Whitworth

I recently went to the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, and caught the 'Subversive Spaces' exhibition. It draws together disparate fields of artistic enquiry, including situationism, feminist art and psycho-geography to create stimulating reflections. All fall into the category of art from the margins. Artists such as Sarah Lucas, Dali, Lucy Gunning and Guy De Bord are featured.

Magnets

A little old now, but just stumbled upon this again. It is a magnetic curtain, which allows for some striking sculptural possibilities, due to the way the grid of magnets engages when it is scrunched.

(via 3Rings)

Retro

The redesigned Architectural Review is available for pre-publication inspection over at Dezeen. I was immediately transported back by its masthead to the RIBA Library and browsing through mid-seventies (I think it was) editions of the magazine - probably looking for a brick housing scheme, or something by Peter Eisenman.

I have a worry that clean well-composed pictures will be disturbed by overlapping tabs and text blocks, though its generally retro feel paradoxically lent the spreads previewed a freshness.

Still Life

The Art School at MMU currently has some large format photos of scenes from its history on display. Amongst them is this photo of a still life class with a slightly surreal air. In the centre are (presumably) the objects set for them to work on, yet they are carefully posed facing away from the study. Furthermore, they are drawing childish outlines in chalk on their boards, which a colleague identified correctly as looking uncannily like the work of Michael Craig-Martin.

All in all, the scene has the signs of a dapper, very civilised protest perhaps against art - or the people teaching it.

Tumbler

Following Zaha Hadid's (empty) Chanel Pavilion last year, OMA have stepped up to create something equally frivolous for Prada. The Transformer is a pavilion that can be 'tumbled' onto each of its faces to create different layouts. It's like the recession isn't really happening.

However, the website explaining how it works it quite good. Check out the timelapse photography.

Trade

Learning a huge amount about trade associations and specialist magazines thanks to the good work of this blog.

Sample sentences capturing the wry tone of the observations:

"There's something kind of comforting about the idea that there's a whole industry dedicated to making sure that most of the time, most people find things easy to use, comfortable to use. It's like someone's taking care of us. And they're doing it with some numbers and a graph."

"Anyway, despite all this, and even only looking at the confectionery guide, I like learning all the specialist phrases used in industries like this. The 'hunger' 'needstate'. 'Multi-facings'. 'Impulse sub-section'. 'Pouch format'. 'Large-block'."

Tickets II

So here it is. After complaining about the incredibly poor ticket design which UK train travellers (and staff) have to put up with, here is a re-imagining of it. Taking the original orange-and-white format as a starting point, there are a number of key features which should improve the ticket in use.

Importantly, the destination is the most prominent information, enabling people to see at a glance where the ticket is valid for. Underneath is the permitted route. In this case, the ticket is a return for two adults, one full-price child, and one concession child, and incorporates a seat reservation (coach and seat numbers). Using the inspiration of the timeless British Rail logo, the ticket is reversible depending on whether it is to be used for the outbound or return journey. The orange bands remain the location for the punchhole check by the guard.

The departure time and date are also shown, with an analogue clock to help make the time more memorable. In this way, all of the information on the current ticket design is preserved, reorganised into a user-friendly format, and anything distracting discarded or diminished.

Clicks

An interesting piece of research recently posted over at blog Music Machinery, looking at evidence for the use of click tracks by drummers. They are the background electronic beats used as a guide (or perhaps, straitjacket) over which the drummer plays. Shown right is Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir' - the higher the line, the slower the beat - and clear evidence of a creative human at work. Not a machine in sight.

Storage

The origins of Jonathan Ive's great product design for Apple lie in the work of Joe Colombo, Brionvega, and especially Dieter Rams. All were at their creative peak as the sixties turned into the seventies, and there can be little doubt where the iPhone calculator began. Alongside the Braun calculator, one of Rams' most famous innovations was the 606 shelving system he designed for Vitsoe, and now celebrating its 50th anniversary.

In a testament to its timelessness, anyone who bought the product in 1959 can still buy compatible components to extend their storage array in 2009. See how it works on Vitsoe's revamped website (by Airside).

Augmentation

Experiments in augmented reality have interested me for a while, and I remember a 'pop-up' picture book demonstrated a year or so ago. This demo from GE popped up today, and I had to share it with you. The possibility of sending a client a 2D plan which comes to life like this would be amazing - if only for short-term novelty value.