Fantastic interactive window displays by Britzpeterman

Britzpetermann, a German design studio, recently wrote me to share their newest project, a series of interactive window displays for their shop. They did an amazing job on these so far, creating one with eyeballs, one with musical waves and another with randomized words. Each of these respond as you pass by their windows, grabbing your attention and bringing some fun to the street. Here’s how they did it:

We used a high quality projector and semi-matt foil from the hardware store to project the eyes to the window. They are rendered by a WebGL frontend using a shader sphere effect. The detection is performed by OpenFrameworks and the Kinect.
An Arduino controlled servo motor, pushing a button on the projector remote, is turning the installation on at 4pm and off at 11pm.

Super cool, in my opinion. I’d love to see more stuff like this populating shop fronts, bringing life to ordinary streets.

Bobby

‘You As You Were’, a new track from Shearwater

Shearwater is back and releasing a new album in 2012 called Animal Joy, this time around with the help of the always on point Sub Pop Records. From this track alone I’m extremely excited to hear the rest of the album. It’s got a wonderful pace to it, Jonathan Meiburg’s vocals spilling out like a beautiful brook. The vibe is also a bit more uplifting than their previous material, constantly building up higher and higher. The new album comes out February 14 in the USA and Feb 27th everywhere else, so be on the look out. If this song isn’t weird enough for you, I’d suggest checking out Meiburg’s collaboration with Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu called Blue Water White Death.

Bobby

‘I Could Eat A Horse’ by Stefán Pétur Sólveigarson

I thought it would be fun to post about this little cute spaghetti measuring tool today. It’s called Ég gæti borðað heilan hest which is Icelandic for ‘I could eat a horse’, and it’s designed by the product designer Stefán Pétur Sólveigarson.

Every time I cook spaghetti I always remember that I need to buy a measurer and I think Stefán’s is really neat. It measures out spaghetti in serving-sizes for kids and adults as well as it’s horse measurement -enough to feed four adults, or presumably, one very very hungry person. It’s available for sale online at the Reykjavik Corner Store.

Philip

Luis Urculo in San Francisco

Remember Luis Urculo? He’s the guy that made a series of delightful (if not always sturdy) architectural stacks out of all kinds of knives, plates, hairs, et cetera. Luis has a degree in architecture, but works happily outside the expectations for the profession. When asked about his decision to work this way, he says:

“When I finished studying I was already quite critical with the professional landscape of options/possibilities/tools I was expected to use as an architect. For me, my degree on architecture was just a big toolbox to invest on many different ways, based on my interests at that moment: graphic and space. I decided to start, trying to leave behind the shadow of expectations of ‘what an architect is supposed to do’.”

Lucky folks in San Francisco will have the opportunity to see what architects might-not-be-supposed-to-do when when Luis’ latest installation opens on January 20th (this Friday) at the Popular Workshop Gallery.

Alex

Abstract illustrations from Jake Pauls

Toronto based illustrator Jake Pauls came to my attention through a work friend and I’ve gotta’ say I’m diggint what he’s doing. His style is inspired by nature in that abstract sense, with some humans/human elements mixed in every now and then. Be sure to check out his Tumblr, which seems to be updated quite often.

Bobby