The Secret of Happiness

Maybe because of Coca Cola's massive Open Happiness campaign for the 2010 Games, maybe because spring has come early and the cherry blossams make everything cheery. I am thinking about happiness. The Happiness Project recounts the author's daily adventures in pursuit of happiness, an instant NY Times bestseller, while the Future Well is a new design firm specializing in health and happiness. I'm thinking that the secret of happiness is simply discovering the things in the world that make us smile. For example this public poster series by the Dopludo Collective!

mirror/drink by maia love

Riddle: What am I? Transparent in a tipped glass, glistening on your lower lip before cascading down your throat, nourishing your cells. Melting off a mountain ice-block, somersaulting over stones, pooling in a mirror form before streaming down your pipes to land splash into your glass. As wealthy as diamonds, precious as platinum, rare as air. Escaping skyward as we gently slowly heat our globe-shaped home . . .

Dance piece by Maia Love.
Filmography by Hans Christian Berger.
Video edit by Moira Simpson.

Performed at the Vancouver Design Nerd's Jam at Recollective, April 2009.

Weird

larytta - souvenir de chine - video directed by körner union

so weird. but i couldn't stop watching... trying to get posting again. starting with videos. more writing and personal work to come soon.

Ms. Li Shurui - long now thinker and artist.

I happen to think this photo is incredibly powerful. An article in the New York Times featured a hand full of contemporary artists who are said to be quietly emerging to stardom, in Beijing. Female artists are nearly invisible in a male dominated force. Brave souls.

Photo: Natalie Behring for The New York Times

It may say something about Ms. Li's present and future thinking, though, that when asked to name a cultural role model, she pointed neither to other artists nor to contemporary politics, but to the deep past: to the seventh-century ruler Wu Zetian, who through a combination of brains, beauty, unsparing ambition and tenacious hard work, became China’s first and only female empress.

minimal realism

I don't even know if I'd ever get a tattoo.. but if I did.. I would look to Charles Harper for inspiration. This guy is amazing.

I was going to post about pollution in Beijing, but I already did that yesterday at Ci.

raftacular

It was always my intention to keep the RAFT project going after school. It was always my intention to develop a simple design that could be scalable, adaptable, modular and work with materials at hand. I am so grateful for having met the fantastic people at eatART who are now supporting (and storing) this project at the hangar. Our mutual love for the sea as well as things like civil disobedience, energy awareness, creativity, invention, and general mayhem brought us all together this weekend, dressed like pirates, armed with a potato canon and ready for adventure. ( : So fun!!!

data art + love

"I Want You To Want Me", by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, for their "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition. It examines and organizes data from online dating sites and reveals some deep insights into who we are and what we are looking for. Of course, it also shows us how data can be turned into art.

:: via Ed Cotton at www.influxinsights.com

hello, lawrence weiner

I recently saw a Lawrence Weiner (and John Baldessari) show at the Apt. I went with Alex and Katrin which was a treat in of itself. I hadn't heard of either of the artists before this week. It was a private showing so we learned a lot about conceptual art and 'the business of. Alex asks the best questions. And since then (of course) I recognize the names. So you can imagine the delight of seeing this short video which I first saw on Kara's fabulous oliveisgreen. Check it oot.

RAFT :: being held hostage in gallery

Conceived as a floating structure, built mostly of salvaged materials, the project component of my thesis (RAFT) is used as a way to test and work through the creative possibilities that surround slow design. I use RAFT as a research tool – a conceptual and physical sounding board to uncover and develop a template for practicing slow design. The method was conceived primarily for industrial designers, and therefore more often than not includes a physical product output. It has the ability to transfer to other forms of sustainable design and production.

primed - opening!

Thanks to mandroid for taking these!!!

down in front!

Emily Carr Institute becomes Emily Carr University!

primed

hello out there,
my grad show is coming up quick!
just want to have here for the record; the river; the stream; the flow; the blog.
i installed the RAFT in there this afternoon.
i have to say i'm running on a low tank these days.
nothing a little pulverized pineapple, banana, and wheat grass can't fix.
still lots to do. but when is there not?

ready for the next chapter.

grass chair

I'm liking this image.
Something like this with the RAFT for our grad show could work.
Very finished yet there is a time element with the two objects.

RAFT- test launch

time is the thread

sketches

thinking slow

Slow design is contextual so its definition changes depending on the scale and situation. To me it means taking the necessary time to consider as many facets around who and what the designed thing (object, system, experience) will effect over time. This includes the environment, the producers and the consumers, in the short run and long run. I am making an effort to expand the time frame in which I operate so looking at projects like the 10 000 year all mechanical clock designed by the Long Now Foundation. Extreme yes, but they are actually building the thing in order to talk about applied long term thinking.

A typical intended outcome of a slow design process is to effectively slow down the flow of materials and/or pace of life. Less consuming equals less waste. Careful planning equals less waste. Taking 2 extra minutes to crush the cans and bottles from mad max and bring them up the dock equals less waste. To me slow design adds yet another layer on top of all the eco / sustainable design strategies I've been learning about through school, the green building world and my current job. I feel like slow implies a sensibility around the way we consume that is not about sacrifice but rather quality and pleasure. It also doesn't mean we have to walk every where and do every thing slowly but more about taking the necessary amount of time to understand what is often hidden behind the shiny surface and the allure of bigger better faster now. Because it's killing us.

And there's my slow rant for now. Time to go to work.

future histories: burning man 2007

Burning Man 2007 was fantastical cosmic dream. Described in three words: another world experience. This years theme, the Green Man asked us to think about our relationship to nature, and then proceeded to bring us a lunar eclipse, a meteor shower and a full on double rainbow which emerged after a severe desert sand storm. Was the weather trying to answer this questions for us? Was it trying to tell us that this complex relationship is evolving before our senses and that just like any relationship, it is reciprocal and it needs us more than ever?



