Embracing Technology

This is the final week of Embracing Technology, a show of innovative craft curated by Angela O'Kelly. If you're near Kilkenny, you can see it in the gallery of the Crafts Council of Ireland. Jenny Leary and Jo Angell, of Puff&Flock, have both installed work there.

Jo's Solar Sanctuary plays with the natural light flowing into the gallery:
Jenny covered a doorway with her interactive Magnetic Walls:
Another highlight of the show is the work by Tactility Factory. They have developed a unique method of intertwining concrete and velvet, which you can see in floor-to-ceiling panels. The women at Tactility Factory are working to integrate architecture and textiles:
Jill Phillips expresses politically-charged memories in the form of laser-etched images in her upholstery for bus benches:
Rachel Kelly shows how digital printing onto adhesive has advanced with her Interactive Wallpaper:
Links:
http://www.tactilityfactory.com/
http://www.interactivewallpaper.co.uk/
http://www.jill-phillips.com/
http://www.ccoi.ie/
http://www.angelaokelly.com/

Kilkenny installation: Day 2

After a morning of hammering and peeling at the National Craft Gallery, the Embracing Technologies exhibition is nearly ready to open. Curator Angela O'Kelley constructed the theme around makers who use new technologies. It's an engaging showcase of work that demonstrates the aesthetic potential of processes such as waterjet cutting, rapid prototyping, and digital printing. The work represents a wide range of disciplines - jewellery, furniture, ceramics and textiles are all included.

I'll post more images in the next couple of days, with work by Tactility Factory and CJ O'Neill among others, but for now, some installation shots:

The creative mind behind Interactive Wallpaper, Rachel Kelly, carefully applying a large-scale wall sticker to the main window. Looks great with the light and I'll post more finished pictures soon!


Jo Angell's Solar Sanctuary is very magical with light cast from the outside window illuminating the modules.


The inspiring scenery from the Kilkenny Castle gardens - a short walk from the gallery.

My Ferrofabric Magnetic Walls installed in a doorframe. Thanks to Angela, John and the gallery team for helping.

http://www.kilkennyarts.ie/events/details/embracing-technology/

Create Conference 2010: Transitions theme

The CREATE conference is all about creating innovative interactions, whether digital consumer products, interactive services or interaction paradigms. The event is an opportunity to share and discuss the design opportunities and dilemmas that are currently being addressed by practitioners and researchers from the commercial, public and academic sectors.As well as presentation of academic research and student work, the event will provide real learning opportunities through hands-on workshops, case studies and demonstrations. We also welcome theoretical and research perspectives on the process of design innovation and approaches to creativity in HCI; how human factors can be integrated within a creative design process, methods that encourage creativity in interaction design, and the challenges of working in multi-disciplinary teams.

CREATE is jointly organised by the Human-Computer Interaction Specialist Group of the Ergonomics Society, the British Computing Society's Interaction Specialist Group and Edinburgh Napier University’s Centre for Interaction Design.

Call for Full papers, workshops, short presentations, demonstrations and exhibits
THEME :Transitions

Analogue / Digital
Academic / Practice
Place / Time
Real /Virtual

We are seeking original, unpublished work under the following categories
- High quality academic papers for peer review (max 6 pages)
- Practical workshops
- Short papers and/or case studies from practitioners within the field< - Short presentations and/or posters from students - demonstrations and/or videos of installation-based exhibits or creative work in progress

Deadline
1 page abstracts for papers: 15th March 2010
2 page proposals for all other submissions: 15th March 2010

Notification of acceptance: Early April 2010
Full paper submission : End of April 2010

Contact Ingi Helgason: i.helgason@napier.ac.uk

More details

Interactive future in Berlin on the 7th of december

For our German friends, this sounds like an interesting evening debate about intelligent architecture and spaces:

What impact have new (communication) technologies on the architecture? Often falling into related keywords such as "interactive spaces" or "intelligent architectures, what exactly does "interactive" mean? This is the conversation that the Academy of the Arts wants to bring around the three following speakers:
(1) Joachim Sauter is co-founder of ART + COM, design office for New Media. ART + COM translatea complex issues staged by means of interactive media in the space and makes them more tangible, for example in the form of exhibitions, art installations and stage sets.
(2) The London textile designer Carole Collet explores how new technologies can be integrated into textiles to create poetic and atmospheric spaces.
(3) Wilfried Kuehn pursues a very different approach. His (exhibition) architectures are not influenced by media productions, but by clear geometries, physicality and a deliberately structured sequence space.

The evening is a collaboration between the Academy of Arts and the young architecture platform, "Plan A". The new publication of "Plan A", "Sensing Space - Technology for architectures of the future" (June '09 / jovis Verlag) is dedicated to the potentials of new technology as an integral, formative forming part of architecture and provides, among other things the work of Carole Collet.

Details
Monday 07.12.2009
19.30 Uhr
Akademie der Künste
Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin-Mitte
030 – 200 57-1000 / info@adk.de
www.adk.de

Puff and Flock mid Summer crit

Because we try to be serious and because we often get stuck on our own stuff, there is nothing like meeting and use fresh eyes. Man, we really needed that one !
Thank you Kathy for hosting (and feeding, or that wouldn't be a proper Puff & Flock meeting)

Elisabeth and I with our Godzilla looking inflatable test... no comment

Jenny's fascinating magnetic mutations

Melissa's metal lace WIP (warrior princess style)

Kathy is going UV and EVIL (apparently)

Puff & Flocking NYC (finally !)

Yo

Here are the visuals for the breaking news... we are so so busy (being on a break? working some more? visiting the family? witnessing weddings? if only you knew !)
FABULOUS SHOW and being in New York, obviously awesome.




Puff & Flock sponsored (we wish) by samsung mobile






saaaaaaammmmples !!!


Elisabeth's shower curtain "Spiky" is our star, check this "starfish" kid out :)


Jenny, intrigued, and intrigued the crowd with her magnetic wall coverings


Kathy's cosy woven light corner


Melissa's street corner, Urban Upholstery



The Cookie Wardrobe and Mess Eater Wallpaper,
I met the people from Kidrobot <3 wooooooooooh



Our cool neighbours, "Dead Good", at the end of the show :)
Summarizes well the physical state on tuesday night.

THANK YOU FOR COMING !
The fact some people knew us there already was a BIT scary but hey isn't it why we are doing it for?

LOVE, >Amelie + Puff + Flock

Plushie : An Interactive Design System for Plush Toys

Yuki Mori and Takeo Igarashi

Amelie is back out there with her obsession with toys and cute things, somehow related to the very serious matter of the future of textiles... SPOTTED : the future of crafted toys and one of its experimental lab in Japan... My future next big trip :)

Thanks to this experimental programme, the user can interactively designs a stuffed animal's model by sketching. The system automatically generates the corresponding 2D cloth pattern you have to use to make a 3D stitched shape to stuff.

This is soooo coooool !!!

Although for now it only works on PC (tsssss...)

This is a PhD research project by Yuki Igarashi
at Fine Digital Engineering Laboratory
Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST)
Graduate School of Engineering
The University of Tokyo
click on the video for a short demonstration of how this works

The Basics

The Artist's Toolkit is an educational resource for primary school art classes. While it is meant for kids who are just starting out, those of us who have been at it awhile might still enjoy going back to the basics. It always helps to clarify what a pattern is. I think we at Puff and Flock haven't stopped questioning that EVER!

Click on the image to find out about symmetry, or go here to explore how more concepts are defined in the toolkit.

Test your colour IQ

Perfect thing to do on a rainy Sunday found while browsing the Core 77 design blog.