Reuben Margolin's wavy kinetic art

Reuben Margolin creates moving sculptures with an intriguing complexity and serenity to them. He uses sine waves, movements inspired by water, and even live dancers connected to strings as input for the movements of his sculptures.

The wave is an interesting phenomenon, it seems to always capture our attention effortlessly when we see one. The movement seems so perfect and tranquil that it is can seem almost like a token from another dimension. Similarly, with these sculptures you become so engrossed in the movement that you forget that they are made out of ordinary objects such as soda cans and bike reflectors. The physical world then transfigures in a world of experience, a world of energy, a world beyond being an object among objects. Here we have a visual reminder of what intellectually quantum physics has already shown: waves and particles are nothing but different interpretations of the same underlying field.

Organic aesthetics of movement

Yury Dovganyuk calls himself a 'motion designer', and part of his work is to capture organic, beautiful movements into either static or dynamic products. I wanted to briefly share his original and experimental work with you.

The image you see on top is a concept for a cup that seems like it's about to do a pirouette. Maybe it will soon be possible to produce this one in ceramic through a rapid manufacturing technique.

The following is a table concept that is organic in a way that makes the object seem interesting from all angles and elicit a great spatial experience.





My personal favorite in terms of aesthetics is a clock concept that augments the kinetics of the clock hands through rods that slide in and out of the clock and follow the hands. Moving all the rods with individual motors would make this an utterly expensive and energy consuming product. I wonder if it can work through powerful magnets integrated into a ring around the clock, and an ingenious way to reduce friction and sounds. Maybe Yuri can take this one a little further, and have a clock manufacturer pick it up. Watch the clock in action in the movie below.

Algorithms create complex columns

It looks as if these structures have been grown, not by humans, not even by nature, but by some entirely new kind of intelligence. However mostly ornamentation, it is clear that it is not just that but also a look into a future where the still quite crude mass-production methods of today will be replaced by machine processes that can produce almost infinitely complex and individualized pieces. The ancient-Greek-degrading creations you see here have been generated through computer algorithms and have been created out of thousands of laser-cut cardboard sheets.

From a purely visual point of view, the complexity in these columns remains so consistent and coherent that there seems to be an infinite variety while all parts within this variety are exactly in the right place. The form must be so fascinating because to really grasp it we have to manage to get into a state of pure perception, where the mind does not conceptualize forms as individual things located in space. The columns here can almost serve a psychedelic function by connecting us so viscerally that we can step beyond mind-processes. I await the day where, next to our microwave, we will all have our home-based fabbing station, and we start replacing today's sense-skipping objects by things like Hansmeyer's columns.

Mercedes goes bionic

Great stuff from the Mercedes Benz design department. Apparently they have been working on the development of an entirely new form language, and it is promising. The free and flowing forms they came up with are not just sculptures arisen from the unbound human imagination, but based on natural structures that have optimized themselves over many generations. As a result, the design language has become extremely beautiful, and it simply seems to 'fit' to Mercedes-Benz. Where modernism has mainly resulted in mass-produced 'soulless' objects, including biological processes into it may bring this back and make the ultimate union of form and function. When humanity for a moment thought that modernism took away all individuality, biology is here to show us how we can be united and individuated at the same time.

It seems that Mercedes is looking for a name for this language -that really is much more than a language- as they call it 'Sculpture Aesthetics No. 2'. I would suggest 'biological modernism' as the umbrella term for this class of design -which, again, is much more than just a class or style of design but more like a new paradigm. Take a look at their promo video, and some pictures of the prototype, sculptures, and sketches they made.

more things popping up

Somehow I find these paper pop-up things greatly inspiring. There's just so much potential if you translate these intricate mechanisms to structures in mass-produced consumer products like cars or interactive walls.

paper pop-up sculptures

Here's a series of very nice pop-up sculptures by Peter Dahmen, presented in a very clean and modernistic way.

Patricia Piccinini's predomesticated scooters

Patricia Piccinini, one of my personal favorite artists, has done a series of sculptures that I for some reason never have come across. It is equally stunning as her other works, and perfectly fits the theme of a 'liquifying' world, where things cease to be things, but become part of an ecology where technology and biology are freely shapeable. Her sculptures of Italian Vespa scooters sitting in animal-like postures conjecturally show technology in its raw, predomesticated form.

sculpting through singing

How simple an idea, yet how brilliant the enaction. Mitchell F. Chan had the idea of physicalizing voice through ondulating ropes, and used the increasingly popular programming environment Processing to analyze the voice of soprano Ashleigh Semkiw and turn this into output for motors to change the frequency and intensity of vibration in the ropes. Thus he gave nascence to a kinetic sculpture in which human and technology are intrinsically connected as if they were one.

'Metamorphoses' at Espace Louis Vuitton, Paris

If you happen to be in or near Paris and moreover, you are drawn to transhumanist ideas, make sure to give Espace Louis Vuitton at the Champs Elysees a visit. You are taken to the top floor by a pitch black elevator where 10 Korean artists show their visions on how our identities are changing concerning our societies, our bodies, and our architectures. These modern works are definitely a splendid complement to all the centuries old art of, say, the Louvre, and in an often playful or humorous way put you back into the contemporary world and the issues we face today.

