Link About It: This Week’s Picks
London’s Sound Taxi, Ai Weiwei’s Grass-Mud Horse Style, COMUNE’s last ride and more in our look at the web this week
1. Grass-Mud Horse Style
In a remark on Chinese Web censorship artist Ai Weiwei mocked PSY’s ubiquitous Gangnam Style video with his own version, Grass-Mud Horse Style. Still online outside of China, the video shows Weiwei in handcuffs, which he says “should belong to law enforcement but in many many cases in China people are arrested or taken away without any formal charge.”
2. noPhoto
Speed demons will definitely want to help fund inventor Jonathan Dandrow’s newest idea—a license plate that deflects the flash of traffic enforcement cameras. Called noPhoto, the advantageous tool will likely be banned once discovered by the fuzz, but you can pretend every road is the Autobahn until they do.
3. #giveFORUMtoPeter
Tuesday Jake Burton announced the end of an era with the laying to rest of “The Program” brands—Forum, Special Blend, Four Square. Stated as a strategic move for the big B, much of the snowboard industry felt the impact as team riders and brand employees were left in the dust by mid week. To keep the brand alive some good-willing social media supporters started #giveFORUMtoPETER, a hashtag and online petition to hand the brand reigns over to original Forum 8 legend Peter Line. Support the long shot and sign the petition.
4. Alf Khumalo Dies at 82
Award-winning South African photographer Alf Khumalo passed away this week, leaving behind a legacy of poignant images documenting the country’s tumultuous history. President Jacob Zuma notes, “He was a meticulous photographer and his work will live on forever as a monument to the people’s resilience and fortitude in the face of oppression and apartheid.”
5. Run To The Hills
To live the life they sell, COMUNE recently set out on their third and last moto-camping trip of the season in California. With nearly 200 friends of the brand in tow, the raucous band of skateboarders, artists, snowboarders and all around free-minded fellows headed for the hills of Mt. Madonna outside Santa Cruz. Photographers Mike Selsky and Ethan Lovell were on hand to document the mayhem in beautiful black and white.
6. The Energy Collection
Using reactive dye as a power source, designer Marjan van Aubel created The Energy Collection, a range of glassware that charges through exposure to sunlight. Van Aubel so cleverly built upon chemist Michael Graetzel’s recently discovered photovoltaic pigment it earned her this year’s DOEN award at Dutch Design Week.
7. Make The City Sound Better
Sound artist Yuri Suzuki and AIAIAI have teamed up to produce The Sound Taxi, an ambitious arrangement of 67 speakers attached to a classic London cab, which generate music based on the sounds of the city. Check out the captured tracks online at the Make The City Sound Better website.
8. Designers Of The Future Photo Essay
Sight Unseen had a belated look at the catalog accompanying the Design Miami and W Hotels Designers of the Future awardees exhibition in Basel last June, which offers a pictorial glimpse at the three winners’ creative minds—from “food that describes you” to “an everyday item you wish you’d designed.”
