Designing with Polarity.
Whether it’s the opposing forces of magnetism, or good and evil, beauty and ugliness, contrast is a powerful relationship that exists between objects. It’s such a complex paradigm, I doubt I’ll ever fully understand it but I like to think that polarity is what creates such powerful energy in the world.
One place i’ve seen a lot of this kind of contrast is in energy and art. There is so much talk of conservation and energy lately and yet one of the biggest trends in installation art and design is lighting. These new media artists are doing some amazing, theatrical projects. I also grow increasingly concerned for light pollution and the impact of this type of work, since light works best in the dark. Contrast again, I think were on to a theme here. That being said, there are some works that I think are transcending and completely compelling. Artists like UVA in London, France’s NEOPROJ are using lighting in completely new ways to redine our perceptions of what spaces can be and how imagery can alter the ideas of depth, plane and interactivity. Below are a couple of video’s show these artist work and I think they’re both stunning examples of public art and design.
UVA’s Volume
NEOPROJ’s Video Projection Monumental 2009
Want not, Waste not.
Creativity and the Information Architect Institute put on an annual event in Chicago called the IDEA Conference. They’re in their third year and they’ve got some interesting ‘ideas’ going on there. Much like the TED Conference, they host a series of event speakers ranging on topics from art, design, information technology and the like. The first video I found was one by Tom Szaky, founder of Terracycle, a company that turns waste products and recycled goods into newly designed packaging and products. In the video he was actually talking about his factory and how they used it as a kind of social experiment on art waste and public spaces.
After the building had repeatedly been tagged by street artists (grafitti), Tom realized the amount waste that went into the removal that grafitti. Day after day, companies spends millions of dollars in labor and materials trying maintina their pristine image and to combat this highly evolutionary public work, that so many people contribute too. So Terracycle decided to open the way for local artist and they let them freely tag his factory.
The building now changes faces every two weeks. I’ve long been a proponent of not only allowing grafitti art but encouraging it by giving taggers a new criteria. Give them larger more unihibited opportunities to use the medium to create stronger venues of social commentary. Tom Szaky’s ideas about eliminating waste not only cuts down of the use of materials, time and energy but also fosters a new medium for democratic art. If we remove the desire or ‘wanting’ to control the environment, we reduce our expenses and save not only our resources, but we create new opportunities for growth. Want not, waste not.
Waste and public art
The color of emotion
I love Sigur Ros an this is a great new video by Eric Lerner. A provocative little piece about privacy and our desire for what we think of as fame and how it affects us.
Fuel for the fight
I’ve begun the arduous task of launching a new event series for Sacramento and I wanted to share with you a few things I find inspiring for this kind of event. These a variety of videos from break dance battles, to formal design competition events, and even industrial design competition submissions for greener gadgets. Enjoy.
Breakin Battle
Cut and Paste NYC
Cut and Paste Chicago
Cut and Paste SF
Layer Tennis Remix- Neil Durden & Matthew Star Thomas
Announcing – Battle for the Capital
It’s my belief that Sacramento has long a been a city that, it’s citizens both love and loath. Many of us are not natives, but close-in transplants from outlying cities and country. We gravitated toward Sacramento because of it’s growing urban core and informal approachability. But over time we discovered what many natives already knew, that Sacramento was showing it’s greatness but through the veil of stifled vision. Although Sacramento has the potential to be a testament to western innovation and progressive ethical capitalism, it remains a cow town, bland and lacking the kind of creative landscape that deserves.
With cities like Austin, Portland, San Antonio and Phoenix across the country pushing the envelope of creativity and public engagement, Sacramento needs to embrace a new vision for itself to show the nation and the world that we are world class in every sense of the phrase. We know what hot design is, we appreciate film, fashion, architecture, great products, beautiful art and photography. Not only do we understand it and like but we create it too, right here in Sacramento.
We are the state capital of one of the largest economic engines, we positioned between a world class wine region, famous Olympic level winter sports and one of the most creative cities on the planet and the center of the entire tech industry. I grow tired of the lack luster development of Sacramento, as if we’re all gazing through bleary glasses and viewing a sleepy and fuzzy version of our shiny true self. It’s time for a change. It’s time to unite the collective energy of our creativitiy and harness our discontent to create a new vision for Sacramento with great purpose and style. Let us seize this opportunity to gather the tribe and to begin to rethink how we can solve problems. How we as designers, artists and entrepreneurs can enact change through the collective will. We are announcing a new kind of event for Sacramento, tentatively called Battle for the Capital.
This is an ongoing series of events and live performance design competition. Much like the early street battle’s between mc’s or break dancers, a battle is a live competition between artists in front of a crowd of spectators. The two artists are given a specific challenge or theme and time limit and they must create a design in response using whatever tools they choose. The winner is then voted by either a panel of judges or a the crowd. The tone and tempo of the event is high energy and set with pumping music, dynamic lighting, live video footage and tons of energy coming from the crowd. Battle for the capital is fresh approach to bringing hot forward thinking design to the Sacramento scene and provide engaging experiences for the community and it’s people.
MANIFESTO
Battle for the Capital is a new design battle event, created to foster awareness for the arts and the social impact of design within the urban fabric of Sacramento. By providing a unique performance based design experience we seek to create provocative ideas and discover their applications through forward thinking creativity while embracing sustainable ideals and a sense of contemporary relevance.