Hyungkoo Lee seems to want to prepare us for a world where even on a biological level we cannot distinguish anymore between what is determined for us by evolution, and what is created by us. She shows skeletons of cartoon characters that are so realistic that suddenly a Roger Rabbit world does not seem that far off. We seem indeed to be living in an era where the simulations that used to be bounded to the realm of representation are about to be biologized. If cartoon character and biological entity can blend into a "Homo Animatus", what then constitutes a living being? Is everything that seems alive not already alive? Is every recognition of a living being not merely a transitory self-projection arising out of an existential insecurity that makes us look for patterns with which we can identify and stabilize a self that is inherently fragile in a self-induced illusionary structure constituted by things we posit as distinct from us? Is the distinction between life and death not merely the result of narrow-mindedness? So, are we not already dead as much as we are alive? I think you already know my answer.



Another interesting work is a giant tornado-like shape composed of miniature translucent human figurines created by Do Ho Suh. This colorful structure might signify how we all need to act together, as one mind, but all playing a slightly different, unique role. A hominized atmosphere, transformed by man, in harmony with human values and needs, what a beautiful idea that is. Maybe the only way to reconnect with the nature we were once so immanently immersed in is to become it.

The exhibition will be open until August 23rd, 2009. Here's the address:

Espace Louis Vuitton
60, rue de Bassano/101 Avenue des Champs-Elysées, 75008 Paris.
Tél: 01 53 57 52 03

knitting goes biomorphic

The design world slowly seems to be shifting towards a new idiom that is largely inspired by natural growth processes. Luigi Colani as the great pioneer of organic forms kicked this development off, Ross Lovegrove brought it to the 21st century, but now slowly we seem to be on the verge of reuniting with our full biology, including the raw, fleshy, undefined, wild and dirty aspects of it.

New York based artist Emily Barletta has created abstract objects with a knitted exterior that look like future organisms, or organic products for that matter. From a completely different professional field, psychiatrist Dr. Karen Norberg also put her hands on the knitting needles and created a more or less anatomically correct version of the human brain out of wool.

We are entering a surreal phase, after which we will hopefully realize we can re-ecologize ourselves as holistically functioning entities in biotechnological niches.

flesh, the new plastic

Tactility it's what it's all about in the work of Jason Briggs. In looking like scrambled up versions of the human body, his sculptural objects almost pornographically refer to the details of raw, naked flesh, with names like 'toe', 'squirt', and 'cinch'. To me though, although they look rather eerie, these objects look quite like complete organisms, or should I say organic products, as well. I can easily imagine this to be future products that almost in a sexual way are able to merge with a human user, to which it could provide certain functionalities in a very intimate, empathic and mutualistic fashion, even aligning its entire physiology to that of the human carrier. What if you'd have to dial a number on your cellphone by sticking your finger into a soft, warm, throbbing hole?

In product design, a trend towards softness and providing a wider range of tactile experiences can also definitely be seen, such as with designs like the strawberry skin juice package by Fukasawa, or the Gel remote control by Panasonic (see below). We are collectively bored with anything resembling modernism with all its coldness. Moreover have we visually been conditioned to like glossy, clean and sharp looking imagery, while this is actually drawing us further and further away from the intrinsic qualities of the body with which we stand into the world, which is undeniably soft, warm, and in a way also dirty. Maybe we should learn to embrace these properties too before we can fully start living, without facades clouding our perception.

Are we ready to succumb to the intimate touch of the machine?

Folded structures

Folding can be an elegant production method, since it requires careful, masterful thought by the designer to decrease the used material and steps of production to get an intricate three- or even four dimensional structure out of it, without any waste material. Here are a few recent folded structures.

This is a quite Escheresque sculpture by paper engineer Kamikawa, and maybe unintentionally, but the shape he chose is quite genius too, although it is a pity that, when in closed state, it is still quite evident that the thing is not what it seems. Nevertheless, this object in closed state signifies what underlies so much of our culture and our technology; the need for love. The need to be surrounded by things that wrap you in a cozy, hot blanket and keep you safe from the full complexity of life that seems so threatening while you try to hold on to concepts like your ego, and all its material possessions it gets projected into. The need to feel special, to be paid attention to an extent that no one else is being paid attention to. The heart signifies to me most strongly than any other symbol this short-sighted, illusory, egoic approach to life. The approach of trying to crystallize our fragile concepts into our technologies, be it words, images or objects. The genius of this then, is that this directly shows the shift from a world where this is still quite an acceptable approach to one that is inherently honest, and shows that it does not work and there is an underlying complexity of life underlying everything. Once people start to see this with their whole being they transform completely, and in the end start viewing such complexity as more beautiful than the concept they had of it beforehand. We are moving to a world where everything changes faster and faster, and the only way is to gain wisdom about our evolution, so we know where to go.

