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Anne Lilly: Temporal Tincture

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I first saw Boston-based artist Anne Lilly’s beautiful interactive kinetic stainless steel sculptures at Scope NY a few months back and thought they were among the best pieces at the show. More recently, I saw more of them at the very intimate Beth Swanström Gallery where the artist herself was present. She spoke enthusiastically about her switch, years ago, from architecture to sculpture and the thrill she got the first time she entered a metal workshop surrounded by all the lathes and other tools.

Lilly’s sculptures have a fluidity and elegance that rival that of the most graceful dancer. The cool, mechanical, minimalist steel pieces (many of which remind me of some of my favorite Blomus housewares) need only a slight push and off they go in an incredibly smooth movement where collision seems inevitable, yet never occurs. Trust me, it’s worth watching the videos below to get the full effect, or as much of a full effect that one can get online.

Photos & videos courtesy of Anne Lilly and Galerie Swanström

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Categories Art, Industrial Design, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Stuff We Like

Somos Luz: Boamistura

23 May

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The folks of Boamistura (previously here & here) were at it again, doing what they do so well: fostering pride and community in impoverished neighborhoods with their street art interventions. Their latest participatory urban art project Somos Luz (We are Light) took place this past March in Panama City. Invited by the Panama Art Biennial and as part of their own Crossroads project, Boamistura enlisted the help of the inhabitants of the Begonia I building in El Chorrillo to paint the phrase “Somos Luz” on the façade of their building. Each apartment (50 total) was responsible for painting their own home including corridors and stairways. The concept was based on a color grid that, when seen from up close, looks like abstract shapes but, from a distance, spells out their proud bright message. It’s win-win all around. The building got a much needed coat of paint (see ‘before’ in third photo down from top.) The community, down to the young children, were included in the project. And a sense of well-deserved pride was instilled in all who live in the Begonia I building. Nice work as usual Boamistura!

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Categories Art, Fun, Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Pop Culture, Street Art, Stuff We Like, Typography

MT Masking Tape Installation: Koji Iyama

14 May

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This delightfully colorful tape installation designed by Koji Iyama took place in Sendai, Japan, as a promotion for mt masking tape. Iyama and his team set out to show the multiple/alternate uses of the bright and patterned rolls by covering the walls and floors—as well as other objects they came across—of a huge old garage and then hanging thousands of rolls from the ceiling. The visitors could walk through the space and peruse the tape selections on the tables as well. You can see a time-lapse video of the installation process below:

via junkculture via spoon & tamago

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Categories Fun, Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Stuff We Like

Rain Room at MoMA: Random International

13 May

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It’s been a weekend of wall-to-wall art and design here in NYC with art fairs small and large, from Pulse, to Nada, to Collective, to Frieze and, of course, the opening of Rain Room at MoMA, the interactive and immersive installation by rAndom International that first debuted at the Barbican Centre in London last October. I will be featuring some of the highlights, for me, from these events in the next few days but here, for starters, is the amazing Rain Room.

Rain Room is a large-scale environment (in the case of MoMA, it’s a separate entity outside the museum on 54th Street) with a field of pouring rain whose flow is suspended detecting the presence of bodies, allowing visitors to wander around the room amidst the beautifully highlighted drops, without getting wet. Injection moulded tiles, solenoid valves, pressure regulators, 3D tracking cameras, custom software and steel beams are involved in the production of the installation. Definitely fun and cool, making for some stunning photographs (better ones if you opt for camera over phone) and lots of kids running fast trying (and mostly succeeding) to get wet.

But, as with all fun and cool NYC activities, there are long lines. If you’re a museum member the wait is slightly shorter, but even early on the first day, while there were probably many still unaware of the exhibit, the wait was about an hour and a half. So, go prepared and avoid peak hours. There are early morning members-only hours from 9:30 to 10:30am but getting there by 9am is likely to be a good idea.

Rain Room is part of EXPO 1: New York and will be on view through July 28, 2013.

Photos: Joe Holmes; rAndom International; and collabcubed

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Categories Art, Event, Fun, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Light, Pop Culture, Stuff We Like

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 5/10

10 May

Free& Cheap things to do 5/10/13 to 5/12/13

Free & Cheap things to do in NYC this weekend (5/10/13 to 5/12/13). It’s an especially good weekend for fans of art and design…

1. DESIGN/ART: Fri 5/10 & Sat 5/11 – Collective Design Fair at Pier 57 – will present a cohesive, curated selection of contemporary design and historical pieces from galleries around the world. $25 Fri 11am to 9pm; Sat 11am to 5pm. Register in advance.

