Next Meetup: Tony Noble – constructing the look of the future

Hi everyone, the first meetup of 2012 is set to be a fantastic start to the year!

Tony Noble, the production designer of the science fiction movie ‘Moon’ will talk about how he meticulously constructs the future, on film. He’ll give a look into the research and processes from the astounding monochromatic lunarscapes and cagey computer-personalities of Moon to his work on apocalyptic science fiction ‘The Devide’ to be released next month…

This man is a master.

The event will be held on January 31 at the Sense Loft 68/70 Wardour Street. If you would like to attend, please RSVP via our Meetup page. A huge thanks to Sense for sponsoring this event.

Stills from Moon

Tony art directed Gavin Hood’s RENDITION and was the UK concept artist for Robert De Niro’s THE GOOD SHEPHERD. More recently, Tony completed work in Canada for Xavier Gens’ post apocalyptic science fiction THE DIVIDE, which is getting great reviews stateside. Tony’s latest theatric release was the highly acclaimed and multiple award winning science fiction MOON, for which Reel Film Reviews andScreaming Blue Review referred to Tony’s production design respectively as “jaw dropping” and “perfect”.

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Design for the REAL World Victor Papanek Design Competition

DESIGN COMPETITION!!!!

Established and emerging designers are invited to submit innovative and radical examples of ecologically responsible and/or socially responsive designs that address everyday problems or social needs in the spirit of Victor Papanek’s philosophy. All varieties of product design may be submitted, including furniture, lighting, tools, appliances, transportation devices, or any other three-dimensional objects. Submitted designs must exist as tangible products, either as realized samples or as final prototypes. Designs must have been conceived within the last three years.

The winning entries will be featured in exhibitions held at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (November 10, 2011—January 31, 2012) and the Museum of Arts and Design and/or the Austrian Cultural Forum New York (March 6—June 17, 2012), depending on the number of finalists. There is a possibility that the exhibition will travel to other venues worldwide.

Submissions are solicited in the following categories:

Designed Objects realized or in final prototype stage which

  • significantly improve existing standards within their product group
    with the aim of achieving net zero environmental impact
  • offer social benefit to underserved segments of society or are driven
    by socially responsive considerations.

Social and/or Ecological Infrastructures and Design Concepts not yet fully realized or produced but in development which

  • address transdisciplinary design perspectives on urbanization, in areas such as
    housing, transportation, accessibility (inclusive design), communication, social and
    medical care, and the implications of national and international migration, etc.
  • offer paradigm-shifting solutions to bridge the lives of individuals and social
    networks by creating processes, systems and devices or combinations
    thereof that have the potential to transform social relations.

Important Dates

  • Submissions open on March 1, 2011
  • Deadline for submissions is June 1, 2011
  • Finalists will be notified on July 15, 2011
  • Winners will be announced on July 20, 2011

The competiton is being judge by a host of super clever design peeps including:

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Animal Architecture Awards

Animal Architecture seeks exciting projects that engage the lives, minds and behaviors of our alternate, sometimes familiar companion species — insects, birds, mammals, and fish – each one with unique ways of world-making. As our society re-examines its place in the global ecology Animal Architecture invites your critical and unpublished essays and projects to address how architecture can mediate and encourage multiple new ways of species learning and benefiting from each other – or as we say it here: to illustrate cospecies coshaping.

We believe that a greater understanding of biotic and ecological relationships can influence design, reshape our cities, and restructure our homes — benefiting the human and non-human animals that interact with and around them. The burgeoning field of Anthrozoology is quantifying the positive effects of actively engaging other animals in human life. More than just simply pets, how can this growing awareness of other species influence the way we shape the world?

Animal Architecture wants to hear your ideas. Animal Architecture (formed in 2009) is dedicated to providing a forum for addressing the myriad issues arising from the complex interactions between animals and human society. The lens of our focus is Architecture. The aim of our study is to again see ourselves as partners in an intimate and reciprocal relationship with larger (sometime smaller) ecological forces.

All creatures great and small. Submit your project to us. Submissions can include past work, current research and built or unbuilt projects.* Winning entries will be announced mid summer 2011 and will be eligible for inclusion in a publication and exhibition. Details to follow.

what: The Animal Architecture Awards
Register By: May 15th 2011
Deadline for submittals: June 12th 2011
cost: $25 Students, $50 Professionals

Submission requirements:
1) Project Abstract (<250 words pitching your project)
2) Project Description (< 600 word detailed description/narrative of the proposed project)
3) Images/Boards (no more than 10 images or 5mb, which ever comes first, of your visual project)
4) Further details regarding uploading, file transfer and submission will be disseminated after registration.
5) Posters available for distribution can be downloaded here (color and b/w).

*Projects cannot have appeared in previous publications and the entrant(s) must have exclusive rights to all content.

Jury Committee Members:

Neeraj Bhatia, Wortham Fellow Rice University
Ned Dodington, Founder Animal Architecture
Allison Hunter, Visual Artist
Joyce Hwang, Assistant Processor University of Buffalo SUNY, Director Ants of the Prairie
Sanford Kwinter, Professor of Architectural Theory and Criticism, Harvard GSD
Jon LaRocca, Founder Animal Architecture
Geoff Manaugh, Author of BLDGBLOG
Cary Wolfe, Professor of English at Rice University and Series Editor Posthumanities,

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Micronations Revolution – we want pictures!

Micronations Revolution

Previous speaker at AlterFutures6, Nelly Ben Hayon, has recently put together a ‘show’, with the London Bridge art collective Shunt, entitled Micronations Revolution. Over the weekend she along with many contributors, artists and co-organsiers put on a fascinating explosion of performances, experimental experiences, workshops and interactions to stimulate those in need of a ‘revolutionary party’.