Another artist to be mentioned is Ying Gao, a fashion designer who works with folded structures and pneumatic technologies to create inflatable garments. One of those garments reacts to breath, and correspondingly changes shape, so the wearer's breath is physically augmented so to become what you could call a 'sensual cyborg'. Augmentation of such subtle but immensely important processes is crucial if we want to learn about life. Nowadays people are so distracted and get so little time for self-reflection that the things that draw the least attention get paid less attention to, with as a result that we forget about more subliminal processes. Luce Irigaray wrote an entire philosophical book about how we forgot about air, for example. And this forgetting has the result that all kinds of internal tensions build up during our lives, so we either end up as a boiling barrel full of inner tensions, and denying these through a simplified, ignorant life, or the bubble bursts and we desperately start seeking for help to regain wisdom that incorporates these processes, for example through breathwork like yoga's pranayama exercises. What is so important for technology to do then, is more and more to bring these processes into our attention, and guide us with respect to them so we do not forget them, to in the end have us incorporate these processes consciously and knowledgeably into our lives.

Dutch Design Week 2008

I've been roaming around some exhibitions this week in Eindhoven, where the Dutch Design Week, or DDW, was taking place again. Here are some photos I made of the works I found most interesting.

From the Design Academy Eindhoven:

A windable flashlight with an extremely clever texture design that indicates how to turn it.

Studies into materials, the first one being very much like Bart Hess' Future Fur project, the second one being directly inspired by biological forms, in this case probably ear cartilage.

A lamp that is 'overgalvanized', since the almost plantlike protrusions growing from the edges of the copper arise from not stopping the galvanization process at the 'right' moment. Thus, here the 'right' moment is being redefined, because the creator of this lamp thinks the beauty can also be in the manufacturing process and there is no need to ignore it or try to control it. I could not agree more but would have liked this lamp to have shown that in a more exaggerated way, with more edges so it would have been like the lamp was covered with a 'fur' of copper hairs. On the top of this post is a closeup of the copper branches growing from the lamp's edges.

From Design United, a joint exhibition between the Technical Universities of Delft, Eindhoven, and Enschede:

Somewhat direct but interesting hybrid between technology and nature. The snake whizzes his tongue when the water boils. Interesting that they call this 'evolutionary product development' too *smirks. Of course it's a simulated, disembodied evolution in the head of the designer, but anyway, it's somewhat interesting to me.

Another design under the label of 'evolutionary product development'. From studying the history of game console interfaces this modular design was extrapolated. The two individual controllers can be used while attached or detached from each other.

A head model to design for Chinese people. The designer got subsidized a million dollars from the Chinese government to measure 2.000 heads with a 3D scanner, and use this data to create tools for designers of for example helmets, to make them accepted in Chinese markets. The commentary in a CNN interview almost caricaturally signifies the overly rational approach to design once more applied: "I like to chop the body up into pieces". With these amounts of money one might ask whether it's not more interesting to develop an adaptive helmet that adjusts its shape through use, for example with growing and shrinking elements.

Some works displayed elsewhere:

GrowBike; a step that can be changed into a small bike, so the growing child can keep using his bike.

A sculptural wall with an organic shape, comprised of small, unique metal elements. It reminds of Kas Oosterhuis' parametric architectural design process, where a CAD file of a unique element is directly fed into the manufacturing machines. It makes for a very interesting form language, however the bright white light it was surrounded in didn't do it much right. I had already seen this one in Helsinki where it was displayed in a dark space with coloured light, making this piece really the protagonist of the space in a beautiful, subtle and harmonic way. The form always needs the right anti-form, and the light always needs the right darkness.

A clever idea to make it possible to use cardboard packages as origami, instead of throwing them away after unpackaging.

An interesting design for handgloves, ideal for praying or sleeping while hanging from a tree branch, in case you feel the primeval need to do such things. Anyway, it's interesting to explore how the physical shape of technology can valuatively bias our activities.

Showed by TNO, a sugar-basin that is laser sintered at various resolutions, with the comment that often it seems that our manufacturing processes are 'perfect', but inherently they are not. Indeed a very true statement, think for example of television; it gives the illusion of being real, but it's just pixels, and that's what the essence of the medium is. And 3D tv only reinforces this, so we become disembodied avatars in an electronic world, being tricked to living in a technological incubator.

A beautiful process of bonding gold to textiles called electroforming.

Interesting garment shown at 'De Krabbedans', graduation work.

A chair inspired by natural forms for a neo Stone Age, it seems.

A digitally controlled singing teakettle, whistling your favourite tune instead of the usual monotonous, thought-shattering tone.

Incorporating what common culture sees as 'disgusting' with what it sees as 'beautiful'. To me personally pearls are just as disgusting to see as dead frogs, by the way. It's an interesting combination that shows in an exaggerated way the extreme alienation from nature of mankind.

An anthropomorphic music player, that takes a pose corresponding to the genre of music it is playing. Unfortunately it can't dance yet, but is sitting like a plant on the window-sill.

An extremely clever design for a chair that can be folded from one single plastic sheet, and is surprisingly sturdy and aesthetically refined.