Jocelyn Warner
Bold patterns can work wonders on plain walls, as evidenced by Jocelyn Warner’s savvy wallpaper designs. Here are a few to whet your appetite:
Archive for Design
Tenori-On
Yamaha is sponsoring a free event at 1015 this Friday, April 18, which includes live performances by the likes of Pole, Robert Lippok (of To Rococo Rot), Sutekh, Safety Scissors, and I am Robot. This event will serve as a launch party for a novel instrument that wowed the crowd at SIGGRAPH in 2005: Tenori-On.
A touch-sensitive sequencer with a LED matrix interface, Tenori-On offers a fun way to visually represent music while you make it. It’s easy to create and manipulate loops, manage layers and and even import samples via an SD card slot. Tenori-On looks like a fun piece of gear for live shows too — you can string a few of them together or hook one up to your laptop, mixer, etc. via MIDI. Best of all, friends and audiences can actually see the music progress with the dancing LED lights on the double-sided tablet. Designer Toshio Iwai will give a live demo of the instrument at the party.
David Kwan at Kala Art Institute
I first encountered the work of Bay area artist David Kwan at last month’s LISTEN/VISION 02 event, where I experienced Solaris, an audiovisual piece focused on the diaphanous reverberations of muted light forms.
Kwan, who teaches at Mills College in Oakland, is now taking part of Interplay, a new exhibition at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley:
Terra Firma is a complex video installation deployed by an automated system that “composes” a continuously changing landscape derived from video footage. The footage is generated from four different video sources that project images of empty landscapes to create a single on-site landscape in the gallery. Kwan’s visual continuum of shifting permutations creates a sort of “non-place” suggestive of our own interior psychological space. For the viewer, these images can provoke a nostalgic memory of our archetypal landscape. (description via Kala’s website)
Interplay
Featuring works by: David Kwan, Nora Pauwels, Bartosz Posacki and Steve Reich
- April 17 - May 24, 2008
- Reception: Thursday, April 17, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
- Gallery Talk with the Artists: Tuesday, April 29, 7:00 pm
- Gallery Hours: Tue-Fri, 12-5:30 pm; Sat, 12-4:30 pm
Yuri’s Night
A great lineup is in store for Yuri’s Night at Nasa Ames. Of note on the audiovisual side is a psychedelic drawing interface installation by Joshua Ott, Ezekiel Honig, and Morgan Packard (see screenshot above).
Other artists like Jon Tejada, Lusine, Deru, and [a]pendics.shuffle will keep the tunes going alongside all of the technological wizardry that one can expect of a Bay area geek spectacle. See you there!
Yuri’s Night Bay Area website
Upcoming.org post
Submerged Visions
I recently happened upon Zena Holloway’s exquisite work in photography. Shot underwater, Holloway’s work captures fugitive moments of fanciful visions, freeform in composition and suffused with mercurial light:
Holloway has also made several short films which give an animated grace to her still photography.
DIY Cardboard Furniture
In school, I once had a studio project that called for the design of a stool made of corrugated cardboard. The idea was simple — to create a piece of furniture that was easy to assemble, structurally sound and made from inexpensive, readily available material.
Following this concept, Foldschool offers free furniture patterns which you can use to make your own chair, stool or cute little rocker from corrugated cardboard. Swiss architect Nicola Enrico Stäubli began Foldschool to provide “a face-to-face approach to design and [bring] together product and user the closest possible.” With beautifully sculptural lines, each of Stäubli’s designs strikes a strong impression.
Longoland Mania
Can you seriously think of a more inviting rug for your guests? The Monster Skin Rug practically screams, “Come hither and let me bite off your ankle!”
While hunting for flat furnishings, I stumbled upon the work of Brooklyn-based designer Joshua Longo, whose freaky rug sent me rolling over with laughter. Aside from the craggy clay teeth, the rest of the beast — made of brushed woven cashmere and wool — seems to make for a snuggly treat for the feet.
Also not to be missed:
The Monster Skin Chair (a bit tamer, but same idea)
The Mano Efferus — one of many strange creatures by Longo.
Color me Blue Iris in 2008
Consumer trends may be turning greener, but next year’s looking pretty blue: Pantone has deemed Blue Iris (PANTONE 18-3943) as the official color of 2008. Holding a spot in the company’s eco-friendly paint line, Blue Iris is a showy color that moves between bold shades of blue and purple. It’s a bit too bright for larger areas but would serve well as an accent color when paired with a neutral palette. I’m slowly warming up to the color and think that a hint of black might move it into a richer, more subtle realm. Here it is:
Pantone may be the global authority on color, but it certainly has followed a rather curious path through color expansion (whoever needed an entire swatchbook of ghastly pastel colors?). Over the last 40+ years, the company has grown well beyond graphic color management; it now produces premium Dutch-formulated interior paints, custom-dyed textiles and guides for the fashion industry, inkjet cartridges and plastics. You can even get your own Pantone flash drive!.
Recycled Flourescent Tube Lighting
Here’s a cool lighting idea presented by Castor Canadensis, a Canadian collective that recycles old flourescent tubes by binding them into cylindrical lamp structures:
Jeff Han’s Media Wall at Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus has teamed up with Jeff Han to offer Han’s multi-touch media wall in the luxury retailer’s 2007 Christmas Book. Han’s company, Perceptive Pixel, Inc., designed the eight-by-three foot surface for effortless, hands-on interactivity for work and play. Here’s the promo video for this offer:
Han’s touch-driven wall can be exclusively yours for a starting price of $100,000, far less than other lavish holiday gifts from Neiman Marcus — past offerings include a charter space flight on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo for $1.76 million. While hardly an example of technology for the masses, it’s an exciting peek at the future of intuitive design.
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Han’s demonstration of the interactive wall at TED in 2006.
