lifeiscarbon®

We Are A Movement

This weekend sees the opening of a new exhibition by the interesting young Norwegian artist Bård Ask at the Fimbul Galleri in Oslo.

Bård Ask works mainly with video in large-scale installations. His video work, Notio Viri Placet, which has gained a lot of critical attention, is very representative of his work. It features an unhurried video composite of 12 choristers who stand in various degrees of nervousness in front of a simulation of stars in motion before suddenly bursting into gorgeous polyphony. The work plays on the dichotomy between the still and moving image, between the group and individual, and the longing for harmony and perfection.

Swedish Special K

Our friends at Refinery 29 have written a great article on a good looking new boot from Swedish designer Filippa K. Since we now know what we’ll be wearing to brave the snows of the Scandinavian winter, we thought we’d share their fashion tip with you.

“His perfect boot. Something not too combat, not too stuffy. Exactly the right balance between urban and classic with just a bit of biker thrown in for good measure. According to most discerning, well-dressed guys, finding that perfect pair of boots is right up there with scoring the ultimate time-piece—something that stands the test of time, but won't break the bank. Such wardrobe essentials undoubtedly make the man, and for those who are trying to prove their worth, Swedish designer Filippa K has the answer. Meet her ankle-high Laced Boot.”

Eat, Sleep, Work And Play

Did we mention that we love black? Have you guessed that we love t-shirts? Imagine our delight therefore, at being able to combine our two loves in one when we recently discovered the Friends Eat Together range of tees from The Unit Delta Plus™.

Friends Eat Together t-shirts show a passion for typography and an attention to detail similar to some of the best Japanese t-shirts, so it’s no surprise to find out that the designs are turning up as bootleg copies in Tokyo. High praise indeed given that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The Unit Delta Plus™ is just one of the numerous projects of the Norwegian graphic designer and illustrator, Martin Kvamme who earlier this year was invited to design the new Twin range of snowboards for Burton in collaboration with Jager Di Paola Kemp Design.

Next Trends

lifeiscarbon® will be in Copenhagen this coming weekend to visit the Nordic Exceptional Trendshop exhibition and NEXT2006: Slipstream Makers conference. We’re hoping to spend two days getting our hands on some of the latest innovative products and technologies that might end up changing our world. The exhibition and conference are organized by Innovation Lab who are a sort of Nordic observation post for technologies of the future.

Turns out that our friend Kevin Slavin will be one of the many interesting speakers at the conference. Kevin is Managing Director and Co-Founder of area/code and one of the inventors of Big Games, which are large-scale, real-world games that can involve transforming an entire city into the world's largest board game with hundreds of players scouring the streets looking for invisible treasure, or a TV show reaching out to interact with real-time audiences.

Here are some of the innovations that will be on display at the exhibition that caught our attention:

Art Advent Calendar

Photo by Aia Thorup

You may remember that we wrote about the Cityborderlands exhibition, organized by SHOK, that is currently touring Scandinavia. In December, two of the artists featured in the exhibition, Kirstine Autzen and Aia Thorup will be editing Minimalportal, a Danish online art magazine.

Kirstine Autzen and Aia Thorup have collaborated together on a number of projects under the name of Autzenthorup. Kirstine contacted lifeiscarbon® to tell us; “Aia Thorup and myself will be editing the site and we’ve found a lot of cool stuff for the advent calendar - new stuff everyday until Christmas.”

It’s a great site for surfing through contemporary Danish art and in amongst the artist portfolios you’ll even find some work from one our contributors, Birgitte Lund. We’ll be showcasing some of Birgitte’s recent work in the coming weeks.

Minimalportal

Autzenthorup

Pecha Kucha Gothenburg

Our congratulations go out to Jesper Larsson of the Swedish design company, Next Century Modern, for establishing Pecha Kucha in Gothenburg. The first Pecha Kucha Night in Gothenburg takes place on Wednesday 6th December at Nefertiti.

Pecha Kucha, devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. (Admittedly, it was also a way to get more people to visit SuperDeluxe - Klein Dytham's then newly opened multimedia event space in Tokyo).

The key to Pecha Kucha nights is its patented system for avoiding overly lengthy or boring presentations. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each - giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This ensures that presentations are concise, keeps interest levels up, and gives more people the chance to present.

True Blue Collective

Our friend Yngve recently introduced us to another great band from Denmark and they’ve gone to the top of the carbonsounds™ playlist. Blue Foundation is a six person multicultural music collective with members from Denmark, Japan and England.

Warm and reflective, melancholy yet life-affirming, their last album Sweep of Days, with its mix of jazz, catchy melodies, bass, scratch and static, is testament to the diverse musical inspiration and experience of the Blue Foundation. Take a listen to an mp3 of As I Moved On from Sweep Of Days.

God Of Small Things

"DesignTorget is a commercial market place for unique design, for people who value style, function and innovation".

