Farewell: Open For Design

The past few months have been unbelievably busy with big changes, and getting settled in HK. More on that to come.

But first, Open for Design is coming to a close, with final posts up at the end of October. The link will be up till November 30th, then it's officially farewell. Check it out while you still can!

Following is a summary of my posts since the last overview.

June: Material
> You Can Take It with You - a look at paper funereal offerings in the 21st century
> Money Money Money - the evolution of money from material to virtual wealth
> Fantastic Plastic? - anti-plastic bag initiatives and having another think about whether plastic is friend or foe.
> Water, Water Everywhere - water as muse in all states of matter

July: Motion
> Call Me - mobile phones: master or servant?
> It moves, but does it move you? - tunnel ads
> Overcoming Obstacles - Australian parkour team "Trace Elements" visit Hong Kong
> Spacesuits Optional - a.k.a the 250,000-mile diet - feasting on the harvest from seeds which have been blasted into outerspace

August: Desire
> You can't always get what you want - the perfect fairy tale wedding at Tokyo's St. Grace Cathedral
> Mies remixed - being content with less
> She got bling - from hooker to looker: Barbie's ascent to stardom
> The Life List - does it work? (one case where it did)

September: Flow
> Motion capture: the mastery of NY-based French artist WK Interact
> Moving masses: managing pedestrian traffic in retail
> Good vibrations: feng shui and balancing energy for health and wealth
> Moon Festival: Mid-Autumn Festival moon cakes and 3,000 years of tradition

October: Connection
> Paper Scissors Rock: getting inspired in graphic design, fashion & architecture
> Geek Love: drawing obsessions with music, fashion, art and design together via collectable toys
> IZAt: a stylish temporary shelter by Tokolo Asao & Imakita Hitoshi
> Not-so-secret liaisons: the PostSecret phenomena

OFD update: Sweden Rising

Open for Design is motoring forward, and for this month’s theme of “material,” I’ve contributed a feature story - “Sweden Rising” - about Swedish design collaborative Front’s portfolio based on material that isn’t. Read it here. (above: Front’s Sketch Furniture)

Here’s a quick overview of my posts from the past few weeks...

April: Provocation

> Dot Dot Dot - Yayoi Kusama’s obsessions and terrifyingly gutsy moves (above: Kusama Yayoi, Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli’s Field, 1965)
> Fug This - Japanese socks and miscellaneous foot coverings. Fab or fug? (below: selection of footwear from a Harajuku sock shop)


May: Light

> Eyes Wide - James Turrell and Tadao Ando at Benesse Art Site Naoshima (above: Turrell’s Open Sky at the ChiChu Art Museum)
> Who’s Lovin’ It? - new McLighting at the local burger joint
> Sunshine on a Cloudy Day and Vice Versa - SAD, sun seekers and fleeters
> What a Little Moonlight Can Do - lunar inspiration (below: Verner Panton’s Moon Lamp, 1960)


June: Material

> Tokyo Fiber 07 / Senseware - art meets technology in the future of Japanese textiles (above: honeycomb mesh)
> It’s Not Wood - green bamboo and its alter-ego, “Black Diamond” (below: bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong)

OFD: the Great Sasuke and friends...

Posted at Open For Design, a quick overview of the most famous, freakish and flashy candidates in Japan's gubernatorial elections last Sunday - i.e. Kisho Kurokawa, Koichi Toyama, Dr. NakaMats, and the Great Sasuke (Masanori Murakawa).

Open for Design update

It's been a while since I've posted about the weekly Open for Design blog, which has continued with the monthly themes listed below.

January: Imperfection
> Luck of the draw - New Year's in Japan and the sacred lottery "omikuji"
> Imperfect by design - my first flat in Tokyo and Swedish design team Front
> Imperfect match - the Chanel & Bearbrick windows in Ginza
> Perfectly imperfect - graffiti at the streetwear shows
> Beauty & the Bead - exhibition at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam


February: Inspiration
> Inspiration Rx - where does inspiration come from?
> Play - Copenhagen's Experimentarium
> Pecha Kucha - technicolour cerebral shake-up
> Hardwired - is there a little bit of "Rain Man" in everyone?


March: Line
> An absurd little bird - my love of cuckoo clocks
> Traditional Japanese Joinery 101
> Staying in the Game - hairlines and retirement in sumo
> La Linea - saluting Osvaldo Cavandoli


...and now April deals with provocation. My post this week, "Hey, that's no way to say good-bye," was spurred on by Keith Richards' chatter about snorting his dad's ashes.

Unintentional chindogu

New post at OFD. Sometimes simple is best.

Mind over matter

Last week at Open for Design, Futurefarmers posted an entry called Senseless about Crispin Jones' An Invisible Force. Their description brought me back to the BankArtLife reception in Yokohama almost exactly a year ago. Jones was showing a table alongside work by a number of other artists, all of which was kinetic and/or interactive and tactile. A constant queue of people were ready to be challenged by Painstation , the sadistically entertaining work by two German media artists, Volker Morawe and Tilman Reiff.

As with An Invisible Force, the point of Painstation is endurance against discomfort. Two players face off in a game of Pong, right hand on the controller, left hand on a sensor unit. Both players receive various distractions from the unit -- heat, whipping, electric shocks etc. As time goes on, the punishment intensifies. The first person to remove their hand from the sensor loses. The real game is who can withstand the most pain.

I lost every time. Despite the open wounds and blue welts some of the pros were sporting, with me the unit had not even escalated to the point of inflicting pain. Of course being a leftie put me at a disadvantage because the controller forced me to use my weak hand. But in truth the reason I lost was that the anticipation of the being touched by the whip made me flinch.

Virtual Haptic-ness

December marks the start of a new theme at Open For Design: touch. My first post on this topic talks about the strikingly tactile world of LocoRoco.

Fantastic plastic

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, my post this week at Open For Design is up early. About me, gachapon, and how plastic has heart.

Open for Design

In the hullabaloo of events the past few weeks, I neglected to mention the new online project I've joined as a weekly style blogger, updating on Thursdays (Fridays in Japan).

Open for Design launched on November 1 as a multidisciplinary dialogue about contemporary design in the form of a blog, sponsored by MSN and Infiniti. The format consists of monthly themes with feature stories and bi-weekly blog entries by practising artists or designers in four categories: style, living, art and tech. The inaugural theme is "Craft: The resurgence of the human hand in a mass-market world." Check it out.