Is this a land for you and me 1 by artist Paul Ramirez Jonas.
Upon entering the exhibition space the public encounters short bases each supporting a hand bell. All the hand bells together form a song. Meaning, for each note in the melody, there is a hand bell. In fact, the bases are a blow up of the song's score, cup up so that each note is isolated. The only notes that remain grouped are the chorus. Members of the public are invited to take one bell/note, take it along, and ring it as they see the show. On their way out, they would place the bell back on its pedestal. The song is thus fractured and dispersed in the space. There is a slim chance that the public, either by chance or through cooperation, could perform the melody.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
Friday, January 11, 2008
Is this a land made for you and me?
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Upcoming design competitions
Baby-Travel.com invites designers, students & inventors worldwide to design a product relating to the world of traveling with babies, toddlers and their parents. Deadline 31st March 2008.
Pdf. with details
You are invited to investigate the future design of the work environment! Deadline 30th June 2008.
Other design competitions
Posted by Cati Vaucelle
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The subtle vibrations
Duncan Wilson created Otto with Manolis Kelaidis at the Royal College of Art.
OTTO (Greek for ‘ear’) is a device that makes hidden sounds audible. This is achieved via a thin polymer piezoelectric contact that senses weak vibrations and plays them as a sound through an integrated speaker. OTTO can be positioned on almost any surface through a combination of suction and magnets. By placing several units on different objects, one can select and create a new sonic experience and a form of ambient music appreciation, thereby utilising our space as a multidirectional audio platform.
Every object and surface in our environment has a whisper; subtle tremors and vibrations that are usually undetectable to the human ear, produced by the activity and movement of daily life. What if these sounds were audible? How would that change our aural awareness, perception of space and attitude towards objects? Would it be possible to ‘compose’ our own soundtrack using our walls and objects as a new form of instruments? Madsounds is a proposal for a different appreciation of our environment, space and objects by making it possible to identify, combine and manipulate these sounds.
More projects from the RCA.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Transformation
Freeze by Akiko and Masako Takada. Picture from Champ Libre.
The twin sisters Akiko and Masako Takada transform plastic packing into a urban landscape, gradually covered with white frost. The plastic objects were actually covered and crystallized by salted water. In other words, the scene captures the moment of natural transformation.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
Monday, January 07, 2008
Haaa typography ...
Helvetica Bold, 36 point --1956-1957 by Edouard Hoffmann and Max Miedinger. Lead and wood tray, 1 7/8 x 10 5/8 x 24 3/4" (4.8 x 27 x 62.9 cm).
A recent acquisition of the MoMA. Gift of Lars Müller and Stampa Didot, Switzerland.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Breathing Spirulina
There is this place in Paris, Flood -58 rue de Chateaudun et 1 rue Danielle Casanova- where one can eat air made of Spirulina. Created by Mathieu Lehanneur, an aquarium rests in the centre of each area containing over 100 litres of Spirulina Platensis, an algae I have been eating since my teenage years. By photosynthesis, these microalgae produce pure oxygen. A fresh, living material, rich in proteins and with a taste resembling tofu, next time I am in Paris, I will have to try this place! 
Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
Therapeutic objects
Having researched and designed haptic devices to support psychotherapeutic treatments, I am fascinated by French designer :) Mathieu Lehanneur's work on therapeutic objects he conceived with psychiatric consultants: Bernard Lachaux, Patrick Lemoine and model makers: Alban Danguy des Deserts. These objects are part of the permanent collection of the MOMA, NYC.
He proposes a series of objects not only as an attempt to bring design into the medical sphere, but essentially to design medications from the perspective of the patient and his/her illness relationship.
His scenario envisions: the placebo effect, a participation of the patient in his/her treatment, making the medication a communicative and sensory object, debating on the mechanistic approach of modern pharmacology, playing on emotions of attraction, desire, fear and repulsion towards a device or a particular form using gestures, usage practices and rituals.
Therapeutic felt-tip pen, 2001.
This analgesic for chronic pain is a systemic medication, which acts on all symptoms together. All that is required is to write on the painful area of the body each day and to remove the used cartridge at the end of each day. This transdermal product is coupled with a user-friendly ink that disappears after several minutes.
The Third Lung, 2001.
This project consists of a base treatment for asthma. The patient who refuses to accept his illness will reject even more the idea of taking medication unnecessary. The idea behind this therapeutic object is to establish a relationship of dependence.
But in this case the medication is dependent on the patient. Between two doses, the volume of the medication increases, this displaying its own physiological problem and indicating to the patient the urgency of taking the medication. Once the dose is administered, the volume decreases and returns to its normal level, only to expand once again until the next dose is administered.
The First Mouthful
Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Flying, swimming or shrinking car?
Searching for a new car, I selected a few options: the flying, the auto nautical and the city car.
The Skycar. Photo by Bruce Calkins
Paul Moller has been working on his Icarus dream, the Skycar M400. Thanks to its four rotating engine nacelles, the skycare takes off, lands vertically and makes short flights. Apparently this latest prototype should be ready by 2009.
"Its performance exceeds that of any light helicopter, including a top speed that is three times faster. When compared to a high-performance airplane, the Skycar has vertical takeoff and landing capability, is safer and potentially less expensive. The performance boundaries of the Skycar are much less restrictive than those of both helicopters and airplanes. These expanded operating limits are the natural consequence of combining VTOL and high-speed cruise in a single aircraft. The resulting flexibility allows many transportation applications to be addressed for the first time."
The Aquada V6 175 ch, 160km/h on the road, 57km/h on water. Gibbs Technologies
The affordable auto nautical car, the Aquada, is an amphibian car. On the road it looks like a Mazda MX-5 and on water it turns into a jet-engine outboard with a cruising speed of 30 knots.
