Mimosa by Jason Bruges Studio

Milan 2010: interactive designers Jason Bruges Studio of London have sent us a video of their Mimosa installation, featuring light panels that open and close like flowers.

The installation aims to mimic the behaviour of the Mimosa family of plants, folding up or flattening out in response to the presence of viewers.

Each panel represents a flower petal, dimming in intensity as it closes.

The piece was created for Philips using their Lumiblade OLED (organic LED) modules and shown at Superstudio Più in Zona Tortona last week.

Video and photos are copyright Jason Bruges Studio.

See all our stories about Milan 2010 in our special category.

Here’s some info from the designers:

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MIMOSA ATTRACTS THE CROWDS AT THE MILAN FURNITURE FAIR 2010

Commissioned for Milan 2010, Jason Bruges Studio’s latest creation is a captivating artwork featuring Philips Lumiblade OLEDs.

Mimosa is an interactive artwork displaying behaviour that mimics responsive plant systems. The piece was inspired by the Mimosa family of plants, which change kinetically to suit their environmental conditions.

The studio has used the slim form of individual OLEDs to create delicate light petals, forming flowers, which open and close in response to visitors.

Jason Bruges Studio enjoys working with Phillips Lumiblades because of their incredibly slim profile and fantastic even light quality.

London based Jason Bruges Studio produces innovative installations, interventions and ground-breaking works.

The works create interactive spaces and surfaces that sit between the world of architecture, site specific installation art and interaction design.

The studio is particularly well known for light based design, exploring interactivity with the public and the environment through the highly imaginative use of materials and technologies.

Alfa Romeo Centenary Sculpture by Gerry Judah

Designer Gerry Judah has created this bright red looping structure for Alfa Romeo at Goodwood Festival of Speed, which took place in West Sussex last weekend.

The sculpture marked the car brand’s centenary and features two iconic Alfa Romeo cars, from the past and present, at the end of a series of loops.

The form of the sculpture is inspired by the Cloverleaf badge found on the cars.

Read about Judah’s previous Goodwood Festival of Speed sculptures here and here.

Photographs are by David Barbour.

Here’s some information about the project:

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ALFA ROMEO CENTENARY SCULPTURE, GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED 2010

This is the Alfa Romeo Centenary Sculpture displayed at Goodwood Festival of Speed 2010. The designer of the sculpture Gerry Judah www.judah.co.uk says: “With such a vast rich heritage, trying to encapsulate all that is great about Alfa Romeo was no easy task. So many factors played a part in the creative process, from the beauty of the cars themselves which are often art forms in their own right, to the passion the marque shows and holds in so many hearts. I felt it was important that the sculpture complemented and expressed these messages.

The perfect way of communicating this was to use two of Alfas most iconic cars – past and present – the P2 and the 8C Competizione – both legendary in their own right with the connection of the first and most recent Alfa Romeo to feature Alfa’s eight-cylinder engine.

Apart from creating a strong dynamic, it was important to translate their connection. Representing the best of all that is Alfa Romeo, there was no better symbol to take inspiration from than Alfa’s famous Cloverleaf badge, which has donned past and present high performance Alfa Romeos. The easiest part of this project was choosing a representative colour – which of course had to be Alfa Red“.

Client: Fiat/Alfa Romeo
Concept, design and production: Gerry Judah
Consultant Engineering: Capita Symonds
Fabrication and Installation: Littlehampton Welding
Photography: David Barbour

Hands On: Design Brought to Life by studioXAG

London Design Festival 2010: this cardboard interior by London designers StudioXAG has giant hands suspended above it and houses products by University of Arts London graduates.

Hands On: Design Brought to Life is an exhibition curated by StudioXAG that sits behind the glazed street front of the new Arts Gallery in Holborn.

The interior is designed to look like a tea party in the drawing room of a scaled-up dolls house and will be open until 29 October 2010.

See all our stories about the London Design Festival »

Here’s some more from the designers:

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Hands On: Design Brought to Life

studioXAG invite you to step into their parlour

An idyllic Edwardian parlour is transplanted into a twenty-first century gallery space and opened up to the street, exposing the enchanting interior to the passing crowds. This London Design Festival, studioXAG and University of the Arts London invite you to step in to the new Arts Gallery, remodelled as a fantastical shoebox house. The doors open on 16 September.

A childhood daydream comes to life as studioXAG create an eccentric doll’s house drawing room scaled up to adult size. The plate glass wall of the gallery reveals a design aficionado’s tea party, replete with the quirkiest new design objects. Accept the genteel invitation to this private party and the spectator unwittingly becomes a player in this fanciful domestic scene.

