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This giant flying sculpture, titled “Little Shining Man,” was conceived by Heather and Ivan Morrison as part of a collaboration with Sash Reading. Queen and Crawford fabricated and hand assembled the 23,000 individual components, consisting of carbon fiber rods, 6,000 3-D printed joints, and Cuben Fiber. Check the video below to see it gracefully take flight. Three Cubes Colliding from Jimandtonic on Vimeo.
These eccentric looking chairs were created by Tarazi Design Studio by filling a female mannequin with cement and dropping it repeatedly on a perforated metal trapezoid until it formed the shape of a chair. Each drop created a different indentation, which would, in turn, make each chair entirely unique. This is a fun sort of intuitive, but traditionally reverse, design. Rather than making a chair to look like the generally accepted image of a chair and have a person retroactively test to see how it fit, it’s making a a chair by pushing a person-shaped-thing into a material that contours to the body. It would be nice to see other industries pick up on this proactive ergonomic concept. If so, perhaps someone could make ear buds that actually comfortably fit a person’s ears, for instance.
[via Design Taxi]
Artist Kyle Bean made these weapons out of harmless materials for a collection he titled “Soft Guerilla” for a spread in CUT Magazine. My favorite, by far, is the jello grenade, but I’ve got to admit that the melty popsicle time bomb is making me wish it were a warm summer day. Pretty cool stuff and a smart concept.
Infamous and controversial street artist, Banksy posted this CCTV mobile - just in time for the holiday season. You know, for kids. It’s a DIY project “not available in the shops.” All you need is some “wood, string, plastic tube, nails, [and, of course,] lead paint.” In keeping with Banksy tradition, the inherent commentary here is pretty thick. “Total assembly required. Keep out of reach of children.”
Now here’s an idea: take a Jet Ski, reroute the pump jet through a hose, channel the hose into a jet pack, strap it on your feet and arms and take off like a human dolphin. Apparently someone read one too many Iron Man comics or watched The Rocketeer and lightning eventually struck. “Why can’t we do that with water?” This seems like the essential idea behind French company Zapata Racing‘s Flyboard. Even the pros in the video don’t make it seem easy to control, but it still looks like one hell of a fun ride.
These figures by self-described “Evil Arts Organization” Suckadelic depict a Cybertron version of the Occupy Wall Street conflict. With obvious references to the classic Transformers tussle of Autobots (the 99%) vs. Decepticons (the 1%), Sucklord is the leader of the 1%’s battle for cyber domination over occupation. These were released at a show yesterday on the Lower East Side, complete with accompanying trading cards. My only question is, in the war for a fair shake, the Decepticons have Megatron played by, perhaps, Goldman Sachs, but does OWS have an Optimus Prime? I guess I always pictured the OWS answer as more of a Voltron-type mashup of powers. Regardless, I like the metaphor.
[via The World's Best Ever]
This series of ads was designed by Team Detroit for an enrollment campaign for Detroit’s College of Creative Studies. They cleverly depict teens in situations common to anti-drug PSAs. The art direction and production value of these is pretty fantastic. I’ve included some of my favorites below, but you can check out a few others here. I wish more schools would be so creative in their advertising. These keep it edgy while targeting parents to confront their kids and encourage them to follow their real passions. “I learned it by watching you, alright!” Good stuff.
I couldn’t help being drawn to this stool made by British environmental design studio, FAT. It’s made of soft foam rubber (like a stress ball) and appears more or less actually comfortable. I tend to like the idea of this quite a bit: take a classical icon like Hercules, known for his power and godlike stature, his image often made of stone, towering over viewers of his effigy in a sculpture garden somewhere, but make his bust into something as common as a comfy place to sit. From the product description: “The bust of Hercules, usually something solid both in its material and the culture it represents becomes unexpectedly soft, deforming a recognizable object into stranger shapes when it is sat on. It uses the plasticity of rubber to suggest a more uncertain and doubtful state.”
New York City’s Department of Transportation commissioned artist John Morse to design these 12 street signs as part of a program called “Curbside Haiku.” The signs are intended to raise awarenss of the “critical importance of shared responsibility among pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists in keeping New York City’s streets safe.” Many of the haiku are embedded in QR codes on the sign itself (because we need more reasons for people to stop walking in the middle of the sidewalk to do something on their phone). They’re located primarily around cultural institutions (like the Brooklyn Museum and MoMA) and public schools. The New York Times posted a story about them (written in haiku stanzas) and asked readers to submit their own sign suggestions, some of which are pretty clever. The signs are available from the Safe Streets Fund for $65 each or $100 for a set. This video from UK-based Open University uses clever animation to describe six of the most famous thought experiments: Zeno’s Achilles & The Tortoise, Barjavel’s Grandfather Paradox, Searle’s Chinese Room, Hilbert’s Grand Hotel, Einstein’s Twin Paradox, and Schrödinger’s Cat. My personal favorites have always been the Chinese Room and the Grandfather Paradox, but I can’t help but think that Schrodinger’s Cat reminds me of the Bonsai Kitten we posted about last week. Multiple states of being. [via Laughing Squid]
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