(small) creative initiatives that challenge (big) traditional ideas
• ( egoistic ) • activistic • architectural • audible • cinematic • conceptual • graphic • strategic • surface • urban • wireless
Here's a subtle alternative to the explicit nature of tattoos.
As the name suggests, Birthmark Tattoos, are fake - but permanent - birthmarks that you can add to your body. Aside from its decorative potential, birthmark tattoos makes it possible for your and your partner to 'exchange' birthmarks or to imprint your body with a secret message in braille.
Birthmarks Tattoo is a concept by Dutch designers Julia Müller, Arjan Groot and Menno Wittebrood who were commissioned by the magazine Identity Matters to come up with an idea for new ways of tattooing.
A group called Vandals Against Violence (Vandaler Mod Vold) has launched a post-it campaign in response to recent violent incidents in Copenhagen.
The post-it notes are placed throughout the city and carry handwritten statements and reminders such as "only the weak resort to violence".
Probably not a campaign with much impact but at least a creative alternative to CCTVs etc, which seems to be the only antidote that politicians come up with nowadays.
More here (in Danish)
Posted by Sebastian on Mar 26, 2008
The designers Miss Geschick & Lady Lapsus have come up with some new playful accessories.
The new designs include a set of relational tattoos that you can place on your body to add a narrative element to your scars and other bodily characteristics.
Check their virtual shop for other quirky products.
A billboard with a picture of a clear blue sky rotated 180 degrees. Placed in what looks to be a somewhat dull residential area.
The installation was made by Helmut Smits for the exhibition Rock My Religion, OdaPark Venray.
Related: Tree in Front of Billboard.
The Dutch town of Drachten has got itself a spectacular installation that resembles recent temporary color interventions like Delete in Vienna and in Beukelsblauw in Rotterdam that managed to generate small-scale Bilbao effects.
The installation called WATER IS LIFE (Water is Leven) is made by Henk Hofstra who had 1000 metres of road painted blue in reference to the waterway that was once running where the road is now.
Apparently, the installation is not just a reminder of the past but also an indication of the future as the waterway will be re-establish some time during 2008.
• Water Road / Via Wooster Collective
Apparel combined with new media is often associated with 'wearable computing' and futuristic looking design. But the combination of the two can also lead to more conceptual results, such as the projects presented at the Campus 2.0 exhibition at the Ars Electronica festival.
'Struckmaschine' (Fabienne Blanc & Patrick Rüegg) is a knitting machine used to make scarves with unique patterns. The patterns are made of space-invaders and each pattern is automatically generated by the personal information on the buyer's credit card.
News Knitter (Ebru Kurbak & Mahir M Yavuz) is similar project that explore the potential of data-visualization. News Knitter collects and translates political news from the web into a visual form knitted into a sweater. The idea is to make sweaters that become evidences of a specific day or period.
Finally, 'GELSOMINA – The Voice Knitting Machine' (Hanna-Lisette Wiesener & Magdalena Kohler) is more abstract but at the same time, gives the user/buyer more individual control. Audio input (song, voice) is translated into a simple visual form to give a piece of clothing its own 'vocal fingerprint'.
• Struckmaschine • News Knitter • Voice Knitting Machine
Here's a beautiful, and slightly chilling, piece of physical information visualization by advertising agency Draft FCB Lisbon.
The visualization is designed as a zebra crossing memorial and was made in conjunction with the campaign 'Safe Street Week' in Portugal. The stripes are made up of names, supposedly of pedestrians killed by cars.
Not to sound too snotty - I really like when intangible information is conceptualized and made visually present - but I am not sure if this will have any meaningful impact (other than the obvious artistic kind) or if it will in fact distract pedestrians and put their lives at risk.
• Video documentation on YouTube
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Edit:
Original link dead: here's another one on http://www.youtube.com
AddArt is a Firefox add-on developed by the American artist Steve Lambert.
The concept is inspired by the popular Adblock add-on which removes ads from web pages. The main difference between the two is that AddArt will not just block ads, it will replace them with new images - images created by artists. The more ads you surf, the more art you'll get.
The idea is to run AddArt like an art gallery with different curators responsible for organizing the shows.
AddArt is currently in prototype-mode but hopefully it will be functional soon.
Activists in Copenhagen has renamed a number of streets by covering the real street names with a new one - "Jagtvej".
Jagtvej is a reference to the the recently demolished Youth House (Ungdomshuset) located at the address Jagtvej 69.
The Youth House has been the temple for the underground scene in Copenhagen for decades but the City of Copenhagen, who owned the building, decided to sell it to what turned out to be a Christian sect that seem to be on a crusade against any form of cultural diversity.
The community around the Youth House refused to leave, so last week, the police (the anti-terror quad to be more precise) stormed the building and only a few days later the bulldozers moved in and demolished it. The eviction led to riots throughout Copenhagen.
• Flickr photos tagged with Jagtvej
The idea of using invisible information to generate visible forms has flourished in recent years, thanks to new sophisticated technologies as well as our increasing desire for things with meaning.
One of the latest examples reflecting the trend is Daniel Libeskind's Freedom Tower in New York City. The spire of the building is planned to be 1,776 feet high - 1776 was the year when the United States Declaration of Independence was drafted.
Another more dynamic example is the Allianz Arena in Munich, which has a surface that can change color depending on the action inside of the stadium.
At the other end of the scale is the mural at the Agnes Scott College in the US. When the college opened a Science Center back in 2003, one of the students came up with the idea of decorating a wall with a DNA motif. The three-story high motif represents the exact DNA of Agnes Scott whom the college was named after in 1906.
Related: A portrait by British artist Mark Quinn.
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Contact: Sebastian Campion