Link About It: This Week’s Picks
Cylindrical skyscrapers, artistic Greek currency, Google dictionary and more in our weekly look at the web
1. La Cocina
Talented artist Sofia Maldonado recently united the Bronx community with La Cocina—a creative afternoon of mural painting and dishes from her native Puerto Rico as part of the “This Side of Paradise” exhibition at the newly repurposed Andrew Freedman Home.
2. Utilitarian Ceramic
Minnesota-based designer Ben Fiess makes the packed lunch alluring with his Utilitarian Ceramic, a collection of beautifully designed portable containers made from clay and glazes.
3. The Canopy
Boutique Design champions Hong Kong’s geographical beauty with a new apartment building aptly called The Canopy. Each of its 54 duplexes comes equipped with eight rooms and a large garden on the terrace with maximized view of sunlight thanks to the building’s cylindrical design.
4. T(ether)
Fast Company revisits MIT Media Lab’s T(ether), a specialized glove that allows users to collaborate in real space by pinching, spreading and dragging shapes with the iPad’s front- and rear-facing cameras.
5. Masters on 45s
Titans of the western artistic canon get spun right ’round in “Masters on 45s“, a photographic series by Israeli artist Tamir Sher. Sher makes new images from the old by fiddling around with playback speeds and snapping away at the result.
6. Speed of Light
British filmmakers The Theory put together a thrilling prison break sequence, which has been billed as “the world’s smallest all action police chase”. Using the world’s smallest projectors and an iPhone, they’ve set a daring escape against the otherwise mundane backdrop of an office building.
7. Horn Please
Photographer Dan Eckstein peers into the largely unexplored mobile worlds of Indian truck drivers, and their lives on the country’s beat-up and seemingly lawless roadways. Colorful images of painstakingly ornamented trailer cockpits expose the private lives and cultural interests of men whose safety relies on little more than the power of their horn.
8. “Google”
Taking advantage of Google Images’ uncanny ability to capture the zeitgeist of the Internet, UK designers Ben West and Felix Heyes have created a “Google“, a PHP-generated dictionary containing the first image results for every word listed. According to West, “about half of the book is revolting medical photos, porn, racism, or bad cartoons.”
9. Master of Lightning
In an ambitious design project, Elliot Dahlgren Straat set out to naturally generate a glass vase out of sand and lightning. His rudimentary weather balloon rig successfully directed a lightning strike into a homemade cast full of sand, producing a surprisingly elegant glass vessel.
10. Artist-Designed Currency
As the economic woes continue to build in Greece, the creative community contemplates its potential drop from the EU with artistic riffs on a new form of currency. From apocalyptic monster scenarios to a nod at the influential René Magritte, four artists show an alternative to simply stamping it Greek.
11. Snap Magazine
Remember Hipstamatic? Well, Instagram’s precursor is back in the form of an iPad magazine called Snap. The photography, culture and lifestyle publication features pictures snapped by both users and in-house developers, short informative articles and tips to help you compose better images.
12. Scanbox
Frustrated by large, bulky scanners that need to be dusted off and updated on the rare occasions that they are actually used, three Australian designers created a collapsible, easily constructed scanner platform for the iPhone. Highly portable and elegant in its simplicity, Scanbox is in the midst of a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign which will make it available in both a basic and a “Plus” model with LED lighting.
