Some of us gonna be away for thanksgiving so don't forget your portable living rooms!
Walter Pichler, «TV-Helmet (Portable living room)», 1967
TV-Helm | © Walter Pichler
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Away for thanksgiving!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A kitchenette for neo-nomads
Tonight I will attend Yasmine Abbas' talk about her neo-nomadic research, this at the Graduate Schoold of Design for the Critical Digital conference. Today I also discovered this work, that I think Yasmine would particularly love, the DoubleSpace Kitchenette designed by Jeffrey Warren!
The DoubleSpace kitchenette caters to those with a taste for unique, compact living. People living in crowded cities such as New York can appreciate the value of flexible, efficiently used living space. This roomy easy chair converts easily into a countertop with two electric burners.
I personally love compact and modular structures where one can transform a furniture into another one. Not only it is convenient for someone who lives in a crowded city, but it also allows you to move your belongings in a more "compact" way, question that Yasmine investigated throughout her ethnographic research on neo-nomads. It also invites for a more playful relationship to your interior!
Monday, February 23, 2009
The WoW pod at Mixer in New York!!!
After receiving three grants: from the Council for the Arts at MIT, SHASS’s Peter de Florez Fund for Humor and from Eyebeam, the WoW Pod will be exhibited during the MIXER event in New York!
Cati Vaucelle, Steve Shada, Marisa Jahn's WoW Pod is an immersive architectural space that provides and anticipates all life needs of the World of Warcraft player. Outfitted with toilet throne, hydration system, and meals at the ready, the WoW Pod makes daily human function possible without ever stepping away from the game. In addition, these tasty meals are cooked via a cookset that connects a hotplate to the computer, allowing the player to let their World of Warcraft avatar know when the meal is ready to eat.
The official call!
MIXER: EXPO
Eyebeam presents an alternate "World's Fair" with airborne surveillance balloons, guerilla media towers, and computerized prayer booths. A temporary village occupied by a dozen creatively engineered pavilions, performances, and DJ sets by Tim Sweeney and Juan Maclean.
Friday, March 6 & Saturday, March 7, 2009
9PM - 2AM
Tickets: $15 per night in advance; $30 for both nights in advance at www.eyebeam.org; $20 per night at the door.
Eyebeam 540 W. 21st St. (btw 10th and 11th Aves.)
Limited press passes available: RSVP: rebecca@eyebeam.org
Installations will remain on view at Eyebeam, Saturday, March 7, Noon - 6PM, with free entry.
New York City, February 20, 2009 - MIXER, Eyebeam's quarterly event series dedicated to showcasing leading artists in the fields of live audiovisual performance, interactive and participatory art, will present its fifth iteration on Friday, March 6 - Saturday, March 7, 2009. Using the World's Fair as the framework, Eyebeam will transform its rugged warehouse space into a temporary village of utopian pavilions for a two-night extravaganza called MIXER: EXPO.
Both evenings will include musical guests: Tim Sweeney (Friday, Midnight - 2AM) and Juan Maclean (Saturday, Midnight - 2AM); multimedia pavilions by Angela Co + Aeolab, Anakin Koenig, Chris Jordan, and Caspar Stracke, and Not An Alternative; interactive installations by Taeyoon Choi and Cheon pyo Lee, The Institute for Faith-Based Technology, Mark Shepard, Cati Vaucelle, Steve Shada, and Marisa Jahn; and fashion performances by Di Mainstone.
MIXER: EXPO - Background
From London in 1851 to Chicago in 1893 and New York in 1939, the World's Fair has been an influential cultural spectacle that promised a utopian "world of tomorrow" while packaging and promoting the national and corporate agendas of the day.
MIXER: EXPO is an alternate take on "World's Fair" expositions, a faded cultural phenomenon that set the tone for urban planning in the 19th and 20th centuries. The World's Fair also championed the philosophy of better living through technology, presenting innovative strategies that continue to resonate through contemporary life and leisure - from shopping malls and theme parks to natural history and science museums; broadcast media and exhibit display to sell consumer products, technological innovations, and nationalistic ideologies.