2. ART: All weekend & through 9/2 – Subliming Vessel: The Drawings of Matthew Barney $15. Also Fri 5/10 Film No Restraint by Barney at 7pm. Morgan Library. FREE Friday Evenings.

3. ART/DESIGN: All weekend – PULSE NY at the Metropolitan Pavilion. 11am to 8pm $20 to $25

4. MUSIC: Fri 5/10 & Sat 5/11 – Downtown Music Festival Full day passes between $25 and $45

5. DESIGN/ARCHITECTURE/TALKS/ART: All weekend & through 5/21 – NYCxDESIGN inaugural citywide event to showcase and promote design of all disciplines. Events will be staged across all five boroughs,from convention facilities and galleries to design schools and public parks. Most events FREE

6. ART: All weekend – NADA NYC: creatively reinventing the experience and presentation of art in a fair enviornment. at Basketball City at Pier 36 on the East River. See hours FREE.

7. FILM/COMEDY: Fri 5/10 –Kevin Geeks Out about Rip-Off Cinema. Comedy-variety show hosted by Kevin Maher. Vintage clips and videos, games and curiosities. 8pm $10

8. DESIGN/ART: All weekend – Brooklyn Designs annual exhibit of local designers work in furnishings, lighting, and accessories made or designed in Brooklyn. Fri open to Trade. Sat 10 to 7pm, Sun 11am to 6pm. $15 to $20.

9. DESIGN CONFERENCE: Sat 5/11 – Counter/Point: the 2013 D-Crit Conference. 12:30 to 7pm. at SVA theater. FREE with Registration

10. ARCHITECTURE WALK/TOUR: Sat 5/11 – AIA Roosevelt Island: 1970s “New Town In Town” to FDR Four Freedoms 11am to 1pm $15 to $25

11. ARCHITECTURE/TALK: Fri 5/10 – Diller Scofidio in conversation with Dimendberg Vidler and Polan about Lincoln Ctr., 6 to 8pm. FREE with RSVP

12. ART/PARTICIPATORY: Sun 5/12 through 7/28 – The very cool installation that doesn’t get you wet: The Rain Room opens at MoMA $25 admission. FREE Friday evenings and first 100 visitors on Tuesdays in May.

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Categories Architecture, Art, Event, Film, Fun, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Music, NYC, Pop Culture, Stuff We Like

More Topotek 1: Temporary Playground

6 May

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Yes, it seems that I’m smitten with Topotek 1’s work (see previous post.) This cotton-candy pink temporary playground was created for the State Garden Show in Wolfsburg, Germany. It’s clear that color and fun are both things that these guys know how to work with well. Twenty-four inflatable objects and fifteen cubes made of foam rubber were strewn across a lawn along with bouncy mats that beckoned to any passer-by. Inspired by grazing horses, young-girls’ romanticism and a Barbie-doll world, this temporary structure is part sculpture part interactive play object.

A more recent garden show installation, in fact going on right now, is in Hamburg and includes wacky Aqua Soccer and Dymaxion Golf. Check it out here.

All photos courtesy the architects and fandisk256’s flickr.

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Categories Architecture, Fun, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Stuff We Like

Topotek 1: Cold War

6 May

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The first thing I thought of when I landed on German landscape architecture studio Topotek 1’s (previously here) projects page and was greeted with all the brightness was “Why don’t real refrigerators come with bright-colored interiors??” So great! Maybe one color for the freezer and another for the fridge? But, they’re not selling refrigerators at Topotek 1. Instead, these are images from their very fun interactive installation titled Cold War at the Venice Architectural Biennale 08. Roughly twenty fridges were lined up and stacked against a wall in the Italian Pavilion each containing funhouse-like effects from sounds, kaleidoscopic viewing machines, to fans, mirrors, peep holes and more. According to principals Martin Rein-Cano and Lorenz Dexler, the installations are a demonstration of the company’s work tactics, offering a glimpse into enchanting worlds.

Photos courtesy of Topotek 1 except image of fan courtesy designboom.