As described so eloquently on the Studio Myers & David Benqué created Micronations Revolution website,

Shunt in association with Nelly Ben Hayoun, is opening it’s wrought iron doors and introducing four new worlds, four party systems, four micro-nations. Each new nation represents a site of adventure and play, for the audience to move through, explore and own. Yet, they are also potent instruments of propaganda, laboratories of new forms and vocabularies orchestrated by an unseen puppet master.

As James King described it via twitter yesterday, “Well, the general consensus is that Micronations Revolution is basically a party inside Nelly Ben Hayoun’s head. Awesome.”,  we are expecting some visually arresting footage and photos to be released soon, lets keep a look out!

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Postcards from the Future exhibit

Tower Bridge, River Thames, London

Wish You Were Here? Postcards From the Future is an interesting exhibiton that just finished in London last week but well worth blogging about.

The display of 14 arresting images on display at the Museum of London, part of the London Futures climate change exhibition, show familiar views of the capital digitally transformed by illustrators Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones that provoke the mind to imagine/envision/experience the impact global warming will/may/could have in the streets of London.

“The display brings home the full impact of global warming, food scarcity, rising sea levels and how all Londoners will need to innovate and adapt to survive. Examples of the striking images include Parliament Square put to work as a rice paddy, ice skating down the Thames, Buckingham Palace surrounded by a sea of shanty housing and the Gherkin occupied by thousands of eco-refugees highlight the shocking realities we could face.”

Certainly reminds me of the projects by Squint Opera in particular their Flooded London visuals. I wonder what these illustrators would see as a provocative reaction and how the Museum of London’s programme of events and exhibition have made an impact particularly in light of recent global events.

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New Meet Up Announced

After a prolonged hiatus AF are happy to announce the resumption of AlterFutures meetups! Hooray! On February 21st, we will have two closely related speakers for AF8:

Ilona Gaynor will be giving a work-in-progress talk about the world of high-finance, risk and her attempt to design a black swan. It is very likely that you have already seen the work of Andy Lockley, especially if you came with us to see Inception a few months ago for which Andy has just won a BAFTA for best Special Visual Effects.

We are thrilled that he is coming to join us before flying off to the OSCARs next weekend.

Ilona Gaynor – Everything Ends in Chaos
My research topic focuses on economics, finance and the management of risk from the perspective of insurance. I aim to explore the paradoxical nature of policy by examining and speculating on the ‘invisible’ negotiations and momentary instances that affect, compromise and twist policy for means of financial and / or political gain as well as it’s implications. Focusing mainly on the catastrophic, unpredictable events / situations (in reference to Black Swan theory) that occur and result in a make or break of the global financial system.

http://www.ilonagaynor.co.uk/
Andy Lockley – Constructing the Imaginary
After graduating from Bournemouth University with a MA in Digital Effects, Andy joined Mill Film. Following this, he joined Double Negative in 2001. Andy has worked as on such films as Cold Mountain, The Hours, Harry Potter, Children of Men and Batman Begins. Recent Projects include The Dark Knight, for which he was awarded a VES award for which the film received a Bafta nomination, Prince of Persia, and most recently he was the chief VFX supervisor on Christopher Nolan’s Inception, and has since been nominated for the VFX BAFTA and OSCAR. He is currently in production on Captain America: The First Avenger.

http://www.dneg.com/

Join the AlterFutures meetup if you are interested in coming along.

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eChromi Nominated for Designs of The Year

Scatalog: cheap, personalised disease monitoring utilising E.chromi

The eChromi Synthetic Biology project created by AlterFutures cofounders, James King and Daisy Ginsberg, in collaboration with Cambridge  University’s iGem team has been nominated for the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year award at the Design Museum, London.

As previously posted here on AF, the eChromi project was designed for the 2009 iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machines) competition hosted at MIT each year. The team created a kit of parts to facilitate the design and construction of biosensors, in doing so they developed the pigment-producing E. coli, hence the title of the project E. chromi. If a chemical change symptomatic of a disease is detected by the E.chromi they produce a different colour signal in the faeces.

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Thomas and his Toaster on TED

The awesome Thomas Thwaites, a previous speaker at Alterfutures 4 , was presenting his Toaster Project at the TEDSalon in London last November and can now be seen on the infamous TED website. It really portrays an enthusiastic Thomas at his best and although the comments from the TED website have gone a little off piste, I think what he manages to communicate in 10 minutes is genius and exactly what it is meant to do  - create discussion. And this project by the way is not about how well you can toast bread.

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Tactical Biodesign

As part of AND Festival in Manchester this year Professor Anthony Dunne, James Gilpin and Nelly Ben Hayoun will be taking part in a deabte around ‘Tactical Biodesign’.

From the site:

“The devices and propositions in Designed Disorder aspire to create debate around scientific developments in nano and biotechnology. This debate will highlight the speculative design processes whilst also challenging its role in society ? Do art and design perform different functions in an economy of new ideas and does this line blur in the context of biological artifacts?”

6th October 2010
CUBE, 113 – 115 Portland Street, Manchester, M1 6DW

14:30 – 17:00
FREE

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Membranes Surfaces Boundaries Exhibition

Friday, October 8, 2010, 6.30 pm

Aedes am Pfefferberg
Christinenstraße 18-19
10119 Berlin

This exhibition presents works by artist Heike Klussmann, architect Thorsten Klooster, designer/artist Susanna Hertrich and designer Clemens Winkler.

“In projects and experiments, these works demonstrate interactions between theoretical and material manifestations of membranes, surfaces, and boundaries, and their transitional stages between everyday objects, technology and aesthetic production. In collaboration of the workshop „Surfaces” hosted by Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Sciences.”

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