Electricity is Magical

It certainly seems that way when you look at these lamps, and that is why I love them. They were designed by Jeremy Pyles for Niche Modern.Just for fun, take a moment to imagine if you would be able to sufficiently explain electricity to an alien if the life of the human race depended on it. (You can omit the part with the murdering alien if you like.)

This reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd law of predicition, which is as sensible as it is beautiful and gives me great hope that marvelously mind-boggling things are in store:
"3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

And that reminds me of Nikola Tesla as portrayed by David Bowie in The Prestige which was very good right up to the very end. Unfortunately, from my experience, this is rare in the science fiction genre. Maybe this one is so good because it's barely science fiction. Anyway, this one is worth seeing if you like magic and electricity:

LBRB

Left Brain - Right Brain

Imagine, I had a store. Imagine I had a concept for this store.
Here you have it: left brain, right brain.

This idea has been cruising about my own cerebral hemispheres for a while now and I am still very fond of it. The basic premise is that there are two opposite and complenting parts, each one fullfilling a requirement in design summed up in the distinctin between the left and the right halves of the brain. (see diagram.) Make sense?

I came up with this differentiation based on a dichotomy that I often perceive in design (the design of objects being mostly what I look at). There are those objects that are highly functional and efficient, simple, clean, well-working. These objects provide lot of satisfaction in the way they work, because that is exacty what they do: they work. They do what they are supposed to do, they do it well, and it's rather easy to define what it is they are doing.

On the other hand there are objects that we like for reasons that are more difficult to put into words. They achieve a more emotional satisfaction, through their beauty, the memories they evoke or perhaps their bizzare nature. And we need them both.

It is a distinciton I appreciate because I think these two aspects of design can get into eachother's way, and also because there is no way to define good design or a good thing without taking into account that there are polar reasons for why we might covet an object.

Also, I must admit, categorizing gives me great pleaseure. What more would be a better catogorizing guideline than a list of vague tendencies based on the most complex and mysterious organ of the most complex and mysterious lifeform on our lovely planet? (human hubris? but please...)

I hope that LBRB will leave room for everything, or at least everything that triggers my personal little neurons from the most indispensibly clever tools and inexplicably intriguing whatsits. Or things that are both at the same time??? Incroyable! Wait a minute... am I just talking about function and beauty?

We could be really cool.

Summer is upon us.
And thanks to global warmin' and of course the natural spread of simply wonderful inventions, people in Austria are letting down their guard when it comes to supposedly lethal, deliciously cold air.
Personally, I have no idea how an air-conditioner works, but a man told me it has to do with the fact that heat and temperature are not the same thing. I will follow up on this later. For now, I will just assume that it's some kind of magical force remotely related to the spirits of nuclear power plants.

To worship at their chilly temples, I need your help! I'm trying to put together an index of all the places in and around Vienna that are air-conditioned: Museums, Restaurants, Kinos, Kaffeehäuser, Shops, Malls, U-Bahn stations, the Aquarium, the Strip Club, anywhere.

Please submit any and every addition as comments , and then I will make a giant list and we can all bask in the glorious cool until we can't feel our toes anymore!!

Chapan !

When I was in sitting in a bus driving through Basel the other day looking at public flower arrangements it suddenly struck me: there are strange parallels between the the Swiss and the Japanese...
The more I thought about it I realized: brains are great. They help you convince yourself of just about anything. with the help of stereotypes and unfounded personal conjectures about these two massive groups of people, let me persuade your brain too:

If you would have seen it, you could have only agreed, that the Swiss not only have refined talent for botanical composition, but a similar fondness of the imperfect, unbalanced, and contrasting qualities that also define Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arangement. The plants at this bus stop were just so subtle and sophisticated. A lot of quiet greens and muted colors infront of the dark contours of knurly italian stone pines.

The Ikebana argument ties to another aesthetic similarity, which is the general visual style. Both are very minimalistic in the graphic as well as the three-dimensional realm - just compare the simple, rational look of Japanese laquer ware with the Helvetica typefont! wow!

Then there is of course the insular factor. While Japan is actually an island surrounded by water, Switzerland is surrounded by the EU. Or previously by warring countries or what have you. They never want to join the party. They're a rock. They're an island.

Onwards to the krass stereotypes: while the Japanese are generally private fetishists of various inclinations, the Swiss, as one Schweizer once explained to me, "go hide in the basement when they want to have sex or laugh". They're both uptight - with differing results, but the predisposition is clearly identical.

As it turns out, their Human Development Indexes is also damn close: Switzerland at 0.955 (7th) and Japan at 0.953 (8th).

Eventually it dawned on me: the flags! It was there all along and I never noticed it. Now I'm suspecting an ancient conspiracy, pacts made long ago, to what end...who knows?

smart lady

"There is an inherent intelligence to beauty, which is about the depth and passion we feel for the world."

-Dori Tunstall



she also has a blog: http://dori3.typepad.com/