While visiting the picturesque city of Tainan (Taiwan) I was lucky to see the so-called Tainan Treehouse, a monument made from the ruins of the island’s first Dutch colonial trading port. What looks like a 17th Century warehouse has been completely overgrown with the island’s lush tropical vegetation, sinuous tree roots marrying themselves to the […]
Author Archives: leo
ice cream lottery
As part of the nightmarket.web workshop here in Tainan, Team_less revealed the existence of a novel fast food distribution system: the ice cream lottery, a roulette wheel that randomizes the flavor you will savor. awesome.
Posted in food
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digital sweat
I recently watched Stephanie Rothenberg speak about her project doublehappinessjeans, a Second Life sweatshop that produces designer denim by the underpaid labor of virtual avatars; producing the goods in both physical and digital form. The idea makes an intriguing point about the ideal of Personal Fabrication: that one day manufacturing of complex products will be […]
Posted in fabrication, fashion, futurecraft, marketing, possessed products, product design, soft/glowing
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black tin 2
Tin Mining In Bangka Island – Click here for this week’s top video clips I’ve talked about the devastation that illegal tin mining has wrought on the island of Bangka (Indonesia), and while preparing my talk for the Nightmarket 2008 workshop I came across this video which gives us a glimpse into the squalid conditions […]
Posted in conviviality, environment, fabrication, materials, supply chain
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monolithic shoes
I couldn’t resist these Puma Injex shoes injection molded in one piece from non-PVC (presumably Polyurethane) foam rubber: they’re light and cushy and they appear to waste less material than typical shoes. In reality these are just attractive crocs, and they made me wonder whether they represent any benefit over traditional sneakers. They weigh about […]
Posted in energy, fabrication, fashion, product design, soft/glowing
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DIY vase
Enzo Mari’s Ecolo’ vase kit is a gift and a method: it contains four household plastic containers artfully cut up into flower vases, and it prompts you to do the same with all of the other plastic containers you might throw out.
Posted in fabrication, free & open, open objects, upcycling
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sound cards
Got some musical greeting cards from Hallmark – funny on the outside (above) and very pretty on the inside (below), no?
Posted in product design
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nazi vegetarians
Gus introduced me to the eloquent carnivore’s magazine ‘meatpaper,’ where in the latest issue Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft writes about the vegetarian tendencies of the third reich: apparently Hitler was a vegetarian, and together with the leaders of the Nazi party they promoted the vegetarian diet – but for totally different motives than today’s vegheads: vegetarianism […]
Posted in food, futurecraft, livingbreathing
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