Finally, the super convenient city car. The research group smart cities at the MIT Media Lab has more than one model in stock. They have a car model, but I particularly like their retractable scooter concept.
"The RoboScooter is a lightweight, folding, electric motor scooter. It is designed to provide convenient, inexpensive mobility in urban areas while radically reducing the negative effects of extensive vehicle use – road congestion, excessive consumption of space for parking, traffic noise, air pollution, carbon emissions that exacerbate global warming, and energy use. It is clean, green, silent, and compact."
Scooter. Image by Michael Chia-Liang Lin
Posted by Cati Vaucelle
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Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Algorithmic film assembly using toy gestures
A new input device for video capturing and editing! Designed for young children, ages five and up, it allows them to craft compelling movies through the motion analysis of their interaction with toys.
A child playing with Picture This and his Naruto action figure
Continuing my research on perspective taking and tangible video editing, I recently finished the development of Picture This, a video editing and capturing device designed for young children. It allows them to craft compelling movies through the motion analysis of their interaction with toys. Children's favorite props alternate between characters and cameramen in a film. As children play with the toys to act out a story, they conduct algorithmic film assembly.
Picture This's web site.
In my prior work, Moving Pictures, I wanted to offer children the opportunity to gather imagery from their environment in the form of short video clips captured on video camera platforms modified for the application. I wanted to provide a transparent experience for the user, in which the cumbersome process of capturing and editing becomes fluid in the improvisation of a story and accessible as a way to create a final movie.
Web site for my past work on Moving Pictures.
Tangible interfaces combine operations on physical objects with digital data. I have sought to develop interfaces where either digital data can be overlaid onto physical objects in a display space or physical objects can act as handles into the digital space. The tangible handle is more than a marker or place-holder for digital data. It has the power to materialize and redefine our conception of space and content during the creative process.
If the toy had a visual perspective immediately accessible to the child, a new world would be opened to her. The toy could potentially bring the child into exploring visual and narrative perspectives of these character props, expanding her discovery and understanding of social interrelationships.
A video snippet of Picture This and a 6 minutes video for its interaction design.
The Picture this tool is an audiovisual device that combines two digital video cameras and two accelerometers. The tool captures motions, video and sound in real-time while an algorithmic video editing system composes a movie from these inputs. A motion based editing engine fluidly assembles the film as its story is being narrated, while respecting the conventions of continuity editing, namely, a sequence of shots that appear to be continuous. 
This style of film editing is made possible in Picture This by detecting turn taking behaviors between the toys. Two toy props are augmented with video cameras and custom accelerometer hardware. They use the Picture This tool both as a doll hand-bag or a doll audiovisual recorder. The tool is flexible for a child to take the perspective of props she selected for her movie.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
Cultural Chicago advertisement!
Icelandic Rift by new media artist Sabrina Raaf
Cultural Chicago is a community site for the arts based in Chicago. The online journal offers the possibility for readers to contribute with local cultural news. Among other things, it advertises Chicago artists, exhibitions, art events and allows readers to create a local community by sharing similar interests through a forum, regular posts and bookmarks. I wish such a journal existed in Boston. Combining the sharing of local art events with informative interviews to a social network is kind of unique.
Reading and subscribing to the journal, I discovered the spectacular work of Sabrina Raaf on creative machines capable of generating unique and unpredictable manifestations of art. 
In her interview by Cultural Chicago, Sabrina Raaf explains:
"Technology (software and hardware) is not only a means or set of tools. It does also necessitate a type of logic-based thinking in order to use it and subvert it creatively. You really have to be a person who is innately fascinated by new technologies in order to be able to suffer through the learning curves and endless upgrades. But, ultimately, new technologies offer an endless string of more and more powerful and flexible tools to make art with. Even beyond that, they offer a new language to speak to viewers with; there are nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., that artists haven’t ever strung together before in the service of art. And, that’s something really exciting."
Grower is a piece that responds to the carbon dioxide levels in the air generated by human breath. It draws individual blades of grass along a wall in varying heights in accordance to the amount of carbon dioxide present. As such it functions as a real time display on people attendance to the art space!
Dry Translator, a sculptural installation piece, is built in response to new trends in ‘smart architecture.’ Smart technology is being created for enhanced human interaction and control of one’s work and home environments. Interestingly what excites many is not the necessarily the enhancement of control, but really more the idea of intelligent responsiveness and heightened personal connection with the rooms they inhabit, dixit Sabrina Raaf.
In the journal I also enjoyed reading the interview of Colleen Plumb, Nature in Urban Spaces. The artist "examines nature in the urban environment, seeking to examine the relationship humans have with animals, how we coexist with the natural world, and the disappearance of it within the urban space."
Lobby with trees by Colleen Plumb
Being a video game addict at the same time than loving being lost in the countryside, I am always puzzled by criticism on a virtual reality that drives us from our physical reality. Reading this interview was refreshing and the following image by Colleen Plumb talks for itself. The overgrown tree squeezed within walls to provide a relief to humans, an experience of nature, recreated and artificial for the sake of us feeling/being connected to nature.
Laundromat
"We live in a time of games and virtual experiences which I find funny, sad, and, I guess, a reality. What effect could this be having on people? I guess representations are created due to a lack of the actual. We certainly can't walk through a forest of bamboo trees in downtown Chicago. It seems that almost real will suffice most of the time. It must provide relief, these fabrications, otherwise they would not be so popular: The Rainforest Café. Well, the trees here are real—they are in a fake habitat, a lobby, and seem to be thriving. - Colleen Plumb"
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