Several signs are needed to guide all visitors towards the main entrance of the Tabakfabrik Linz, a former tobacco processing plant which is the main event area for this year's Ars Electronica Festival.

Arriving at the main square we walk into a performance by soft bodies who are using the central square as their stage, or better playground, to interact with their audience. This nude performer needed nothing more than a single rock to capture the attention of dozens of visitors.

The Cyberarts exhibition is where we find Zimoun's sound installation. The Swiss artist created a structure of 216 dc-motors rotating wires that all together surprise our ears with unusual and complex sounds. Hard to explain but great to hear.

See more photos after the jump.

(more...)

Helmut Smit is our new favorite artist/designer, even if FLAMMA was the only project he'd ever done (it isn't, by the way, and they are all stellar). This brilliant Ikea Hack "harks back to one of humanity's basic needs: making fire." As Ikea does not sell matches or lighters, Smits has taken cues from the wartime necessity of burning furniture to keep warm, and created a fire from an Ikea rope, hanger, wine rack, egg cup, napkins, and floral embellishments.

The video above is worth every minute, not to mention a good lesson in building fires, an art lost on most of us.

Visit Smit's site here.

(more...)

Oscar Magnus Narud's Keel collection: tables in rough wood and iron.

Running from September 15th through November 14th, Make-Me is an upcoming exhibition at Moss that brings together a set of artists and designers producing what Moss has coined "Butch-Craft." Maybe there is no better way to describe this than the words they use themselves: "a cerebral yet virile narrative applied to rough work crafted in wood, iron, steel, marble, rush, paint, boiled leather, clay, baked agricultural waste, plant-life, gypsum drywall, and blood, sweat and tears."

(more...)

Honda R&D

Automotive Designer
Torrance, CA

You will work independently on the development of original designs or adaptations requiring very specialized design skills and abilities. The Designer employs the best combination of preliminary information and contributing data to develop final designs (2D/3D) and basic concepts; selects technique best suited to represent project including graphics and technology; conducts product research to determine styling trends and consumer preferences; produces sketches, renderings and computer graphic illustrations, ideas and materials for presentation and helps develop strong brand specific ideas for building identity.

» view

The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

(more...)

Ah, the wonderful dilemma with design festivals: too much to do, too little time. The London Design Festival is making that problem even worse, announcing that it's sweep of the city is broadening with three new design districts, each with its own character and events. In addition to Brompton and the Shoreditch Design Triangle, the Covent Garden, Fitzrovia Creative, and Clerkenwell districts will help to further inundate London with design September 18-26. Various events, exhibitions, and installations are scheduled in each of the districts. For more information, download the London Design Festival Guide here.

(more...)

Here's a couple of interesting videos done by Austin-based design studio Zoticus Design, displaying computing-of-the-future concepts that demonstrate client Freescale's networking prowess. In the second video, I dig the way the woman sends info to her tablet around 1:15; the first video is otherwise the more interesting one, but I kept thinking "Why in God's name is that little girl wearing so much makeup?"

Freescale - Consumer from Zoticus Design on Vimeo.

Freescale - Industrial from Zoticus Design on Vimeo.

(more...)

If you live in Brooklyn, the bane of your peaceful residential existence (or the source of your entertainment, depending on your disposition) is noisy teenagers hanging out on the stoop. So here we present The Last House I'd Ever Build in Brooklyn: Y+M Design Office's Stairs House.

The entire house, as you can see, is basically one gigantic stoop. Very cool for a beachside family property in Japan, not so cool when you live in Bushwick and would have to spend every evening chasing guys named Re-Re, Bombs-a-Poppin and Tommy Karate off of your goddamn roof while threatening to call cops that, let's face it, have better things to do.

Hit the jump for more shots.

(more...)

Studiobility, the Icelandic design studio headed up by Gudrun Lilja, has launched a new partially-eponymous brand: Bility. Today at the Maison et Object design show in Paris, Lilja will take the wraps off of new Bility items like this Heklad Stal shelf made from polycoated steel:

(more...)

The Design Council has recently run a design workship with the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to look at how to encourage the adoption of home insulation and other low-carbon home modifications.

A joint proposal How can we help people make their homes more energy efficient? (pdf) shows how user-centred design research has helped DECC understand how consumers feel about installing cavity wall insulation or lagging their loft and it shows that people feel disengaged with the overarching environmental issues.

>> Read article

(more...)

L.A.-based designer Charles Pyott's been getting lots of blog love lately for his portable Linos record player concept, above; another lesser-known project of his worth checking out is the DAWS (Dynamically Augmenting Wheel System, below).

(more...)