Like the best science fiction and social satire, MIXER: EXPO constructs a fictitious place in order to examine a world that might have been, that has come to be, or that might be on the horizon.
Musical Acts
Friday, Midnight - 2AM
Tim Sweeney (Beats in Space) is a respected international club DJ, remixer, and host of Beats In Space, a weekly radio show mixed live every Tuesday night on WNYU. Sweeney rocks the party with a mix of electro, disco and No Wave.
http://www.beatsinspace.net/
Saturday, Midnight - 2AM
Juan Maclean (DFA Records) first garnered attention in the early 90s as the guitarist/keyboardist for electro-punk band Six Finger Satellite, but has gone on to wider acclaim in the last decade as a solo artist on DFA Records (founded by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem). Maclean's recordings combine his multi-instrumental virtuosity with tight beat production inspired by house, techno, and funk classics. His DJ sets dig deeply into the same vault of musical riches.
http://www.myspace.com/thejuanmaclean
Installations / Participating Artists
Taeyoon Choi and Cheon pyo Lee's sculptural installation and performance,
Grey Belt tells the story of an undiscovered nation located in a demilitarized zone. The land of Grey Zone is the world's purest natural site, secretly inhabited by mutant animals, abandoned war machines and the exiled living in a zero-gravity landscape.
http://www.tyshow.org
Angela Co + Aeolab's Weather Making Balloon utilizes NASA materials technology for its own "Space Mission". The metalized thermoplastic skin of the Balloon functions as a mirrored surface through which attendees can be monitored and captured on film. Playful interaction with the responsive surface of the puffy, cloud-like Balloon masks its primary function as a surveillance tool.
http://www.studio-co.com
http://www.aeolab.com
The Institute of Faith-Based Technology, or InFaBat™, was founded in 2006 by techno-theologists Aaron Meyers and Jeff Crouse to bring religion into the digital age. Praying@Home is the name of a suite of technologies developed by InFaBat™ and installed for use at Eyebeam, which is designed to broadcast a worshipper's "Prayer Signature" directly to God. Unlike humans, who need to take breaks from praying to fulfill biological needs, computers need no breaks, resulting in 24/7 prayer output. Praying@Home represents a revolutionary breakthrough in the field of Digital Prayer Technology.
http://www.ifbt.info
Media artists Anakin Koenig, Chris Jordan, Caspar Stracke pay tribute to the "retro-futurist" utopian dwellings of the 20th Century with TripleFlow, a large-scale inflatable architectural structure. Referencing Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome, the three-chamber biomorphic dwelling creates a fluid, immerse experience through responsive lighting, and live audio and video performance by Jordan and Stracke.
http://www.dennisdelzotto.com/
http://www.seej.net
http://www.videokasbah.net/
The nomadic-citizen of the world is never lost because she is always at home. Di Mainstone's SHAREWEAR questions this utopian ideal, through a performance that incorporates a set of modular dresses that explore our desire for a connection to "home" in an increasingly transient world. Referencing familiar icons of the home, such as the armrest on our favorite sofa, SHAREWARE is comprised of a pair of modular electronic dresses housed in crates that are unpacked, assembled on each performer's body, and then physically slotted to one another, unleashing the potential for intimate interactions.
http://sharewear.projects.v2.nl
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7kc41dKjA1c
The Subsumption Machine by activist collective Not An Alternative is a skeletal multi-level media tower hacked with video projections, TV monitors, billboards, stage sets, live video feeds, and surveillance cameras. As the audience walks through the chaotic architectural structure, they are captured on camera and unwittingly inserted into the media stream. The Subsumption Machine represents the postmodern dystopian world as a biopolitical "prison house of language", and in a Warholian gesture, flattens all images into a non-hierarchical supersaturated mix.
