Conspicuous consumption
bioephemera | May 22, 2010
This is the clever label for Chateau Skulls, a grenache blend from south Australia. Wikipedia sez,
The label is an original artwork by István Orosz (b. 24 October 1951; Kecskemét) Hungarian painter, printmaker, graphic designer and animated film director, is known for his mathematically inspired works, impossible objects, optical illusions, double-meaning images and anamorphoses. The geometric art of István Orosz, with forced perspectives and optical illusions, has been compared to works by M. C. Escher."
I blogged about Istvan Orosz earlier, in this post on anamorphosis.
bioephemera | May 20, 2010
From Mechanical Brides of the Uncanny by Edward Bateman
In "Mechanical Brides of the Uncanny," artist Edward Bateman creates images that explore photography's role as historical evidence. Presented as a collection of discovered carte de visites, this book documents a forgotten age of mechanical wonders. Carte de visites were an immensely popular form of photography in the last half of the nineteenth century. They were widely traded and collected, with subjects ranging from portraits of everyday people to those of luminaries. Bateman uses this history to question the idea that all…
bioephemera | May 16, 2010A German home improvement company turns an old apartment building into a modern wonder cabinet, as part of an ad campaign: first they covered the facade with a flock of shoes (Dr. Isis must have been their muse) and then they installed concept art throughout the whole thing (some of it nuts, and some of it pretty remarkable). They won a 2009 Mobius Award for their work. Check it out:
I think we'd all like to have the room with the giant air mattress/bubble in it. Mmmmmmm, sleeping on a giant bubble.
bioephemera | May 15, 2010
Now that's bioephemera: my friend Rhett sent me a link to the work of Fulvio Bonavia, who created a series of eighteen photographs of food reimagined as haute couture. My favorite? The glassy-eyed sardine-link belt. See all eighteen images, and his other work, at his website.
Via Coute Que Coute.
bioephemera | April 19, 2010In the munch-inducing lull between election cycles, fivethirtyeight's Nate Silver turns his attention to the KFC Double Down:
I've created an index based on the amount of fat, sodium and cholesterol that the Double Down and a variety of comparable sandwiches contain as a portion of the USDA daily allowance. (In the fat category, saturated fats are counted double and trans-fats are counted triple.) The index is scaled such that the Original Recipe version of the sandwich receives a score of 1.00, a measure of gluttony that will hereafter be known as The Double Down (DD).** (source)
Based on…
bioephemera | April 18, 2010
I have no idea of the source on this one - anybody know who made it? This artist has created a similar model, but the inside's padded as seating, so it probably wouldn't work as well as a human hamster wheel.
Via
bioephemera | April 13, 2010
Anthropologie's new From the Deep collection features cobalt blue tentacles reaching over the edge of a dinner plate while an octopus broods on the salad plate.
There are even suckers on the teacup handles!
You can Life Aquatic it up quirky-collage-style with the coordinating dishes featuring collaged fish, stripes, and disproportionately tiny ships, but I'm a purist: I WANT a set of those three tentacular pieces. If I were only getting married so this could be my pattern. . . sigh.
From the Deep collection at Anthropologie.
bioephemera | April 11, 2010Fellow lab rats, banish the lingering odor of LB broth from your nostrils and imagine how awesome research would be if these little cuties were your model organisms!
Buy them from Specimen7 on MakersMarket.
bioephemera | April 4, 2010Style Bubble has some snapshots of luxe skull- and carapace-inspired jewelry by Dominic Jones. You've just got to love a crocodile skull vambrace!
See more snaps at Style Bubble.
Via Haute Macabre - you musn't miss their other recent post on Dominic Jones' work for Vice Magazine. Here's a teaser:
bioephemera | April 2, 2010
One of my fave April Fools' spoofs this week: Groupöupon, the high-end version of Groupon for the aesthetically pompous:
Make sure that your arms telegraph style and success with this indulgent line of Premium Sleeves designed by Fourth World, the designer brand renowned for combining the uncanny fashion sense of the first world's most impressive designers with the laser-like focus of third-world craftsmanship. Choose any of the extravagant materials from Fourth World's list, including ostrich neck, baleen, pressed toucan beak, snakeskin (heated), and mane. With each purchase, Fourth World…
bioephemera | March 26, 2010I am glad I waited to buy a new version of Photoshop! This is. . . whoa. The desert and sky are particularly impressive.
