The prolific Man Ray continues to fascinate with his sheer modernity, taking the jazz age to its ultimate apex. His brilliant portraits are shocking in their contemporary aesthetics that seem to transcend time itself. A perfect example is his photo of the beautiful and bright photographer and muse, Lee Miller. SHOT IN 1929.
Design Research + Development
Christian Tagliavini was educated in Switzerland and Italy where he still resides. His mastery of form, color and technique is very accomplished. Since Bronzino and Bruegel are two of my favorite classicists, this photo essay hits the mark in more ways than one.
Corinne Reid hails from Salem, Massachusetts and appropriately has a dark streak when it comes to her beautiful DIGITAL work that retains all the delicacy of watercolours.
More at: Corinne Reid
The performance artist/sculptor continues his odyssey with this 5 year project that has been unveiled at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art).
The work looks at our future cities in an innovative kinetic sculpture that, truth be told, brings out the little boy in me…the mesmerizing “METROPOLIS ll”
Miniature cars speed through the city at 240 scale miles per hour; every hour, the equivalent of approximately 100,000 cars circulate through the dense network of buildings. The loud racket produced is meant to simulate the stress of living in the 21st Century. Love.
Metropolis ll. Photo by E. KOYAMA
SEE IT IN MOTION BELOW:
For more see:
LACMA
I haven’t been this excited about an urban vehicle since the BMW C1 covered motorbike 10yrs ago (it was dropped for the North American market and simply vanished)…Now comes the C-1 from LIT MOTORS in San Francisco.
Fully enclosed with gyro stabilizer wheels and sunroof, it is quite the machine. Different versions of the C-1 will be available for different markets. The model aimed at First World countries will have an 8-10 kilowatt-hour battery pack. The vehicle will incorporate electric hub motors in both wheels, at least one of those motors being a high-performance Remy HVH unit. The top speed should be at least 120 mph (193 km/h), with driving range for the higher-end model expected to sit at around 150 to 220 miles (241 to 354 km) per charge.
The price is, however, very high still. They are now working on a hand-built steel uni-bodied working prototype, which should reportedly be complete within about three months. Plans call for an initial run of production vehicles to be available at a price of about US$24,000 by late 2013, with that price going down to $16,000 once full production gets under way in 2014. The BMW scooter was only 4-5000$. It should ideally be 7-8000 IMO.
Robin Chase, co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the world’s largest car-sharing service – she has since become “a huge proponent” of the vehicle. The MIT Media Lab also provided assistance in its design.
Should you be interested, LIT is accepting deposits…
LIT MOTORS
See it in motion here:
Following my obsession with the merger of futurist architecture in remote winter scenes comes the Timmelsjoch Museum Pass. High up in the Austrian Alps, this cubist pod is inviting yet dangerously precarious jutting out from the rock surface. Too bad it is only used as an observatory. My question is, why aren’t chalets built like this? It would be a dream!
Werner Tscholl ARCHITECTS
Scientists from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China have come up with a unique cotton material that can clean itself when left under ordinary sunlight. The fabric includes a coat of nanoparticles made from a compound of titanium dioxide, nitrogen, silver and iodine. From a test experiment, the special coating was able to remove an orange stain when exposed to sunlight for just two hours. Furthermore, the coating remained intact even after washing and drying.
Researchers Mingce Long and Deyong Wu published their findings in the American Chemical Society Journal Applied Material & Interfaces. However, it is not expected that the breakthrough invention will be hitting retail shelves anytime soon.
Jioa Tong university
Designer: Riley Sanders
BASE IMPACT JERSEY
The Base Impact Jersey is an unobtrusive solution to personal protective equipment specific to snow sports. It reduces the chance of serious injury occurring, while still allowing the user to perform at their peak without being restricted by their equipment.
A personal snowboarding injury was the inspiration for an investigation of the issues surrounding personal protective equipment (PPE) specific to snow sports. The project was an attempt to develop an improved product that will reduce the chance of serious injury occurring to a skier or snowboarder while maintaining comfort and mobility.
Research methods including focus groups and one-on-one interviews with snowboarders, skiers, and industry-related professionals highlighted the need for more refined PPE specific to snow sports. The study helped the designer to understand the most common injuries that occur during snow sports, how the injuries have occurred, and the best methods for their prevention. It was made evident through the research that there was a lack of PPE that could provide sufficient support to the user upon impact while maintaining their freedom of movement and comfort.
The solution was Base – an upper-body personal protective system specific to snow sports. The patented Base protective material was developed to assist with the prevention of unnatural movements of jointed body parts. The material consists of two main components: the displacement hexagons, which determine the overall locking angle of the material, and the flexible clipping layer that holds the displacement hexagons in place. The material has been utilized in the Base Impact Jersey to protect the elbow from overextension, the shoulder from dislocation, and the back from hyperextension.
The delectable Marion Cotillard shows how it’s done here on the new Dior campaign trail. Slugging it out in LA never looked better.
In a very poetic interpretation of flowers and their power to inspire and mesmerize, Nick Knight elevates his metier to an extraordinary level. Like a page from Li Edelkoorts’ Bloom magazine come alive, Nick Knight’s genius let’s it all unfold elegantly.
Credits:
Photography: Nick Knight
Models: Jac at IMG and Ben
Styling: Alister Mackie
Hair: Brent Lawler
Make-up: Petros Petrohilos
Tailor: Paul Strotton
Photographic Assistance: Zoe Hitchen, Laura Falconer, James Robotham and James Nicholson
Styling Assistance: Ellie Cumming and Melissa Thompspn
Runner: Shaun James and Andrew Smith
Production: Charlotte Knight