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Categories Architecture, Art, Fun, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Stuff We Like

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 5/3

3 May

Free & Cheap things to do this weekend in NYC (5/3/13 to 5/5/13)
It’s going to be a perfect Spring weekend so here are plenty of suggestions to keep you out and about with culture and fun. Free & Cheap things to do this weekend in NYC (5/3/13 to 5/5/13) Walks, talks, music, art, Ideas Festival, Pen World Voices Fest, Red Bull Music Fest, Nuit Blanche events, Kentucky Derby, Cinco de Mayo and so much more!

1. THEATER: Fri 5/3 and all weekend – Blondie of Arabia. Monica Hunken’s one-woman show on her odyssey biking through 3 countries in the Middle East weeks before the Arab Spring. A quirky comedy. Monica talks after the Fri 5/3 and 5/10 performances. 8pm. $25.

2. LITERATURE/READINGS: Fri 5/3 – PEN World Voices of International Literature’s Literary Mews. Nestled among the cobblestone streets of NYU’s storied Washington Mews, this day-long “festival within the Festival” will feature writers’ workshops in the morning and readings in the afternoon. FREE

3. ART: Fri 5/3 & all weekend through 6/20 – Holton Rower Focus paintings, Pour Paintings two bodies of work side by side. Diverse results achieved by the artist through his innovative and deceptively simple process of pouring hand-made acrylic paints over wood. Rower will also introduce a new body of work titled “Focus paintings” which are amazingly out of focus! Opening Fri 6 to 9pm. FREE

4. FILM: Fri 5/3 & Sat 5/4 – New York Indian Film Festival $15 See schedule.

5. ART/ARCHITECTURE/URBAN STUDIES/DESIGN/FOOD: Fri 5/3 & Sat 5/4 –Ideas City is a biennial Festival in New York City of conferences, workshops, an innovative StreetFest around the Bowery, and more than one hundred independent projects and public events that are forums for exchanging ideas, proposing solutions, and accelerating creativity. So much to do so check schedule to pick. A few events that caught my eye: Creation 3D; Human Hotel; and Murals on the Bowery. 9am to Midnight. FREE

6. MUSIC: All weekend & through 5/31– Red Bull Music Academy. An amazing amount of music events all around town ranging mostly from FREE to $20. Check events on their site.

7. WALK/ARCHITECTURE: Sat 5/4 – The Great Saunter. A 32 mile walk around Manhattan’s Shoreline.7am to 7pm $20

8. ART/VIDEO/LIGHT: Sat 5/4 – Nuit Blanche presents Change of State. Site-specific projection on the facade of the New Museum. And Mulberry Street Night Fest where the street is converted into a series of cool light, projection-mapping, and video installations. 8pm to midnight. FREE

9. ART/PARTICIPATORY/FUN: Sat 5/4 & Sun 5/5 – The Institute for Psychogeographic Adventure: Experiment 17 - DUMBO Individuals (or pairs) sign up for a personalized journey that remixes history, memory, the everyday and the spectacular. A multitude of performers will be scattered through the neighborhood to lead you through a series of unexpected and fabulous DUMBO encounters. Noon to 5pm $10.

10. ARCHITECTURE/WALK/TOUR: Sat 5/4 – Made in LIC: A Jane Jacobs Walking Tour of Long Island City 12pm at The Clock Tower. FREE

11. MUSIC: Sat 5/4 – Brooklyn Flea Record Fair at Smorgasburg 11am to 6pm. FREE

12. ARCHITECTURE/WALKING TOUR: Sat 5/4 – Hudson Yards: Design(in) The New Heart of NY. OHNY. Exhibit and architect-led tours. 10am to 3pm. Register. FREE.

13. MUSIC/ART/FUN: Sat 5/4 – Earth Day Rockaway: Free activities, live music by Il Collectivo, art-related booths, kite-making, recycling olympics and much more. 12 to 4pm. FREE

14. FUN/SPECTATOR: Sat 5/4 – Kentucky Derby watch sites

15. THEATER: All weekend & through 3/19 – The Pulitzer Prize winning play ‘Night, Mother by Marsha Norman. General Admission $18

16. MUSIC/DANCE/PARTY: Sun 5/5 – Cinco de Mayo with Body Language. Dance Party at Glasslands Gallery. 8:30pm. $10 to $12

17. MUSIC/ART/INSANITY: Sun 5/5 – The National perform their song “Sorrow” for 6 hours straight as part of Ragnar Kjartansson’ A Lot of Sorrow at PS1 in the VW Dome $15 Tkts

18. FOOD/DRINK/FIESTA: Sun 5/5 – Roberta’s Cinco de Mayo Celebration. Tacos, Cervezas. Tequila, music, pinatas! 2pm to 10pm

Get outside and enjoy!

