I went to Light Show exhibition at the Hayward Gallery last week and it was amazing!

Light Show exhibits installations and sculptures that use light to sculpt space in different ways-e.g use of colour, perceptual phenomena.

It was one of the best exhibitions I’ve ever been to – such a shame I wasn’t allowed to take pictures. But this set of photos on facebook will give you a glimpse of what’s it like-

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151601373546369.1073741827.23958741368&type=1

I’d strongly recommend you to go book tickets!

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/light-show-69759

The new season of Mad Men is coming!!

Which brings me to this illustration that I finished last year…in fact it took a very very long time to finish this illustration. I was working on it every now and again in my spare time leaving several months in between each session. In fact I think I started on this at the end of season 2…

The windows look looked they’re capped with snow don’t they? : )

I found it to be the most easiest book on typography and the most useful!

You can buy it Amazon

Fab cafe is no ordinary cafe- it has a laser cutter! Alongside coffee and snacks of course.
I found out about it on twitter and visited it a few months ago in Shibuya, Japan. It’s a great place for creative types to network, conduct meetings, and allows cheap access to a laser cutter (that can be sometimes difficult). You can bring in your laptop, create your design file in the cafe and laser cut it on site. Cool.

Fab Cafe

Google is providing a service that allows businesses to opt in and allow potential customers to have a peek around through a series of online 360° panoramas- it’s called Google Places. The first business to get the Places treatment is Comics Toons N Toys; a comic book store in California.

The wonders of Google have allowed me to paste this onto my blog! Cool huh? Walk right through the door and explore around.

360° Langstrasse Zürich is one cool site! According to Google Translate it’s ‘A Web documentation, which takes us through the craziest quarters of Switzerland. We follow a police patrol, observe the ”oldest” business and lookinto the lives of families, entrepreneurs, colorful birds.’

You can tour the city by scrolling up and down, and even see it in night view (click on the crescent on the right hand corner)! You can also see nearby tweets.

Throwable Panoramic Ball

PanoPlaza is a panoramic view with a twist. This doesn’t use Google Street View but combines panoramic virtual tours with virtual shopping. In this example, you can shop all kinds of sweets and desserts from the  basement floor of a large Japanese department store.

It sure makes you drool!

It’s currently undergoing an upgrade to version 2 but the version 1 series were great – it invited agencies all over the world that had won FWAs to book time slots over several weeks to broadcast themselves over the internet for an hour a week. Some agencies started by showing the typical studio working environment and then decided to do something different for the next week – unit9 for example decided to take viewers on a tour on London’s streets on a motorcycle to Buckingham palace on one week.

I loved having a peek at the different agencies and see what their studio look like or how they work- and see who the people behind these agencies are. It’s a rare opportunity! It meant that I could have a peek at what a friend of mine was up to at her workplace in Japan at 4am in the morning! Or what Mexico’s creative studio looked like at 4pm.

Bring on version 2!

The Swarovski crystal QR-beaded dress was designed for pop star Kali of Icelandic group Steel Lord. When QR codes from the various garments made by Thorunn were scanned, it linked the audience to the group’s various promotional material – such as an animation e.g. the face on the QR code would humorously mouth the words to the music. Please visit Thorunn’s website to see more images.

From Thorunn’s website:

‘In only a few years the combination of the Internet’s social networks and digital cameras on mobile phones have changed the way we express our identities. Individual expression has been made significantly easier and the route to fame more accessible. It has also turned all of us into our own “paparazzis”.

Reading through some articles and texts about the effect of technology on our society I found the word “tribal” to be a reoccurring term used to describe it.

To use a very analogue culture as a reference to describe the effect of high tech on our society I find very interesting and this led me to how beads have been used as a communication tool and to express individual identity in African culture and how we also use “beads” (pixels) in the digital culture as a communication tool and to express our identities online.

QR U? explores the juxtaposition of self promotion and personal privacy in this new environment. Could traditional African bead craft be used in it’s original function of communicating identity but used with modern technology in contemporary context?

Inspired by african beads and masks that use decorative symbols to communicate identity, designer Thorunn Arnadottir beaded Swarovski crystals into QR codes to explore notions of self promotion and personal privacy in todays digitally networked environment. By taking a picture with a smart phone with a QR reader application you can access the online identity that hides behind these patterns.

The ‘Super self-promotional dress’ designed for Icelandic pop star, Kali from Steed Lord directs the photographer to a number of links, including the band’s videos, music sites and an unique animation of the QR code itself.

The ‘Privacy glasses’ are on the boundaries of a mask and sunglasses, high-fashion and theatrical. They give an air of importance, like famous people in Venice would wear elaborate masks, or Hollywood stars wear big flashy sunglasses. When they are scanned you will be given the option to pay a set sum to a charity chosen by the celebrity. The glasses commodify the privacy of the celebrity to the benefit of the charity. Donate to the charity and the identity of the person will be revealed.’

A lot of research and reasoning behind the work! I’m impressed. How cool would it be to have the band playing live wearing this costume.