Is there an Uncanny Valley for software?
bioephemera | March 25, 2010
I can't wait to get a copy of Jason Thompson's brand-new project, Playing with Books: The Art of Upcycling, Deconstructing, and Reimagining the Book. Thompson, the founder and creative director of Rag and Bone Bindery, has long kept a blog featuring the best book and paper artists. Now he's edited a book art book, and it looks great. I mean, it has a section on "shaping books with power tools" - what more do you need??
Playing with Books: The Art of Upcycling, Deconstructing, and Reimagining the Book at Amazon
bioephemera | March 24, 2010
"Companion Parrot": An incredible, though slightly macabre, necklace of bird entrails and skull by Tithi Kutchamuch. When not being worn, the necklace rests in the minimalist golden body, and it's a sculpture.
Via Haute Macabre
bioephemera | March 22, 2010
Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments: Cystic Acne, Back
Lauren Kalman, 2009
Metalsmith and mixed-media artist Lauren Kalman explores the nexus of body, adornment, and disease in her remarkable series "Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments". Yes, those faux-diseases are actually piercing the skin - but only temporarily: they're gold acupuncture wires modified into jewelry by the artist. The temporary/permanent nature of the piercings echoes the temporary visibility of the diseases she depicts, like syphilis and herpes, which eventually clear…
bioephemera | March 20, 2010
"Television Tube and Cheeze Whiz Jar Lid Necklace Steam Punk Recycled," via Regretsy.
Help. Pleeze.
bioephemera | March 19, 2010A few thoughts on this ad I spotted last week in Boston:
1. Yes, that appears to be a giant gel electrophoresis. Geez, this town is nerdy.
2. I hope that attractive woman is supposed to be a genetics PhD. Because we're all supermodels.
3. Why didn't I ever think to do a random restriction digest and blot on my own DNA back when I was in the lab 18 hours a day, so I could false-color it in Photoshop, hang it above the mantel, and brag about my trendy home decor? Bah! I suppose maybe there were rules about that sort of thing.
4. The loft development website asks, "What's your design DNA"?…
bioephemera | March 9, 2010Update: welcome Consumerist readers! While I use my own experience to illustrate concerns about third-party online merchants, this post is mainly about the bigger long-term informational problems I see with reputation, reliability, and online communities. Please feel free to weigh in!
A few weeks ago, I caught a familiar story on the local news. A local citizen had written in to the news team with a request for help after a local furniture company sold them a defective living room set, and wouldn't give them a refund. The news team went to the business, who - wary of the potential public…
bioephemera | March 7, 2010
A blunt animated message for Surfrider's Rise Above Plastics, with Portland's Borders Perrin Norrander (full credits here)
Via Notcot and others.
bioephemera | March 5, 2010
Campbell's is redesigning their iconic red-and-white soup packaging. Why? The answer's in your brain - or so they think:
Campbell's said traditional customer feedback wasn't telling the company why soup sales weren't doing so hot. "A 2005 Campbell analysis revealed that, overall, ads deemed more effective in surveys had little relation to changes in sales," the WSJ says.So they turned to "science." Campbell's hired Innerscope Research Inc. to conduct tests on a whopping 40-person sample to see what design elements produced the most "emotional engagement."The team clipped small video cameras…
bioephemera | February 15, 2010
Astro Rocket
I got my boyfriend one of these adorable Astro Rockets from cardboard safari for Valentine's Day. The large ones are frighteningly expensive, but the smallest one is cute, remarkably well designed, and despite being cardboard, has that pleasant burnt-wood odor of a carpentry shop. Mmmm, laser-cuts.
They also have these kind of hilarious cardboard big game trophies:
Bucky
I have seen a collection of these in a gallery, and they're pretty awesomely weird.