Guerilla Inspiration

I’ve been quiet here, focusing on RIT (really important things) as you know – but here are some goodies to spread some love and light around, and for the braves ones feeling the Guerilla artists in themselves…

These are sets of 5 glossy postcards for you to challenge and infuse your neighborhood with uplifting slogans. These postcards can be:

• sent to your best friends, enemies, mayor, prime minister
• used as guerilla art in your town: leave on car windshields, drop in mailboxes, pin on boards, forget between cans or magazines at the grocery, leave in waiting rooms and coffee places
• framed, they’ll be a great reminder of wisdom for you
• postcards are made to decorate fridge doors, so this option must absolutely be considered.

Slogans are: SLOW DOWN – TRUST YOURSELF – CHALLENGE FEAR – SPEND LESS, CARE MORE – WORRY LESS, LAUGH MORE – DRIVE A NEW ROAD – PLAY! – WEARING COLORS WON’T HURT – REMEMBER YOUR DREAM

Price is 10$ for a set of 5 postcards wrapped together with love and plastic. Free Shipping. *Please let me know which of the 5 slogans you want, or i’ll send you an inspired selection!*

Also keep in mind that all my creations are limited editions, so grab yours while it’s there

For more pictures click on the images above, or see more on flickr.

This Next!

Etsy is the coolest for handmade stuff – ThisNext (see my wishlist) is another social network, asking low commitment (exactly how i like them), strong in ergonomics – the coolest right now to find all kinds of creative jewels, handmade or not, which you wont find in stores. Here is for example a creative card game found on ThisNext.

Really cool finds, but beware to keep your wallet away!

Lifespan Extending Villa

When friends enter our new apartment, I have to reassure them that they are not dizzy, the floor is definitely sloping — as it happens often in century old houses of the Plateau neighborhood in Montreal. But then I read this nytimes story about the house that architects and poets Arakawa and Madeline Gins just built in East Hampton.

The house (is) officially called Bioscleave House (Lifespan Extending Villa). Its architecture makes people use their bodies in unexpected ways to maintain equilibrium, and that, she said, will stimulate their immune systems.

Like the undulating floor, Arakawa and Gins, as they are known professionally, tend to throw people off balance. In 45 years of working together as artists, poets and architects, they have developed an arcane philosophy of life and art, a theory they call reversible destiny. Essentially, they have made it their mission — in treatises, paintings, books and now built projects like this one — to outlaw aging and its consequences.

“It’s immoral that people have to die,” Ms. Gins explained.

I love these people!

First, I can’t recommend enough to view the audio-slide-show that can be found on the nytimes page linked above: there are wonderful pics of the house.

Also, I dug a little and found somewhere else a floor plan of the house. They also did a park in Japan called “Site of Reversable Destiny“…

I could link to everything: “Zone of the clearest confusion”? “Critical ressemblance house“? What? “If thrown off-balance when entering the house, call out your name or, if you prefer, someone else’s. Should an unexpected event occur, freeze in place for as long as you see fit. Then adopt a more suitable (for being more thought out) position for an additional twenty seconds or so.”

I am no more apologetic for my slanted floor: thanks to Arakawa and Gins, now people will visit us to live forever.

Story by Bruno for Vu d’ici.

Telecrafting

It is with *great* pleasure that i welcome a new Vu d’ici contributor, Bruno. Bruno has been quietly watching and contributing to the web here, and there.

*applause!*
m-c

Ponoko is an interesting new site that offers to make objects from your design.  It’s also a market where you can sell either your design or the stuff you have made there.

“Armed with nothing more than an idea, professional and hobbiest designers, crafters, hackers and artists can turn their ideas into real products – and new revenue streams – using our web commerce and digital make-on-demand services. No upfront costs. No minimum orders. No inventory. Simply click to design, make, sell and deliver your creativity to the world, at your own speed.”

Nice pitch, but of course it’s a little more complicated than that. You have to design something, order it, have it sent to you, test it, change the design and hopefully they’ll be able to make something that works. Or you have to begin the whole process again and you don’t know the cost until you have submitted something, which I didn’t do.

The step by step explanations are very clear, though. The choice of materials is limited but interesting. Personally, I am intrigued by the potential of acrylic, especially to do colored lights like this one I found this week on the ideaco website .

Over all, it’s not yet the desktop universal fabricator from science fiction stories, but it’s a nice step in this direction. If you try Ponoko, please let us know about your experience.

Story by Bruno for Vu d’ici.

The thing one needs most

“I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact. Everything I designed was unnecessary.

I will definitely give up in two years’ time. I want to do something else, but I don’t know what yet. I want to find a new way of expressing myself …design is a dreadful form of expression….

In future there will be no more designers. The designers of the future will be the personal coach, the gym trainer, the diet consultant.”

Starck said the only objects that he still felt attached to were “a pillow perhaps and a good mattress.” But the thing one needs most, he added, was the “ability to love”.

Philippe Starck, march 2008. Via.

Ring House

Happy monday to you! Since dreaming is free, i thought we could afford to show you some images of the Ring House – a truly wonderful gem among trees, located at Karuwisawa, Nagano Prefecture.

Photoshop Disasters