Urban Camouflage

Laurent La Gamba makes photographic installations dealing with camouflage. His work juggles with the idea of natural procrypsis in the urban space and deals with the relations among people, living environment, and technology.

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Crowdsourced drink

Remember the days when the flavor of a fruity drink was simply connected to an apple, orange, strawberry, kiwi, or perhaps – if you felt really exotic – an acai berry? Nowadays we quench our thirst with hyperreal beverages that serve us engineered tastes like Green punch, Wild ice zest berry, or Power-C Dragon fruit.

The Vitaminwater brand is moving to the next level by crowdsourcing its upcoming flavor. Fans are invited to collaborate on the design of their new drink. The design contest is organized through the launch of a Flavorcreator application on Facebook (watch out: you will have to let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends’ info, and other content for the app to work). Vitaminwater enthusiasts got the opportunity to name the flavor, write the bottle copy and design the label via a contest with the winner or winning team receiving a $5,000 prize from Vitaminwater. The result will be available in stores from March 2010.

We applaud this democratization of hyperreal flavors – if it the drink is designed anyway, why not let the customers have a say – and are now anticipating the first crowdsourced piece of fruit.

Via Coolhunting. Related: Organic Coke, Hyper Fruit, Why are carrots orange? Its political, Little Trees – Smells to refresh your car, Biomimicmarketd strawberry juice, Food design in the 21th century.

Counterfeit Crab

Engraved Hairy Crab: fake or real?

大闸蟹 (Dazha crab), or more widely known as Shanghai Hairy Crab, is in season right now. This typical Shanghai delicacy is particularly sought after for its rich and creamy roe. And just like many other delicacies: sooo tasteful but sooo bad for your health… However, like, well, most things from China (if not all) hairy crabs suffer problems with counterfeits.

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Fresh from the Pharm

Will we in the future still buy several needs according food in shops, or will we grow M&M’s ourselves? There is a lot happening on in the field of food technology, think for example of special cloned cow species or ‘extremely tasteful’ designers vegetables. We are radically intervening with Darwin’s survival of the fittest, since society strives to select and process the ‘best’ and ‘strongest’ species and types themselves – often based on commercial values.

According the magazine cover of Food & Wine in October 2105 the process of ‘creating’ food in factories will be outdated; next nature will grow the hyperfood itself. With a little help of technology the food/culture that society created will be combined with what we traditionally consider as nature. Think for example of the extensive use of photosynthesis to increase production of food, as they will become little factories. But also about processing design food via a biological way that for the present can only happen via complex chemical processes, e.g. the production of M&M’s through the genetic manipulating of beans. Furthermore, the special 22^nd-century edition of Food & Wine explains that food will become more effective, healthy and ‘powerful’ by the integration of new developed vitamins and medicines. These will not only give us extra energy but will also power the electronic devices we use, since these will become a part of our body we’ll have to feed them as well.

Will in 2105 all factories where they produce food become redundant? And how will the physical status of future humans react upon the extra healthy food they will consume, shall it improve lifestyle in a way illness can be prevented? Fortunately or not, this cover is still merely a fantasy, hence we still have some degrees of freedom in what direction we want food design to develop.

Related: Food design in the 21th century, The meat of tomorrow, a square fishstick, dinosaur nuggets, organic coca-cola, hyper fruit, cloned meat, potato-free potato chips, frankenwein, vegetarian hamburgers, hypernatural tomatoes, Who designed the banana?, How to grow an Orangina Bottle.

Grow-a-NanoRaptor

Now here is an example of the fusion between the made and the born, most kids would crave for. Much better than the robotic dino toy. Designed by evolution!

Hopefully this genetic surprise doesn’t grow genetically wild and eats its owner. Luckily it is just an imaginative product – so far.

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Ecological Insecticide

Ecological insecticide allows you to extinguish-nature in a nature-friendly way.

It nicely illustrates the “I love nature, but not in my backyard” attitude, so popular nowadays. Peculiar paradoxical product of the week.

Related: Five Strategies of Biomimicmarketing, The biodiversity of green brands is increasing, Natural Condoms.

Food design in the 21th century

Old nature provided us with a wide variety of food: fresh milk, crispy vegetables, nutritious meat. Yet this is not enough, we want more:

We want a printed steak, square fishsticks, dinosaur nuggets, organic coca-cola, hyper fruit, cloned meat, potato-free potato chips, frankenwein, vegetarian hamburgers and hypernatural tomatoes. We want vitamine+Q10 yoghurt that makes you loose weight. We want to hear the sound of a sausage when we bite it – we want notice how well designed that sausage sound really is.

Already for thousands of years people have been food designers. How will food technology develop itself into the 21th century? The Philips Food Design Probes investigate how we will eat and source our food in the future, like in 15 to 20 years. There are 3 products we might have in our homes by then:

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Who designed the banana?

Looking at a banana from a design perspective, one immediately notices the fruit is highly ergonomic and sophisticated: Bananas fit perfectly in the human hand, they come with a non-slip surface, a bio-degradable packaging that is easy to open, and they have an advanced informative skin that turns yellow when the product is ready for consumption – green means not yet, brown means too late.

The design of the banana is so good, some evangelists – like the one in the video – present it as evidence that an ‘intelligent designer’ must have created the fruit. These evangelists however, makes a quintessential mistake on the static origins of ‘nature’, as they ignore that the bananas we eat today are hardly products of old nature. Rather, they are the result of thousands of years of domestication by people.

Archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence suggests that banana cultivation goes back to at least 5000 BCE. The design banana’s we eat cannot even reproduce without the hand of man, as they have no seeds – they are all clones, which makes the species highly vulnerable to diseases.

Wild bananas are still around, yet they are much less ergonomically adjusted for human consumption as they have have numerous large, hard seeds. Perhaps in the far future evangelists will present coke bottles as evidence for their ‘intelligent designer’ argument?

Related: A designers take on intelligent design, Banana Juice box, Banana inspired harddisk casing. Thanks Billy.

Fruit4Day

Fruit does wonders for your health. No doubt about it. It is recommended to consume two pieces of fruit each day. One.. Sorry, I’ve lost count?

How convenient to have the two pieces of fruit mixed together in one product! Hunting and gathering has become too easy nowadays. Of course, you pay a bit extra for the service, as the retail price of Fruit2Day equals the price of FOUR pieces of fruit in their original packaging.

Related: Image consumption, How to grow an Orangina Bottle, Lucky Fruits, Modernistic watermelon, Cubic Fruit, Hyper Fruit, Banana Juice box.  Thanks Hendrik-Jan.

Tattooed goldfishes

If a tattooed pig is a bit too much for you, why not go for a tattooed goldfish? They bring you lost of luck and are available Chinese characters such as “Wealth, Dragon, Longevity, Happiness…” or flowery patterns that are inscribed onto the fishes’ skin with lasers.

Apparently the little fellows are so popular in China that the prices are shooting up. It is reported that the tattooed fish has been priced at about 20 yuan initially; but it is priced at 100 yuan now – price also depends on whether you buy a fish with a standard inscription or a bio-customized one with your personal markings. It still attracts many citizens to purchase. Pets have become more popular in China in recent years with the country’s increasing prosperity.

Via NRCNext. Related: Branded Butterfly Wings, Self catching fish, Hyperfish, Biopresence: human DNA translated to trees, Hybrid carp with a human face, Feelings translated to plants, Branded pigs.  Thanks: Martijn de Waal.