La compagnie aérienne Terrafugia présente ce modèle d’avion-voiture, bientôt en production. En 30 secondes, cet avion devient une voiture dont les ailes se rétractent et se plient. Catégorisé comme un appareil volant léger, il peut accueillir deux personnes et coûtera 200 000 dollars.
This year saw the third triumphant incarnation of the New York Photo Festival, with exhibitions curated by Vince Aletti, Erik Kessels, Fred Ritchin, and Lou Reed. Among the highlights of the burgeoning event (along with a picture-perfect identity by Pentagram) is the announcement of the winners of the New York Photo Awards, which are decided by an eagle-eyed jury chaired by festival co-founder Daniel Power, who you may also know as the fearless leader of powerHouse Books. For those who missed this year’s awards gala, the organizers have created the below video featuring the winners and honorable mentions in all twelve categories. In just over ten minutes, you’ll see images spanning editorial, fine art, social documentary, and advertising by established snappers including Nadav Kander and Felix Streuli along with outstanding student work, all set to a rather haunting soundtrack.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Unsangdong Architects of Korea have designed a publisher’s office encircled by timber-clad steps. (more…)
Minneapolis’ pioneering Walker museum commandeers their lawn for a summer-long social experiment
An interactive project, Open Field invites the community of Minneapolis to use the Walker Art Center as a medium for their own expression. Inspired by the creative potential of online social networks, WAC turned their backyard into a physical environment for the collaborative exchange of ideas to occur.
The experiment gives anybody the opportunity to schedule an activity, which in the past have included everything from Qi-Gong classes to spontaneous play readings and live art constructions using locally-salvaged tree branches. Applicants need only to submit a short proposal to the Open Field calendar to lead their own event.
The Walker’s outdoor bar Open Lounge serves drinks, which on a hot day can inspire more spontaneous goings-on among people there just to hang out and relax.
“Our human ability to be creative, to produce new knowledge, to ask good questions, and to imagine innovative solutions is predicated in large part on our ability to transform what already exists. Open Field presents the perfect opportunity to experiment with a different, collective mode of programming that depends on you.”
Open Field launched 3 June 2010 and Twin Cities residents and visitors can enjoy it until the weather no longer permits it. One of the many programs at the Walker Art Center this summer, check out the calendar for more.
Seed-infused cardboard ups the sustainability of shipping
Fungi expert Paul Stamets’ Life Box infuses cardboard with seeds for a plantable shipping container. Simply tear up the box, bury it in the ground and water the area to get various forms of vegetation to sprout. Made from recycled paper and printed with soy-based inks, the box contains about 100 tree seeds that have mycorrhizal fungal spores. Trees and fungi live in a symbiotic relation, and as the trees begin to grow, the fungi can help nurture and protect the tree against drought and famine.
If one tree out of the hundreds of seeds grows for 30 years, it will offset approximately one ton of carbon. Highlighted on Good, contributor Andrew Price says of the boxes that start at $33 for a set of 10, “If you run a company that could use these instead of normal cardboard, I will happily trade a public endorsement of your product in the Good blog for a pledge to switch to these things.”
Two films from musician-slash-filmmaker Rick Alverson consider present-day American disquiet
An emerging filmmaker from Richmond, Virginia, Rick Alverson’s slowburning film style feeds off lingering frames, pregnant pauses and subtle interactions between its characters. His debut feature “The Builder” (due for release by indie label Jagjaguwar later this month) has a spacious, meditative style that will resonate with fan’s of Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy) and the natural feel of the dialogue in Cassavetes films. Billed as an “American existential portrait that explores the gulf between the idea of a thing and the thing itself,” it’s a contemplative and studied look at an Irish immigrant carpenter (Colm O’Leary) who set out to construct a house in upstate New York.
With a subdued score and soundtrack featuring Bon Iver, Gregor Samsa and Alverson’s own band, Spokane, the film screens tonight (7 July 2010) at Zebulon in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
And on the heels of “The Builder” comes Alverson’s newest film, “New Jerusalem,” which he’s currently shopping around to festivals. It also employs O’Leary’s quietly emotive acting skills, this time as a returning Afghanistan vet who befriends an evangelical Christian played by Will Oldham (Bonnie “Prince” Billy). Take a look at the recently-released trailer above, and pre-order “The Builder” from Jagjaguwar.