I went there for a number of reasons.. some personal some professional. the latter was meant to be an investigation into people’s attitudes towards the mainstreaming and marketing of social responsibility and sustainability, both in Black Rock City and the everyday. My questions were quickly answered on the Monday night when Paul Addis preemptively burned down the man in the name of shaking things up Gonzo style. I decided from then on to simply immerse myself in the present and enjoy the culture of Black Rock City for exactly what it is. I was blown away by all of the incredible art work, burners had clearly spent much time and energy on this event. Back home, I found an article in business magazine talking about rising corporate involvement (page 66) at Burning Man. Others liken it to an inevitable disneyfication of the event. Nevada's next tourist destination. But my favourites are still the trustafarian peacocks. They pretty much rule.

Let me get this out.. . the most disappointing fact of the whole event was the poor design of the events calendar. Called the What Where When guide it was more like the What guide making it nearly impossible to locate any of the wonderful workshops being hosted on the playa for even the most skilled cartographer. Being the optimist that I am.. a combination of a 'word of mouth', 'keep it local' and the situationists 'drifter' approach to city life helped me get over this sad sad piece of design. I have decided to save the calendars for next level arts n crafts inspiration ( :


I did attend a the 4th Annual Black Rock City Gathering of the Tribes held on the day of the burn, and facilitated by my friend Sobey. The central theme looked at how we can collectively take the Green Man consciousness into the future. After a round of introductions and words by west coast movers and shakers we broke off into groups to explore this idea of our future histories. The concept is this: suggest topics on which to build the story of our future in the past tense as if telling it to our children. Topics that emerged were social networks and media, forestry, food security and toxicity, community rituals, education, safe healing spaces, gender issues, and space travel. I joined the space group which ended up getting paired with the forestry group. We all immediately agreed that this made sense. Forests in space? Why not. Here we go. Wasn’t it a grand day when we leapt up into space from BRC bringing with us infinite energy and a perfectly contained and thriving ecosystem, Ahhh voyeurism of epic proportions bringing new perspectives and notions of regeneration. I made quite a few strong connections there mostly with people from LA, and fully intend on following up with them. I would be incredibly foolish not to. General feeling is a huge push for permaculture and guilds in a very forward thinking, technically innovative and highly sustainable ways.



All week as I cycled around the playa, I kept thinking Bucky Fuller would have been proud of us seeing all of the geodesic structures out there in the temporary autonomous city, protecting us from the harsh desert elements. I was stoked to help assemble a few of them... 3 different sized steel rods that come together in 5s or 6s which form triangles which in the end forms a perfect dome. The question of bottom up or top down construction is a pertinent one and depends on the number of people there to help.

The Crude Awakening was probably the most epic art installation of the festival. A 4 story wooden reconstruction of an oil derrick with giant welded human figures worshiping the structure that saw a steady flow of curious citizens slowly climbing the stairs to take in a view of the city and desert from above. Immediately after the burning of the man, BRC experienced the largest pyrotechnic show in human history with tales of 900 gallons of jet fuel donated by NASA, 2000 gallons of propane at hand, and the full moon over head. A social sculpture emerged to simultaneously represent utopia and apocalypse and to allow us to rethink our dependence on fossil fuels in this 21st century. The next day I visited the ashes and embers, and the whole piece came together for me when I saw a crane attempting to plant a single red cedar in place of the derrick. WIRED's blog the Underwire writes about it and what follows is a conversation on the ironic or somewhat contradictory nature of this installation. Read it and decide for yourself.

Since returning to Vancouver.. besides coughing all the playa dust out of my lungs, I've been able to research the festival.. its history, politics, culture, the polemic views from both those who were present and not yet present. To me Burning Man was a chance for to redefine the paradigm, to expand and strengthen my ideas on what is and isn't possible. to experience first hand what it feels like to create something from nothing but time and energy. . to grow our tribes. It is where cultural producers and creators take responsibility for redesigning all facets of everyday life. It is a cultural vehicle for radical self reliance and expression which I fully intend to ride again.



Woot woot!

slow is beautiful.

i'm going home in less than 3 days! just cruising through the world that is facebook and came across a video that walid posted starring kevin yip. M2 Test and Art film shot in 5 minutes by Jon Hyatt. it's beeeee-you-tee-full.



see you soon party people!

on lasers, surrealism, jets, and XYZcorp

dear walid,

i know you know.. . but. today at Ci, i'm sifting through magazines.. ID january 07 has some great features on design collectives. Pleix and Plan01 are 2 of them that stuck out at me. also.. i really hope stuff like the eco-jet keeps developing. notice the underline.

re: XYZ corporation... i don't know about you but anything like corporation combined with philanthropic (word of the day) housing projects combined with branding it makes me uneasy.
have a nice day ( :

and he writes back: Hey this is good stuff!

So..... you know .... floating. The sea is salty and flat as a rug. and crystal clear. I practiced floating. After a while you're breathing become slow and you practically fall asleep...

oh ya. easy jet. i love it. "come on, let's fly"! ha! cooooooooooooooooooooome on!!!

re: XYZ corp. I don't know! Maybe they're trying to play grown up ... reinier is coming next month. good stuff, somebody will witness this insanity. you know what's its like? Its like everybody is a fish here. fish!!! like the driving for example. picture NO rules. people just drive where its open. right way. wrong way. reverse on the highway. if its clear, you go, until a bigger fish clear the way...



ummmmmmmmm. miss you!