Open Data Ottawa

With the help of City of Ottawa, and brilliant organization of Daniel Beauchamp, MaryBeth Baker and Edward Ocampo-Gooding, the first OpenData Hackfest was held at City Hall in the Capital city. OpenData is about unrestricted access to public data provided by the government in a format that is userfriendly, creating easy access to internet applications. So basically designing applications that provide citizens with better access to local data.

Many “hackers” such as developers, designers and even citizens with no particular skills in the “code” world have created access to bus schedules, restaurant inspection reports, childcare locations, crime stats, special event license lists, and lots more. With open data, citizen application creators can work their magic, building tools to help the local citizens. Although I was sick that day and could not make it to the most part, I attended the few hours that I could, and it looked great. Many people including Gatineau and Montreal had come to the event to show off their apps, interact and initiate conversation. You can follow them on their Blog and make sure to visit the  OpenData website for upcoming events in Ottawa.

App Directory

DEADLINE: Savannah Collage of Art

MTV Organic by Umeric.

I’m not a huge fan of MTV or any TV channel similar to it, but these advertisements are absolutely beautiful. I like it.

Photographs: Alberto Seveso

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Alberto Seveso.

Pecha Kucha Montreal #16: An absolutely wonderful event

Last week, I had the previlidge to be part of Montreal’s 16th Pecha Kucha night. The place was beautiful, filled with fascinating people from Artists, Product Designers to Fashion Designers. I was the last presenter, so I had the chance to see everyone’s presentations before. Ying Gao’s work really caught my eye out of the bunch however. Aside from being a gorgeous girl herself, her designs for clothing were absolutely fascinating: a beautiful manifestation of Lighting and Transparency. Probably one of my absolute favotie fashion design. I am so glad she works with light and transforms that in to her clothing. Translucency is the word and she’s managed to get it just right.

+ Visit Ying Gao’s  work

— Post Vernissage

— Exercicesdestyle

Enrico Dini’s 3-D Printers Sculpture

Enrico Dini’s prototype machine can print in solid rock! His giant printer is the first of its kind that can print whole buildings. It uses sand but someday it’ll use moon dust? The machine is called D-shape, it sprays a thin layer of sand with a magnesium based glue from hundreds of nozzles, the glue binds the sand in to solid rock- building up layer after layer in to a sculpture or furniture or really anything you want. He claims that the d-shape process is four times faster than conventional building, costs 1/3 as using portland cememnt and createles little waste. On top of all that it makes creating curvy structures simple!

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Japanese Gameshows just do it for me.

I know that this is not design related but excellent non-the-less. Watch until the end of the video.

Japan Media Arts Festival

David Bowen’s Growth Modeling Device scooped up the grand prize in the Art Divistion category. The system attempts to replicate the daily growth of an onion plant.While lasers scan the onion from one of three angles, a fuse deposition modeler creates a plastic model based on the information collected. The device repeats this process every twenty-four hours scanning from a different angle. After a new model is produced the system advances a conveyor approx. 17 inches so the cycle can repeat. The result is a series of white plastic models illustrating a simple organic phenomenon from different angles.

Lawrence Malstaf‘s Nemo Observatorium

Common Flowers, by Shiho Fukuhara and Georg Tremmel (of the Biopresencefame), reverts the blue “Moondust” carnation -the first commercially available and purely aesthetic GM product- back to its natural white state using open-source DIY bio-bending methods and procedures.

Photo on the homepage: Flood Helmet Gallery from the series

Objects for Our Sick Planet, by ONG Kian-Peng.

Text by Regine of WE MAKE MONEY NOT ART

All pictures from the Japan Media Arts Festival.

Synthetic Aesthetics: Art, Design and Synthetic Biology

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg is a designer, artist and researcher. Her work  exhibited at the final show, The Synthetic Kingdom, explored how design could contribute to a field that most of us find a bit intimidating and distant from our daily preoccupations: synthetic biology.

Among Daisy’s latest activities are a residency she recently completed at SymbioticA, a collaboration with James King and Cambridge University’s iGEM 2009 grand-prizewinning team and then there’s Synthetic Aesthetics. This project investigates shared territory between design and synthetic biology, invites exchange of existing skills and approaches, and makes possible the development of new forms of craft and collaboration.

Synthetic biology is a bit of a daunting area of research. It seems to be highly technical and almost too abstract. How much background in Synthetic Biology would the designers and artists who apply for the residency need?

Synthetic biology is the application of engineering principles to biology – living matter has become a new material for engineering, a new technology for design and construction. The promise is that we can simplify the way we engineer life, making it predictable and useful (though biology’s complexity still challenges us, for now). The discussions today are creating a framework that could influence biology and nature for generations to come.