The new issue of Visionaire—our favorite limited-edition art-meets-fashion triannual—has been unveiled, and it’s a lush tribute to Alexander McQueen. The late designer’s work first appeared in the pages of the shape-shifting publication in 1996. “Since that time, he has been a continuous inspiration and presence in Visionaire,” note editors Steven Gan, Cecilia Dean, and James Kaliardos, who met with McQueen in 2003 about the possibility of collaborating with him on an issue. “His daring designs and challenging ideas of fashion have consistently excited and provoked us.” The theme of this, the fifty-eighth edition of Visionaire, is “spirit,” and it consists of a collection of images inspired by the late designer. Contributors include Nick Knight, Steven Klein, Inez van Lambsweerde and Vinoodh Matin, Steven Meisel, and Lady Gaga. Tucked inside a case accented with metallized golden brocade from McQueen’s spring 2010 show, the unbound photos are printed on paper embedded with wildflower seeds: when planted, watered, and given sun, the pages blossom.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
pI just had one of those moments where I feel like I’m living in the future, prompted by watching a German commercial about an Italian appliance–specifically, the Bugatti-designed Volo toaster. Check it out (starts at 0:17):/p
pobject width=”468″ height=”375″param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/65RoeB-M7nsamp;hl=en_USamp;fs=1″/paramparam name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”/paramparam name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”/paramembed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/65RoeB-M7nsamp;hl=en_USamp;fs=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”468″ height=”375″/embed/object/p
pAnd my “future” feelings aside, yes, I know, the Volo’s actually from the past. (It came out A HREF=”http://www.luxist.com/2007/12/14/the-bugatti-volo-toaster/” around 2007/A, but if you never heard of it either, give me a cyber high-five.)br /
/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/german_commercial_of_an_italian_appliance_is_giving_me_the_time_machine_effect_watch_for_yourself_before_you_judge_me_16899.asp”(more…)/a
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/G-Aw–uMJLgL0pzjoUvB_drcFVo/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/G-Aw–uMJLgL0pzjoUvB_drcFVo/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/G-Aw–uMJLgL0pzjoUvB_drcFVo/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/G-Aw–uMJLgL0pzjoUvB_drcFVo/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p
pimg alt=”garlic.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/garlic.jpg” width=”468″ height=”319″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p
pBruce Nussbaum has a provocative post over at FastCo Design Blog today titled “a href=”http://www.fastcodesign.com/1661859/is-humanitarian-design-the-new-imperialism”Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism?/a” In it he relays two recent instances in which Western designers present their humanitarian projects to Eastern audiences, which engenders some tense exchanges between the two groups. This is a tension that you’ll see a lot if you’re paying attention. It arises whenever one group calling themselves “experts” tries to help another group that, the experts assume, has insufficient knowledge. /p
pAt the end of the post, Nussbaum asks some really interesting questions. Here they are:/p
blockquote…Should we take a moment now that the [humanitarian design] movement is gathering speed to ask whether or not American and European designers are collaborating with the right partners, learning from the best local people, and being as sensitive as they might to the colonial legacies of the countries they want to do good in? Do designers need to better see themselves through the eyes of the local professional and business classes who believe their countries are rising as the U.S. and Europe fall and wonder who, in the end, has the right answers?/blockquote
pIn short, yes to all of the above. Now, we love humanitarian design. And it’s so great that more and more students and design firms are interested in it. But as we all know, the toughest part of a design problem is finding the right approach. With humanitarian design, the risks are really high. It’s not like designing consumer products. It’s not just about delivering the coolest new gaming device to junior so that he can have some fun after his cookies and milk. With humanitarian design, people’s lives are at stake. /p
pWestern designers must take a fresh approach to humanitarian design. They must check the know-it-all attitude at the door, adopt some humility, and think beyond designing and distributing gadgets that save the world. /p
pOne approach that is really interesting is a href=”http://buildingsocialbusiness.com/”Muhammad Yunus’s/a Type II Social Business. Now, a Type I Social Business is pretty much where humanitarian design is at now: Western designers design and distribute do-dads that solve a social problem. But Type II Social Business goes deeper – it creates jobs. When you design a Type II Social Business, you design it, or rather co-create it, with the poor people who you’ve set out to help. The assumptions are that all people are creative, have valuable knowledge, and possess an entrepreneurial spirit. Type II Social Business not only seems like the right approach to humanitarian design, it’s also so much more interesting and challenging than Type I. And we all know how designers love a good challenge. /pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/business/is_social_business_the_20_of_humanitarian_design__16898.asp”(more…)/a
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/LJ01vlyOVSgrq9CMroXe4D4H4fw/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/LJ01vlyOVSgrq9CMroXe4D4H4fw/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/LJ01vlyOVSgrq9CMroXe4D4H4fw/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/LJ01vlyOVSgrq9CMroXe4D4H4fw/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