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Categories Architecture, Art, Event, Film, Food, Fun, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Light, Music, NYC, Pop Culture, Street Art, Stuff We Like

Danielle Tay: Pods

2 May

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Currently studying at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, Singaporean artist Danielle Tay works in a variety of mediums though up until recently they seem to mostly be limited to walls. Her most recent work appears to be a bit of a departure, stepping into immersive installation art with her work PODS showcased at the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow this past January in their very appropriate Art Experiment 2013 show. Each pod had a different interior, some were crawled into, others acted more like canopies, but all of them seem to have offered a very cool environment to its visitor.

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Categories Art, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Stuff We Like

The Museum of Broken Relationships

25 Apr

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From wedding chapel to The Museum of Broken Relationships all in the same day! Yes, it’s true, there is a museum of said name and theme. Originally a traveling exhibition revolving around the concept of failed relationships and their ruins, the success of the exhibit encouraged its founders Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic to establish the Museum’s permanent collection within the baroque Kulmer Palace in Zagreb, Croatia. The concept is simple: the Museum offers a chance “to overcome an emotional collapse through creation” by contributing to its collection. Donors part with objects left behind at the end of love affairs such as shared belongings, mementos, and gifts. It’s not clear what actually compels them to donate—some may do it out of grief while others exhibitionism—but whatever their reasons, people seem to embrace the notion.

Though different in theme, the collection of odd and random objects in a museum setting reminds me of the Cortlandt Alley Museum as well as Claes Oldenberg’s Mouse Museum currently on exhibit at MoMA.

As previously mentioned, the museum also has a touring component and currently that collection can be seen at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado through May 26th.

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Categories Art, Fun, Interaction Design, Pop Culture, Stuff We Like

Wedding Chapel: DUS Architects

25 Apr

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The wedding chapel is part of Villa Escamp, a temporary city hall for the Escamp district in The Hague. The 6-meter long and 3-meter high dome, designed by DUS Architects in Amsterdam, was crocheted using two kilometers of flexible white ventilation tubes creating a peaceful atmosphere with soft acoustics and lighting. It can accommodate up to 50 people and, yes, people can actually marry there.

via thetreemag

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Categories Architecture, Fun, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Stuff We Like

JR’s Inside Out Project in Times Square

16 Apr

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Well this should be fun. French street artist JR (previously here and here) is bringing his large-scale participatory Inside Out Project to NYC starting next week. People are invited to take their self-portraits in a specially designed photo booth stationed in Times Square. Some of the black and white instantly-printed 3′ x 4′ posters will be displayed in Times Square but each portrait-taker is encouraged to take their poster back to display publicly in their home community. The photo booth truck will be making early visits to the four other boroughs as well, with the initial portraits featuring community members from NYC Hurricane Sandy-affected areas.

Inside Out New York City coincides with the world premiere of the documentary film Inside Out: The People’s Art Project on April 20th as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, and will later have its television debut on HBO on May 20th.

I would imagine there will be lines, so you might want to pick a weekday to head over to the photo booth truck, but based on our own personal experience with the Inside Out Project, I highly recommend participating one way or another.

Inside Out New York City will run from April 22 to May 10, 2013 in Times Square.

Photos courtesy Times Square Alliance; Inside Out Project; Inside Out NYC’s facebook page; and collabcubed.

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Categories Art, Event, Fun, Interaction Design, NYC, Photography, Pop Culture, Street Art, Stuff We Like

Filament Mind: Teton County Library

1 Apr

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Filament Mind is an information-driven installation at the Teton County Library in Wyoming, designed to visualize the collective questions of library visitors through an interactive and dynamic spacial sculpture. Designed by Brian W. Brush and Yong Ju Lee of E/B office, Filament Mind illuminates searches in a flash of color and light through glowing bundles of fiber optic cables. Whenever any Wyoming public library visitor anywhere in the state performs a search of the library catalog from a computer, each of the 1000 fiber optic cables hanging above (totaling over 5 miles of cable) corresponds to a call number in the Dewey Decimal System, which organizes the library’s collection into approximately 1000 categories of knowledge. These category titles are displayed in text on the lobby’s south and north walls at the termination points of the fiber optic cables. For further clarification how the installation works watch the video below:

via onesmallseed

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Categories Architecture, Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Light, Stuff We Like, Typography

