Leandro Elrich's Cake
A replica of Mies van de Rohe's Barcelona couch at Haunch of Venison, New York.
...if anyone is unsure what to get me for my birthday. jojo! :-)
I am a shaker. I like people. I like ideas. I like art. I like all things digital. I like to observe and think and create and analyze. I like subculture and authenticity. I like how people design things. I love music. I like knowing things. I like turning things upside down. I like making people feel comfortable with change. I ask a lot of questions; I am a curious person.
Innovation Secrets
Dan Gould from PSFK has spotted a couple of interesting articles, what does it take to be truly innovative?
In an article published in December’s Harvard Business Review the researchers identified five skills that separate the blue-sky innovators from the rest — skills they labeled associating, questioning, observing, experimenting and discovering.
One of the men behind the study, Insead’s Hal Gregersen, told CNN, “What the innovators have in common is that they can put together ideas and information in unique combinations that nobody else has quite put together before.”
“The way they act is to observe actively, like an anthropologist, and they talk to incredibly diverse people with different world views, who can challenge their assumptions,”
Mark Ventresca is a lecturer in strategic management at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School, and he agrees that innovation is not an inherent trait, but a set of skills that people can learn.
“Data says that people who have more varied connections hear more diverse information, and see patterns before other people.”
He says the goal is not simply knowing lots of people, but knowing people from varied backgrounds, who work for different companies, in different industries, have different skills, and deal with different issues, so that you are exposed to varied ideas.
Key points:
Associating: The ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields. Questioning: Innovators constantly ask questions that challenge the common wisdom. They ask “why?”, “why not?” and “what if?” Observing: Discovery-driven executives scrutinize common phenomena, particularly the behavior of potential customers. Experimenting: Innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots. Networking: innovators go out of their way to meet people with different ideas and perspectives.
Comments [0]
Pop is Short for Popular
business art.
Whilst I was in London last week I popped into the the Tate Modern and experienced the awesome Pop Life exhibition.
It's dead good - and not just because some of the rooms are 18+ only [always a good sign].
[Dear FCC - this is an unsolicited endorsement. I just thought it was good. I bought a ticket and everything.]
One of my favorite pieces was created just for the show - a music video, shot by McG, conceived and styled by Murakami, starring Kirsten Dunst, for the song Turning Japanese [I think I'm turning Japanese] by The Vapors.
[It's not online yet but you can see some shots from it here - kawaii!]
There's some really interesting exegesis about Warhol and his approach to business as art.
Recently I got asked some questions about Warhol and so I did a bit of research so I wouldn't look too stupid.
He was a branding genius, he turned himself into a brand very consciously, decades before social media somehow got Julia Allison a role in a Sony TV commercial.
He wasn't doing this just to appease his childhood insecurities [although that was probably part of it].
It was because he approached art as a business:
Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art. - A WarholIn his book - The Philosophy of Andy Warhol - he makes the branding point even more explicitly.
He talks about being jealous of
'Levi and Strauss. I wish I could invent something like blue jeans. Something to be remembered for. Something mass.'This i think is awesome - art not for the elite but for everyone - but also very commercially minded.
It's echoed in a quote from Posh Spice - who said she wanted to be 'as famous as persil' - as Bullmore pointed out ages ago. Packaged goods brands are more famous than any celebrity will ever be.
Let's return to the 18+ room.
In 1991, Jeff Koons wrote a letter to Italian porn star turned politician [only in Italy - although if Jenna Jameson ran...] Cicciolina and invited her to make some art with him.
During the making of this art - which consists of idealised and very graphic images and sculptures of them having sex as a kind of postlapsarian Adam and Eve - they fell in love and got married and created a very compelling myth around the artworks.
Now - whilst Koons was famous in the 80s, after this he became really very famous indeed.
[There are few things guaranteed to create headlines around the world, but this has to come very close.]
And then he also happened to become the most expensive living artist in the world at auction.
All the POPular artists featured - especially Damien Hirst - understood that the value any work of art is entirely socially created - it only has value because we agree that it does.
Which means that the entire art industry is predicated on a very simple value equation:
People will pay more for something they have heard of.
Correspondingly, the more people have heard of the artist, and his work, the more it is worth.
So the business of art is fame, to become popular, to make itself famous, to create brands.
As you may have guessed, I think this mechanism underlies a lot of culture, and advertising and that.
via Faris Yakob
Comments [0]
The Manly Art of Museum Curating
A really interesting observation:
“You know, we’ve never seen so many men here at the museum. This show has filled our galleries with men.”
Comments [0]
The Rise of Digital
Although these are US figures, it's interesting to see this tendency which may well apply to other countries.
As Ben Malbon well points out, it's even more interesting to see it's coming from a financial services company: mint.com
They have a great website and now it seems they are extending into data visualization and cultural commentary.
Comments [0]
Ara Pizza
Located in the outskirts of Barcelona we find this newly opened eco-fast food restaurant.
Pablo Tellez designed the space having the end-user in mind. For this instance he designed a special shaped table for this space which can overlap different segments, adapting every set of tables to the need of every group of people that occupies the space during the day. Similarly, they selected the Dr.yes chairs from Kartell designed by Eugeni Quitllet and Phillip Stak. These chairs were chosen for being light weight and resistant, therefore allowing a very flexible and easy-to-move set.
Do you know who you want to invite to have a pizza?
I do* :-)
It's a shame the website isn't really as cunning as the restaurant...
Comments [0]
Countdown Traffic Light
Eko is an ecological and economical traffic light concept designed by Damjan Stanković, a Serbian based industrial designer.
Comments [0]
Google Zeitgeist 2009
This years Google Zeitgeist has been published confirming it's an insightful look into a global mindset.
Comments [0]
Futuretainment
I like this book.
I like the web.
I'm going to buy it.
:-)
http://www.futuretainment.com/
Filed under //
Books
Comments [0]
Comments [0]