Let us seize this opportunity to advance design’s potential for social impact in the Sacramento region. Let us seize on the optimism of a new generation of designers by providing them with an opportunity for exposure and the ability to create a public dialog on taste, need and desire. Let us catalyze this vision of the future by providing a collaborative event framework and the tools to put future-thinking designers in the driver’s seat of social change. Battle for the Capital, Let’s fight for it!
INSPIRATION
Intrigued by the growing social impact and ironic commentary of urban artists in New York, London and LA, I was inspired by their irreverent and provocative look at society from a curbside vantage point. I loved the idea that if you want to design solutions that not only work but are embraced by the masses, then let the people be part of the design process. By democratizing the ideation process we remove the barriers traditionally associated with the design process and we begin to listen to the people and design out of a response to a need. The community becomes more active in creating their own landscape and public experience.
I was inspired by new experiences like Cut&Paste, LayerTennis and MTV’s Art Battles for their urban sensibility and youthful, energetic vibe. It was these kinds of street style competition’s combined with the classic brainstorming practices that lead to the concept for Battle for the Capital. I wanted to bring this kind of energy, enthusiasm and diversity to other forms of design like architecture, sustainable products and energy technology and social experimentation.
MISSION
To foster awareness for the arts and catalyze the design process in a public environment that engages the citizen’s as a contributor and create intelligent and sustainable design concepts and solutions that may be adopted, implemented and utilized for all the community. Develop programs that work with key shareholders in the community to enable people to take key elements and idea submissions and work to build those ideas into real products and services.
BATTLE FOR THE CAPITAL
Tenatively scheduled for:
Second Saturday, May, 2009.
MARRS Building, 20th & J st.
Sacramento, CA. 95811
Une charrette traînait lentement à la guillotine un homme don’t personne ne savait le nom
“a charrette slowly brought to the guillotine a man whose name nobody knew”
*In the 16th, 17th, and 18th century when travel took long periods, a Charette referred to long carriage rides in which politicians and policy makers would be sequestered together in order to collaborate in solving a set problem over the duration of their journey. This origin is most similar to the current usage of the word in the design world. via wiki
Takeaway.
I had the pleasure of running into a fantastic motion graphics designer by the name of David Summers, a real undiscovered talent here in Sacramento, he also introduced me to another designer, both of which were going to attend but couldn’t. I’m sure we’ll no doubt have their attention in the coming months as our collective gather’s inevitable momentum and starts work on some awesome projects.
We had nice turn out for November’s design meet up, but there were a few faces I was hoping to see that couldn’t make it out. Just shy of a dozen attendee’s this month, it wasn’t a huge gathering but enough so
that I informally announced the new design event series I’m putting together. (I will go into detail in the following post on this specifically) The idea was received with mixed reviews. We had several people that found the concept very interested and few that were skeptical of the proposed format and I think a little put off by it’s loose concept.
This is too be both expected and welcomed as opposition and response are two of the core elements at the heart of this event and very necessary to force new ideas. The topics of the night’s conversation never really delved to deeply into design but what was interesting what the reaction we got from a few people about the
structure of the design process. Watching designers react to different systems and processes sparked a fierce debate on disposability and permanence. It was interesting to see the underlying belief systems we have about design and art and what it means to us to create, or how we create and the intention for future use of our ideas.
The takeaway this month is acknowledging the polarity of structure and the structureless in design. How do we create art and design? Is it a calculated process with rules, time limits, material limitations and other
constraints or is it loose and open with no form, no agenda, just free expression pouring out of us, or is it both and neither? Which produces better ideas? Being in control, out of it or fighting for it as you float rapidly toward the great falls ahead. Tumbling and spinning through the current of change, you work feverishly to create, just clinging to your ideals and the hope that even if you perish in the struggle, your ideas will float to the top, and after the raging noise subsides your vision will stand out, glistening bright in the sunlight of future days. Even in childrens playtime, there are rules. They make them up, modeling their behavior after those around them. Do we do the same thing in our creative playtime? Do we create rules for ourselves? Do we use them or ignore them or can we change the rules to better meet our desire?
November Meetup – Foundations
With all the things happening and some upcoming events, i’ve been thinking about building. Dubai is doing such amazing feats of architecture right now and I can’t help to think about foundations. Just as in architecture or even business building, laying a good foundation is critical to the longevity and strength of your future empire. The mightier the footing the higher the goals that can be obtained. So tonight as I set off to another designer meetup, we begin to lay the ground work for a series of events that will forever change the landscape of Sacramento and its creative culture. At tonight’s designer meetup event I will announce this new event and ignite the catalyst of the collective mind, so that we might build a sturdy and innovative foundation for this soaring ideal. We will conceive, create, make and destroy many ideas until we arrive at a solution that answer the call, fix me, I’m broken. So we set out to build a foundation upon which can stand a new and better vision that reaches for the sky. I will post more details and a manifesto in following posts. Keep in touch.
November Meetup
Happy Friday all, This week has had some very pleasant surprises and I’ve recently set in motion some very exciting events. I hope you can make it to this Tuesday design meetup as I’ll be announcing a new design event that I think you’ll be very interested in hearing about.
I won’t go into detail here. Just make it out on Tuesday and you’ll hear all about it. Looking forward to another great night you and big things in Sacramento in 2009.
Bonn Lair
3651 J st.
Tues. Nov. 11th
7-11pm
Something Wicked This Way Comes
As November’s gathering of design witches creeps closer and closer next week, something wicked this way comes. I had a couple of great meetings today that set in motion a couple of really cool and mysterious events that are about to explode the Sacramento design scene. More to come soon.
Come to our designer meetup next week.
Bonn Lair3651 Jst. 7-11pm
