Category Archives: Cool stuff

Art, blogging, Cool stuff, Life, Living, Nature and Environment, People, Stories, writing

The Kreod Pavilion: Cool Stuff

8 Comments

Cool stuff – The KREOD

3D_Modes_01_by_Li_03_a33ed62e65

The Cool Stuff this week is a multi-functional exhibition space called Kreod Pavilion. Inspired by nature and organic in its form, this beautiful space was designed by London Architect Chun Qing Li.
Environmentally friendly the Kreod pavilion combines three 20 m² capsules in a variety of spatial configurations. The hexagonal structure is based on a simple recurrent joint connection detail as seen in Chun Qing Li’s sketches below.

Kreod_0001-AL_01_0604_P01_03_e0f3786651d

Architect: Chun Qing Li & Pavilion Architecture
Location: Greenwich Peninsula, GB-London SE10 0PE (until early 2013)

kreod_nacht_1_03

Kreod is a multi-functional pavilion – its three pods can be combined in a variety of configurations or installed as free-standing forms. It is portable and easily demountable. The wooden structure of KREOD is made of Kebony, a certified sustainable alternative to tropical hardwood. The product is dark, acquiring a silver-grey patina over time if left untreated.

Kreod_Pavilions_0015_Photo_by_Ed_Kingsfo_e2b5c67d97      KREOD_Launch_025_Photo_by_Ed_Kingsford_0_d8fdae62aa

The wood was impregnated with a liquid produced from crop biowaste. The treatment with furfuryl alcohol forms stable furan polymers, which are locked in the wood cell walls and increase the dimensional stability as well as durability and hardness of the wood, giving exceptionally good decay resistance and long life span was obtained after kebonization. This durability was achieved without the disadvantages of traditional impregnation methods using toxic chemicals.

See more here

Art, blogging, Cool stuff, Life, Living, Painting, Stories

The Beauty of Science and Art – Cool Stuff

15 Comments

Below is a self-explanatory video, my son Chris introduced me to. The Slow Mo Guys two often make some very interesting short films. I hope you enjoy the beauty of a few seconds of science and art in the clip called Droplet Collisions at 5000 fps.

Art, Cool stuff, Life, Living, People, Stories, writing

Re-cycling Toys – Cool Stuff

3 Comments

Giving old and broken toys a new life in art and colours.

toy-car-art-2
Car Atlas – above and below, created by David T. Waller.

toy-car-art-1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This installation – our cool stuff for this week was created by David T. Waller using 2,500 Matchbox cars on a room floor. It goes to show that not all broken and used toys end up in landfills and rubbish dumps. 4994536714_876bd93d5e_z The UK-based artist arranged the toy cars in a giant circular rainbow pattern to create the Car Atlas installation. David’s work was displayed at Artsdepot’s Apthorp Gallery where visitors voted it their favorite art piece. If you visit David’s website, you would be surprised by the contrast between this artwork and his typical creation. Go to David’s gallery by clicking here – David T. Waller

 

Art, Cool stuff, Life, Living, Painting, People, Stories

Johnny Colours Miami Streets – Cool Stuff

2 Comments

streetartrobles03    streetartrobles02

Johnny Robles an artist, creates cool street art in the streets of Miami. With a mixture of cartoon and pop style drawings and graffiti techniques, he gives color to the streets. Residents say they love it..and so do I.

Featured here at work where some of his cool stuff happens.

streetartrobles04     streetartrobles05

Read more: 

blogging, Cool stuff, Life, Living, People, Stories, writing

Hearing With Your Tongue? Sounds Weird?

8 Comments

If the blind can read with their fingers, with braille, scientists say they can also teach the deaf to hear with their tongues.

Tongue Mapping Research at Colorado State University has found that a new device works similarly to a cochlear implant, but where an implant sends electric impulses to the auditory nerve where the brain recognizes these impulses as useful information, CSU’s device sends these impulses to a mouthpiece packed with electrodes via Bluetooth. By pressing their tongue against the mouthpiece, users can feel impulses as tingling or vibration. Researchers hope that with training the brain will be able interpret specific patterns as words, effectively turning a tongue into ears.

Medical Daily Pulse

 

Art, blogging, Cool stuff, Life, Living, My Art, Nature and Environment, People, writing

A Creative Genius That Lives With Me

8 Comments

IMG_8630
Chris Harris Picture. Bee. May 25, 2015

A little creative genius lives with me and is sometimes called my younger son, Chris. He is over one 190 cm tall so he is not that little, but this 16-year-old always comes up with amazing ideas. One of his discoveries was how to magnify or shoot micro pictures with his iPhone using a recycled attachment from an old torch. Here are a couple of images Chris was excited to share with me for their artistic value – he deliberately softened the lines. 

