Brain waves to produce light show of Olympic proportions

February 8, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Filed under Dynamic Environments, Human Interaction, Interactive, Lighting

“If you’re attending the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia this month, you’ll have the chance to transmit your brain waves across Canada. When they reach their destination, the province of Ontario, they’ll produce a custom light show on one of three prominent Ontario landmarks – presumably to the amazement of thousands of onlookers.” — A.M.

11.2 miles an hour and not one mile faster

February 8, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Filed under Signage

Your devoted blogger would love to see the traffic research that resulted in odd speed limits of 11.2, 4, and 14. — A.M.

Oddly specific

February 7, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Filed under Humor, Signage

That’s the name of “the strangely particular website about peculiarly exacting signs.” — A.M.

Yes, but is it art?

February 6, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Filed under Arts and Crafts

In this case, the answer’s yes.  Don’t even get your devoted blogger started on what art is and isn’t.  But do check out this video on art that has to be identified as art – and not trash – at the Walker Art Center. — A.M.

Follies

February 6, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Filed under Architecture, Public Art, Social Issues

“In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration. The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-49 led to the building of several follies. The society of the day held that reward without labour was misguided. However, to hire the needy for work on useful projects would deprive existing workers of their jobs. Thus, construction projects termed “famine follies” came to be built. These include: roads in the middle of nowhere, between two seemingly random points; screen and estate walls; piers in the middle of bogs; etc.”Conolly’s folly in Ireland is…”built within Castletown Estate (containing Castletown House), which contains two follies, both commissioned by Katherine Conolly, the philanthropic widow of Speaker William Conolly to provide employment for hundreds of the poor of Celbridge when the famine of 1740-41 was at its worst. The Obelisk was built in 1740 after a particularly severe winter. As a folly, it could be seen from the back of Castletown some 2.5 miles (4 km) away.” — A.M.

Love Letters

February 6, 2010 at 11:15 am
Filed under City Happenings, Placemaking, Public Art, Street Art

Steve Powers with the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program is covering the City of Brotherly Love in love letters — just in time for Valentine’s Day?  Some of the murals will be seen in Burma Shave progression from one of the train lines. — A.M.

Do what?

February 6, 2010 at 10:59 am
Filed under Futures

“With the hammer provided and your own resources you shape the metal box into whatever you choose it to be. After a few minutes or hours of hard work you become the co-designer of Do hit.” — A.M.

Easy = True

February 6, 2010 at 10:57 am
Filed under Communication, Graphic Design, Typography

“One of the hottest topics in psychology today is something called ‘cognitive fluency.’ Cognitive fluency is simply a measure of how easy it is to think about something, and it turns out that people prefer things that are easy to think about to those that are hard. On the face of it, it’s a rather intuitive idea. But psychologists are only beginning to uncover the surprising extent to which fluency guides our thinking, and in situations where we have no idea it is at work.

One thing that fools us, for example, is font. When people read something in a difficult-to-read font, they unwittingly transfer that sense of difficulty onto the topic they’re reading about. Schwarz and his former student Hyunjin Song have found that when people read about an exercise regimen or a recipe in a less legible font, they tend to rate the exercise regimen more difficult and the recipe more complicated than if they read about them in a clearer font.” — A.M.

Kinetica with Jason Bruges

February 5, 2010 at 10:33 am
Filed under Interactive, Kinetic, Lighting, Media, Technology, Uncategorized

Jason Bruges’ light installations, interactive interventions, and placemaking projects sit somewhere between the worlds of architecture, art, and interaction design. One of Wallpaper magazine’s 10 “world-changing designers,” Bruges will be a keynote speaker at the 2010 SEGD Conference + Expo June 2-5 in Washington D.C. (Stay tuned for more details…)

In the meantime, Bruges is keeping himself busy with new projects including an Alexander Calder-inspired interactive light piece at Kinetica Art Fair in London. Kinetica is an exhibition of  electronic, robotic, sound, light, time-based, and interdisciplinary new media art. Bruges’ “Screen Cloud” recalls a Calder mobile, with 30 hanging screens that display changing content as they move. Each of the screens “understands” its orientation in relation to the other screens, demonstrating a concept called proprioception. — P.M.K.

(Design) help for Haiti

February 3, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Filed under Communication, Social Issues, Technology

“As much as I love design and interactive media, reading the newspaper every day is a sobering reminder of the fact that this is generally not a life-saving profession. It is greatly inspiring, then, to see how new media has been put to incredible use in helping the ailing Haiti. Here are some fascinating examples,” shares SEGDster Tali Krakowsky. — A.M.