Infinity Bridge: Stockton-on-Tees

28 Mar

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The Infinity Bridge, a pedestrian bridge in Stockton-on-Tees in the UK, is suspended from a pair of beautiful asymmetrical bowstring arches that, when reflected in the water, look like the flowing double loop of the infinity symbol, hence the name. Designed by Expedition Engineering and Spence Associates, not only are the shape and reflection striking and interesting, but the lighting design by Speirs & Major makes the bridge an interactive kinetic experience. The deck of the footbridge is cloaked in a blue glow that shifts to a white light that moves along with you as you cross, much like a protective spotlight. You can see it in action in the video below.

Photos: Brian Swales and Morley von Sternburg.

via e-archtitect

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Categories Architecture, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Light, Stuff We Like

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 3/22

22 Mar

Cheap things to do this we

Free & Cheap things to do this weekend in NYC (3/22/13 to 3/24/13) in art, music, theater, performance, dance, architecture, film, design and general fun. Click through to event pages for more info, either on images above or in the descriptions below.

1. ART: Fri 3/22 & Sat 3/23 through 4/20 – Sergie Tcherepnin: Ear Tone Box. Works at the intersections of sound, sculpture, and theater with objects taking on hybridized personalities, inviting play between things and bodies. At Murray Guy in Chelsea FREE

2. THEATER/DANCE: Fri 3/22 and Sat 3/23 – Breaking Surface: merges dance, acrobatics, flight, water, & poetic imagery in a watery adventure that defies expectation. 8pm. $25

3. BOOK/MUSIC/PARTY: Fri 3/22 Celebrate Touré’s new book I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon with a dance party featuring a night of Prince music spun by Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest. 7pm. $5.

4. FILM: All Weekend – New Directors New Films: $12 to $15. See schedule

5. ART: Fri 3/22 – Anne Lilly: Temporal Tincture. Beautiful and elegant interactive kinetic sculpture (one of my favorites at Scope). Noon to 5pm. Reception 5 to 8pm Galerie Swanström, 136 Sullivan St. FREE

6. MUSIC: All Weekend – Planetarium by Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, and Nico Muhly at BAM. A few $25 seats left.

7. DANCE: All Weekend – DanceBrazil at the Joyce Theater. Tkts $10 and up.

8. FILM: All Weekend – The Films of Stanley Kubrick at IFC: $13.50

9. FOOD/DRINK/MUSIC/FUN: Sat 3/23 & Sun 3/24 – The Big British Invite will take place from 12pm-6pm. Drinks, dance, express manicures. FREE

10. MUSIC/FOOD/FUN: All Weekend – Freetown Produce Festival with Cajun Music and Cooking. Day Passes $30 to $37. See schedule

11. ART/TALK: Sat 3/23 –Artist Hans Haacke and Irving Sandler in Conversation on Haacke’s practice, including his contribution to the German Pavilion at the 1993 Venice Biennale. 3pm $8

12. MUSIC: Sat 3/23 – Fredericks Brown & Jean Grae: a double bill of Soul and ground-breaking hip hop. 7:30pm $20

13. COMEDY/PERFORMANCE: Fri 3/22 & Sat 3/23 – NYC Improv Fest. See schedule for shows. $8ea/$40 for Fest Pass

14. FOOD: Sat 3/23 & Sun 3/24 – Big Cheesy Competition: Seven Grilled Cheese sandwiches from 7 chefs compete: $25 (This is apparently sold out.)

15. MUSIC: Sun 3/24 – Lucy Michelle & The Velvet Lapelles at Mercury Lounge 7:30pm $10

16. ARCHITECTURE/WALK: All Weekend – Go for a stroll on the brand-spanking new bouncy Squibb Park Pedestrian Bridge with yet more spectacular views of the NYC skyline. FREE

17. FOOD/WALKING TOUR: Sun 3/24 – Big Onion Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour. Combines the history of the diverse LES with a series of small food sampling, or “noshing” stops from local shops. 1pm $25 with RSVP

18. TALK/ARCHITECTURE: Sun 3/24 – Surfrider Foundation: Mobilizing Grassroots Activists in Coastal Conservation at Beach 94 in the Rockaways. 1 to 3pm. FREE RSVP

Check last week’s COTC, or the week before, for some ongoing events. Enjoy!

