Eclectica

Tomás Saraceno

2010-03-10T12:42:00Z

Tomás Saraceno produces work which blurs the boundaries between conceptual art, architecture and structural engineering. Many of his pieces explore complex networks and the relationships between spaces.

His latest work, 14 Billions, is a giant (and accurate) model of a Black widow spider's web; created with the help of spider experts and astrophysicists, the piece probes the similarities between the structure of the web and that of our universe.

Some more work is viewable at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, ArtNet and DesignBoom.

Via Cool Hunting

Wednesday 10 March 2010, 12:34

2010-03-10T12:34:00Z

Wired Magazine takes a look back at the dot-com boom and bust, 10 years on. Love the art direction: true '90s web style.

Wednesday 10 March 2010, 12:26

2010-03-10T12:26:00Z

Lots of great ideas on display at the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year 2010, including a product design award nomination for Min-Kyu Choi’s folding plug.

Pascal Bronner: New Malacovia

2010-03-09T12:33:00Z

New Malacovia is a thesis project by Pascal Bronner, a student of the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture.

Apparently inspired by '80s book The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, the project is a masterplan for a surreal, futurist city which lies flattened between the surface of the River Danube and a layer of iron "pixels" which form a fake river to act as camouflage and environmental protection.

“Familiar everyday materials are used to perform unfamiliar architectural and urban tasks. The windows are the custodians of the city’s power, while the humble potatoes are used to harvest renewable energies. Pixel blankets of iron foil suspended on fine vertical sewing pins camouflage the New Malacovia. The city bed, a matrix of bottle corks, buoyantly synchronises with the Danube River, which in turn takes the weight of the entire city.”

It's a witty and engaging collection of ideas, but these ideas are not necessarily as firmly rooted in fantasy as they first appear; Bronner refers to it as “the blueprint for a perpetually sustainable culture and an environmentally responsible city”.

Via The Presidents Medals Student Awards

On Online Identity

2010-03-08T13:24:00Z

The current social media trend has had a huge effect on the way we interact with each other on the web. Both our personal and business relationships rely more and more heavily on sites like Facebook and Twitter; and yet there's still no real way of knowing for sure that the people we talk to online are really who they say they are. Even on Facebook, where it's generally the case that people use their real names, confusion often arises: for example when an old friend from school who has since married pops up with a different surname.

A similar issue rears it's head when talking about blogs and their authors. It strikes me that writing or curating a blog or online diary is a very personal thing. Yet privacy is really a non-issue here; after all, you've consciously chosen to make your thoughts accessible to the entire web. Why, then, are there so many blogs and journals out there whose authors are either completely anonymous, or write under a pseudonym?

Personally, I like people to know who I am. I always use my real name and a photo to identify myself online, where possible; I think it helps people to connect when they can put a face to the words that they're reading. That said, I can completely understand why some people revel in the anonymity of the internet. It's a place where you can easily appear to be more than you are; where all that your audience gets to see of the “real you” are the parts that you let them see.

This could be seen as deceptive, but I'd argue that it simply mirrors normal human behaviour. We present and conduct ourselves differently in response to specific situations: a smart suit and polite manner for a job interview, a faded t-shirt and coarse humour amongst good friends. So it follows that we're bound to self-edit when facing a potential audience of millions.

The ability to explore and push forward multiple aspects of our personalities is perhaps also part of the appeal. I have three separate Twitter accounts: a personal account, a “professional” account and an account to which I post updates about this blog. Each one gives the reader a different impression of who I am, purely because I post things to my personal account that I would never post to the others (and vice versa). All of the accounts are easily traceable back to me and it's certainly not the case that I'm deliberately trying to hide anything; however if you looked at all of them individually, you could easily be led to believe that they represented three different people—especially if you didn't know me in person.

Another reason for seeking anonymity is that it absolves us of any responsibility for the opinions we express. We can see the effect of this lack of accountability all over the web, most typically in the form of user comments. Anonymous commentators react to articles and videos in ways that they would never dare to, were their true identities not hidden.

Again, personally speaking , I think that if you're going to say something—controversial or otherwise—then you'd better be willing to put your name to it and accept that some people are going to disagree with you. An opinion really means nothing unless it comes from an actual person; indeed, I've recently been part of a discussion about this at the Design Assembly site.

I'm interested to see what the next steps are with regard to our online identities. Technologies like OpenID are already moving us towards having a “universal login”, by centralising the credentials with which we access our online profiles; with more and more of us socialising online and some of the more irrational privacy fears starting to dilute, will there come a time when anonymity no longer exists on the web?

Riego van Wersch

2010-03-08T08:59:00Z

These photographs by Paris based photographer Riego van Wersch concentrate on the loneliness of the individual, within our ever more isolating environment.

Van Wersch captures these vulnerable moments and missed connections with a great sense of timing; his images provoke our curiosity about the stories behind their subjects and the events that might follow these moments.

Via Yatzer

Sunday 07 March 2010, 09:29

2010-03-07T09:29:00Z

A great round-up of some incredible architectural city models over at WebUrbanist: Itty Bitty Cities.

Jonas Heuer: Clavilux 2000

2010-03-06T17:48:00Z

The Clavilux 2000 is an interactive exhibit created by Jonas Heuer (who also created the brilliant Noteput). As the keyboard is played, a unique piece of art is generated from the musical data:

“For every note played on the keyboard a new visual element appears in the form of a stripe, which follows in its dimensions, position and colour the way the particular key was struck: The length and vertical position show the velocity, the stripe’s width reflects the length of each note.”

Via Infosthetics

John Bulmer

2010-03-05T16:58:00Z

John Bulmer was one of the pioneers of colour photography at the start of the 1960s, at a time when many of his contemporaries in the field of reportage regarded monochrome imagery as an absolute standard.

Bulmer spent more than twenty years working on assignments for the Sunday Times Magazine, the Daily Express and Man About Town (later Town), for which he produced much of his most celebrated documentary work, including his story on the north of England.

These photographs perfectly capture the bleakness and austerity of northern England during the '60s and '70s; examine them in context with images of London and other southern cities from around the same time and they also serve to highlight the extremes of the north-south wealth divide, which was particularly distinct during this period.

If you'd like a bit more background, there's a good article on John Bulmer at the Western Daily Press site.

Augmented Sculpture by Lichtfront

2010-03-05T12:10:00Z

This augmented sculpture by Lichtfront was created for an interior design exhibiton in Cologne, Germany. It uses computer controlled projection to stunning effect, bringing the large abstract form to life through the medium of light. If you're interested in this kind of work, it's worth taking a look at Pablo Valbuena's sculptures too.

Via DesignBoom