Suburban Utopia « NextNature.net

Posts Tagged ‘Suburban Utopia’

Essay: From Main Street to the Mansion: Disney, Playboy and the Next Nature of Sex and Death

Nature demanded that we make a choice between immortality and sex, but the Next Nature of the 21st century may not. For help, we can look back to the 20th Century, which had many storytellers playing with the parameters of the sex equals death equation. None were more successful than two young men from the Midwest who ended up here in Southern California, making their dreams in to reality which Los Angeles always promises, but rarely delivers. Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner, who seem miles apart, are in fact two sides of the same coin, flipping to decide what the Next Nature of sex and death will be.

By PETER LUNENFELD

Life itself had a choice to make early on. Would life choose unchanging immortality, or infinite mutability punctuated by death and rebirth? Though single-celled organisms are still around, life in its wisdom abandoned self-replication and embraced sex, the intertwining of individuals to produce different offspring, which adapt to their environments, and grow into their own sexual maturity to repeat the process. In other words, life would rather fuck and evolve than endure the stasis of immortality. Life traded sex for death, and we are all the better for it.

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Peter Lunenfeld
on 08/11/10 2 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Designed-by-Evolution | Hypernature | Image-Consumption | Manufactured-Bodies | Suburban Utopia
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Medicinal All-Salt

Do you suffer from small health inconveniences and do you like to put salt on your morning egg? Why not combine the two? Medicinal All-Salt provides a low-dosage solution for things like headaches, depression and low libido. You refuse to pay insane amounts for birth control pills? Just season your dinner with the hand-harvested and sun dried salt. Or make it yourself for that matter. Via the site of All-Salt you can find a small guide that will help you to create your own medicinal salt out of the waste-water of your local water treatment plant.

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Michael Kluver
on 01/11/10 2 Comments »
Tags
- Feed-Back | Hypernature | manufactured-landscapes | Suburban Utopia
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Nano Supermarket Opens its Doors

Nanotechnology is an important emerging technology of our time – it radically intervenes with our sense of what is natural – yet most people are still relatively unaware of its consequences. The NANO Supermarket presents speculative nanotech products that may hit the shelves within the next ten years: medicinal candy, interactive wall paint, programmable wine, a twitter implant, invisible security spray.

Our products are both innovative and useful as well as uncanny and disturbing. They were envisioned as scenarios for potential nano futures, that help us decide what nano future we want. Come visit the Nano Supermarket to taste & test the products and experience the impact of nanotechnology on our everyday lives.

More info: www.nextnature.net/nano-supermarket
<a href="http://www.vimeo.com/15979195">http://www.vimeo.com/15979195</a>
NextNature.net
on 20/10/10 6 Comments »
Tags
- Design-for-debate | Nanotechnology | Suburban Utopia | Supermarket | Technorhetoric
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Douglas Coupland: A radical pessimist’s guide to the next 10 years

Douglas Coupland is a writer and artist based in Vancouver. For the canadian newspaper Globe and Mail, he wrote The ‘radical pessimist’s guide to the next 10 years’ a dystopian view on the near future. One of the the underlying ideas behind the guide could be translated as the observation that evolution continues, whether we like it or not. Our next nature might be as wild, unpredictable and out of control as ‘old nature’ once was. Read the original article here, or simply scroll down.

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Hendrik-Jan Grievink
on 10/10/10 6 Comments »
Tags
- Back to the Tribe | Suburban Utopia | Theory
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Car Skin

Our peculiar image of the week was created by artist Olaf Mooij. Seen at Discovery Festivals Cabinet of Curiosities.
Koert van Mensvoort
on 08/10/10 Comments »
Tags
- Designed-by-Evolution | Intimate Technology | On-the-Road | Suburban Utopia
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Design Fiction – Medical Bill of the Future

According to this fictitious future medical bill almost every part of the human body will be repairable in 2028. Gut bacteria replacement, Bone tissue growth for skull repair, Airlift, Cryogenic brain protection.. the list is lustrous. Yet, the scenario also wittingly shows how technological progress may have a price of technological dependence: The emancipation from bodily constraints is traded for a social-psychological dependence. The things we design end up designing us.

Zoom in on the full image for the creepy details. Via Wired. Todd Tankersley was the photographer. Aaron Rowe was the writer. Thanks Stephan.
Koert van Mensvoort
on 03/10/10 Comments »
Tags
- Officegarden | Suburban Utopia | Wild-systems
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Augmented Reality Maps

Since a few years the internet in combination with mobile phone technology brought us something that we refer to as augmented reality: A digital projection that is placed over imagery of the existing environment to create a whole new world on the screen.

Earlier this year Microsoft Bing-Maps architect Blaise Aguera y Arcas showed how augmented reality features can be added to digital world maps. Including streaming video. This means that when you switch to the streetview mode you get to watch live video streams, at least when someone is broadcasting there at that moment. It’s also possible to see older footage that has been put in place with geographic photography techniques so ‘video time travel’ becomes an option.