This is a simple way to summarize the business idea behind one of our favorite Swedish stores. DesignTorget sell a selection of articles for everyday use, from either established or unknown designers. The articles are sold for a limited time only in their seven stores in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö.

What lifeiscarbon® especially likes about DesignTorget, beyond their eclectic product selection, is the close contact they have with their designers. A committee or jury meets every week to select which products, from the many submissions they’ve received from designers, will be sold at DesignTorget.

Access Without Ownership

ClearChannel may be in the business of selling advertising space but they also “want to participate in making the public environment more comfortable and functional” and are beginning to combine advertising space with utility.

ClearChannel now provide cleverly designed street furniture that adds value to the urban space as well as providing a marketing platform. We happen to know that ClearChannel put value on design thinking to inform their strategy because they’ve worked with our friends Frost Produkt to create their bespoke bicycle service system.

So far, Citybike schemes have been set up in Oslo, Bergen, Drammen and Trondheim in Norway, and Stockholm and Gothenburg in Sweden but plans exist for several more European cities. As a consequence, bike service systems have become the latest branded utility.

Great Wall of Sweden

Here at lifeiscarbon® we’re finding it hard to keep up with the interesting designs that are being created by the various research groups at the Interactive Institute.

This time it’s the turn of the Sonic Studio, based in Piteå, Sweden, who have come up with the DigiWall. It may look like a traditional climbing-wall but is actually a computer game you climb on.

Every climbing-hold is equipped with a sensor that registers hands and feet. In this way Digiwall can keep track of precisely where on the wall each of the climbers are. The basic idea has huge potential and opens up limitless possibilities for games, exercises and competitions of all kinds.

Beauty Changes Behavior

Every year, Time Magazine collects some of the best inventions from all over the world. This year, the Flower Lamp from Sweden's Interactive Institute's design research project STATIC!, is one of the nominees.

The Flower Lamp is one of 11 designs in which a research team have explored how design can encourage people to use less energy in their home. The Flower Lamp is actually a display for ones electricity consumption. It doesn’t show how many watts you’re consuming right now, but rather the overall trend in your consumption. If the household has a decreasing trend of electricity use, the Flower lamp rewards you by slowly opening up to "bloom". If, on the other hand, use is increasing, the lamp folds its petals together. Thus the lamp, in terms of both light and form, is reflecting the cycles of local energy use in a subtle and poetic way that makes smaller sacrifices of heat and warm water, worthwhile. In order to make the lamp more beautiful, a change of behavior is needed.

Nonnabud Is Dead, Long Live Liborius.

“He who fears death cannot enjoy life”

A slogan with a very personal meaning for Jón Sæmundur Audarson and one that has served him well. The Icelandic native is an artist and, until recently, the proprietor of Nonnabúd a boutique/gallery in downtown Reykjavík.

In September, Jòn Sæundur opened Liborius (named after his grandmother’s Prussian family name), a new boutique in Reykjavik that carries brands like Ann Demeulemeester, Undercover, Jeremy Scott, 3asFour, Number (N)ine, Surface2air, and Pleasure Principle.

Jón Sæmundur, a graduate from Iceland Academy of Arts and Glasgow School of Art, has been active in the Icelandic art scene ever since he graduated in 2001. His art consists mostly of sculptures, paintings and video works, which he sometimes combines into larger installations.

Designer Cottage

Many city dwellers face a similar dilemma. On warm days they yearn for a place to enjoy the sun, but their apartment doesn't have a balcony or access to a garden. The solution for some Scandinavians is to lease a nearby allotment plot that's just large enough to accommodate a tiny cottage. Young Norwegian architect, Tommie Wilhelmsen (30) did just this, but with a radically modern solution.

Based on Wilhelmsen´s own design and built with his own hands (with help from his father), the resulting tiny summerhouse and surrounding garden are perfect for enjoying the long evenings of the Scandinavian summer or for a quicker visit with a bottle of wine and a good book.

In Ingvar We Trust

Flickr photo originally posted by OiMax.

Der Spiegel reports that Swedes trust IKEA more than they do the Church.  This makes Ingvar Kamprad bigger than Jesus.  (He actually may be trying to be as spendthrift as Christ, even with his immense wealth.)

Getting beyond the comparisons with things holy, 80% of the country believes in IKEA, and it has already expanded into 33 countries.  Love or hate what IKEA has done to our homes, it certainly has kept true to the design movement's promise of more efficiently made (and thus less expensive) home furnishings.

New Mew

There’s just enough time before the weekend for lifeiscarbon® to introduce you to Mew, another great band from Scandinavia, and to leave you with an mp3 of The Zookeeper’s Boy from their most recent album And The Glass Handed Kites.

Mew are an indie rock band from Denmark who quickly became a huge success in their homeland when they emerged on the scene in 2003. At the Danish Music Critics Award Show of that year, Mew were awarded prizes for both "Album of the Year" and "Band of the Year".