H+…A House with Benefits

Bioscleave House

Want to live longer, maybe even forever? Artists, poets, and architects Arakawa and Madeline Gins along with their Transhumanist colleagues believe a rough and challenging terrain inside the home is key to making this possible. According to their philosophy, living in a colorful and mountainous home like the Bioscleave House (aka Lifespan Expanding Villa) in East Hampton, NY, disturbs inhabitants’ equilibriums enough to power their immune systems and fight the effects of aging (aka death).

Hybrid Life

A couple weeks ago my boyfriend’s Land Rover limped its way back to Cincinnati, casting serious solemnity over his car-driving soul. It was time to buy a new car, but what could possibly replace the English-made manliness of a hunter green 2001 Land Rover Discovery II? A BMW or Lexus SUV? A Saab station wagon?

What’s this? Cash for Clunkers? Okay – maybe it’s time to consider an American automobile. So, we’re off to the Ford dealership to check out the models! With an average of 14 miles to the gallon, the Land Rover definitely qualifies for the highest rebate.

George Washington: Designer

Sixteen-Sided Barn @ Mount Vernon, replica completed in 1996

We all know General George Washington as the first President of the United States and the first Commander-in-Chief. Some might even know of his interests in agriculture. But who knew he was a designer?

Last Sunday afternoon I visited the Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens along the Potomac, outside of Washington, DC and it was more impressive from a design standpoint than I expected. And for me the mansion wasn’t the high point; rather it was the Sixteen-Sided barn.

Recession Aesthetics

Thanks to the tanking world economy, this year I suddenly found myself confronted by a perfect storm right in my very own kitchen: I needed to obtain the vast quantities of calories required by a ravenous teenager and his younger brother without having to declare bankruptcy. The blissful era of strolling around the local food co-op with a petite handheld basket containing a single grass-fed steak at $26 and a recycled-paperboard pint of $5.99 organic raspberries was over. And so it came to pass that in January I bravely pushed a doublewide chrome shopping cart into the land of excess that is Costco. I quickly realized that shopping there isn’t just about food, the experience is an education in the subtleties of how the graphic design of brands sells products to their intended audiences.

Separated at Birth?

Jerry Lewis (left) made an appearance at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday to announce his role in the coming film “Max Rose.” In other news, a retrospective of painter Francis Bacon’s work will be opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 20. Does his canvas Study after Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, (detail, right) remind you of anyone? I thought so. But what does it mean?

Lewis photo copyright Joel Ryan/Associated Press via New York Times.

BKLYNSnooze

I attended BKLYNDesigns this past weekend, a show of design homegrown in our very own borough of Kings, with every expectation of seeing amazing new ideas and products. What did I find? Lots of eager but forgettable projects proudly advertising their sustainability, the buzzword of unimaginative designers who should just assume that sustainability is now a given and find something else to talk about, and a ton of wallpaper. The wallpapers, especially the selections from Grow House Grow (shown, Captain Smith) were very cool for the most part, but I dunno how long I’d be interested in living with a sea of giant squid and jellyfish. They work better as art. Maybe that’s the point?

OBJECTS IN COLOR: Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Bleu, Bialy, + Rouge

Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Trois Couleurs trilogy is not only his cinematographic tour de force, but is also a collection of well-choreographed objects. The mélange of objects that star in the film build bridges of memory through color and shape and place. Because of the blur of blue, white, and red that appear throughout, this essay employs a series of circular charts derived from the cataloguing of all of the objects that appear in the films.

Album Art: Life in Digital Tinyland

It’s 1975 and my thirteen year old peer group has just had an earth-shattering realization. After staring at the elaborately illustrated cover of Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy for most of an afternoon, pondering the question: could Elton John be gay? (news flash!) we decided en masse: of course he was! He was gay WITH Bernie Taupin! Obviously he couldn’t simply be gay on his own, and we felt very sophisticated for figuring all of this out just from studying the artwork. Worshiping the record jacket was a crucial part of the experience of listening to LPs. Album covers and liner note designs contained rich fields of information to be harvested, inviting listeners to spend hours happily searching the images to decode their meaning. Today, the visualization of music has dwindled to the size of a tiny icon in the era of the downloadable MP3. As the artwork’s dimensions shrank, becoming more like a postage stamp than a poster, its role and importance faded. Let’s face it: does anyone download songs today because they fall in love with the 240-square pixel cover on a computer screen? Very doubtful.

Around Again

Rodney Allen Trice creates witty items for the home from discarded objects he finds at the curb and in dumpsters. Trice doesn’t see what he does as recycling, preferring to use the term refitting instead. His Brooklyn studio resembles a parking lot for things awaiting their next chance at a new life.

The People’s Car: Nano from Tata

Learn from this, Big Three! These funny, non-offensive, and already familiar four-letter words describe the new eco-car. In this case eco- stands for economy as well as ecology, as this car costs only $2,200 and gets 47 miles to the gallon. A perfect fit for the budget and the climate. Just keep in mind, with a 2-cylinder engine, the Nano from India reaches a top speed of 65 mph. No drag racing here, just affordability and responsibility. I wonder if any of these principles will find their way into the Land Rover line that was sold by Ford to Tata in 2007.

via Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing