Everything Ends in Chaos attempts to design, then reverse engineer a single, spectacular Black Swan event. Black Swan events are unpredicted but of such magnitude that they have an important impact on history. According to Nassim Nicholas Taleb who developed the theory, the rise of the Internet, World War I, and the September 11 attacks as examples of Black Swan Events
Category Archive: rcashow
With BACK, HERE BELOW, FORMIDABLE [ the rebirth of prehistoric creatures ], Marguerite Humeau, attempts to ressuscitate the sound of extinct animals by reconstructing their voicebox (lungs, trachea, larynx + vocal folds, mouth and nose). Made of soft tissue, the vocal tract does not fossilize. The only elements which have been preserved through time are their bones. By comparing them with the larynx CT scans of their closest modern relatives, Humeau hopes to bring back the vocal organs of the extinct animals. With the help of a specialist of each animal, the designer plans to remodel the soft tissues of the modern animals on the basis of the bone structure of the extinct one. The structure of the soft tissues will then be printed in 3D.
Steffen Fielder and Jonas Loh for example questions our relationship to randomness. The designers explored the importance of randomness in our daily life but also investigated whether randomness actually exists or if it is just a lack of knowledge which makes things appear random to us
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To get a sense of the true vastness of the Solar System, you are invited to follow its walkable scale model. Along one of Britain’s most longest Roman roads, local shopkeepers at the appropriate points on the route are acting as guardians to the planets – hosting models represented by everyday objects, at their correct sizes on this 3.1 km scale
The nuclear renaissance offers a clean, near limitless energy solution that could allow us to meet CO2 emission targets (without going short as consumers).
What if we ask for protective barrage balloons, establish concrete emergency services and resign ourselves to the perceived ‘hazards’? What if we embrace pet polar bears and pineapple ice cream along with other benefits that nuclear energy could bring? And what if not; are we prepared for blackouts instead?
Large amounts of sugar are excreted on a daily basis by type-two diabetic patients especially amongst the upper end of our aging population. Is it plausible to suggest that we start utilizing our water purification systems in order to harvest the biological resources that our elderly already process in abundance? In James Gilpin’s scenario, sugar heavy urine excreted by patients with diabetes would be used for the fermentation of high-end single malt whisky for export
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As her pop musician alter ego “Sputniko!” Hiromi Ozaki showcases 3 manga-inspired characters who design objects to fulfil their own particular complex needs — Crowbot Jenny builds a crow-shaped robot to communicate with crows, Sushiborg Yukari, a sushi-serving cyborg who modifies her body to become a lethal weapon, and Menstruation Machine (Takashi’s Take), a boy desiring to become more ‘feminine’ who builds a suit in an attempt to experience the bleeding of menstruation
Hwang Kim’s sbtly subversive fake documentary aims to introduce North Koreans to diverse aspects of western culture: pizza, Christmas, suitcase packing and dancing on pop music. The film also explores how design can contribute and impact on a social and cultural level, subtly challenging an ideological status quo
Sitraka Rakotoniaina’s project explores a possible ‘Hyper-normal’ space on the edge of normality, whereby a distorted experience of reality is induced because of physical or psychological stress, injuries, conditioning or training
The Nomadic Sound Systems is a wireless wearable sound system that frees electronic music from the restraints of immovable equipment, opening up possibilities for mobile performance and new forms of audience participation
Rachel Harding’s project knits together a scenario made of gene therapy, criminality, love and lurid gossips for tabloids. The twisted and compelling scenario revolves around the question: In a Future Dominated by Gene Therapy, How Might Criminal DNA Mend Britain’s Breaking Hearts?
If you are in the right place at the right time, you (may) experience something fantastic whether it’s a lightening strike, a sense of the paranormal activity around you or a perfectly dry space at the bottom of the ocean
Wind knitting factory, washing machine in the park, CCTV chandelier, furniture covered in fungi, a Pavlov’s Dog system to train a man to be a caring father? It must be RCA again!
In the years to come, might the best employers encourage women to work longer by offering them the means to unlimited fertility in the form of a golden orb spider farm from which to harvest silk for their luxury spare womb?
