io brush and Kimiko

On the canvas, artists can draw with the special "ink" they just picked up from their immediate environment.

My colleague and friend Kimiko Ryokai will join the faculty of the School of Information, Berleley, in January 2007. She will teach in the iSchool and the Center for New Media. She graduated from the Tangible Media Group at MIT Media Lab with Dr. Hiroshi Ishii. She is currently employed at the product design firm, IDEO.

A while back for her PhD, Kimiko designed io brush, a super intuitive platform to paint digitally using colors, patterns, movements that surround us. For her master thesis she invented and researched on Storymat, a pretty mat that stores children's storytelling play by recording their voices and movements of the toys they play with.

IO brush movie that I recommend watching (25 mb). Delight warrantied.

La déroute

Today it's my birthday. Usually I dig through the French La Redoute catalog to pick something I like. This year I discovered this chef d'oeuvre by the artist Nicolas Simarik: La Déroute. A different point-of-view on "La redoute".
I love it. It's full of life. Reading the pages of the fallacious catalog reminded me of the work of Lucien Alma and Laurent Hart, Borderland (previously called Bordeline) the video game with everyday "heroes". Link.


Borderland








For more pictures, visit the catalog's diaporama

The shadows of objects

Playing with light and shadows, artist can give sens to a magma of clothing, metal, clouds and so forth.
Simple elements of design, yet strong impact. Playing with our expectations of what an object can and/or cannot do, artists can impress us. I discovered the work of Fred Eerdekens on the blog of Etienne Mineur.


Life itself is not enough, 1999, Clothing, glass, steel, light projectors, 700 x 120 x 90 cm by Fred Eerdekens

The talking machine

This is what I call sound art. An very simple design that can have such an impact.
I believe we forget what an object can naturally do without computing technology. By simply reproducing the vocal tract and pushing air through it, artists can make a acoustic speech synthesizer such as what Martin Riches achieved with his Talking Machine.

While I was voicing the pipes for a mechanical organ I noticed that when they were playing incorrectly they would sometimes make sounds quite similar to human speech. I wondered if it would be possible to make special speaking pipes and whether it would be possible to make them talk.

The result was the Talking Machine — an acoustic speech synthesizer.The speech sounds are produced using a flow of air and resonators just as in natural speech.The machine has 32 pipes, each one a simplified version of the human vocal tract. They reproduce the spaces which are formed in the mouth, nose and throat when we speak.The pipes are built according to measurements of X-Ray photographs taken of a person speaking. In other words, the E-pipe reproduces the narrow shape of the human mouth saying E, the OO- pipe has something like the small round OO-shaped lips and so on. S, F, Sh and similar sounds are produced by special whistles which reproduce the shapes made by the lips, tongue and teeth. The valves which control the flow of air are operated by a computer.

More info
Audio from the talking machine

Seamless-sensory Interventions

Based on my previous work on haptics for psychotherapy, I am now designing Seamless Sensory Interventions for the treatment of mental and neurological disorders.

My current research proposes haptics as the key to bringing treatment into the social sphere through devices, and providing new ways to mediate between the patient and the therapist both in and outside of therapy. Self-mutilation is a perfect test-case, because of the definitive “physicality” of the symptoms. However, the broader solutions that I am proposing have implications for diseases as diverse as autism, depression, and schizophrenia.

The theremin by Three as Four

a cool video of an alien on a roof with one of the first electronic instrument, the theremin! (Invented in the 1920's) Worth watching ...

Also they make cool outfit for dogs

Web site: Three as Four.

A Carrie Outfit for Barbie

After having designed a Tomb for my Barbie, I have designed a Carrie Outfit.

Barbie has a Ken, a Corvette, a castle, and all the outfits she ever wanted. However she has nothing for Halloween. I designed this outfit in Papier Mache to fit the Barbie we love.

The following picture shows that the outfit has taken the perfect shape of the Barbie doll.



A Carrie Outfit for Barbie in Papier maché (doll not included)

More pictures on Flickr ...

Fashion garments

Picture of our X-mode project

Creating, discussing, sharing, building with Yaz on fashion garments (statement coming soon). A few sketches of our nurturing ideas ...



More pictures

Core sample

Material: wax and plaster

I took the perspective of a child trying to understand the meaning of the term Core Sample, an intuitive translation from the French analogy. Core sample then means 'le corps samplé', i.e. dismembered body.
An immediate reference to the dismembered body is a serial killer, the one that would be prompt to body sampling. Starting with an obsession for the neck, to a more tool-istic approach to body members: arms, legs, feet. I made a rock that symbolizes le plan de travail.

I chose to dismember a Barbie doll that I created out of wax. The Barbie being for a while a representation of the woman for a child. I chose the white wax, the wax being a way a woman suffers regularly by trying to reach an ideal. The white is the symbole of purity thus the contrast between the canvas fabric & the plaster sculpted with chisel, and the angelic face of the doll made of white wax.

This sculpture is a tool-kit box for understanding serial killing for children. The tools are also made of wax and represent legs, arms, hands, feet. A tool is normally very hard, here it is very fragile as a mean to represent the complete chimère, i.e. pipe dream, the serial killer is immersed in.

More pictures on Flickr

I made this sculpture for the sculpture class taught by Helen Mirra at Harvard University, VES.

In doll and sculpture

Fashion and violence

IN THE LAST DECADE, ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS HAVE TURNED THEIR ATTENTION TO WEAPONS AS ART OBJECTS. WELCOME TO THE CULTURE OF THE PRETTY HATE MACHINE

Found on V magazine