(small) creative initiatives that challenge (big) traditional ideas
• ( egoistic ) • activistic • architectural • audible • cinematic • conceptual • graphic • strategic • surface • urban • wireless
High-tech meets street art in this installation by the Ars Electronica Futurelab.
The installation called Shadowgram can take pictures of people in full-size silhouette and seconds later print them as small stickers.
Shadowgram plays with social creativity and the installation is currently placed in the Ars Electronica Center in Linz where visitors are encouraged to place their freshly printed stickers on walls and other surfaces inside the building. Personal text messages can also be added by using complimentary stickers shaped as speech bubbles.
The installation consists of a digital mirror with a build-in camera, a normal looking printer and an illuminated background that people stand in front when having their picture taken.
Related: I wish this was + Data Decorated Walls + Appeel + Social Play With Clay
Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam is running a series of creative workshops that allow children to design their own posters inspired by different themes.
Children - or adults for that matter - can decide to exhibit their posters in the museum or to bring them home in a specially designed poster tube that says "I designed my own poster at the Stedelijk Museum".
• Family activities at the Stedelijk Museum
Spotted in Istanbul: Stickers placed around the city to promote an upcoming Amy Winehouse concert on June 20 2011.
Information is kept to a minimum. Fans are trusted to decode the sticker and find out more for themselves.
Forgot your camera? Missed a photo-opportunity? Wanted to share that missed moment with the rest of the world?
Here's your chance to fix the problem.
Simply go to fixr.org and submit a text describing the missed moment and it will published on the website.
Furthermore, the best moments are printed on posters and shown in the exhibition Persistence of Vision, currently taking place at Kunsthal Nikolaj in Copenhagen and then later at FACT in Liverpool.
fixr is a project by Sascha Pohflepp and Jakob Schillinger.
Posted by Sebastian on Dec 01, 2010
Dear Copenhagen is a micro-political web-platform that allows users to leave text messages to the City of Copenhagen.
Messages are created on virtual post-it notes in different colors according to topic. By default, they all begin with "Kære København" (Dear Copenhagen) and users have 250 characters to express themselves.
Judging from the current top-30 list of most liked messages, Copenhageners are primarily concerned with traffic issues (yellow notes) closely followed by cultural issues (turquoise notes). Messages regarding social issues (red notes) barely make it into the list. Perhaps there are no urgent social problems in Copenhagen, or perhaps those who have them are not on the web?
Dear Copenhagen is a private initiative created by three designers. It would be interesting to see it applied to different cities internationally.
• www.kærekbh.dk
The Institute for Infinitely Small Things, a small performance troupe based in Boston, USA, proposes to not release at least 38,575 kilograms of CO2 into the air by not traveling to the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The amount of energy saved in fuel could feed 150 people for a year or power 325 60w lightbulbs turned on continuously for a year.
You help can help document this massive effort of local pleasure by contributing photos to Flickr with the tag "notgoingtocopenhagen".
• www.flickr.com/search/?q=notgoingtocopenhagen
The Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam recently came close to moving out of its historic building, designed by the legendary architect of the same name.
However, the plan (initiated by the academy's own management) was met with anger and was abandoned after students, x-students and other friends of the place, orchestrated a string of creative protests.
Some documentation is available on-line such as this visual petition, this t-shirt and this poster.
A physical representation of the computer desktop metaphor, which in the first place, is a representation of the physical world.
The image is from a project called Empty Trashcan by Monique Gofers and Hans Gremmen.
Related: Physical Scrollbars
Posted by Sebastian on Nov 08, 2007
The winner of Mediamatic's El Hema design competition has been announced. First prize went to The White Room for their design Satellite Dish Sticker.
As previously mentioned, EL Hema is a humorous and slightly provocative project exploring what an Arabic version of the Dutch chain-store and superbrand Hema would be like and designers were invited to submit ideas for new Arab-Dutch products.
The winning design is a decorative add-on that enable people to pimp-up their uniform dull looking satellite dishes. According to the winner, satellite dishes are often associated with Arab countries but naturally the product is for anyone owning one
A shared second prize went to Eva Gonggrijp's henna-decorated dishwashing gloves and Nellie Keijzer's cotton pillowcase.
A list of all the nominated designs can be found here.
One of my favorite art shows this year was Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting at the Musuem of Arts & Design in New York. A timely exhibition of work by international artists using fiber in unexpected and unorthodox ways.
Within the past 5 years or so, knitting has experienced quite a renaissance and it is no longer viewed as something of the 70's. One of the reasons for this comeback is the fashion cycle which traditionally brings dead things back into life sooner or later. Another reason is the possibilities and inspiration that new technologies provide.
An example of the latter is the knitting project Schalalala! by Rüdiger Schlömer (not included in the aforementioned exhibition).
Schalalala! is a fan-scarf project inspired by social media and remix culture. The project addresses the lack of flexibility and individual freedom when supporting a sport club. Either you are for team A or team B, you are with or against it.
In response to this situation, Rüdiger created a web based interface where people can re-mix existing club scarves in order to meet the individual need for flexibility, customization and fashion.
Schalalala! is primarily a digital project but people are encouraged to use the website as inspiration for knitting their own multi-fan-club scarves.
Related entry: Generative Knitting
Contact: Sebastian Campion