in obscene positions—and how the ink for these was made of a mixture of melted down boot heels, blood and urine.

London-based publisher Fuel Design, who learned of the collection of Baldaev’s drawings from his widow, is behind the exhibit. Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell of Fuel purchased and published his work along with Vasiliev’s photos in the “Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia” trilogy, which you can purchase from their site for £495.

“Russian Criminal Tattoos” opens 29 October 2010 and runs through 28 November 2010.

A London artist’s knife skills and knack for precision are the subject of our latest video

“Some people like taking their time,” says artist Kim Rugg, whose artistic achievements are measured in millimeters, used X-ACTO blades and picas. We spent the afternoon with Rugg in her London home and studio talking about her work re-imagining newspapers, comics, stamps and cereal boxes using their existing form while rearranging their content. Kim finds inspiration from the mundane and common objects around us. Her wicked knife skills and tenacious attention to detail have created a body of work that is as impressive as it is curious.