http://eyebeammixer.pbwiki.com/Proposed-Pavilion
Hertzian Rain is a wireless audio broadcast system designed by Mark Shepard that responds to bodily movement. Just as land and water are limited resources, Hertzian Rain demonstrates the limits of the electromagnetic spectrum. Wearing wireless headphones and carrying an umbrella covered with electromagnetic-shielding fabric, users walk around the exhibition space tuning into an audio broadcast of a live music performance while creating interference into the audio broadcast signal with the umbrella, and as a result destroy the shared resource. Live performances will be provided by Doug Barret, Craig Shepard, Daniel Perlin, Al Laufeld and others.
http://www.andinc.org/v3/hertzianrain
Cati Vaucelle, Steve Shada, Marisa Jahn's WoW Pod is an immersive architectural space that provides and anticipates all life needs of the World of Warcraft player. Outfitted with toilet throne, hydration system, and meals at the ready, the WoW Pod makes daily human function possible without ever stepping away from the game. In addition, these tasty meals are cooked via a cookset that connects a hotplate to the computer, allowing the player to let their World of Warcraft avatar know when the meal is ready to eat.
www.marisajahn.com
www.steveshada.com
http://www.architectradure.com
Tickets: $15 per night in advance; $30 for both nights in advance; $20 per night at the door. For more info and to purchase tickets visit www.eyebeam.org.
###
Founded in 1997, Eyebeam is an art and technology center that provides a fertile context and state-of-the-art tools for digital experimentation. It is a lively incubator of creativity and thought, where artists and technologists actively engage with the larger culture, addressing the issues and concerns of our time. Eyebeam challenges convention, celebrates the hack, educates the next generation, encourages collaboration, freely offers its output to the community, and invites the public to share in a spirit of openness: open source, open content and open distribution.
More info
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
A message table
Dana Gordon (currently with us in Cambridge, MA) hacked an existing answering machine and rewired some of its original functions (such as recording a message, play, pause and delete). The result is super fun and inspiring. Imagine in your living room a reactive table instead of a regular answering machine! She called the machine the "message table" as in an answering machine merged into a wooden table. For each message received, a box appears on the table. To listen, open the box - and to delete, push it back into the desk.
Designed with Shawn Bonkowski, she exhibited the table at the Victoria & Albert Museum, at the Salone del Mobile 2005 in Milano and at the Gallery AB+, Torino.
You can watch the video here.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Art for the World of Warcraft
I used to play World of Warcraft, I like to have my digital body engaged in breaking down monsters. This can be translated in defining strategies to destroy unstoppable monsters! I reached level 70, raided a lot afterwards and then entirely stopped. In France, I used to play strategy games with 15 players in the same house, creating teams, ordering Pizza and getting tones of Soda. We started on Friday at the end of the afternoon and we stopped on Sunday night.
These past months I have rarely played any game, but I cherish these addictive gaming moments and decided to design an architectural object that criticizes the process of massive multiplayer gaming, designing a refuge with a survival kit integrated as well as doing something with the laptop that continuously burned my legs while playing! Also reflecting on the intense things that are happening on world of warcraft, such as the multiboxing setup!
Recently, I've been awarded a grant by the Council for the Arts at MIT 
The Pod resembles a mobile structure, however it works as a parasite. Connected to the home, it depends on it, it is stuck to it and uses it for survival. A nice metaphor for the teenager who is oblivious to his addiction and the effect it has on his family house! The AFK cookset benefits from a very annoying feature from the old MacBook Pro, that literally burns your laps while playing. The AFK cookset cooks your diner while raiding, it automatically alerts you and the raiders that you are AFK because your "eggs are ready"!
The AFK cookset
World of Warcraft is a massive online multi-player game that attracts millions of players including a large proportion of teenagers and children as young as 10 years old. A typical scenario for teenagers addicted to the game is to settle down in front of the monitor on Friday night and collapse on Sunday night. Sleep deprivation as well as high saturated fat diet is the pride of these players who barely do not take any break, and when they do they sign the typical “AFK” (“Away from Keyboard”) that pops up of top of their avatar. The average AFK is of two minutes, time to run to the fridge, to open a bag of potato chips, to replenish the glass of milk, or go to the bathroom. We are proposing a design noir aiming at representing the ideal setup for the player to spend more quality time online.