IMG_9120
Chris Harris Picture. Bee. May 25, 2015

When I asked him what camera he had used to take the pictures, he showed me his phone and explained, he took apart an old torch and stuck a glass lens from the old torch on his iPhone camera lens to take the super micro images. I was so excited, we went everywhere in the garden to take more pictures from deep inside centre of petals to the eye-balls of family members so we could see the colour spectrums. It is quite incredible. The bee pictures are two of Chris’s images.

 

Art, blogging, Cool stuff

Food In Cubism – Literally

7 Comments

LS-Fruit.0

The Cool Stuff for this week is art we find in food. In this creation is a collection of food cubes presented by Lernet & Sander. It is one way to look at food in a totally new light, at least for me.

The foods we eat come in all shapes and sizes, but something beautiful happens if you cut it all down to size — literally. Design studio Lernert & Sander did just that to make the remarkable piece of art above, which was commissioned by Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant last year for a feature on the nation’s eating habits.

I have seen food presented in many artistic ways, but not like.

The very act of cutting each food from corn and salmon to cauliflower and kiwi into 2.5 centimeter cubes shows just how unique nature can be. By attempting to force nature to conform, the differences between each fruit, vegetable, and slab of meat becomes even more apparent (and beautiful).

See more here

Art, blogging, Cool stuff, Stories, Women, writing

Creating the Extraordinary – Cool Stuff

5 Comments

kristi-1-600x450-scaled1000
Swarm (detail) 2005/7 6000 color copies of butterflies on transparency material Dimensions variable

Making ordinary things become extra-ordinary is what artist Kristi Malakoff lives for.

Malakoff is a Canadian visual artist who has returned to Canada after time spent living abroad, most recently in Moscow, Russia, where she participated in a 2-month residency at Proekt Fabrika in the spring of 2010, and previously in Berlin, Germany, Reykjavík, Iceland and London, England where she attended the Chelsea College of Art and Design.

I particularly like her “swarmed” series. Visit her website to see more of her work. In the work displayed here, she used 6000 pictures of butterflies to create a vast swarm of butterflies.

kristi-2-600x399-scaled1000
Swarm 2005/7 6000 color copies of butterflies on transparency material Dimensions variable

 

Art, blogging, Cool stuff, Life, Living, My Art, People, Stories

Cool Stuff: Living Grass Art

12 Comments

23_mathilde_roussel_240879_01
25.08.79 #2, 2010, soil, wheat seeds, recycled metal, fabric, 110 x 90 x 40 cm. Exhibited at The Invisible Dog Art Center, NY.

Mathilde Roussel is a French artist. Based in Paris, Roussel works in various materials for her sculptures but one of her most remembered work is the Living Grass. This collection shows the transformation of soil wheat and seeds, fabric and recycled material to show the effects of transformation of material as a metaphor of the human body. After installation, the figures transform over the period of exhibition showing. Time sculpts the forms, makes them change and then decay.

For more of the grass sculptures. The artist’s statement can be read here

23_mathilde_roussel_240879_03
25.08.79 #1 and #2, 2010, soil, wheat seeds, recycled metal, fabric, 170 x 150 x 60 cm and 110 x 90 x 40 cm. Exhibited at The Invisible Dog Art Center, NY.

25

Mathilde Roussel

Art, Cool stuff, TRIBALMYSTIC BLOG

A Creative Genius

7 Comments

For Cool Stuff I want to introduce Jimmy Diresta, one of my son Christopher’s favourite contemporary artist and craftsman. Being a craftsman himself, Chris follows Jimmy’s work and admires some of the unique objects and art pieces that Jimmy has re-created from ordinary things he found in junk and re-cycled yards. One such beautiful creation is Jimmy’s collection of guitars he has crafted.

Jimmy_DiResta_guitar7
A Jimmy DiResta guitar

As Jimmy tells it, “I have been using tools and making things for over 40 years. And teaching for over 20. I started learning how to make things while working with my dad in his wood shop. He put me in the environment to keep experimenting and learning. Through out my school years every job I had pertained to making things: carpentry, sign making, florist and props. I went to School of Visual Arts in NYC to earn my BFA where I have been teaching since 94’. Over the last 20 years I have been designing and fabricating many things including guitars, toys, furniture, clothes and more.” See more on Video Wood Workers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLmKrXjTwIo#t=49