Due to my horrendous sense of direction, I own a Garmin nüvi 1250. I thought it would help help me navigate the network of roads in the city. But, of course, it didn’t. Apart from a highly inefficient user interface, the screen resolution and size do not accommodate the needs of frantic, nervous driver cursing behind the wheel. A bird’s eye view of a map works well to provide a general context for wayfinding, but does not connect with what you see all around you (complete with buildings and roads). There must be a better way yes?

I came across this project called ‘Here & There’ by Jack Schulze and Matt Webb - a London-based design consultant duo - that melds the two views (bird’s eye view and first-person view) together, creating a map that translates well to my perpetually-lost needs:

The map is of Manhattan looking uptown from 3rd and 7th and its presentation is is exactly the kind that gives you useful spatial information!

“Imagine a person standing at a street corner. The projection begins with a three-dimensional representation of the immediate environment. Close buildings are represented normally, and the viewer himself is shown in the third person, exactly where she stands. As the model bends from sideways to top-down in a smooth join, more distant parts of the city are revealed in plan view. The projection connects the viewer’s local environment to remote destinations normally out of sight.” (Here & There)

Read more about the project here.

Merely uttering the name ‘Tom Ford’ brings to mind images of a masculine, suave and hypersexual man (or a feminine, sultry and hypersexual woman). Although I most certainly do not fit into that mold, I understand the effects of brand image, perception and association. He has cultivated a following so eager to live up to this image that his clients are willing to impart upwards of $4600 for a suit. Now, he has expanded to eponymous store to Toronto - in Holt Renfrew.

The 775-square-foot space is said to “surround the customer with the complete Tom Ford universe”, with everything from shoes and accessories to suits and sportswear. It even offers ready-to-wear and custom-made clothing. The following are advertisements from his S/S09 collection:

More great work from Moving Brands. Along the same vein as their work for Norton & Sons, their rebranding efforts for E. Tautz & Sons centres around appropriating a classic, traditional aesthetic to contemporary tastes. And they do it with great flair and panache:

“Edward Tautz founded E. Tautz in 1867 at 249 Oxford Street between Audley Street and Marble Arch in London’s prosperous West End. He was an innovator in both cloth and cut, continuously releasing new products in new and innovative materials including waterproof tweeds and rainproof coverts.” (Wikipedia)

“Tautz catered to Europe’s sporting and military elite during the Grand Epoch and by 1897 had added the Royal Warrants of the King of Italy, The King and Queen of Spain, The Emperor of Austria and the Duc d’Aosta to his letterhead… The firm made its name as a sporting and military tailor but in the 20th century expanded its civilian tailoring business and famously developed the Tautz Lapel, a double breasted lapel with a subtle rounded tip and lower almost horizontal gorge.”

I recently just signed my life away by purchasing a piece of real estate. Although I have yet to move into the place, I am beginning to realise that this move will be accompanied by a large carbon footprint. It is an opportunity for me to discard all the old and barely working appliances and purchase new ones - from the refrigerator to the toaster! Now, of course, technology is such that new models are a lot of efficient, but what happens to the old appliances? How many people actually attempt to recycle them? This is the theme Reece Terris plans to explore in his new installation titled “Ought Apartment”.

Reece Terris is a Vancouver artist as well as a general contractor specialising in residential renovation. “Over the years I have been collecting items from the interior of homes that I have been contracted to renovate. I have saved… [anything that is] generally useful and in good condition, yet have been discarded for more up to date models… Frustrated with the environmental negligence and wastefulness involved in the never-ending home renovation process, the work I am proposing will recycle the collected items and transform their function from rejected remnants of dated décor into one inclusive work, housing iconic objects with a formal and aesthetic value of their own.” (Jennifer Kostuik Gallery)

“Ought Apartment is a six-storey installation that would rise up through the main atrium of the Vancouver Art Gallery and feature six full-scale apartments stacked one upon the other. Each apartment level would be fully furnished exclusively with original items from the 1950’s through to the present decade and include a kitchen, living room and bathroom. Each Floor would represent the look of one particular decade using materials from the time, thus becoming emblematic of that period’s interior design and domestic living. Beginning with the 1950’s at the ground floor level, the decades would climb chronologically with each tier of the installation.”

“The varied heights and widths of the installation in relation to the gallery levels would present visitors with many unusual sightlines and unorthodox viewing angles into each apartment compelling the viewer to reconsider their relationship with the consumption and construction of domestic space.”

Pictures are process drawings of the installation. Ought Apartment will be open to public beginning May 6th, 2009 through September 20th, 2009.

“Maj. Harry Pike and his Flyin’ Fish was attached to the 16th Fighter Squadron when this picture was taken October 22, 1942 at Peishiyi. The following year he was shot down by flak over Hankow and survived a flaming crash although badly burned on his hands and face. A Japanese doctor in Hankow saved him and he was later transfered to Japan where he was held prisoner until the end of the war.” (Eugene McGuire Jr.)

Photograph taken by General Eugene McGuire while serving with the 75th & 76th Fighter Squadron, 23rd Group, 14th Air Force.

I have been to many wax museums as part of school field trips. Never once was I particularly impressed with the wax figures of Hitler, General Mao, Gandhi, Mother Theresa and all the others. Sure, they bore a striking resemblance to the actual subject, but they were, nevertheless, obviously mannequins, albeit wrought of wax. Of course, there were exceptions, but the overwhelming majority were quite underwhelming.