Inside this topsy-turvy setting Hektor Mamet’s disobedient Leaning Chair reclines casually against the wall, refuting its practical purpose, while David Clarke’s impish Gore Blimey spoons appear to be literally stirring up mischief. Witty Drip Teas & Lip Tease teacups by Reiko Kaneko lure you in with the promise of refreshment before revealing their 24 carat gold shadows of lipstick and tea drips, hinting at previous users.

Unsettling the nostalgic delight of the scene, a giant pair of hands hang pendulously above the room, a very fitting motif for an exhibition in which handcraft is the star of the show. studioXAG use craft materials to meticulously replicate the interior architecture, from the traditional fireplace and floorboards, to sash windows complete with shutters. The fittings play with scale and materials to surreal effect.

Speaking about their ambitions for the work, studioXAG reveal “Personal nostalgia for a youth spent making things led us to re-imagine a small scene in a shoebox. Scaling this up to human size allows us to utilise an eccentric selection of furniture and products to enhance the playful mood, with elegant trompe l’oeil tableware nodding to the tea drinking sensibility.”

Hands On is created entirely with imaginative products designed by University of the Arts London graduates. Limited edition prints and featured design products will be available to purchase exclusively from the Arts Gallery. Hands On designers include: Reiko Kaneko, Cemel Otek, David Clarke, Julie Spurgeon, Robert Dawson, Laura Plant, Debbie Lawson, Hektor Mamet, Christian Newton, Joe Ferrari, Sung Kug Kim, Elisa Strosyk, Anna Sudbina and Bodo Sperlein.

Multidisciplinary design team studioXAG was established by Central Saint Martins graduates Xavier Sheriff and Gemma Ruse in 2009. Offering expertise in consultancy, art direction, illustration and prop production, their client list includes Odille, Bertie and Diesel, Oasis, Whistles and Agent Provocateur.

Hands On forms part of University of the Arts London’s programme of events and exhibitions for London Design Festival 2010. This will be the first exhibition at the Arts Gallery in Holborn, since moving from University of the Arts London’s headquarters site in the West End where the original gallery played host to hundreds of artists including Peter Doig, Gavin Turk, Sarah Lucas, Chris Ofili, Peter Blake, John Keane, Poppy de Villeneuve, Annie Kevans, Tom Hunter and Martin Creed, alongside legions of emerging artists fresh from University of the Arts London’s art colleges.

16 September – 29 October 2010
Arts Gallery, University of the Arts London,
272 High Holborn, WC1V 7EY
Monday – Friday 11am – 6pm

Inside Installations by Joris De Schepper and Thomas De RidderInside Installations by Joris De Schepper and Thomas De Ridder French photographer Juli

French photographer Julien Lanoo has sent us these images of an installation by Belgian architects Joris De Schepper and Thomas De Ridder at S.M.A.K – Museum of Modern Art in Ghent, designed to give visitors an idea of the museum’s work behind-the-scenes.

A part of a series called Inside Installations, it focuses on what happens behind the scenes of an exhibition and the archiving process.

Located in a large open space in the museum, a plywood box has been built in the corner and is surrounded by shelving units used to display some of the equipment that’s required to prepare an exhibition.

The walls, ceiling and floor inside the wooden structure are covered with documents, photos, sketches and manuals relating to other installations being shown at the museum.

Photographs are copyright Julien Lanoo.

Here’s some more information about the project:

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task
In an the 2010-2011 exhibition ʻinside installationsʼ the public should have a view on what happens behind the scenes of SMAK, more specific on the complexity of installation art.

questions
whatʼs specific about installation art? how to show information during the visit of an art exhibition? information as a negative of an art object which effort can we ask of a visitor, can we demand any effort at all? if thereʼs one thing weʼd want a visitor to understand and remember, even without actively visiting the information space, what would that be?

intention
we wanted to work with different accessibility levels to reach people who are interested and willing to do an effort, people who are not willing to do an effort but also people who are not interested. Using architectural themes (space, light, structure, texture and context) we tried to attract visitors and make things clear in an obvious way. we didnʼt want a didactic space. on the other hand we wanted to allow researchers and interested visitors to find detailed information. the visitors decide how much information they see.

solution
all information is being used as wallpaper for the documentation room: texts, photos, video screens, artist sketches, manuals, restoration objects. the information can be organized into 4 themes: research, conservation and restoration, exhibition production, package and transport.

All documentation is related to installations that are shown on the exhibition. entering the room visitors will quickly recognize the objects, thus linking it to what they saw minutes before. Essential is that all walls, including flour and ceiling are treated in a same way, as if the common museum space has been inverted, turned inside out.