As many mobile devices already support photo and video, we can anticipate digital maps to become “live” within some years. This reminds us of the ultimate sonar system from ‘Batman: The Dark Knight’. And like the sonar system from the movie we can ponder on the ethical implications of a system that records half of the world. Will it add a whole new perspective or simply turn every camera phone into a potential security camera? The Big Augmented Reality Maps Brother is watching you!
Michael Kluver
on 30/09/10 Comments »
Tags
- Digital-Presence | Image-Consumption | Organized-Networks | Suburban Utopia | Technorhetoric | Wild-systems
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X-Ray Visions

Anyone who ever saw an x-ray picture of himself will probably recognise the uncanny feeling of staring at your own skull or bones and being confronted by one of nature’s grim realities: your body is an very vulnerable, beautiful and imperfect tool that will one day — inevitably — stop working. These x-ray photographs by british photographer Nick Veasey, are something else…

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Hendrik-Jan Grievink
on 29/09/10 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Suburban Utopia
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Glamor & Oil

In response to the latest oil spill famed photographer Steven Meisel made a shoot for the Italian Vogue (the only fashion magazine in the world worth reading, really) that replaces the tragically accustomed oil-soaked birds with a top model Kristen McMenamy withering away wearing black feathered outfits. Poor girls birds.

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Koert van Mensvoort
on 24/09/10 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Biomimicmarketing | Image-Consumption | Manufactured Animals | Manufactured-Bodies | manufactured-landscapes | Suburban Utopia
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Bird + Subwoofer

The Bell Isle Zoo is one of the examples of the decay of the once great city of Detroit. Situated on an island in the Fleming Channel, the zoo was shut down years ago because of lack of money just as many other landmarks in and around the city. The deserted area around the zoo became a popular spot for teenagers to hang around and race their cars. Meanwhile the zoo itself, secretly transformed into a new ecosystem with a surprising variety of wildlife. Especially a great number of bird species.

Artists Paul Elliman & Nicole Macdonald found out about this natural world inside the manmade ruins and reflect on this by documenting everything through audio and video and by creating artistic projects.

One of these reflections can be seen at Casco in Utrecht. A big subwoofer is installed next to a TV that displays the sound of the bird phonetically. The sound of the bird is lead through the subwoofer and is transformed into a deep bass. It’s a reaction on the two worlds living so close together. The teenage kids riding around in their cars pumping out loud music through their car stereos and the birds that try to adapt to their new neighbours. The only question that arises is; ‘Do you call a bird-sound-emitting-subwoofer a tweeter?’

This installation as well as audio and video fragments of the zoo can be found at Casco until the 3^rd of October.

Subwoofer installation from the expo ‘Teach me to Disapear’ at Casco, Utrecht
Michael Kluver
on 17/09/10 1 Comment »
Tags
- Manufactured Animals | Officegarden | Suburban Utopia | Symbolic-Overdrive
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Follow the Leader

No birds or airliners where hurt in the making of our peculiar image of the week. The perceived mingling of the birds and the airplane is in fact an optical effect, masking the distance between them and resulting in a dreamlike image of birds and airplanes living in harmony. If only…

Photo by Darryl Morrell, via Airliners.net
Koert van Mensvoort
on 16/09/10 Comments »
Tags
- Manufactured Animals | On-the-Road | Suburban Utopia
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The Stray Shopping Cart Project

“…Until now, the major obstacle that has prevented people from thinking critically about stray shopping carts has been that we have not had any formalized language to differentiate one shopping cart from another. In order to encourage a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon, I have worked for the past six years to develop a system of identification for stray shopping carts. Unlike a Linaean taxonomy, which is based on the shared physical characteristics of living things, this system works by defining the various states and situations in which stray shopping carts can be found. The categories of classification were arrived at by observing shopping carts in different situations and considering the conditions and human motives that have placed carts in specific situations and the potential for a cart to transition from one situation to another.” – Julian Montague.

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Koert van Mensvoort
on 31/08/10 2 Comments »
Tags
- Designed-by-Evolution | Suburban Utopia | Supermarket
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Don’t feed the Tourists

We could have decided to domesticate pigs into pets, instead of dogs and cats. Then this would be a totally normal picture. And it wouldn’t be featured here as peculiar image.

© All rights reserved by Photo Houston on Flickr.
Hendrik-Jan Grievink
on 18/08/10 1 Comment »
Tags
- Recreation | Suburban Utopia
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Bread-in-a-Can

This morning I woke up early and started the day with a cup of coffee and some slices of wholewheat bread and dutch cheese. I realised that bread is one of these few products that I use on a daily base, that still have some kind of ‘artisan’ mythology around it because of its appearance. Even if you buy factory bread instead of the organic bread from the bakery on the corner, you can kind of relate to what a bread is: processed grains. Made digestible in a form that resembles the process of making: flour and water, made into a ball of dough and baked in an oven. Associations with warmth, fire. The yeast making the doug rise.

