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The Silver Galleries from the western entrance.
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Monday, 20 October 2014
History of the Silver Galleries at the V&A
Minton Tiles.
Sunday, 19 October 2014
Tomorrow's treasures
Tomorrow's treasures
Artisans Jonathan Foyle reports on designers' attempts to create highly valued objects of the future using the craftsmanship of the past
FT, 18 october 2014
what should we do this craft traditions in the mechanised 21st century? we all play out unspoken answers each day, our houses reflecting tendencies towards a traditionalist or a contemporary bent. But in practice we - and our homes - always end up representing a compromise.
However cutting-edge, most furniture models a time-honoured meaning: you recognise a new chair by the expression of its ancient function, beyond the dynamic lines of its synthetic materials.
Yet if we value true craft traditions, how can we maintain their thread? Hand to eye skill upholds the experiences of elders, but generations are no longer rooted to places and local natural materials which become scarcer. Factory-made synthetics are cheap and disposable - not worth inheriting.
We have had too much of all that, says Rosy Greenlees, exec director of UK Craft Council. The demand for soulful objects that manifest a maker's intelligence, the wear and ingrained history of fine materials, have always exerted a pull. She claims that the situation has changed since the 2008 crash "people (…) are interested in ow well it's been made. And it's not just about beautiful objects - since the recession people want provenance and integrity.
Greenlees believes new investment in craft has a value beyond objects. Engineers, designers and surgeons need the manual dexterity that the apprenticed hand and eye can give. Handcrafted materials can drive future technology. (….she gives the example of glass designer Matt Durran who made moulds for growing human tissue that could withstand bioreactor which led to the first tissue engineered throat transplant...) and if the traditionally made, cutting edge technology is also a beautiful object, it is a bonus.
Artisans Jonathan Foyle reports on designers' attempts to create highly valued objects of the future using the craftsmanship of the past
FT, 18 october 2014
what should we do this craft traditions in the mechanised 21st century? we all play out unspoken answers each day, our houses reflecting tendencies towards a traditionalist or a contemporary bent. But in practice we - and our homes - always end up representing a compromise.
However cutting-edge, most furniture models a time-honoured meaning: you recognise a new chair by the expression of its ancient function, beyond the dynamic lines of its synthetic materials.
Yet if we value true craft traditions, how can we maintain their thread? Hand to eye skill upholds the experiences of elders, but generations are no longer rooted to places and local natural materials which become scarcer. Factory-made synthetics are cheap and disposable - not worth inheriting.
We have had too much of all that, says Rosy Greenlees, exec director of UK Craft Council. The demand for soulful objects that manifest a maker's intelligence, the wear and ingrained history of fine materials, have always exerted a pull. She claims that the situation has changed since the 2008 crash "people (…) are interested in ow well it's been made. And it's not just about beautiful objects - since the recession people want provenance and integrity.
Greenlees believes new investment in craft has a value beyond objects. Engineers, designers and surgeons need the manual dexterity that the apprenticed hand and eye can give. Handcrafted materials can drive future technology. (….she gives the example of glass designer Matt Durran who made moulds for growing human tissue that could withstand bioreactor which led to the first tissue engineered throat transplant...) and if the traditionally made, cutting edge technology is also a beautiful object, it is a bonus.
Friday, 19 September 2014
Botanicus Interacticus: Interactive Plant Technology
Botanicus Interacticus is a technology for designing highly expressive interactive plants, both living and artificial. Driven by the rapid fusion of computing and living spaces, we take interaction from computing devices and places it in the physical world using livings plants as an interactive medium.
Botanicus Interacticus has a number of unique properties. This instrumentation of living plants is simple, non-invasive, and does not damage the plants: it requires only a single wire placed anywhere in the plant soil. Botanicus Interacticus allows for rich and expressive interaction with plants. It allows to use such gestures as sliding fingers on the stem of the orchid, detecting touch and grasp location, tracking proximity between human and a plant, and estimating the amount of touch contact, among others.
In Botanicus Interacticus we also deconstruct the electrical properties of plants and replicate them using standard electrical components. This allows the design of a broad variety of biologically inspired artificial plants that behave nearly the same as their biological counterparts. From the point of view of our technology there is no difference between real and artificial.
Botanicus Interacticus technology can be used to design highly interactive responsive environments based on plants, developing new forms of organic, living interaction devices as well as creating organic ambient and pervasive interfaces.
Visual illusion using that technology...
Poupyrev, I., Schoessler, O., Loh, J., Sato, M. “Botanicus Interacticus: Interactive Plant Technology”
SIGGRAPH 2012 Emerging Technology Exhibition [Link, PDF of Etech Abstract].
SIGGRAPH 2012 Emerging Technology Exhibition [Link, PDF of Etech Abstract].
By using a visual illusion produced by placing a half-silver mirror in front of the display, interactive computer images augment a living plants and dynamically change in response to the user interaction with a real plant. A range of real and artificial plants such as bamboo, orchid, cactus and snake plant were explored, where each plant presented it is unique interactive and visual character. The exhibition was developed in collaboration with Christian Riekoff, Eric Brockmeyer and TheGreenEyl.
http://www.disneyresearch.com/project/botanicus-interacticus-interactive-plant-technology/
Thursday, 18 September 2014
While searching about mixing ideas of archives...
I discovered the work of Joe Cooke….
Best of Year — D&AD Student Awards 2013 for that project!
Best of Year — D&AD Student Awards 2013 for that project!
http://des.flaxxik.com/folio/mixing-up-the-vanda/
Iain Duncan has been involved with robotics, automation and control systems for most of his long career. Even now in 'retirement' he runs a company that is involved in some of the latest developments in the robot world.
Iain's talk will cover a brief history of robots, from the origins of the name right through to the technologies that enable robot and bots to become a part of our everyday language. He will be giving first hand experience of what robots and autonomous systems he has built and he will also be attempting to answer the question of the future of robots.
http://www.instituteofmaking.org.uk/events/detail/public-and-members-event-the-history-of-robots-with-iain-duncan
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