Having finally found some time to go through hundreds of pictures, notes and a decidedly chubby catalogue, i’m ready to start a series of reports from last month’s visit to International Design Biennial in Saint Étienne, France. The theme of this 6th edition was Teleportation. The biennale, the website says, intends to explore paths of discoveries that will tend in their extreme expression to lead to a possible teleportation as the dematerialization of movement which appears to be an incredibly revealing notion of our era

Should you be interested in accommodating a small volcano in your living room, designer Nelly Ben Hayoun has one ready to cover your interior with dust and erupt gloop on your carpet. While the first prototype is still a fairly modest and manageable size, The Other Volcano aims to build a series of semi-domesticated volcanoes that would almost reach the ceiling and provide you with all the discomfort you can expect from this new breed of geological pet

Featuring an extensive collection of work in which images and space meld seamlessly into a single narrative entity, Staging Space offers new solutions for exhibition and event architecture, scenography, media installations, interiors, and stage design as well as multimedia brand concepts. The book also presents an array of hybrid projects whose focus lies on using space to achieve pre-defined dramatic effects

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The book provides a detailed insight into the techniques of ten creative individuals (Jason Bruges Studio, Greyworld, HeHe, Crispin Jones, the Owl Project, the Pooch, Bengt Sjolen, Troika, and Moritz Waldemeyer.) and how they exploit the latest computing technologies in their work and the impact this will have for creative practice in the future

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This year’s Future Exhibitions aims at highlighting the exhibition’s spatial relationship to the visitor. How can architecture, stage design and technical innovation enhance the visitor’s overall experience? In conversation with some of the leading actors in the field, Swedish Travelling Exhibitions examines innovative techniques and explores the exhibition medium of the future

The Phantom Recorder system projects a cold and damp sensation onto the skin surface, triggering the brain to hallucinate a phantom. As the phantom movement stimulates the peripheral nerves, its activity is captured by the neural implant and external wireless machinery

Among Daisy Ginsberg’s latest activities are a residency at SymbioticA, a collaboration with James King and Cambridge University’s iGEM 2009 grand-prizewinning team and then there’s Synthetic Aesthetics. The project investigates shared territory between design and synthetic biology, invites exchange of existing skills and approaches, and enables the development of new forms of craft and collaboration

Data Flow 2 expands the definition of contemporary information graphics. The book features new possibilities for diagrams, maps, and charts. It investigates the visual and intuitive presentation of processes, data, and information. Concrete examples of research and art projects as well as commercial work illuminate how techniques such as simplification, abstraction, metaphor, and dramatization function

The exhibition explores the new “updated” textile crafts that are developed by a new generation of serious amateurs, innovative craftsmen, engaged entrepreneurs and political practitioners. Once again the home is the workshop where economic and ecologic innovation happens – not only in the labs of the industrial expertise. After decades of outsourcing, the new modes of production are in the hands of the layperson

Nelly Ben Hayoun’s installation/performance attempted to demonstrate the visual equivalent of one of those massive sonic booms that take place inside Super K each time a neutrino meets an electron of extremely pure water. As ultra-pure water doesn’t exactly abound in London night clubs, the designer used the water from the nearest fire hydrant and turned the place into a 15 by 5m long swimming pool

Designers and architects have to make decisions regarding color every day. But how does one find the necessary inspiration? The appropriate color? How do other designers and artists deal with the issue? With “Chroma,” the Greek word for color, as its title, this illustrated book provides answers to these questions and makes it clear that color is much more than mere decoration – it is one of the central problems of creative work

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!

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