LABORAL - CENTRO DE ARTE Y CREACIÓN INDUSTRIAL

  SYSTEM / MORPHOLOGY / RECONFIGURE / SYMBIOSIS

ASSA ASHUACH

Ai Light, 2007

The Ai Light has an artificial intelligence brain that senses space through five different sensors. Using a biologically inspired mechanism, this structure morphs and generates new behaviours according to your personal space. The light has five senses that can track changes in its environment and interact with its owner. The user is able to engage with it through sound, light and movement. Through digital sensations the Ai Light is
capable of detecting what is happening around it. It then learns from studying its environment and slowly formulates a set of behaviours that develop characteristics unique to each light. The smart structure might behave in unpredictable ways if moved to an unfamiliar space. It was sponsored by EOS.

OMI.mgx Light, 2004-2005

The OMI.mgx Light is one of the first products to be produced and distributed straight from the SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) machine tank. Produced entirely as a single nylon part, its form—together with the natural flexibility of the polyamide—creates the impression of a biological mechanism. The shape can be transformed by bending or twisting the structure: twist one end and the rest will follow. This behaviour offers versatility in that it can be personalized and manipulated easily to create different sculptural sensations and space and moods. The OMI.mgx Light was awarded the Red Dot award for Product Design in 2006.

www.assaashuach.com

MATERIAL BELIEFS

Carnivorous Domestic Entertaiment Robots, 2008

Auger-Loizeau and Aleksandar Zivanovic, with Julian Vincent, Centre for Biomimetic and Natural Technologies, Bath University

In the context of the home, definitions of what a robot is and could be are open for interpretation. These robots are devices for utility, drama and entertainment. They exist in a similar way to an exotic pet such as a snake or a lizard, where we provide living prey and become voyeurs in a synthesized, contrived microcosm. The predatory nature of these autonomous entities raises questions about life and death, taking us out of the moral comfort zone regarding the mechanized taking of life. They compete with the spectacle of life seen in programmes such as Big Brother, Wife Swap or televised, edited and dramatised depictions of war. As consumers of these programmes, like those who keep vivariums, we have the potential to be repulsed, engaged or both, and as voyeurs might consider ourselves complicit.

Neuroscope

Elio Caccavale and David Muth, with Kevin Warwick, Ben J. Whalley, Slawomir J. Nasuto, Mark W. Hammond, Julia H. Downes, Dimitris Xydas, School of Pharmacy and Cybernetics, School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading

Neuroscope provides an interface for a user to interact with a culture of brain cells which are cared for in a distant laboratory. An interface allows the virtual cells to be “touched”, resulting in electrical signals sent to the actual neurons in the laboratory. The cells then respond with changes in activity that may result in the formation of new connections. The user experiences this visually in real time, enabling interaction between the user and cell culture as part of a closed loop of interaction. The project proposes a novel relationship between
the laboratory and the home, locating complex scientific processes within everyday life. In this context, a new generation of interactive devices such as Neuroscope emerge, which blur the boundaries between consumer products and biological systems.

Vital Signs

Tobie Kerridge, with Tony Cass, Olive Murphy and Nick Oliver, Institute of Biomedical, Imperial College London

The digital plaster incorporates miniature sensors into a skin worn patch, transmitting data about the body across a mobile phone network. The technology affords new biomedical services, potentially providing live monitoring for patients with chronic conditions, including diabetes and heart conditions. Vital Signs explores the influence of this technology on the child surveillance industry, where tracking and location services would be extended by incorporating live signals, indicating the temperature, respiration, pulse and orientation of the child’s body.
Situated within an industry which emphasises risk and provides an opportunity for uninterrupted surveillance,
Vital Signs shows how absent bodies are transformed as data and broadcast across networks to become persistently present.

We Live What We Eat

Susana Soares, with Thomas Kirkwood, João Passos, Dianne Ford and Luisa Wakeling, Newcastle University

Studies have demonstrated the benefits of caloric restriction on lifespan. Eating a nutritionally balanced diet, low in calories, is known to slow the biological ageing process in mammals, helping them to live longer and healthier lives. In humans, calorie restriction has been shown to lower cholesterol and blood pressure. Previous successful trials led recently to a study in humans, to better understand the effects of food restriction. Individuals have independently adopted the practice of calorie restriction in some form, hoping to achieve the expected benefits themselves. These approaches have led to debate within the scientific community about public perception and appropriation of scientific research. We Live What We Eat reinterprets these tensions through tableware and palate enhancing utensils to contrive new interactions at mealtimes, which affect our eating habits.

www.materialbeliefs.com

DAINIPPON TYPE ORGANIZATION Toypography- A Toy of Typography, 2006

It is the best tool to free your imagination and creativity. For Nowhere/Now/Here, Dainippon Type Organization has created brand-new character making wooden blocks that look like simple English character blocks at first. Just try to combine the parts! It transforms between the Japanese and the English characters of the same meaning. Of course, you can freely make unique shapes, or discover new combinations of characters. Play with characters, twist your brains, and enjoy a flash of inspiration.

