Opera Calling

 
 
         Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss
             Telephone Call - Sunday, 25th of March 2007, 16:28:52

«OPERA CALLING» is an artistic intervention into the cultural system of the Zurich Opera. By means of a audio-bug placed within the auditorium of the local opera house, the outside public is given access to the performances on stage. The performances are retransmitted to the public not through broadcasting, but by telephoning each person in Zurich individually.
«OPERA CALLING» is the first of three parts of a six-month-long exhibition at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich called «appropriate – manipulate – feed back!». It stands for the «appropriate»-part so to speak. It’s main aim is to explore the usefulness of  as an artistic strategy of redirection and criticism.
«Opera Calling» is a project by !MEDIENGRUPPE BITNIK and SVEN KÖNIG

I absolutely LOVE this. More information - http://www.opera-calling.com/about

Seen on a sunny Saturday afternoon in May

I was supposed to be making the bed...

nostalgia

Harnessing wind energy

Flash Anzan

I found out about this after seeing at talk at the RSA called Adventures in Numberland by author and journalist Alex Bellos.

Similar to the 'spelling bee' in America, in Japan kids learn to add numbers really quickly using the anzan method. They do this not by actually adding the numbers but by visualising an abacus in their head and then mentally adjusting it as the numbers are flashed in front of them. This method allows them to add up visually and to give the answer imediately without even really having to take in the actual digits.

Crazy!

EVOL urban interventions

EVOL is a berlin based street artist that transforms banal urban surfaces, into miniature architectural surfaces through pasting. using pasted paper, EVOL transforms electric boxes, small planters and other geometric city forms, into miniature apartment buildings and other structures. each piece of paper is printed with a repetitive pattern of flat gray walls dotted with plain window frames. once applied to a surface, the paper transforms the form into small building that EVOL often adorns with small characters. EVOL performs this process within different cities and has even been commissioned to do installations in galleries, where he was created entire blocks of miniature buildings.

http://www.evoltaste.com

from DesignBoom

Visited: Tim Lewis @ Flowers Gallery, Cork Street

My friend took me to see a retrospective of Tim Lewis' work at a small exhibition space called the Flowers Gallery in Piccadilly.

Tim Lewis makes really cool (mostly) kinetic art / sculptures. Made from a number of different mediums including metal, wood, found objects, paper. Some were controlled by hand others were activated by movement sensors. I really liked his pieces which, when moved, caused something to be drawn or written. They obviously took a long time and a lot of accuracy to work out the shape of the cam that would cause that particular gesture to be made.

I also really liked his sketches (see below).

No more carrots and sticks

The guy talking is a bit annoying at times but it's quite an interesting talk about motivation and how pay based incentives can actually have a negative affect on performance when used in the wrong situation, especially when people are required to think creatively. He talks about how self directed work, rather than have employees tied down to particular tasks can produce far more innovative and exciting outcomes.

Quote - The owner of Skype says 'Our job is to be disruptive but in the cause of making the world a better place'.

Seen on Commercial Road

Commercial road is generally quite grey, dull and run down so it was a nice surprise when I discovered these newly installed planters that double as somewhere to lock up your bicycle. And just around the corner from my house!

HA!