Make Your Own Xmas

Each year, the Tate Britain selects an artist to create a Christmas tree for the gallery. Multimedia artists Bob and Roberta Smithcreated this years tree called ‘Make Your Own Xmas’. The tree is a spirited, thought-provoking response to the season of contemplation, celebration, and consumerism. Its overt humor and ramshackle aesthetic promote a variety of interpretations, evoking memories of hand-made Christmas decorations, as well as highlighting global concerns over energy production and waste. The artist aims to introduce an energetic, hands-on approach to art by getting the public actively involved in his work.

The wooden structure of the tree is made of recycled and reclaimed materials including sandwich board and an oil drum. Eight different bicycles are fixed in stands around the base, each holding a generator that is connected to a set of lights on the tree. Visitors are encouraged to help bring the tree to life by providing the pedal-power to illuminate the tree.

Measuring 36 feet, this year’s tree is the tallest in the program’s twenty-one year history. It will be on display in the Rotunda through January 4th.

Source PSFK

Faux Rockstar!

Source TrendhunterTV

Amsterdam PICNIC08 Trendmap

Trends are diverse and multidimensional. Trendonomy developed a solution to capture and display trend data using a dynamic map. For PICNIC08 Trendonomy conducted interviews with conference participants to find out about their trend ideas and to visualize their consolidated view on a map. View PICNIC trend map.

All contributed trends have been evaluated in respect to the forces (drivers) they are influenced by.

This evaluation helps to clearly position each trend on the map. Here we are sharing the outcome of the conducted interviews after 3 days PICNIC.

At a first glance it is conspicuous that the PICNIC Trend Map is dominated by trends on the technological hemisphere; only 20% are located at the societal hemisphere.

As the main theme of PICNIC’08 was Collaborative Creativity, it is probably no surprise that most trends were posted in the Trend Groups of CONNECTIVITY, INTERACTION and NEW MEDIA CONSUMPTION bearing a respectable isle.

Taking a closer look at this isle it is fascinating to see that CONNECTIVITY and its related trends seem to have an effect on the trends of NEW MEDIA CONSUMPTION and vice versa.

As the “chicken or the egg causality” it is hard to say what originally gave rise to the other – the technological enablement or the need and desire to get connected. However, the trends of the PICNIC Trend Map reflect a certain desire out there to share thoughts, ideas, pictures, films, music and creativity – new technology makes it happen.

The second biggest isle is determined by the Trend Group SUSTAINABILTY located at the societal hemisphere reflecting one of the most obvious tensions in today’s society. The trends appearing in this isle are all about responsibility, value orientation and “doing good”. A cool example is “carrotmob” (consumption as activism) were consumers are organized to make purchases that give financial rewards to those businesses who agree to make socially beneficial choices.

Thanks to the well informed PICNIC crowd all posted trends show news value and are described with meaningful up-to-date examples such as the “Adwall” (social computer interaction) you probably came across at the PICNIC or the “Meshes” a nice example for interactive art.

Source Amsterdam PICNIC08

IBM have released this video with their suggestions on 5 so-called amazing innovations we’ll see by 2013

It lacks imagination, progression and inspiration. With dodgy predictions the video feels like one of those 50s reels that presented what the future would look like. Or maybe it’s just me.

The wonder predictions (and PSFK’s reaction) are:

-Energy saving solar technology printed and stuck onto asphalt, paint and windows (and then it will peel off in the baking sun)
-A crystal ball to help you monitor health (Your doctor will still be referring you to a specialist just in case anyway)
- We will talk to the Web . . . and the Web will talk back (We refuse to comment on this. Stunned into silence.)
-We will have our own digital shopping assistants (What about all the assistants available right now?)
-Forgetting will become a distant memory via smart appliances in every area of the home and office (Sure. Just like we all use the To Do tool on MS Outlook)

Source IBM

YouTube to Create Global Orchestra Online

YouTube’s latest venture is a good example of new approaches to collaboration: an endeavor to engage musicians from all over the world and create the first global symphony orchestra in the process.  Although grand in scope, the concept’s success relies on individual participation. To that end, musicians of all types are asked to record themselves playing any classical selection of their choosing, along with a piece written specifically for this project by composer Tan Dun entitled “The Internet Symphony”.  All videos of the original composition will then be rolled into one collective performance to generate the global event. Contributors are given the opportunity to download sheet music and rehearse with a conductor online. As an added incentive, the best entrants (as voted on by the larger community) will be invited to a 3-day summit that culminates in a live concert held at Carnegie Hall. Submissions are being accepted through January 28.  Details and tutorials are available on YouTube’s microsite.

Source ReadWriteWeb

Kevin Kelly On Technology As The 7th Kingdom Of Life

There’s a video from the O’Reilly group where Joshua-Michele Ross interviews Kevin Kelly. Kelly discusses the rise of large scale co-operation and the similarity between technology and biology. A couple of quotes:

Socialism 2.0. We don’t have very good terms for what we’re seeing. Collectivism, communism, socialism which have negative connotations in American politics but in fact that’s what a lot of this is: Cooperation on a large scale. Elevating the common collective good and the individual at the same time. That’s the difference with communism which was about bring everyone down to a level.

…What does technology want? It wants us to be happy, it wants our co-operation. Right ow we’re the sexual organs of technology. It wants increasing diversity, increasing complexity, increasing energy density (efficiency), increasing specialization… The patterns that we see technology follows are the same patterns biology and evolution follows. In biology there is extinction, in technology we find that ideas and technologies remain and they are very hard to extinguish… There is almost no extinct technologies.

Source Radar O’Reilly & PSFK

Workshop: Good Ideas in 2009 in Collaboration

 This Tuesday 02/12/2008, PSFK took our Good Idea Salon, where a packed audience sat in on our panel discussion about collaboration. Moderated by Colin Nagy (Attention/PSFK), the panel discussed innovations in how businesses, organizations and ordinary people are working together.  The panel included Amit Gupta (Jelly/Photojojo), Andrew Hoppin (NASA), John Geraci (Outside.In/DIYCity), and Matthew Stinchcomb (Etsy).

Source PSFK