The following text appears in the inaugural edition of Ding, a new magazine about the Internet and things, published by the Mozilla Foundation. Ding will be launched at MozFest in London on 27-29 October.
On a recent … [continue …]
Five years ago I obtained an extraordinary 736 page book called Lean Logic: A Dictionary For The Future and How To Survive It. Written over a thirty year period by the English ecologist David Fleming, the book had been published in a limited edition after the author’s untimely death. Now, thanks to an heroic, expert and loving effort by editor … [continue …]
Under what circumstances would we become mindful stewards of living systems, not just their expoiters? The Dutch artist Annechien Meier re-connects us – viscerally, and emotionally – with our social and ecological surroundings.
[Above: De-paving begins in Arnhem. Photo: Laboratory for Microclimates]
Human beings are … [continue …]
Public performance in Kisangani. Image © Studios Kabako
Studios Kabako, a dance company from Africa, is the winner of this year’s 2014 Curry Stone Design Prize, an important international award. Using dance, theater, and music, Studios Kabako help local communities envision … [continue …]
http://www.doorsofperception.com/?attachment_id=5172
[Photograph: Hans Sylvester]
Interni and the Be Open Foundation are publishing a book, called Gallery Of The Senses, that explores the ways we experience the contemporary world through sight, hearing,smell, taste, and touch. It then asks: Are we missing a … [continue …]
A hand, a map, a story: In each of 30 photographs made by Céline Boyer, a cartographic fragment of someone’s country of origin is projected onto the subject’s own hand. Cities, seas, rivers, roads and borders are glimpsed.
“I arrived … [continue …]
(Photo: Mapping a bioregion with plants – Joachim Robert Cyanotype workshop at FuturePerfect 2012)
In what ways can design help people interact with living systems in ways that help both of them thrive? And, … [continue …]
Humanitarian crises caused by civil wars or natural disasters, such as in Haiti, often trigger a wave of support from us, the public. But our support raises two difficult questions: first, do our generous donations actually have the desired effect – … [continue …]
I’ve seen this Virtual Boarding Agent a couple of times now at Orly Airport in Paris. A It’s a life-sized, life-like, two dimensional human figure that talks pleasantly about liquids and gels. It’s spooky, clever, and very well executed – and most people seem to ignore it after a first casual glance.
I therefore … [continue …]
They say that the last days of Rome were culturally rich – and the same seems to be the case in our own times.
Choreographer Valerie Green and Dance Entropy, a New York City-based experimental dance troupe, will shortly premier a new work, Rise and Fall, that’s about collapsing civilizations, the raw ugliness of industrialization, and … [continue …]
A premise of Joseph Giacomin’s new book Thermal is that global warming is hard to ignore when you view the world through thermal eyes.
Hard, but not impossible, to ignore. We humans are skilful evaders of uncomfortable truths.
The premise of the author’s reseach group at Brunel University in the UK, Perception Enhancement Systems, … [continue …]
On of the reasons we underestimate the sheer physical mass of our power and information networks is that they’re hidden from view. But not in Bangkok. The German photographer Thomas Kalak has spent ten years decade capturing images like these.They feature in an exhibiton at Munster Art Museum from 19 March to 3 … [continue …]
I dislike the word ‘glocal’. It’s an ugly word used by high altitude thinkers to add zest to another word – local – that they find tedious on its own.
I also dislike the word ‘creative’. It tends to be used by uncreative people to describe people like themselves. Its bastard child, ‘cultural creative’, is twice … [continue …]
(Summer re-run: first published 8 October 2006)
In his review of Richard Lanham’s new book The Economics of Attention, Adrian Ellis says that “its core argument (is) that everyone is straining for distinction in a late capitalist global economy jammed with commodities and information, and that culture and creativity are what affords the producer the possibility of distinction.
(This) explains … [continue …]
Could you create an earthwork of significant scale using excavated spoil? The site is in Falkirk, Scotland (56 01 20.95 N / 03 44 30.74 W).