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Categories Architecture, Art, Event, Film, Food, Fun, Industrial Design, Interaction Design, Music, NYC, Pop Culture, Stuff We Like

Windchimes: Reinventing NYC Payphones

11 Mar

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A few months back NYC launched a Reinvent Payphones Challenge for ideas on how to upgrade and/or replace the existing 11,000+ payphones around the city. Among the six finalists is Windchimes a distributed sensor network providing real-time and hyper-local records of the city’s rain levels, pollution and other environmental conditions. Created by a group of students and recent grads from Parsons, NYU-ITP and Cooper Union, the goal behind Windchimes is to empower the city with data which has never been readily available before. Scientists, city officials, urban farmers, techies, educators and the general public would have open access to the information enabling and impacting future environmental legislation, helping us work towards building a more sustainable city.

Why are we voting for Windchimes, besides the fact that we know one of the students on the team? Well, Windchimes is the only project with an actual functioning prototype, proving that it works and that the engineering has been tested and worked out. Windchimes could be deployed today; simply plug it into a telephone jack and watch as it instantly collects data and sends it to a database on the Internet. Windchimes is cost-effective with an estimated cost of $100 to $200 per unit and uses the existing payphone structures throughout the city, plus being energy-efficient as well.

Take a look at all the projects here (you may have to ‘like’ the group to view and vote) and vote for your favorite, though we hope you’ll consider Windchimes!

Oh, and here’s a video:

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Categories Industrial Design, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, NYC, Stuff We Like

Pendulum Choir: Cod.Act

7 Mar

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Swiss artists André and Michel Décosterd who make up Cod.Act combine their talents of music composition and architecture in their artistic performance and interactive installations. Their devices translate physical movement into sound.

Their Pendulum Choir is probably the most surprising. A choir of nine men is harnessed onto hydraulic jacks that react to their voices. The swinging and rotating singers seem to hang by their toes while leaning at what look to be close to 45-degree angles, coming very close to each other yet designed to never collide. Kind of zany, funny, and at the same time a little creepy.

Cod.Act have many other creations including the Cycloid-E—a pendulum of metallic tubes equipped with sound sources and with measuring instruments capable of making them resonate according to their rotations—and the Ex-Pharao, a mechanical apparatus composed of cables and hydraulic levers that allows the visitor to modify an opera by Schoenberg in real time. Much more to see on their site.

via spoon & tamago

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Categories Architecture, Art, Interaction Design, Just Plain Cool, Stuff We Like

PearlDamour: How to Build a Forest

4 Mar

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Though at first glance it may look like a theater set for a children’s fairytale, PearlDamour’s (Katie Pearl and Lisa D’Amour) How to Build a Forest has more to it than that. Em stopped by the team’s latest installation, of their previously-staged performance art piece, last week at Brown University’s Granoff Center. Part visual art installation and part theater performance How to Build a Forest unfolds over an 8-hour period, beginning on an empty stage which is slowly transformed by the artists and their volunteers into a coloful, dense and willowy slip-covered forest. Viewers are urged to walk through and interact with the installation as well as ask (or answer) questions of the forest rangers on hand. Field guides were distributed that include a manifesto on the beauty and fragility of our environment. Visitors are given an opportunity to witness an ecosystem in progress as well as question where things go when we are done with them. Despite the loud sounds by the builders and metal wires, the installation has a meditative quality.

Brown’s Granoff center was the smallest of the venues where How to Build a Forest was shown, but others include The Kitchen in NYC and Duke University. At the end of the 8 hours on each day of the exhibit/performance the forest was torn down while the builders spoke poetic words of warning, then walked off leaving an empty, stark performance space.

Here’s a time lapse video of the entire 8 hours on the left.

Photos courtesy of PearlDamour; Brown Daily Herald; Timothy Atticsu/bomblog

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Categories Art, Event, Interaction Design, Stuff We Like

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Photos & videos courtesy of Anne Lilly and Galerie Swanström

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via junkculture via spoon & tamago

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Photos: Joe Holmes; rAndom International; and collabcubed

Free& Cheap things to do 5/10/13 to 5/12/13

Free & Cheap things to do in NYC this weekend (5/10/13 to 5/12/13). It’s an especially good weekend for fans of art and design…

1. DESIGN/ART: Fri 5/10 & Sat 5/11 – Collective Design Fair at Pier 57 – will present a cohesive, curated selection of contemporary design and historical pieces from galleries around the world. $25 Fri 11am to 9pm; Sat 11am to 5pm. Register in advance.

