Peter VRMRCK

If you're in NYC soon, make sure you don't miss Paola Antonelli's (and her overly talented female team) new exposition Talk to Me. Talk to Me is an exhibition on the communication between people and objects, and how designers write the initial script that enables the two parties to communicate effectively and elegantly. Some interesting people like Rob Faludi, BERG and Jer Thorp have mentioned they're also collaborating. After the fantastic and avantgarde Design and the Elastic Mind in 2008 this should be the must-see exhibition this year.

The exhibition hinges on an important development in the culture of design (and in culture at large), a shift from the centrality of function to that of meaning. From this perspective, all objects contain information that goes well beyond their immediate use or appearance. In some cases, objects exist to provide us with access to complex systems and networks, behaving as gateways and interpreters. Whether openly and actively, or in subtle, subliminal ways, things talk to us, and designers help us develop and improvise the dialogue.

Talk to Me will focus on objects that involve a direct interaction, such as interfaces, information systems, visualization design, communication devices, and projects that establish an emotional, sensual, or intellectual connection with their users, ranging from the early 1980s (few iconic examples) all the way to projects in current development (the bulk of the show). It will feature a diverse array of examples, from computer and machine interfaces, to websites, videogames, devices and tools, furniture and other objects, all the way to installations and whole environments.

Practical info

I've mentioned Michael Lebowitz, the founder of Big Spaceship, before and again he comes along with some great insights about their way of working.

Teams are guided by four principles

1. Work as a multi-disciplinary team
2. Produce exceptional work
3. Be profitable
4. Take care of each other

– The rest is up to you.

(Fostering a creative culture)

Austrian / Croatian design collective Numen / For Use develops a new site-specific installation for Z33's high spaces. The project consists of flexible nets suspended in air to form a floating "landscape" open for visitors to climb in and explore. The installation resembles biomorphic architecture and urban utopias of former decades.
Numen / For Use acquired international fame through their walk-in installations Tape: huge self-supporting cocoons built entirely out of packing tape.

You can experience this 'floating landscape" youself until October 2 2011 at the "High Space" at Z33, entrance beguinage house number 5.

via z33.be – photo copy; Kristof Vrancken / Z33

Just like the eCLOUD, this installation by David Bowen takes real data and uses it to recreate a certain natural phenomenon.

This installation draws information from the intensity and movement of the water in a remote location. Wave data is being collected in real-time from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data buoy Station 46246 (49°59'7" N 145°5'20" W) on the Pacific Ocean. The wave intensity and frequency is scaled and transferred to the mechanical grid structure installed at The National Museum in Wroclaw, Poland. The result was a simulation of the physical effects caused by the movement of water from this distant location.

via Arduino

Loveloy design exercise by BERG London. Redesign something we come by every day.

Icon’s “Rethink”: turning receipts into ‘paper apps’

By Isaac Cordal who had an exposition in Brussels earlier this year (CEMENT EXCLIPSES at A210).

via Unurth

This is the emergence of open crowdsourced data being the basis for complex and commercially viable applications. We are now just a breath away from a completely new business model where developers are building rich experiences on top of a mass of third-party and/or user-supplied data. The result is a new economic engine where all parties win: everyone gets insight into the environment around them, data contributors get applications that are directly relevant to their immediate environment, and application developers get access to a marketplace for their software.

If you consider the alternative ways of generating the entire stack needed to deliver a similar type of application, you'll quickly arrive at the reason as to why it hasn't been done yet; the resources required to develop any one piece is enormous, let alone the entire thing. Here, open has clearly trumped closed -- you can't put this behind a firewall, OldschoolM2MVendorGuy!

This is a glimpse of the open "Internet of Things" in action, happening right now, and the landslide of innovation has only started to build. We owe this to the people who are on the frontlines of this thing, who have literally changed the world and put real radiation information at the fingertips of the planet. We look forward to helping facilitate this movement further so more and more people will participate.

via Crowdsourcing + Open Data evolving into commercial opportunity

We don't have creative directors. We're probably the only agency in the world – it's certainly the only agency in the world that I know of – we don't have anyone who has "creative" in their title. Creativity is table stakes, in my opinion. It's cost of entry.

Michael Lebowitz, Founder Big Spaceship

via Swiss Miss

from LeonIV via Unurth