Javier Arcos Pitarque makes some superb vintage and recycled robots. Beautiful.
Made me Look
Camera Obscura, a project from Abelardo Morell is exciting.
I made my first picture using camera obscura techniques in my darkened living room in 1991. In setting up a room to make this kind of photograph, I cover all windows with black plastic in order to achieve total darkness. Then, I cut a small hole in the material I use to cover the windows. This opening allows an inverted image of the view outside to flood onto the back walls of the room. Typically then I focused my large-format camera on the incoming image on the wall then make a camera exposure on film. In the beginning, exposures took from five to ten hours.
Over time, this project has taken me from my living room to all sorts of interiors around the world. One of the satisfactions I get from making this imagery comes from my seeing the weird and yet natural marriage of the inside and outside.
A few years ago, in order to push the visual potential of this process, I began to use color film and positioned a lens over the hole in the window plastic in order to add to the overall sharpness and brightness of the incoming image. Now, I often use a prism to make the projection come in right side up. I have also been able to shorten my exposures considerably thanks to digital technology, which in turn makes it possible to capture more momentary light. I love the increased sense of reality that the outdoor has in these new works .The marriage of the outside and the inside is now made up of more equal partners.
This is magnificent – the beautiful Baker Cookstove has been carefully designed by Claesson Koivisto Rune for use in developing countries.
The majority of women in the developing world prepare food using a technology called a three-stone fire – three rocks that support a pot with an open fire in the middle. This cooking method is inefficient and leads to environmental and health problems. The redesign by Claesson Koivisto Rune sympathetically references the existing methods whilst providing an updated stove that burns wood as efficiently as possible, it only needs one third of the wood. The approach to increase functionality and usability whilst producing a product manufactured locally in Kenya using sustainable and recycled materials is fantastic and the result is a beautiful and functional piece of design.
(via Designboom)
New and unbelievable handmade miniature food sculptures by Israeli artist Shay Aaron. Available as jewellery here.
Cosmos is a series of beautifully designed plants of the solar system in accordance with their comparative size and appearance by David Fuhrer.
In her Harmless series artist Sonia Rentsch defuses the powers of modern weaponry by constructing guns, grenades and bullets completely from organic objects. Fantastic work.
(via Colossal)