Christian Barnes and landscape architect John Kennedy have written a thorough and thoughful brief on behalf of Falkirk Council. The document is … [continue …]
An underground exhibition of Polish art in Beirut looks like a specialised event, even for me – only it features the work of the Polish photographer Nicolas Grospierre which makes it definitely worth a visit. Grospierre’s modified architectural photographs were a highlight for me of the last Venice Architecture Biennale: a persuasive portrayal of … [continue …]
Preparations for the ElectroSmog International Festival for Sustainable Immobility are gathering pace. An Electrosmog blog has been launched, and Doors of Perception has agreed to co-host a session on Friday 19 at deBalie, in the afternoon. Our focus will be on the practical design steps to be taken now. ICT developers … [continue …]
The highlight of my visit to Musashino Art University’s 80th Anniversary was this stunning fashion show called epa! (Thanks, Tatsu, for the pictures). An incredible amount of fine handwork was involved in the clothes and acccessories, but what struck me most was the energy of the staging and choreography, and the pagan storyline: … [continue …]
I’m extremely honoured to be on the jury for the next Buckminster Fuller Challenge. More importantly, there’s a $100,000 prize at stake – so do check it out. I quote the introduction: “There is a movement afoot–of highly motivated individuals all over the world seriously engaged in coming up with solutions to the mounting … [continue …]
…so I’m simply going to post this chart, which I’ve been sitting on for ages, without further explanation or analysis. Why don’t *you* tell *me* what it means, or what global dilemma it may help resolve? Refer to global warming, the financial crisis, peak indium, or any other grim peak that you see fit to choose. I will invite the … [continue …]
The incredibly sad news has reached us today that Patricia de Martelaere has died.
Many readers of this blog may recall her presentation at Doors of Perception 7 on flow: “A philosophical tale about our time.” Patricia was already a rising star of European philosophy at the time, but our eagerness to hear her speak … [continue …]
Some close friends of Doors have just completed 20 months work doing up Café de Tannay. It’s an authentic 16C town house two-and-a-bit hours south of Paris. It’s in the ancient center of the Middle Ages wine village of Tannay, whose name is derived from Celtic ‘tann’, oak. Tannay is in the western part … [continue …]
I often use pictures like this one, in my talks, to denote the crisis. But the crisis seems to be perpetual, and it becomes boring to repeat the same image. I therefore thank Matthew Ray Robison, a public-spirited person who has helpfully started The brokers with hands on their faces blog.
On a visit to this week to Z33, an amazing art centre in Belgium, I learned about the Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen and his Cosmopolitan Chicken Project (TCCP). It’s wide-ranging investigation of what it would take to create and manipulate scores of chicken breeds from whole over the world into a new … [continue …]
I was mesmerised by last night’s tv ad for Westfield, a vast 150,000 square metre shopping mall that opens in West London next weekend. The ad features attractive and horny young people who turn into fairies. Fair enough, but they then start taking off and fly across the city’s rooftops in ever-denser swarms. Their destination … [continue …]
I saw this poster outside St Etienne station. It portrays The Mongoose who is “an infamous hitman hired to carry out assassinations and other evil deeds…the cruel and cold-blooded murderer carries out his orders with eagerness and glee.” It says it’s a game, and that it’s is powered by “Unreal Engine”.
Now is it … [continue …]
“We will not have any more crashes in our time.”
“There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about.”
“… the outlook is favorable…”
I couldn’t resist reproducing this 1927-1933 Pompous Prognosticators Hall of Fame
Someone should stand by to make a similar chart plotting, against actuals, today’s confident statements that we should not worry about … [continue …]
Steve Messem (who led our sustainable tourism design camp at Dott 07) writes with news that his next installation – Drop – takes up residence beside Crummock Water in the Lake Distrrict, UK. You’ll find his 7 metre (20 foot) reflective raindrop near Haus Point between Buttermere village and Lorton from 7am tomorrow morning … [continue …]
Is this the next-generation telephony solution I’ve been looking for as an alternative to physical travel? Its creators, Unsworn Industries (Magnus Torstensson and Erik Sandelin) have created a sublime piece of communications landscape art, or something along those lines. Saturday 2 August is the grand opening of Telemegaphone Dale, a seven-metres tall loudspeaker sculpture on … [continue …]
Very sad news reaches us that Michel Waisvisz has died peacefully in his home after fighting the mean cells in his body for the last eight months. Michel was known around the world as a musician, visionary and the source of an enormous energy as Director of STEIM for 27 year; many readers of … [continue …]
Luca Pizzaroni has been working for three years on building a sculpture which is made of garment clothing from every country in the world. For the artist, this this is a “mind travel escape” – and I know we have visitors from most countries at this blog – so I’m happy to pass on the … [continue …]
This is my talk from yesterday in Helsinki at Pixelache University. There are pix here
Could the biosphere be saved by six glass lamps, six speakers, 36 ultra bright leds, six diy mono amplifiers, a diy arduino-based six channel led dimmer, a six channel soundcard, a midi controller, a midi … [continue …]
I don’t know about you but I’m off mapping today (and hope to see many of you there ). While I’m away, here’s another of the Belsay projects, this one by Francesca Steele. Her work engages with beauty, mortality, and presence.