2. ART: All weekend & through 9/2 – Subliming Vessel: The Drawings of Matthew Barney $15. Also Fri 5/10 Film No Restraint by Barney at 7pm. Morgan Library. FREE Friday Evenings.

3. ART/DESIGN: All weekend – PULSE NY at the Metropolitan Pavilion. 11am to 8pm $20 to $25

4. MUSIC: Fri 5/10 & Sat 5/11 – Downtown Music Festival Full day passes between $25 and $45

5. DESIGN/ARCHITECTURE/TALKS/ART: All weekend & through 5/21 – NYCxDESIGN inaugural citywide event to showcase and promote design of all disciplines. Events will be staged across all five boroughs,from convention facilities and galleries to design schools and public parks. Most events FREE

6. ART: All weekend – NADA NYC: creatively reinventing the experience and presentation of art in a fair enviornment. at Basketball City at Pier 36 on the East River. See hours FREE.

7. FILM/COMEDY: Fri 5/10 –Kevin Geeks Out about Rip-Off Cinema. Comedy-variety show hosted by Kevin Maher. Vintage clips and videos, games and curiosities. 8pm $10

8. DESIGN/ART: All weekend – Brooklyn Designs annual exhibit of local designers work in furnishings, lighting, and accessories made or designed in Brooklyn. Fri open to Trade. Sat 10 to 7pm, Sun 11am to 6pm. $15 to $20.

9. DESIGN CONFERENCE: Sat 5/11 – Counter/Point: the 2013 D-Crit Conference. 12:30 to 7pm. at SVA theater. FREE with Registration

10. ARCHITECTURE WALK/TOUR: Sat 5/11 – AIA Roosevelt Island: 1970s “New Town In Town” to FDR Four Freedoms 11am to 1pm $15 to $25

11. ARCHITECTURE/TALK: Fri 5/10 – Diller Scofidio in conversation with Dimendberg Vidler and Polan about Lincoln Ctr., 6 to 8pm. FREE with RSVP

12. ART/PARTICIPATORY: Sun 5/12 through 7/28 – The very cool installation that doesn’t get you wet: The Rain Room opens at MoMA $25 admission. FREE Friday evenings and first 100 visitors on Tuesdays in May.

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All photos courtesy the architects and fandisk256’s flickr.

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Photos courtesy of Topotek 1 except image of fan courtesy designboom.

1. THEATER: Fri 5/3 and all weekend – Blondie of Arabia. Monica Hunken’s one-woman show on her odyssey biking through 3 countries in the Middle East weeks before the Arab Spring. A quirky comedy. Monica talks after the Fri 5/3 and 5/10 performances. 8pm. $25.

4. FILM: Fri 5/3 & Sat 5/4 – New York Indian Film Festival $15 See schedule.

6. MUSIC: All weekend & through 5/31– Red Bull Music Academy. An amazing amount of music events all around town ranging mostly from FREE to $20. Check events on their site.

7. WALK/ARCHITECTURE: Sat 5/4 – The Great Saunter. A 32 mile walk around Manhattan’s Shoreline.7am to 7pm $20

8. ART/VIDEO/LIGHT: Sat 5/4 – Nuit Blanche presents Change of State. Site-specific projection on the facade of the New Museum. And Mulberry Street Night Fest where the street is converted into a series of cool light, projection-mapping, and video installations. 8pm to midnight. FREE

10. ARCHITECTURE/WALK/TOUR: Sat 5/4 – Made in LIC: A Jane Jacobs Walking Tour of Long Island City 12pm at The Clock Tower. FREE

11. MUSIC: Sat 5/4 – Brooklyn Flea Record Fair at Smorgasburg 11am to 6pm. FREE

12. ARCHITECTURE/WALKING TOUR: Sat 5/4 – Hudson Yards: Design(in) The New Heart of NY. OHNY. Exhibit and architect-led tours. 10am to 3pm. Register. FREE.

