“makedo is a connector system that enables materials including cardboard, plastic and fabric to easily join together to form new objects or structures.”
Fun, I wish I had a set to build a big monster from all those cardboard boxes I have.
materials
“JR, a semi-anonymous French street artist, uses his camera to show the world its true face, by pasting photos of the human face across massive canvases. At TED2011, he makes his audacious TED Prize wish: to use art to turn the world inside out. Learn more about his work and learn how you can join in at insideoutproject.net.”
I’m off to the TED2011 conference, which will be my 10th TED conference. I’ll be stopping by LA this weekend to meet up with some TEDsters, then in Palm Springs all of Sunday to meet with TEDx organizers, then Long Beach for a backstage peek, then back to Palm Springs the rest of the week. Let me know if your going, in LA, or follow me on twitter for updates. And yes, that is me on the back of a shared bike last year cruising around the resort during one of the session breaks with my friend Ash from Australia. Also follow the Facebook Fanpage for occasional quick updates.
Pete Oyler (RISD ’09) has a great project called Rip+Tatter which hammers down large corrugated honeycomb cardboard pieces to make for some great little chairs. I’m not sure how long they will last, but for $55 it’s pretty awesome. I wonder if there is an adult version?
Some pics from Petes site after the jump.
Pretty slick looking are these Inner City Bikes, which seem to essentially take 2 unicycles and stick them together for a fast looking 1:1 ratio bike. I’m not sure how they feel, but they do look pretty futuristic and the build quality looks nice. I’m questioning structure a bit but hey, it looks good. No pricing has been set. Watch the youtube video of this bike in action after the jump or here.
What appears at first to be a flock of smart starling birds doing their thing around an invisible box between the US and Canadian border near Vancouver is actually a billboard sculpture by Lead Pencil Studio built from thousands of metal rods swarming a shape as if a billboard to draw attention to the living landscape behind.
“Borrowing the effectiveness of billboards to redirect attention away from the landscape… this permanently open aperture between nations works to frame nothing more than a clear view of the changing atmospheric conditions beyond.”
This project reminds me a bit of the CityScape project though using several wooden 2×4’s with a mix of the ad free billboard law in Sao Paulo.
Multiple images by Ian Gill courtesy of Lead Pencil Studio, via fastcodesign, after the jump.
Wow. It’s mind boggling think about cultures and groups of people that have been uncontacted in our world, living incredibly different lives, away from technology, the industrial revolution, print, the internet, science, air transportation, and everyday things we take for granted. Watch the video above, and read tons more about these uncontacted tribes at UncontactedTribes.org. I’ll mirror a few of the astonishing pictures after the jump.
” Video of an uncontacted tribe spotted in the Brazilian jungle has been released, bringing them to life in ways that photographs alone cannot.
The tribe, believed to be Panoa Indians, have been monitored from a distance by Brazil’s National Indian Foundation, a government agency charged with handling the nation’s indigenous communities. Many of the world’s 100 or so uncontacted tribes live in the Amazon.
Until 1987, it was government policy to contact such people. But contact is fraught with problems, especially disease; people who have stayed isolated from the mainstream world have stayed isolated from its pathogens, and have little immunity to our diseases. Brazilian government policy is now to watch from afar, and — at least in principle — to protect uncontacted tribes from intrusion.
Unfortunately, uncontacted tribes usually live in resource-rich areas threatened by logging, mining and other development. There’s often pressure on governments to turn a blind eye. Videos like this, released by tribal advocacy group Survival International and produced by the BBC’s Human Planet program, are legal proof that uncontacted tribes still exist, and deserve protection.”
video via wired science
Wired story and pictures mirrored after the jump
Wow, these are beautiful! love it! I wonder what I would do with 2000 pounds of salt.
“Motoi Yamamoto uses the ubiquitous white mineral to design unfathomably intricate — and deeply personal — floor sculptures.
Motoi Yamamoto has to be the most patient man in the world. A Japanese artist, Yamamoto uses salt to create monumental floor paintings, each so absurdly detailed, it makes A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte look like child’s play. He calls them, fittingly, his Labyrinths. ”
via fastcodesign (pictures mirrored after the jump.)
BUff diss on Flickr has a nice stream of Tape Art images. I’ll add some here after the jump, otherwise look at the rest on the stream.
For those of you that could not make it to the DLD conference in Munich this year like myself, there is a livestream of their lectures all 3 days. Take a peek at their schedule then grab some food and watch the all day series of talks. Keep in mind the schedule is in Munich time, so I think about 5-6 hours ahead of EST.
*they also have a great archive of each video in that livestream url. Watch these anytime.
As snow poors across the world it reminds me of when I attended RISD where I met several international students whom had never experienced snow before. At times, I’d see these students sit outside in a corner just watching the snow for hours as it collected on their shoulders, but then I’d pile them up into theh snow, telling them this was the full experience.
Anyhow, the video above reminds me in this experience. Panasonic has a new Insulator and to demonstrate how good it is, they made a snowman in Japan, packed it up inside this new material, then shipped it o Bahrain 8,000 kilometers away. Besides the incredible feat, what grabs my attention even more is a reminder in how amazing snow can be. It’s amazing to see how these kids from Bahrain react. I do wonder I I first reacted seeing snow? Do you remember your first time?
For more details on the project and the story behind it:
http://eco-ideas.net/sparks/snowman/“
Awesome… thats all I have to say about these Lego creations Angry Bird style. I can even hear the theme song ringing in my ears now… If only Lego had the rights to sell sets of these…they would sell millions.
Lots of pics after the jump. All of the pics on the facebook album via Tsang Yiu Keung (aka Chiukeung).