You missed a truly gorgeous day: The opening of Picture House at Belsay. Here is Dott’s Beckie Darlington playing with the installation by UVA, which (the image) I borrowed from Pixelsumo (Chris O’Shea) who has posted a ton more on Flickr. Uber-blogger Regine Debatty … [continue …]
This is a big week for Dott. The Picture House exhibition at Belsay Hall Mansion opens with a Digital Dinner on Thursday. The exhibition features three projects curated for Dott by Juha Huuskonen / Pixelache: a new work from Golan Levin; Adam Somlai-Fischer & Bengt Sjölén; and UVA. Adam-Somlai Fischer and Bengt Sjölén have … [continue …]
So you think you know what an English country house feels like? Well think again. Judith King for English Heritage and Dott 07 (with Juha Huuskonen) have invited experimental film directors, artists and designers to transform Belsay Hall in Northumberland with a series of cutting edge art and new media installations.The specially commissioned exhibition will feature fashion, sculpture, music, design, … [continue …]
In response to spam attacks we’ve had to turn off the comment function here. Apologies for that: If you’ve had a comment blocked, please send it to desk at doorsofperception dot com com and we’ll post it manually.
A rare opportunity to meet Natalie Jeremijenko in Glsagow. Voted as one of the Top 100 young innovators by the MIT Technology Review, Natalie is a design engineer and techno-artist who creates large-scale participative experiments in public spaces. She produces multimedia installations that use robotics, genetic and digital engineering, electromechanics and interactive systems. Her work focuses on the design and … [continue …]
The website of the conference in Boras now has videos of the speakers including Jeremy “hydrogen economy” Rifkin, Saffia “Free Trade” MInney, Oliviero “1,000 slides” Toscani, and John “oh no not a mouse!” Thackara. Back in Newcastle, we explored the relationship between design and sexual health.
Paul Hawken reckons that over 1 million organizations, populated by over 100 million people, are engaged in positive activity designed to address climate and other environmental issues. “Collectively this constitutes the single biggest movement on earth, but but it flies under the radar” he writes. Paul’s new project, a book and tv project called Blessed Unrest , will … [continue …]
When we first did a Doors conference in 1993, the concept of interaction design was still in its infancy. Today, designers of digital technology products shape not just what the world looks like, but what it’s like to use. In his eagerly awaited book Designing Interactions Bill Moggridge, designer of the first laptop computer (the … [continue …]
Random.org run by Mads Haahr, offers true random numbers to anyone on the internet. Their most important use is the generation of cryptographic keys. For example, one Danish TV station runs an online backgammon server which generates more than 300,000 dice rolls per day. A dice roll is a random number between 1 and 6, so a Java … [continue …]
I was perplexed to find myself billed as a “designberater” at Monday’s Rosenthal Design Convention in Frankfurt. Now in my dictionary, berate means “to rebuke or scold angrily and at length”. That can’t possibly mean me, I thought, self-righteously. It turns out that the German word berater means, more prosaically, advisor or consultant. Still, I … [continue …]
I found it weird (in the story below) that brand marketing should be proposed as an appropriate response to climate change. Now I read in Mute that Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, last year advised the US Department of Defence on rebranding war. In a speech to the military reported in Brandweek he says: “I’m … [continue …]
Apropos the security situation in London: “Loss of life might have surpassed the 2,700 killed in the attack on the twin towers in New York five years ago. “This was our 9/11,” a British security source said.
It’s a good thing that a lot of people were not blown up yesterday. Sadly, our security services were unable to prevent the … [continue …]
The avant garde of music and sound art is a good early indicator of social change; sound is a fluid and rapidly changing medium. That’s why this year’s Futuresonic looks well worth a visit. In three days of talks, demos and chat, an international crowd will explore how mobile, locative and mapping technologies, often created by independent developers … [continue …]
Jet Blue’s new credit card slogan wins my vote for the 2006 meaningless bollocks perpetrated by a creative agency award.
The Situationists were early critics of the creative industries. They rejected the idea that art is a specialized profession, or that its task is to produce spectacles for consumption. The only time their leaders came to London (in 1961), one of them, Guy Debord, was to speak at the Institute of Creative Arts – a place that is awash … [continue …]
