tsitsi gora and ryan murphy made this ‘political prosthetic’ in futurecraft – a giant chinese finger trap made to transform handshakes into a touching experience. the elegant extension of shirtsleeves into this grasping cuff helps to make the perfunctory gesture mean something, for real.
Category Archives: soft/glowing
squishy robots
in the late 1990’s cynthia brezeal pioneered (wrote the book on) ‘sociable robots,’ based on her work with kismet. in reality, robotics was (and remains) far behind special effects houses and toy designers, who for years have been making expressive, emotive puppets specifically for engendering social bonds with animate machines. so it’s no surprise that […]
Also posted in evil robots, fabrication, livingbreathing, perception, product design
Comments closed
sloppy craft
maarten baas has issued a line of mass-produced furnishings based on sloppy clay designs. the industrial clay is hand-molded around a metal frame to reveal the craft behind the product. in exchange for seeing the artist’s hand in the work you can pay $2,000-$8,000 for these pieces.
Also posted in fabrication, futurecraft, materials, product design
Comments closed
xray vision
augmented reality describes the application of computer interfaces onto the real world, usually by overlaying objects with computer graphics either through projection or a head-mounted display. popularized by x-ray glasses, this idea has actually had few popular applications because it’s really hard to accurately map the real world with digital information. one of the most […]
Also posted in 2d, livingbreathing, open objects, visualization
Comments closed
virtual fit
louise guay, president and founder of my virtual model, presented her company’s avatar-based fashion shopping and social networking system tuesday at the moda+tecnologia gathering at the ICA. on-line shopping for clothes is notoriously unsatisfying, especially if you care about fit and detail. americans only buy 8% of their clothes on-line, as compared to 41% of […]
Also posted in blogogracy, conviviality, customization, fashion, futurecraft, marketing, open objects, product design, retail
Comments closed
interknit
netGranny is a revolutionary service where consumers directly commission grandmothers in switzerland to custom-knit socks for them. it has the spirit of transparency of programs like dole’s organic labels, with the mass customization you would expect from local experts, all the while supporting elderly people to make an independent income. this is something i’d like […]
Also posted in conviviality, customization, fabrication, futurecraft, marketing, open objects, product design
Comments closed
photovoltaic payback
with solar panels (once again) the craze, a lot of discussion goes into whether they are truly efficient and whether they do the environment any good. most solar cells require a lot of energy and materials to manufacture, and many do not produce much energy over the course of their lives. under optimal conditions (in […]
Also posted in energy, fabrication, futurecraft
Comments closed
edible cups
what’s better than composting dishes? eating them! amit zoran‘s coffee cups are made from baklava so you can eat them when you’re finished drinking the coffee. anna bullus‘ ‘one cup or two’ is made of sugar, so the coffee gets sweeter over time (some version have flavorings too). what if everything was edible? via
Also posted in futurecraft, materials, product design
Comments closed