Can you imagine the toll that this extreme behaviour takes on the developing body, not to mention the amount of energy waste produced during such a 48-hour non-stop game? The addiction to World of Warcraft, you see, raises questions about the ecological and physio-morphological consequences of the computer game industry – but WOW players would refuse at any cost to reduce their addiction. Another solution must be considered…
The AFK Cookset harvests the heat produced from an ordinary laptop computer to cook meals. Before beginning a WOW session, the player places a shallow metal box beneath his/her laptop. The player pulls out a metal drawer that contains a tray with subdivisions. In one section, the player implaces powdered milk, powdered eggs, a dash of salt and pepper plus seasoning to taste. This protein-rich herb omelette will be cooked first because of the egg whites’ naturally low cooking temperature. In a second subdivision, the player implaces powdered tomato, water, and basil – a perfect second course tomato bisque to provide Vitamin C-rich soup to ward off scurvy. In the final section, the player implaces a frozen pizza. This pizza will be fully heated about the time the player (warrior) is ready for a third meal.
When each respective recipe is ready, the AFK Cookset WOW Plug-in automatically notifies the player that his/her meal is ready. A graphic, announcing, “Bob’s eggs are ready” is immediately visible to the other players on the “Raid Window.”
A first sketch!
The WOW pod
The WOW Pod is an immersive architectural solution for the advanced WOW player that provides and anticipates all life needs. Before entering the WOW Pod for a weekend-full of adventures, the player first stocks the pod: he/she refills the water bag that skins the architectural exterior and pipes liquids directly into the pod via a plastic tube that the player places adjacent his/her mouth. The WOW Pod holds and dispenses up to 3 cannisters of Pringles chips within easy reach of the desktop. The AFK Cookset and backup foodtrays (see description above) provides nutrients to nourish the hungry warrior. Inside, an array of monitors and computers allows the hard-core player to simultaneously control not one – but a whole assembly of players – with ergonomic ease. For instance, normally “multi-box systems” ask the player to use key commands and different mice to switch between players (warrior, magi, etc.). Involving all the latest features of an integrative computing sytem, WOW Pod allows the player to control the magi with his/her elbows, the dwarves with his/her feet pedals, the warrior with his/her hands. The player also has the control to re-program and re-designate the team of warriors according to his/her ergonomic preference.
The exterior of the WOW Pod is a customizable skin that allows the player to publicly demonstrate his/her guild association. Normally, guild affiliations are shown through “tabards”, or wearable insignias. WOW Pod now allows the player to demonstrate to those not online the richness of his/her online identity.
A first sketch
So far we have a lot of fun! I will update soon as we progress in the building of the two pieces. More soon ....
Friday, October 17, 2008
Pleasure with champaigne and glasses
I am working with my friend Marisa Jahn on a new project. It will be super fun, artistic and hopefully design noir! More soon... but in the meantime I want to share her latest creation with Steve Shada, "Pleasurecraft".
A kit for any klutz who wishes to woo a potential lover, ‘Pleasurecraft’ is a vehicular kit that choreographs gesture and landscape to produce an outting full of splendor and romance. The potential lover wil find PleasureCraft's luxurious pullows and easy-to-reach champagne cooler irresistable. Suitors will love PleasureCraft for its easy-to-use instructions that make Romance easy - one, two, three!
The suitor begins when he/she steps in the boat and first begins to read the operator's manual. Pictures indicate what to do next--comb the moustache, don the bowtie, bust out the TicTacs -- then uncork the champagne, what tempo to follow, etc.
Often, a clumsy serenade can be attributed to an overwhelming amount of details and a failure to attend to the right ones in the right order. But PleasureCraft solves this problem through its built-in water wheel, perfectly callibrated to the RPM of the River Seine. By listening to the music and glancing at the operator manual, the suiter knows what cues to follow and when.