This japanese bread-in-a-can (Japanese: スズの甘いパンすることができます) , photographed by designer Michele Champagne in Tokyo, is something different for breakfast. It comes in a colourful can, tastes sweet, comes in different flavours and is for sale in a vending machine. At the same time it feels futuristic and old fashioned in a 50’s way, when buying canned goods in a supermarket was still some kind of novelty. This is a good example why I love to go to supermarkets abroad, especially the ones in Asia: the supermarket itself is such a mundane phenomenon that sometimes you need a foreign perspective on your daily groceries to realize that you’re already living in the future.
Hendrik-Jan Grievink
on 16/08/10 Comments »
Tags
- Suburban Utopia | Supermarket
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Go forth, Buy a Smartphone and Reproduce Thyself

It took some years of evolution to turn sex (between different sexes) from a stricly functional activity attuned to reproduction, into the recreational activity it is primarily observed today. And technology, like the anti-conception pill, did not play just a small role in that.

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Hendrik-Jan Grievink
on 12/08/10 1 Comment »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Back to the Tribe | Image-Consumption | Suburban Utopia
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Keep it cool with the Bio-Robot Fridge

The Bio Robot fridge is a speculative product that uses a non sticky, odorless gel to envelope stored food as individual pods. The idea is that the gel cools by absorbing heat energy, which is transformed and radiated into a different range of wavelengths. This process is conducted by colony of bio-mechanical robots that transform invisible infrared radiation into visible light.

Sans doors and drawers, the fridge can be oriented vertical or horizontal, as per the home requirements. All products are readily available, odors will not mix, the meat does not need to freeze as it is well conserved by the gel.

According to its conceptualizer, Yuriy Dmitriev, the bio-robots can identify and select a product for each of the optimal cooling rate and temperature of storage. The process of cooling is accompanied by the visual emission of the gel, which makes its operation beautiful and spectacular. Expected in the kitchen in 2050. Not sure if we still eat bananas by then, though.

Via Yankodesign. Thanks Diede Gulpers.
Koert van Mensvoort
on 08/08/10 1 Comment »
Tags
- Nanotechnology | Officegarden | Suburban Utopia | Supermarket
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Dog Modding in China

As a child, I already saw some great tiger potential in my cat and some shark-ish attitude in the behaviour of my goldfish. Personally, I think that since we started domesticating animals, man must have had fantasies about undomesticating them. The thrill of making ‘man’s best friend’ into his enemy again – if only it where for one day: Back to the tribe!

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Hendrik-Jan Grievink
on 19/07/10 5 Comments »
Tags
- Back to the Tribe | Fake-for-Real | Image-Consumption | Recreation | Suburban Utopia
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Downriver in the Lowlands

The Netherlands is known for its outright flat landscape – its even part of the name. How come the Dutch Womans Youth Rafting Team just won the World Cup in the category ‘Downriver’? Lucky?

Must be, cause how could the four of them get proper training without rivers running wild, without speeding downhill? Just by a little floating on a Dutch lake? And how come last year a Dutch girl won a gold medal at the Olympics in snowboarding, lucky as well? Must be, as the Dutch don’t have any mountains nor enough snow.

I once read a quote saying “The best rapper in the world is white (Eminem) and the best golfer in the world is black (Tiger Woods), what’s happening?”. I have this feeling when I see these Dutchies winning prizes in their unnatural habitat. I’m already hoping for a Jamaican to win at Fierljeppen (a typical traditional Dutch sport).

But in fact something much bigger causes these strange successes. Since the last two or three decades the Dutch have been stealing environments. If we like what we elsewhere we just copy it. Instead of trying to conquer it as we used to, we now take a close look and rebuilt it. Today you can ski on snow mountains, climb rocks, raft wild rivers, go to China (town) or on a Safari without crossing the border. We reshape our nation to entertain ourselves and that’s not typical Dutch. Japan made a copy of Amsterdam, Vegas did Venice and Disneyland is everywhere.

Globalization doesn’t stop with a bit of networking and outsourcing, we even shift our physical world, exchanging complete cities and landscapes. And as we had brought the Zambezi River – famous for rafting – to Zoeterwoude (photo) we could as well easily organize the World Cup Rafting.

So the success of the Dutch Womans Youth Rafting team might be due to the event was held in our own land, on a wild – but man made – river. I wander what’s next? Indoor surfing in Ghana, outdoor ice skating in Dubai or curling at the Himalayas? It will at least make some extra ordinary champions.
Teun Castelein
on 17/07/10 Comments »
Tags
- Fake-nature | manufactured-landscapes | Recreation | Suburban Utopia
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