Not Duane Hanson’s work though:

“Duane Hanson took sculpture off its pedestal and removed the boundaries that separated art from life. His intention was to represent a cross-section of American society by focusing on the singularities of individuals. In addition to their lifelike exteriors, his works communicate the internal attitudes and experiences of Hanson’s subjects. It is this combination of the physical and psychological that elicits a broad range of emotional responses from the spectator.” (USA Today)

“Using synthetic resins, he made a mold from the body and used it to cast a three-dimensional sculpture. Each figure was cast in several sections before being joined together. Hanson then painted the surface in careful detail and added the necessary accessories and props. The final works [therefore]… do not represent actual people in actual environments, but realistic fictions.” The whole process often took as long as a year for a single figure.

I grew up in a different part of the world. My childhood reading consisted of Malaysian fables and Chinese legends, with just a smattering of European folklore and Indian myths. I most certainly did not know of Bigfoot until I came to Canada. Popular in the Pacific Northwest regions of North America, I first heard of this bipedal simian-humanoid on a radio show. I would later learn that, despite the dubious nature of this creature’s existence, many people claimed to have had first-hand sightings of the great ape. Bigfoot even has a place in one of our 2010 Olympics mascot line-up as a “young sasquatch who comes from the mysterious forests of Canada”- Quatchi.

Anyway, this is why I particularly liked the idea of a Bigfoot book. Meet Graham Roumieu - a Canadian illustrator who has written a few Bigfoot-themed books. Here is his latest, titled “Bigfoot: I Not Dead”:

On why he chose Bigfoot as a subject, Roumieu has this to say: “Because he is familiar to pretty much everyone – from those who have given him maybe a moment’s thought, to those who obsess over him and collect figurines, to those who might claim to have been impregnated by him - he has touched us all, yet remains a complete mystery. A mystery, at least in part due to having been passed over as a primary character until I brought him in out of the rain, plied him with booze and then put a mic and some pens and paper in front of him.”

“Bigfoot is a simple creature dealing with complicated life issues that are common to most of us (bad relationships, money woes, addictions to eating from garbage cans). By virtue of his simplicity he is able to distill down and address in elegantly crude ways (violence).” (Lit Mob)

Found these wonderful shoes from the Rokin Spring 09 line. Rokin “makes new classic mens shoes, partly seasoned with influences from the West Coast of Sweden, and inspiration from different subcultures; new, as well as old… Rokin shoes are comfortably soft and smell wonderful due to the use of natural materials and a high quality European production.” (Rokin)

Like every other starving student, I bought furniture from Ikea. However, I simply never got better at understanding the cryptic diagrams provided considerately to cater to people of different continents and languages. Of course, my inner-cynic contends that Ingvar Kamprad runs his company in perpetual penuriousness, unwilling even to employ the services of a much-needed copywriter and translator.

Regardless, I have ruined many pieces of furniture by failing to follow the pictorial instructions provided. I doubt this is evidence of my lack of interpretive skills, but rather the construction of the pieces are simply too complex, contrary to their marketing spiel. This is why I find build-it-yourself furniture to be a faulty notion. However, I recently came across the Naked Chair, designed by intercontinental collective known as Out of Stock, which completely challenges my views:

I do not know if it comes with an instruction sheet, but from the looks of it, none is needed. Simply by referring to the picture of the completed product, almost everyone should encounter no difficulty assembling the chair. Afterall, the entire chair is held together with wing nuts. No tools are required.

“Naked is an extremely lightweight chair that uses its structure as its aesthetic. The strength of this chair is due to action-reaction forces between the folded steel sheets and beech wood frame. It also flat packs in transportation and can be assembled without tools, resulting in a very low carbon foot-print.”

Perfect! No where can I get myself one?

As a Canadian, I am ashamed to say that my knowledge of Canadian history is shallow. In my defense, I have only lived in Vancouver for 10 years. Take, for instance, Downtown East Side (DTES). It is one of Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods and the historic heart of the city. The City hall, the courthouse, Woodward’s department store and the Carnegie Library were all located here in the 60’s. I have been told the scene then was vibrant and full of hubbub. However, as the city centre moved westward in the 70’s, the area quickly became the ugly side of Vancouver, fueled by drugs, crime and sex. This bleak scene of DTES is the one that I have only ever known.

Similarly, the only scene of Gastown that I know of is the one that stands today - a culmination of tourists, design furniture, artists, independent clothing boutiques and a bustling night life. But Gastown has a darker history: Gastown Riots, also known as “Battle of Maple Tree Square”.

Following weeks of arrests by undercover agents in Vancouver as part of a special police operation, the police finally attacked a protest demonstration in Gastown, on August 7th, 1971, against the use of undercover agents and in favour of the legalization of marijuana. Of around one thousand protesters, 79 were arrested and 38 were charged. However, the police were accused of heavy-handed tactics including indiscriminate beatings with their newly-issued riot batons. They also used, for the first time, horse-backed charges on crowds of onlookers and tourists.

This image by Stan Douglas captures the protest and retaliation:

It is a stark contrast to the Gastown today. Of this piece, Douglas says, “This is a public work of art and I am not interested in making portraits of great men or great moments in history… I’m interested in small moments that had the possibility of making change that was not fully realized. This is one of those moments, and I’m hoping it will help people to remember. Because in certain respects, this is a moment that has been forgotten.”

The photograph will be produced in its original size (9 by 15 metres) and installed in June in the atrium of the redeveloped Woodward’s building in DTES.

More information about Gastown Riots can be obtained at Canada’s Rights Movement.