http://dainippon.type.org/

EELKO MOORER The Jungle, 2007

The contemporary home has become a passive, consumptive and transient non-place filled with electronics. Moorer wanted to design a living environment that was more about the emotive and physical, and that would explore the values of discomfort, danger and play. In the form of designs that can be bought in toy-like sets, the jungle proposes a new interior space, literally and metaphorically. The home becomes a retreat from the outside world, a place to escape inward where the self can be reclaimed via the characteristics of interactive and performative play such as freedom, power and self-expression. Through added-value, environmental storytelling is infused into the design and so gives meaning and direction to the user’s experience. This pre-existing story provides structure to the experience and lets the user’s mind wander and imagine themselves as Tarzan, Jane, Liane The Jungle Goddess, King Kong, Kurtz…

www.eelkomoorer.com

FERNANDO BRIZIO

Painting with Giotto #01, 2005

Limestone earthenware bowls and jars, equipped with a small device that allows the felt-tips to touch the ceramic’s surface. Limestone-based-clays absorb liquids, so these particular ceramic pieces will suck in the felt-tip ink. The colouring process depends on the degree of porosity of the ceramic paste, its thickness, as well as the level of humidity and also the distribution of the pens through the surface of the pieces. 

Viagem, 2005

Fresh porcelain pieces such as bottles, pots and bowls are placed inside a jeep, which accelerates quickly. During the journey, the ceramic surfaces are deformed/formed, imprinting forces of the acceleration, braking, sharp curves and the road’s morphology. The resulting objects become a memory of the journey.

www.fernandobrizio.com

DUNNE & RABY Evidence Dolls, 2005

These specially adapted dolls offer insurance against future paternity disputes by acting as repositories for lovers’ DNA. Each doll is defined by penis size (S, M, L). The original versions were made from white plastic so that features could be noted using an indelible marker, but they now come in a variety of ethnic skin colours. Faces, sent using a 3G phone camera, are printed onto the doll after purchase at no extra cost. This surreptitious method of capturing a facial image is particularly effective following the awkwardness of intimacy between strangers. There are special hidden pouches in the doll for storing hair and sperm samples. The hair clipper ring makes hair sampling very easy, while used condoms are the best sperm collectors, although sometimes difficult to obtain. Many guides are available offering advice and tips on extraction and seduction techniques. There are numerous accessories including clothes, fashion accessories, hairstyles.

www.dunneandraby.co.uk

MANEL TORRES / FABRICAN LTD. Spray-on Fabric,  (2000)

Spray-on Fabric is an instant fabric dispensed from an aerosol or spray gun. It forms a non-woven material as soon as it comes into contact with a solid surface, including human skin. Spray-on Fabric was invented as the result of examining ways in which existing aerosol based products might be imaginatively reconfigured. The original inspiration was to create a new, seamless fabric for use in the fashion industry. As a practical product, Spray-on Fabric offers possibilities for binding, lining, repairing, layering, covering and moulding in ways previously unimaginable. Spray-on Fabric is being developed as a multi-functional product which is simple and easy to use. The possible applications are limited only by the imagination of the designer or wearer.

www.fabricanltd.com

ONKAR KULAR  Elvis was Here, 2008

The social manufacturing and reengineering of the Elvis Persona. Elvis was Here is an Elvis themed workshop hosted at primary schools throughout the UK with the purpose of addressing questions concerning the legal definition of impersonation and authenticity. The workshops are conducted with the eventual aim of breaking the world record for the “most Elvis impersonators in one location” (currently standing at 147), by training children up to a minimum standard of quality that would legally define them as “impersonators”. Working with legendary Elvis Tribute Artist Paul Richie, each class-based activity is designed around the structure of a year four primary school curriculum and the three basic acts of impersonation: Act-a-like, Look-a-like and Sound-a-like. The first Elvis was Here day took place at St Saviour’s Church of England primary school in Herne Hill (London) in June 2008.

www.onkarkular.com

GREGOR TIMLIN  Inflation Moulded Water Vessels, 2008

Gregor Timlin enjoys the idea of deliberately setting himself limitations when designing. For this project he has developed a process of inflation moulding which acts as that limitation. PVC bags are inflated and rotation moulded with polyurethane resin to create one-off rigid forms. These forms are then fitted with attachments to suggest function. Inflation Moulding lends itself to variation by virtue of the fact that each mould is both quick to produce and useless once the object has been created. Using this process control over how the object looks and functions is largely dictated by the limitations of the material. The objects thus take on a life that is as unique as the manor in which they are produced.

www.gregortimlin.com

JERSZY SEYMOUR New Order, 2007

Courtesy: Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein
New Order is part of a limited edition of an experimental and unique seating object that is part of the Vitra Edition 2007 project, but in the future it will also lead to an industrially produced chair. The name addresses a key notion in the philosophy of Seymour, his main strategy being the return to the zero degree of design, the primeval soup and beginning of everything, from where a new alphabet and language can be created that allows him to reconsider materials and shapes, the way the industry is affecting the value of things, and how all this fits in a social structure. New Order is a chair for the masses with the basic ergonomic movement of a high-class office chair. “It is the most efficient chair ever produced, and by default the chair that has succeeded,” says Seymour.
“It represents the pinnacle of an evolution. In some way it is totally devoid of design, but it also stands for and pre-empts a Zero Degree. It is the last of the old static chairs. The new dynamic chair that will push you back and forward was simply created by cutting the armrests of this plastic chair, and linking them with a bicycle elastic around the back, giving it the basic movement of an office chair.”

By Max Borka

www.jerszyseymour.com