The deeper I get, the more fascinating and complex it becomes and the faster the field is evolving. For the last two years I have been engaging with the construction of this potential future and the ethical implications it presents. My RCA projects, The Synthetic Kingdom – a proposal for a new branch of the Tree of Life – and Growth Assembly, with Sascha Pohflepp, investigate this (both currently on show in the Wellcome Trust’s windows).

Dunne and Raby, WHAT IF…, window display, 2010.

The principles behind synthetic biology are straightforward: standardization, abstraction and modularity. Synthetic Aesthetics is not looking for designers or artists necessarily expert in genetics, rather, how might design and art work in dialogue with the evolving science?We’re interested in the overlaps between synthetic biology and design, the ways that we can explore and interrogate science, opening up new thought areas and processes. We’re asking: how would you design nature?

Synthetic biology is multi-disciplinary, from computer scientists to mechanical engineers. As design advisor with James King to the 2009 Cambridge UniversityiGEM competition team (International Genetically Engineered Machines), we joined undergraduates in Maths, Physics, Engineering and other subjects in a two-week synbio crash course last July.

Beautiful Moss Table

The Moss tables designed by Ayodhya has been shown at the IFFS – international furniture fair in singapore 2010.

Interesting Concepts for Headphones + Speakers

DESIGN BOOM had a competition with Altec Lansing, calling designers for concepts in speakers or headsets. The results were very interesting from all around the world.

name of design : altec lansing mini
design by : kimming yap + yulia saksen from singapore

name of design : exflowde
design by : sunghyun kyung from korea

name of design : hangin/bowlin
design by : janne salovaara from finland

name of design : torus
design by : james barber from uk

name of design : fruity speaker
design by : yue li from france

name of design : moss speaker
design by : brandon shigeta from usa

name of design : cure
design by : chung-lin lin from taiwan

— name of design : tune wave design by : Yang ShunFa + Tusng-yu Liu from taiwan

name of design : peter podbelly
design by : kinga pelsöczi from germany

name of design : urban music tree
design by : tamara orjola from latvia

name of design : sport
design by : bao-nghi droste from germany

name of design : Transparent fragility
design by : ilshat garipov from russia

Beautiful Textile Jewelry: Kjoo

Zero Wrist Watch

+ Robert Dabi

Kotori Headphones

+ Kotori

Beardyman: Lovin him these days

[Vimeo=9543537]

+ Beardyman

SATOMI SHIRAI 白井里実 : Beautiful Photo

Patricia Piccinini: The Story of Science

Part I: Laboratory Procedures, 2002
Science Story
Type C colour photograph
100 × 200cm
(small format) 70 x 140 cm
Edition of 15

Part II: Ethical Issues, 2002
Science Story
Type C colour photograph
100 × 200cm
(small format) 70 x 140 cm
Edition of 15

Part III: Research Methods, 2002
Science Story
Type C colour photograph
100 × 200cm
(small format) 70 x 140 cm
Edition of 15

Part IV: Thesis and Conclusions, 2002
Science Story
Type C colour photograph
100 × 200cm
(small format) 70 x 140 cm
Edition of 15

+ Patricia Piccinini

CD designed by Jaroslav Juřica & Zuzana Lehutová

Image/// Courtesy of Huberto Kororo

Recorded at Pappelallee 5 in Berlin, in 2006, mixed by Ivan Palacky in Brno a year later and finally, mastered by Toshimaru Nakamura in Tokyo, in October 2007, the cd (designed by Jaroslav Juřica and Zuzana Lehutová) consists of two editions, where „kempt“ represents a smoother kind of musical expressiveness, while „unkempt“ tends to be more experimental..

After opening (by tearing off the seal), the outer minimalistic graphic of the snow-white package is irretrievably disturbed by a single dark stain, which turns to the colour of the inner content.. While the graphic form of the edition is always constant, the colours vary. Depending on the technique of opening (like using a drill in order to create a peculiar mark) some patterns arise, which give each piece a certain uniqueness.

+ Hubero Kororo

+ VIA Yatzer

+ UCEROZ

Death of Alexander McQueen: A Genius

Alexander McQueen, a genius Fashion Designer, was found dead shortly after his mother’s death about couple of weeks ago. The news was announced on BBC and on his website and by now has flooded the internet and design blogs. He was truly amazing.

+ Alexander McQueen

+ Via Yatzer

+ Via BBC

Patrick Evans: Montreal Pecha Kucha

Last night at the Montreal Pecha Kucha , Patrick Evans presented his wonderful story
on "Where the snow goes". It was overall a nice night at the CCA. 6 presentors,
speaking about "City Cleanliness".

Where The Snow Goes

by Patrick Evans
Published by Smith, Bonappétit & Son
ISBN 1-897118-02-3

Patrick Evans is co-founder of the architectural collective