The "Dutch Delights" ceramic dildos are decorated with traditional motives and can be filled with hot water and closed with a cork.

The pieces refer to the liberated mentality of the Dutch people when it comes to sex.

Designed by Davy Grosemans and Guido Ooms as part of the Dutch Souvenirs project.

For the Evidence Doll research project, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby have interviewed women about their sexual partners. 100 specially designed dolls were created to provoke discussion amongst a group of young single women about the impact of genetic technology on their lifestyle.

The plastic dolls come in several penis size and were used store the women's observations by scribbling words that characterize their lover. Headphones allow viewers to listen to the stories of the women.

Evidence Dolls can be seen until 17 October, at D.Day Le Design Aujourd'hui, Centre Pompidou, Paris. Btw, i'll be in Paris next weekend to see the exhibition. If there are other we-make-money-not-art like events i should see, drop me a line!

Picture 1 stolen at Coping with the world. Picture 2 and 3.

I thought the most delirious piece of craft I had ever seen was Mark Newport's Hand-Knit Costumes and Embroidered Comic Book Cover (via the crochet-maniac), till I saw the work of Ming-Yi Sung.

She's currently showing some awesome nude figures at the "Not the Knitting You Know" exhibition, at Eleven Eleven Sculpture Space.

Problem is that the gallery is also the lobby of the office tower leased by a law firm which members were offended because of the exposed genitalia.

Sung came up with an alternative: her pieces were covered by crocheted fig leaves -- plus one crocheted codpiece that actually looks like a cod.

Not the Knitting You Know: Sculptural Knitting and Crochet at Eleven Eleven Sculpture Space, 1111 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, through Sept. 10.

Via Extreme Craft.

Ok, this blog is supposed to be about cool techno stuff and high-brow-ish media art installations. By posting so many "vintage" links, I had already lost any credibility anyway.

The mobile pleasure unit pushes forward the relationship we have with the mobile phone. m.pleasure works with a Bluetooth enabled phone. Attached to the most sensitive areas of our body, its intention is to translate an ethereal digital message into something physical, letting us feel the communication.

m.pleasure is also a critical approach to how we have sacrificed our personal relations for the benefit of technology: face-to-face relations are being pushed aside in favour of ever less physical communication.

As in every relationship, there will be a giver and a receiver. The Giver is totally safe, acting from their almost virtual position and sending messages to whomever they choose. By connecting the m.pleasure to their body, the Receiver them.

The m.pleasure has been prototyped and the technology behind it already exists in the open market.

By Nagora Salaberria, at Someth;ng.

Related: the Phildo.

The Designer Hymen Project was a concept product in 2004. Hymen prototypes were grown in a petri dish from rat smooth muscle tissues and blotting membranes. The hymens could theoretically be marketed as a hymen replacement but were to be distributed as soft sculptures only. Thus they were not intended for human application at that time.

In may culture, the value of a female is dependent on this thin piece of mebrane. The absence of one can be devastating to her reputation and family which may lead to social rejection or even death to her. The one-time, sacred breakage of the hymen also represents the surrendering of the female as property and of sexual loyalty to the masculine counterpart during ritual consummation.

...

Treating the hymen as a replaceable object and creating a piece that may imply repeated events of defloration may be aborrhent to some but celebratory to others.

A project by Julia Reodica at vivoLabs.

Via a NYT article on bioart.

Related: DIY artificial insimination, Extra Ear 1/4 Scale, Victimless leather jacket, Hairy cactus, Manipulated tattoo, Your Kidney Supermarket, Skin Gun, etc.

"You can’t touch - but you can drink my juice."

The Lapjuicer, by Theo Humphries and Phil worthington, is a naughty chair intended to be used by a lap-dancer in a club environment. The performer uses their body with the object, in order to extract fruit juices that can be drunk by one or more spectators.

The prototype has now been superseded by finished versions, one of which is on exhibit in The Victoria & Albert Museum (London) till August 29th 2005, as part of the Touch Me exhibition (I made rather lame pictures over there but the exhibit was good fun.)

Lapjuicers are available to order.