Anthropomorphobia « NextNature.net

What is Next Nature?

With our attempts to cultivate nature, humankind causes the rising of a next nature, which is wild and unpredictable as ever. Wild systems, genetic surprises, autonomous machinery and splendidly beautiful black flowers. Nature changes along with us.

Posts Tagged ‘Anthropomorphobia’

Living Doll

Crying, talking, sleeping, walking… not really, but this is what Cliff Richard’s concept could look like when laboratorised.

“To demonstrate a new method for fabricating three-dimensional living biological structures, researchers at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) have created a 5-millimeter tall doll composed of living cells.

According to an announcement made on January 22 2009, the researchers created the tiny figurine by cultivating 100,000 cell capsules — 0.1-millimeter balls of collagen, each coated with dozens of skin cells — together inside a doll-shaped mold for one day. After the cell capsules had coalesced to form the doll-shaped mass of tissue, it was placed in a culture solution, where it reportedly survived for more than a day.

Read more »
Arnoud van den Heuvel
on 23/01/09 2 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Augmented-Bodies | Genetic-surprises | Guided Growth | Made-to-debate
Share
Objects of Desire

Created by Alex Sandwell Kliszynsk. Via Posthuman blues.
Van Mensvoort
on 17/01/09 5 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Augmented-Bodies | Fake-nature | Global-Image-Economy | Manufactured Animals | Plastic Planet | Suburban Utopia | Toys-are-Us
Share
The Photoshop Beauties: Before and After

Usually we don’t realize the hours of photoshopping spent on magazine and advertising images before publication. The raw photographic material reveals a lot about the fine craft of ‘beauty construction’. The photo above shows documentary maker, former soap actress and challenger of the beauty industry Sunny Bergman, before and after ‘the photoshop’.

Sunny’s latest documentary Beperkt Houdbaar (Limited Preservation) makes a powerful analysis of the cultivation of the body for the beauty industry’s economic benefit. We are looking forward to her contribution at the Powershow Next Nature in LA.

Read more »
Van Mensvoort
on 30/12/08 31 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Design-for-debate | Global-Image-Economy | Hyperreality | Image-Consumption | Made-to-debate | Plastic Planet
Share
DogFish

Try selling cars these days without some good old genetic manipulation…
Arnoud van den Heuvel
on 17/12/08 1 Comment »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Designed-by-Evolution | Manufactured Animals | On-the-Road
Share
Gel Remote

Human-product relationships increasingly play out in a realm which was previously considered exclusive for human-human and human-animal relationships. Panasonic now redesigned one of the most ubiquitous pieces of modern technology – the remote control. The goal was to create a product that is “waiting to be touched”.

Constructed of a soft, flesh-like gel, the remote appears cold when off. Once turned on, however, it seems to come to life. A soft light emanates somewhere from within as the center of the device begins to slowly rise and fall, mimicking the tranquil motions of breath. Left undisturbed, the remote will slumber peacefully. Buth should a human hand approach, sensors inside alert it to the imminent touch. It stops breathing, grows rigid – the light from within is extinguished. A remote is the ideal meaphor for the disturbance electronic distration poses to life. If we had to interrupt its life before it could interrupt ours, we may think twice before picking it up.

Via The Popular Uncanny, via Adbusters. See also: One remote control to rule them all, Magical Interaction.
Van Mensvoort
on 15/12/08 5 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Calm-technology | Humane-Technology | Magical-Interaction | Plastic Planet | sexy-machinery
Share
Human animal hybrid

This peculiar, half-human creature could be your cousin. No really; it is a sculpture by Patricia Piccinini entitled The Young Family, which, in turn, is part of a larger installation called We Are Family. Piccinini’s sculptures are an daunting visualization of the ongoing fusing between the ‘made’ and the ‘born’.
Van Mensvoort
on 18/11/08 3 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Augmented-Bodies | Designed-by-Evolution | Fake-nature | Hypernature | Manufactured Animals
Share
Human body farm

Why not use the human body to grow products for the medical industry? The designer Michael Burton envisions Future Farm where the body is used as a farm to cultivate clinical and pharmaceutical products with bio and nanotechnology.
Elin
on 22/10/08 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Augmented-Bodies | Biopolitics | Calm-technology | Guided Growth | Nanotechnology
Share
Blendie – the voice controlled blender

Blendie is an voice controlled blender with a mind of its own. Materials are a 1950’s Osterizer blender altered with custom made hardware and software for sound analysis and motor control.

You need to check the video (quicktime) to grasp the idea.
Guus
on 18/10/08 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Feed-Back | Food Technology | Made-to-debate | Sentient Spaces
Share
Michelangelo’s David after his stay in the US

I got this in my email from my uncle who lives in Australia. “After a short stay in America, David returns to Italy.” You know what’s coming before you even open the picture. Apparently these are the jokes they make down under.

The image was originally made from an advertising campaign created for the German Olympic Sport Committee.
Mieke Gerritzen
on 01/10/08 9 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Augmented-Bodies | Design-for-debate | Food Technology | Suburban Utopia
Share
BicycleBot

Murata Boy, is a robot capable of riding bicycles unassisted. Balancing, pedaling and directing the bicyclee, turning the bike to avoid obstacles, etc.