13. MUSIC/ART/FUN: Sat 5/4 – Earth Day Rockaway: Free activities, live music by Il Collectivo, art-related booths, kite-making, recycling olympics and much more. 12 to 4pm. FREE

14. FUN/SPECTATOR: Sat 5/4 – Kentucky Derby watch sites

15. THEATER: All weekend & through 3/19 – The Pulitzer Prize winning play ‘Night, Mother by Marsha Norman. General Admission $18

16. MUSIC/DANCE/PARTY: Sun 5/5 – Cinco de Mayo with Body Language. Dance Party at Glasslands Gallery. 8:30pm. $10 to $12

17. MUSIC/ART/INSANITY: Sun 5/5 – The National perform their song “Sorrow” for 6 hours straight as part of Ragnar Kjartansson’ A Lot of Sorrow at PS1 in the VW Dome $15 Tkts

18. FOOD/DRINK/FIESTA: Sun 5/5 – Roberta’s Cinco de Mayo Celebration. Tacos, Cervezas. Tequila, music, pinatas! 2pm to 10pm

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Photos courtesy Times Square Alliance; Inside Out Project; Inside Out NYC’s facebook page; and collabcubed.

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Photos: Brian Swales and Morley von Sternburg.

Cheap things to do this we

Free & Cheap things to do this weekend in NYC (3/22/13 to 3/24/13) in art, music, theater, performance, dance, architecture, film, design and general fun. Click through to event pages for more info, either on images above or in the descriptions below.

1. ART: Fri 3/22 & Sat 3/23 through 4/20 – Sergie Tcherepnin: Ear Tone Box. Works at the intersections of sound, sculpture, and theater with objects taking on hybridized personalities, inviting play between things and bodies. At Murray Guy in Chelsea FREE

2. THEATER/DANCE: Fri 3/22 and Sat 3/23 – Breaking Surface: merges dance, acrobatics, flight, water, & poetic imagery in a watery adventure that defies expectation. 8pm. $25

3. BOOK/MUSIC/PARTY: Fri 3/22 Celebrate Touré’s new book I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon with a dance party featuring a night of Prince music spun by Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest. 7pm. $5.

4. FILM: All Weekend – New Directors New Films: $12 to $15. See schedule

5. ART: Fri 3/22 – Anne Lilly: Temporal Tincture. Beautiful and elegant interactive kinetic sculpture (one of my favorites at Scope). Noon to 5pm. Reception 5 to 8pm Galerie Swanström, 136 Sullivan St. FREE

6. MUSIC: All Weekend – Planetarium by Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, and Nico Muhly at BAM. A few $25 seats left.

7. DANCE: All Weekend – DanceBrazil at the Joyce Theater. Tkts $10 and up.

8. FILM: All Weekend – The Films of Stanley Kubrick at IFC: $13.50

9. FOOD/DRINK/MUSIC/FUN: Sat 3/23 & Sun 3/24 – The Big British Invite will take place from 12pm-6pm. Drinks, dance, express manicures. FREE

10. MUSIC/FOOD/FUN: All Weekend – Freetown Produce Festival with Cajun Music and Cooking. Day Passes $30 to $37. See schedule

11. ART/TALK: Sat 3/23 –Artist Hans Haacke and Irving Sandler in Conversation on Haacke’s practice, including his contribution to the German Pavilion at the 1993 Venice Biennale. 3pm $8

12. MUSIC: Sat 3/23 – Fredericks Brown & Jean Grae: a double bill of Soul and ground-breaking hip hop. 7:30pm $20

13. COMEDY/PERFORMANCE: Fri 3/22 & Sat 3/23 – NYC Improv Fest. See schedule for shows. $8ea/$40 for Fest Pass

14. FOOD: Sat 3/23 & Sun 3/24 – Big Cheesy Competition: Seven Grilled Cheese sandwiches from 7 chefs compete: $25 (This is apparently sold out.)

15. MUSIC: Sun 3/24 – Lucy Michelle & The Velvet Lapelles at Mercury Lounge 7:30pm $10

16. ARCHITECTURE/WALK: All Weekend – Go for a stroll on the brand-spanking new bouncy Squibb Park Pedestrian Bridge with yet more spectacular views of the NYC skyline. FREE

17. FOOD/WALKING TOUR: Sun 3/24 – Big Onion Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour. Combines the history of the diverse LES with a series of small food sampling, or “noshing” stops from local shops. 1pm $25 with RSVP

18. TALK/ARCHITECTURE: Sun 3/24 – Surfrider Foundation: Mobilizing Grassroots Activists in Coastal Conservation at Beach 94 in the Rockaways. 1 to 3pm. FREE RSVP

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Photos courtesy of PearlDamour; Brown Daily Herald; Timothy Atticsu/bomblog

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