Clouds have been inspiring daydreams and flights of fancy ever since the first person looked up and said, “That looks kinda like my aunt Ethel!” While we now have a clearer understanding of what clouds are, we still have a fascination with these ephemeral metrological phenomena.
Japanese artist Yasuaki Onishi’s new creation, Reverse, gets imaginations going in much the same way. Created on site at the Rice Gallery in Houston, Reverse floats in the foyer and seems to be made of a whole lot of nothing. Onishi created Reverse by stacking cardboard boxes on top of one another and then draping them with a sheet of diaphanous, translucent plastic. Hot black glue was then dripped from the ceiling onto the plastic sheet. Once the glue had dried, the boxes were removed leaving the sheet floating in mid-air. Like the best conceptual art, Reverse is arresting to the eye as well as the mind. It relates not only to the negative space in the gallery, filling it, but at the same time defines the mountainous space left by the boxes. This rough mold of the boxes becomes the work itself. So we are seeing art in reverse, with what would normally be the final object being used as a tool to create the work itself. Despite the delicate nature of the materials, Reverse seems to make an impenetrable wall. Passage only becomes available when the viewer walks around the work and sees the tunnel to the rest of the gallery.
Reverse piques interest through its insubstantial and at the same time monolithic form, and elicit a number of comparisons to all those flimsy yet insurmountable obstacles we come across in our lives.
There are few traditions as quintessentially Scandinavian as the sauna. People in the far north have been baking themselves for centuries to improve general heath and warm up in the frigid winters there. Now Swedish designer Johan Kauppi has come up with a suitably stylish way to sweat away ails, both physical and mental.
As the name suggests, Ovo Sauna takes its inspiration from the egg. Just like its namesake, Ovo gives its users a sense of protection and separation from the world outside, creating a space ideal for contemplation. The shape was not only chosen to create a charming narrative alone. Saunas work by heating up a small space, and so the more excess space there is the more energy is consumed. By cutting out dead corners, Ovo maximizes space where it’s needed and minimizes where not. The heat source is placed within the narrow tip of the “egg” to improve heat retention. Semicircular benches lining the bottom of the egg are conducive to social interaction, an important element of the ritual. From the outside of Ovo, one is greeted by the aspen clad exterior, finished either in black or a light white stain. The wood was chosen for its beauty and excellent performance in heat. The shell is only broken by two glass doors leading, one ideally joining to a rest area and the other to a wash room. Inside, the aspen is left untreated, working with the subtle lighting to create a warm interior.
By focusing on what is important in the sauna experience, Kauppi has created a space to not only warm the body but also still the mind.
Anyone who has seen “The Late Late show with Craig Ferguson” in recent years will be familiar with his sidekick, Geoff, the robot skeleton with a voice spookily similar to George Takai. Well soon you will be able to have your own robot sidekick thanks to another Jeff.
Jeff Kessler is a mechanical enginerring grad student. He has developed a remote controlled robot called TJ*. TJ* is billed as a toy for kids. What sets it apart is that it is programmable, making it not only a toy children can grow up with, but also perfect for those of us who are kids at heart, even if social conventions don’t recognize this status. TJ is made up of flat fiberboard pieces (or colored plastic) that assemble together to create a head about 3/5 the size of a human one. His eyes can move up and down, left and right,. The kit can come with an optional the Ardruino Uno controller that is coded to control TJ*, but since it is open-source, you can tinker with it to your hearts content. This may seen like a small step forward in robotics, but at US$60 a pop it is accessible to most anyone who is interested.
Since TJ* is essentially a skull with eyes, it can easily be customized to users’ liking. The project has already received the funding required on kickstarter, but is accepting pre-orders for June. So to all you mad scientists out there, get your orders in ASAP. Check out a video here.
Designers have been looking to nature for inspiration before the word “designer” even existed. But how to best capture the enigmatic essence of life without just creating an animatronic is the question that needs to be answered. 