(‘Pleasurecraft’ questions the human agency in constructing the pictoral imaginary and an ethnographic examination of our species’ mating rituals.)
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Blog Jouons 
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Physical display with deformable skin
Another neat technique in the vein of SnOil, a physical display Based on ferrofluid that reacts to magnetism. Shade Pixel is a type of physical display that uses deformable skin to represent information.
It is very pretty, the dots on the white looks like steps in the snow. Notice how the sound from the solenoid works really well with the "clock" idea! A nice trick to deal with noisy technology. You can see a video about Shade Pixel here:
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Ghost of a Victorian christening dress
This is the photogram of a Victorian christening dress by Adam Fuss. Gelatin silver print photogram. Discovered in ARTnews, is this the ghost of a child or the ghost of a dress? is it instinct of culture that makes us automatically assume that transparency and translucency are properties of the spirit? This work makes us feel as if a spirit had brushed the hem of its garments across a photographic plate.
"Subject and technique conspire to let us participate vicariously in the experience of those early photographic pioneers, high on darkroom chemicals and on the possibilities of their new toy --Francine Prose for ARTnews"
Healthy sculptures
Grassland designed by Bernd Oette turns real dried grass into an element of the living room. The grass seeds grow not on soil but on various materials-using water and light only- and are dried subsequently. What is special about them is that the grass changes from lush green to straw-colour. Bernd Oette developed growing and drying techniques for the roots to adhere to the stainless steel mountings.
Grassland is the result of many years of experimentation to grow grass and to let it dry under controlled conditions. The special appeal of the objects is to make visible the concept of change and the transitory nature of things, turning them into real “memento mori”. To experience every moment of change makes these objects fascinating and vests them with a life of their own in the living room.
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Tuesday, July 01, 2008
What's next for fitness centers?
I read an issue of Art in America -featuring the amazing work of Janine Antoni on the cover and discovered a past work of Antal Lakner: home transporter (from the passive working devices series).
Skewering a vain leisure society that "labors" pointlessly on exercise equipment, Lakner designs workout machines like the "Forest Master" (a saw) and the "Home Transporter" (a wheelbarrow). Each is accompanied by a didactic photo of a worker using the prototype tool.
I find this work actually very marketable as a neat idea for making fitness centers more fun! I know it is not the point and the work is remarkable, but it is also an amazing interface design for transforming fitness centers. Instead of trying to hook up a rowing machine to a virtual boat in a video game, why not connecting the actions with meaningful activities!
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
Monday, June 30, 2008
Organic prosthesis
Grow On You by LucyandBart.
LucyandBart is a collaboration between Lucy McRae and Bart Hess described as an instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body. They share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression. Unconsciously their work touches upon these themes, however it is not their intention to communicate this. They work in a primitive and limitless way creating future human shapes, blindly discovering low – tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement.
Playing with suggestive photography for high impact, they seem obsessed with the body metamorphosis. I call their work organic prosthesis, because they mainly use organic material in their body extension. For instance, they grow seeds on a fabric, which gives the impression of a body grown of grass and soil. The following pictures show the germination from day one to day eight.
I love their work with foam. The foam transforms the body in a gentle way. Here the artists embrace the prosthetic impulse ...
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
My contribution in the field of fashionable technology!
I had previously mentioned the book Fashionable Technology, edited by Sabine Seymour in which I present my work on fashion garments designed in the context of technology -including the Touch Sensitive apparel developed with Yasmine Abbas. The book is available on Amazon and I recently received my copy!
Here are the pages of my contribution and the book itself features outstanding designers. I will try to report about them soon !!!