Read more »
Arnoud van den Heuvel
on 25/09/08 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Augmented-Bodies | Designed-by-Evolution | Humane-Technology | Made-to-debate | On-the-Road | Physical-computing | robotics
Share
Man charged for dumping silicone girlfriend

Fifteen policemen rushed to the scene, after a couple reported to have bumped into a “corpse” while out walking their dog in a mountain forest in Izu, central Japan.

The officers discovered a human form wrapped in plastic and tightly bound around the neck, midriff and ankles, with hair protruding from one end. The body was left untouched and taken away for examination, and the crime scene duly secured by a police cordon.

By mid-afternoon, the body was in the hands of police pathologists. But when they sliced open the wrapping, they were confronted not by a decomposing corpse, but by a life-sized sex doll.

Read more »
Van Mensvoort
on 18/09/08 3 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Fake-nature | Plastic Planet | sexy-machinery | Suburban Utopia
Share
High Performance Hip

A commercial by an orthopaedic reconstruction company introducing the next generation of joint replacements: “Highly advanced hips and knees. Engineered to meet the needs of your high performance life. Each made to endure, like the adventurous spirit of our generation”.

This commercial gives me the feeling I have missed an upgrade or something.

Related: Bionic woman |
Arnoud van den Heuvel
on 04/09/08 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Augmented-Bodies | Biomimicmarketing | Bionics | Designed-by-Evolution | Humane-Technology | Symbolic-Overdrive | Toys-are-Us
Share
Reconstructing Faces

The video below is featuring a computer-generated replica of actress Emily O’Brien’s face at high-definition resolution. The Image Metrics process takes a captured video and automatically applies the facial parameters to animation. Precise colors and characteristics can be calculated (and manipulated) at hundreds of measurements per square millimeter. The resulting CG models provide unprecedented detail of natural facial expressions – down to skin pores and fine wrinkles – with perfectly aligned shading information that allows photo-real faces to be rendered under any illumination and viewpoint.

Be ready for the next Hollywood revolution; actors will be able to act forever, whithout plastic surgery.

Read more »
Arnoud van den Heuvel
on 20/08/08 1 Comment »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Augmented-Bodies | Digital-Presence | Global-Image-Economy | Magical-Interaction | Meta-Meta-Reality | Physical-computing
Share
Virtual Transgender Suit

A study by psychologists at Nottingham Trent University has found that 54 percent of all males and 68 percent of all females “gender swap” – or create online personas of their opposite sex. This inspired Marc Owens to create a real life manifestation of that practice. Peculiar object of the week.

Via WMMNA. See also: Avatar Machine, Second Life Prostitute, Online Gamers Unmasked.
Van Mensvoort
on 14/08/08 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Augmented-Bodies | Design-for-debate | Hyperreality | Physical-computing | virtual-for-real
Share
Robotic R)evolution

In 1921 the word “Robot” (meaning “labor”) was introduced by Czech writer Karel Čapek. In his play “R.U.R.” (Rossum’s Universal Robots), robots seem happy to work for humans. That changes and leads to the end of the human race due to a hostile robot rebellion.

In august 2008 Sega Toys launches the “Dream Hamster” robot. The company is targeting (Japanese) women 20 to 40 years of age and expects to sell 100,000 units per year.

Aren’t they cute?

Via engadget.com | Related: Killer Robots | Giant Plush Microbes | BabyBunny | Hamster Shredder
Arnoud van den Heuvel
on 01/08/08 1 Comment »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Biomimicmarketing | Designed-by-Evolution | Fake-nature | Manufactured Animals | robotics | Toys-are-Us
Share
Man charged for shooting his lawn-mower

A 56-year-old man from the Midwestern US state of Wisconsin has been arrested after shooting his lawn mower in his garden because it would not start. The man was charged by police in Milwaukee with disorderly conduct and possession of a sawn-off shotgun.

Police officers said the man told them: “It’s my lawn mower and my yard, so I can shoot it if I want.”

Read more »
Van Mensvoort
on 28/07/08 3 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Officegarden | Suburban Utopia
Share
How to build yourself a night elf

Artist Max Kor, built himself a World of Warcraft Night Elf from scratch. Check his tutorial for an inside peek in surreal beauty construction. We are waiting for night elves to appear on the catwalk and in magazine cosmetic advertising.

See also: Photoshop Beauties: before and after, Virtual Miss, Simulacra for Dummies.
Van Mensvoort
on 19/07/08 2 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Augmented-Bodies | Digital-Presence | Global-Image-Economy | Physical-computing | Plastic Planet | sexy-machinery
Share
Homo Desktopus

A future physical anthropologist who knows nothing about the human race and would dig up a contemporary desktop computer, might conclude homo desktopus must have been the user of the device.

Read more »
Van Mensvoort
on 18/07/08 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Designed-by-Evolution | Humane-Technology | Officegarden | Physical-computing
Share

« First «8 91011 12 »