Hot Box
Hot Box, by Barcelona-based Ana Mir and Emili Padros — for Emiliana Design Studio — is a design object with a different type of consumer in mind. If most highfalutin design firms pitch their sleek wares at Prada-clad architects and inner-city aspirants, the envisaged audience for the Emiliana Hot Box is another breed entirely: the chilly sex worker. A translucent structure that emerges from the ground, the Hot Box was created with the notion of providing warmth and light for those who spend a long time waiting on the street — namely prostitutes. The Hot Box shows us, just like Julia Roberts’s happy trajectory in Pretty Woman, that all ladies deserve their turn on a pedestal. The Hot Box is currently on show in Sydney as part of ‘Connections: Experimental Design’ at the Ivan Dougherty Gallery, University of New South Wales, 5 – 21 July 2007.
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Also by KATRINA SCHWARZ
Australian fashion brand Lover, founded by Susien Chong and Nic Briand in 2001, arouses a particular type of devotion. Like the fashionable muses that inspire Lover’s strong and feminine collections – Patty Hearst for the ‘Black Rose Army’ (Spring/Summer 06/07); Rolling Stones groupies and biker babes for ‘Altamont’ (Winter 07) – fans of Lover know all about yearning, obsession … and waiting lists. Get in the swim and place your pre-orders for Lover’s newly launched Spring/Summer line, ‘One Plus One’, which includes the label’s first foray into swimming cossies.
In the 1985 movie Weird Science, a pair of happy misfits use tip-top technology and nerdy know-how to create something truly beautiful: in the form of ‘real life’ woman and sexed up diva Kellie Le Brock. The Australian fashion label Romance Was Born have created something equally beguiling with their Spring/Summer 07/08 collection, also called Weird Science. Sending coke-bottle spectacles, high-waisted acid wash and even a DNA inspired headdress down the runway at Rosemount Fashion Week, a real highlight of the collection is the label’s collaboration with hot Sydney artist Del Kathryn Barton. Del Kathryn Barton, who has previously collaborated on the label’s Regional Australia collection, will once again provide a unique fabric print that will be reproduced across a range of garments. Romance’s own misfit duo, Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales, know nerds get their revenge in the end. [see also Del Kathryn Barton]
Urs Fischer at Cockatoo Island
Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour has a fascinating – if checkered – history. A former convict prison, a shipyard and a reformatory for wayward girls, the island also has a fascinating present as the site of a new installation by Swiss artist Urs Fischer. Fischer visited Sydney under the auspices of Kaldor Art Projects, whose previous projects have included Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Coast – One Million Square Feet (1969) and Jeff Koons’s floral Puppy (1995). Visit Cockatoo Island between now and June 3 to view Fischer’s artfully clunky and wonderfully gritty works – a skeleton climbs into/escapes from a packing case; impossibly contorted forearms are suspended from the ceiling and in the installation’s central piece, a huge knobbly structure, recalling both tree branches and disembodied limbs, spans the island’s central forecourt. A ghoulish spectacle.
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In the beautiful work of New York City-based illustrator, designer and typographer, Mario Hugo, finely rendered faces and figures intermingle with various abstract patterns and shapes to create some seriously refined, surreal, and mysterious work that’s all that, and then some.
I live the upbeat, feel good tempo of the new single — A Hundred Hearts — from Philly group, The Swimmers. Off their latest album, People Are Soft, this song is a strangely fitting anthem for the blustery day outside.
Kristian Olson’s illustrations look like Magic Eye posters that have come to life as marauding, fractal-shooting creatures from Technicolor hell. Read more
There’s something compelling about the energy, the charisma, and the incessant pmmft, pmmft, pmmft of the slippery ghetto tunes blasting (and I mean blasting) out of every hotel, café and bar in South Beach, Miami. Read more
The Deal sisters have dropped off the indie-rock radar of late, but this clip of them covering Hank Williams’ I Can’t Help It reminds us why we all loved them so much back in the day. Incidentally, the Breeders are set to release their new album, Mountain Battles, in April.
This pendant by Portland designer Stephanie Stimek hangs from an eighteen inch 14 carat gold chain. Made from a Japanese quail egg, the entire shell has been coated in plastic for strength and is available for purchase through the Lost At E Minor store.
LA’s premier art and design magzine, Arkitip, has gone all out with the ‘free’ giveaway for issue no. 0045 and has included a 9″ x 12″ Evan Hecox 2-color silk screen print signed by the artist! Read more
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1970s and 80s Soviet Union buildings
Cambodian born photographer Frederic Chaubin is the editor of French magazine Citizen K. His photo series on bizarre buildings built in the former Soviet Union during the 1970s and 80s is absolutely fascinating. Read more
Charlie Immer’s pastel-pallete sometimes obfuscates the gory violence in his surreal images. At other times, it heightens the gut-wrenching and visceral effect of his work. Read more
Hong Kong-based illustrator Man-Tsun draws dark and beautiful painterly images that look like they are straight off a high-end Japanese animated film. Read more
Trip out with Sparrow Vs Sparrow’s retro illustrations, I love their aesthetic, color use and sense of humor. Read more
Karen Caldicott’s clay head models
British born, New York-based model maker Karen Caldicott has been making clay heads for all major US publications over the last decade. Read more
Wolfmother. Rock n roll. Mystical lyrics. Heavy riffs. They have a new album out, Cosmic Egg, and we have five copies to giveaway, along with their debut album. To enter, tell us your favorite Wolfmother song and the city you live in. Yo! Two fingered salute. Read more
Inspired by the unique digital clock apps created by the designer, Sean Zoega, the i-toc watch is a colorful physical manifestation of digital ideas featuring bespoke two-disc Japan quartz movement. The outer gradient displays the minutes while the inner gradient shows the hours. The rings interact, creating an ever-changing pattern of design and colour. We have them for sale in our online store. Read more
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