This project for a “genetically engineered sound garden” seeks to find new ways of imagining the nature of tomorrow where engineered species of plants, insects and animals interact within a composed ecosystem and create new forms of musical performance
Crowbot Jenny is a manga character. She is a socially-awkward girl who prefers to spend time surrounded by technology and animals rather than with humans. She built the Crowbot. Perched on her shoulder, the crow-shaped robot can vocalize a variety of crow calls to control and converse with her bird army
Developed in 1972 to protect early microprocessors from dust, the Gesundheit Radio featured a sneeze mechanism that expelled dust from inside the casing every six month. A bellows system extracted dust from inside the unit, blowing waste from two outlets located on the front
What logic lies behind major technological pushes of the past and how could it apply to future projects and what could we learn from the visions of an American past that never happened?
The Cloud Project takes the shape of a retro van selling ice-cream flavored clouds. An industrial-strength water spray mounted on top of the ice cream van would shoot a mix of liquid nitrogen and ice-cream into the atmosphere as a fine spray, leading to flavored condensation nuclei that will seed ice-cream clouds and give them the flavour of your choice
If you can’t afford Space Adventures’s multi-million ticket to fly into space and if you don’t want to wait till 2011 to hop on one of Richard Branson’s upcoming Virgin Galactic flights, then the Soyuz Chair, designed by Design Interactions graduate Nelly Ben Hayoun is the best you can hope for right now
You do remember The Toaster Project, don’t you? Thomas Thwaites has spent the past 9 months crafting his own toaster from scratch. I went to see the progress of his kitchen appliance last week at the Royal College of Art show and all i can say is: What a beauty!
Jen Hui Liao’s Self-Portrait Machine is a device that takes a picture of the sitter and draws it but with the model’s help. The wrists of the individual are tied to the machine and it is his or her hands that are guided to draw the lines that will eventually form the portrait
A fictitious company called ENT International has filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
Some of the items listed in the catalogue of the bankruptcy clearance auction are perfectly mundane, others are fictitious. Put together they offer a detailed insight into the inner workings of a large corporation closely inspired by the Enron scandal
Directly influenced by the 50s and ’60s experiments, ExtraRoom puts the sensory deprivation practice in a near futuristic scenario, when mind reading technologies are in common use and thoughts are not private anymore
Together with a team of 14 people and the help of a whole range of experts, Cesar Harada is currently busy developing the Open Sailing project, a floating architecture that evolves like a living organism, a laboratory for techno-social experiments
This suit allows one ardent fan to distinguish themselves from the crowd at film premieres. Comprised of a projector, speakers and a light system, controlled by an portable media player, the suits emits hysterical screams louder than the standard fan collective. As the target star approaches confessed messages are projected. When the wearer gets the attention from the object of their devotion, the suit rejoices by bursting into a climatic display
What if Jimmy Carter had been re-elected in 1981? What would have happened if money and resources had been poured into geo-engineering rather than into space programs?
Thomas Thwaites is making a toaster, all by himself, from scratch – beginning by mining the raw materials and ending with a product that is currently sold for a few pounds throughout the UK. A toaster. How hard can it be?
The artist has just received a Design for our Future Selves award for Commuter Thrival, a brilliant communication campaign that aims to raise awareness of the issues surrounding public transport through posters visualising people’s emotions with quirky costumes
How are people’s lives being affected by online games and what is the role of real world ethics and behaviour codes in such virtual spaces?
Could we envision that one day surveillance technology will have a role in healthcare? Could it provide some help in the fight against obesity? What would then be the potential uses (misuses?) of this data by others?
Part of the pharmaceuticals, chemicals and food we ingest eventually end up in waste water. As treatment plants haven’t been designed to filter them, the content of our medicine cabinets are eventually passed into the water supply. In London, tap water comes from surface water which implies that traces of our medicine can end up in our drinking water. This results in local differences in tap water which reveals potential local city-body ecologies or biotopes
When no one needs him, the overworked Emergency Exit pictogram takes a well earned break
A project presented at the Royal College of Art graduation show wonders whether a transgenic animal could function as a whole mechanism for external organ replacement and not simply supply the parts. Could humans become parasites and live off another organism’s bodily functions?
Is the grass really greener in your neighbour’s garden?
A toy train chasing sound, a hammer that reveals dormant sounds, a 5 arms turntable, and some wearable sound devices
Imagine on a stroll through Hyde Park you are met with an eerie silence. All the twittering birds have disappeared.
Prototype toys to enhance our sensory range and feel like an animal, even as tiny as an ant or as big as a giraffe
The Corley Radio prints out specific words picked up while scanning radio stations. The keywords relate to the Mike Corley story about the UK secret service trying to ridicule him through media channels
The human animal has lost its natural instinct for the real dangers. This device will give cause a shiver to run down your spine. It makes your neck hair stand up and wakes the alert animal inside,
when you should fear what is around you.