Abstract: The interplay of electronic textiles and wearable technology, wearables for short, and fashion, design and science is a highly promising and topical subject. Offered here is a compact survey of the theory involved and an explanation of the role technology plays in a fabric or article of clothing. The practical application is explained in detail and numerous illustrations serve as clarification. Over 50 well-known designers, research institutes, companies and artists, among them Philips, Burton, MIT Media Lab, XS Labs, New York University, Hussein Chalayan, Cute Circuit or International Fashion Machines are introduced by means of their latest, often still unpublished, project, and a survey of their work to date. Given for the first time is a list of all the relevant information on research institutes, materials, publications etc. A must for all those wishing to know everything about fashionable technology.
->Buy the book<-
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
Friday, June 13, 2008
Blogging in Motion
I met Diana Eng at the seamless fashion show in 2006 when my team and I presented Taptap: the scarf that hugs you back! She was showing an impressive inflatable dress, a gown that fits the body to later inflates ...
Photos from the rehearsal & Photos from the show that I took during the event.
One of her newest project, Blogging in motion, is a purse which involuntarily blogs your day. Each time the wearer walks 30 steps, the purse takes a photograph and automatically uploads it to a blog online. Time and GPS location for each photo can also be added to the blog. At the end of the day, blog readers can trace back through the wearer's footsteps by viewing the photographs taken during the day.
Project by Diana Eng, Emily Albinski, Audrey Roy, Jeannie Yang and Yahoo Research Berkley.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
The secrets of syrian seduction
Ayah Bdeir examines the role technology plays in cross cultural communication and attempts to create technologies that promote human rights. One of her latest work "Teta Haniya's secrets" is one of the most hilarious one -> pics here <-
After decades of running her kinky Syrian lingerie store in the Hamidiya souk of Damascus, Teta Haniya has arrived in America bearing gifts. Drawing on more than 60 years of Islamic teachings on seduction, and updating it using her arsenal of kitschy technology, Teta Haniya hijacks the Western panty, triggering the sexual liberation of American women.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
Friday, May 30, 2008
Physical Heart in a Virtual Body
My friend Amit Zoran, from the Ambient Intelligence group at MIT Media Lab, continued his work on structural innovation, re-designing acoustic musical instrument according to the abilities and characteristics of rapid prototype materials. Together with Pattie Maes and Marco Coppiardi, they created a new generation of physical instruments by tailoring wooden hearts. The wooden pieces are inserted in body of the guitar to give the instrument the desired sound identity.
Watch the video of the resonator ->here<-
Amit changing the physical heart of his guitar
can traditional values be embedded into a digital object? in this project we implement a special guitar that combines physical acoustic properties with virtual capabilities. The acoustical values will be embodied by a wooden heart - a unique, replaceable piece of wood that will give the guitar a unique acoustic sound. The acoustic signal created by this wooden heart will be digitally processed in a virtual sound box in order to create flexible sound design.
His research will be presented at Nime 2008 this summer.
His paper is ->here<-
His presentation is ->here<-
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
Monday, May 19, 2008
A Health-Obsessed Robot for Health Obsessives
After leaving us for London, Daisy Ginsberg now designs health obsessed robots at RCA! Daisy uses her Bio Spy concept to express that we develop irrational relationships with machines, mourning dead appliances or resisting unfamiliar replacements. How will we behave when robots are trusted with the most intimate moments of our personal lives? Will the master/slave relationship survive? Is symbiosis with a robot possible? And what are the consequences of offering our most personal data for surveillance? Her questions remind me of my post on jealous computers and the 80's electric dreams movie, with a special RCA's touch!
For the hypochondriac, the BioSpy offers reassuring constant health surveillance, removing the nagging fear of illness. But would such a health aid induce unhealthy behaviour? The user and robot develop obsessive mutual dependence: the user only feels healthy when accompanied by the robot, sharing her most intimate information with it. Meanwhile, recording, storing and analyzing every physical change 24/7, the robot is dependent on its user's health for its existence.
After a period of domestic harmony, the robot captures data that indicates serious illness. ‘Fearful’, it mirrors its user's own neurosis. It logically computes that if it records any more data, it might ultimately result in unplugging. The robot’s erratic behaviour confuses the owner – is it behaving autonomously or malfunctioning? Is the user really ill or is it imagined?
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