The amount of documentation and the seemingly random organization represent the complexity of installation art. But when you look further youʼll start to find out that the shown information is organized, youʼll see repeating layoutʼs and document structures, discover video-interview with artists and glass-boxes with art-specific restoration material.

situation
located at the big central void of the museum, with views on the entrance hall halfway the visit of the exhibition, maybe a moment to rest and look around. not a flexible white box due to a lot of circulation space, but very interesting as a social meeting place during the exhibition. Two benches allow people to rest, talk and look into original documentation folders.

construction
The room is constructed with industrial shelves and plywood. The paper (laserprints) at the inside is finished with glue and varnish. The outside doesnʼt have any finishing: the shelves, tv-sets, dvd- players, boxes containing restoration material and cables are all left visible. At some point the shelves are removed to make space for a bench (including red cushions). With some leftover shelves and plywood another, bigger bench was made next to the void.

architects
We are Joris De Schepper and Thomas De Ridder, both architect. We studied at Sint-Lucas Architectuur in Ghent and work as architect since 2008.

Drawing Fashion at The Design Museum by Carmody Groarke

Here are some pictures of Carmody Groarke’s exhibition design for Drawing Fashion, which opened at the Design Museum in London earlier this month.

The design comprises a series of interlinked curved partitions, backlit to resemble paper lanterns and provide ambient lighting throughout the space.

The exhibition displays fashion illustrations collected by Joelle Chariau of Galerie Bartsch & Chariau over the past 30 years, and includes work from fashion houses such as Chanel, Dior and Viktor & Rolf.

Design studio A Practice For Everyday Life (APFEL) created the graphics for the space.

Drawing Fashion is show at The Design Museum until 6 March 2011.

Photographs are by Richard Davies.

Here’s some more information about the exhibition:

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Drawing Fashion opens at Design Museum

‘Drawing Fashion’, an exhibition charting the work of the most important fashion illustrators from the 1920s to the present day, opens at The Design Museum. Carmody Groarke have collaborated with A Practice For Everyday Life (APFEL) to create a unique exhibition experience, transforming the existing space into a series of interlinked, curved ‘lantern’ forms, on which the series of drawings are presented.

The exhibition design takes its idea from making a strong material reference to paper, which is backlit giving a sensuous ambient lighting effect to the overall space whilst giving subdued definition to the silhouette of the supporting structure and to the elegant exhibition lettering, designed especially for the show. A sequence of spaces has been designed to bring intimate emphasis to clusters of work (categorised by each illustrator), as well as to the particular subtle and beautiful qualities of individual drawings in the collection.
For the graphics, APFEL adapted the font designed for Vogue in the early twentieth century, which had never been digitised. As the entire exhibition was backlit it was the ideal opportunity to use reverse cut vinyl and apply all the lettering to the back of the paper. The letter forms are ‘white on white’ (white vinyl on white paper walls) but legibility is achieved from the careful lighting and shadowing of the type. The result is a very seamless, tonal use of typography which compliments the delicate works on paper.

Click for larger image

From The Design Museum:
“Drawing Fashion celebrates a unique collection of some of the most remarkable fashion illustrations from the 20th and 21st Century. These original illustrations reflect not only the spirit and style of the decades, but also evoke a sense of elegance and glamour long associated with the world of couture and high fashion. Drawings from the collections of Chanel, Dior, Comme des Garcons, Poiret, Lacroix, McQueen and Viktor & Rolf amongst others, will feature in the exhibition, which charts the changing perception of fashion drawings from its origins as an advertising tool used prior to the advancements of photography, through to its establishment as a unique representation of collections which has endured through to today’s leading designers.

This exhibition showcases the creativity and skills of a unique artistic approach, celebrating the art and artists of fashion illustration whose exquisite images gave each collection an emotive and stylistic sense of direction. The drawings reflect the spirit of the time, through Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Pop Art and beyond with each era resonating with flare and style. This exhibition, co curated by fashion historian and writer Colin McDowell, celebrates key artists at the height of their careers: Lepape at the beginning of the century, Gruau the 40s and 50s, Antonio throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, to current artists Aurore de La Morinerie, Mats Gustafson and Francois Berthoud. Film-clips, news reels, music and photography will sit alongside the original illustrations, allowing the visitor to reflect on the wider social and cultural changes of the century. Films of the artists at work will be displayed alongside examples and projections of the couture clothes shown in the illustrations.
This collection, regarded as one of the most exceptional collections of fashion illustration in the world, has been put together over 30 years by Joelle Chariau, one of the very few experts on fashion drawings. This is the first time the collection has been displayed.”