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.
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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Turkish-born, New York-based artist Deniz Ozuygur’s hilarious pieces tell sophisticated jokes that also, via crude, distorted, and disembodied forms, tap into a more innocent and tactile relationship we had with our bodies in grade school. Her Self High Five Machine is hysterical, as is her Alterations series, in which she messes with common kids’ items — Gummi Worms, Funyuns, a gum eraser — before repackaging them and returning them to the manufacturer. Read more
Paul Wackers most recent solo show is one of the best painting shows I’ve seen in San Francisco in awhile. Not to mention, one of Wackers’ strongest bodies of work yet. Read more
Heavy metal and hip-hop are perhaps the most popular forms of rebellion for kids the world over. In Malaysia, metal — particularly black metal — has taken such a strong hold that the Fatwa Council there banned it, fearing that the music would compel listeners to rebel against religion. Contrary to the council’s intentions, black metal is as popular as ever in Malaysia, and is a recognizable cultural touchstone there, as indicated by the above clip from the 2005 film Filem Rock.
MP5 + TO/LET are a collective of three girls from Rome and from Bologna who have been working on installations and graffiti since 2006. This graffiti was created in Medika, a new squat in Zagreb, Croatia. They were invited there for the Vox Feminae Festival, and this was painted in four days in the main entrance. Read more
The Occasional Diaries Of Werner Herzog is a spoof online diary for German film director, Werner Herzog. Although they’re all fiction, I enjoy reading them as much as if they were genuine. Read more
Oh man, close your eyes if you will and transport yourself to a place far, far away; where disco is in, polyester is up, and everyone bows long and deep to the gravitational pull of the almighty afro. Sister Self-Doubt by The Shakes takes me there. It takes me front and centre, feeling that slippery, incidenary groove as it crunches my spine and works its way to my feet. Hmmm, the feet. It’s always in the feet. And now I’m dancing and twisting, onwards and upwards, like a manic spinning top thinking nothing of today and even less of tomorrow.
Listen to The Shakes track, Sister Self Doubt.
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Love your Converse All Stars? Well, designer Daryl Van Wouw has taken his obsession to the next level, creating an entire pant and shoe configuration. Yes, it’s a very interesting design. But practical? That depends entirely on the whims of the individual.
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Nerd-attack! Man, this TARDIS zipper robe is so much cooler than any Star Wars crap people are hawking this days. This is for the true gangsta nerd.
Communication prosthesis by Sascha Nordmeyer
This ‘communication prosthesis’ by designer Sascha Nordmeyer is hilarious and awesome. I want to wear one to a job interview.
A little infectious lollipop rock anyone? Feel free to embarrass yourself singing along at the stoplight. If the other drivers give you that look, roll down the windows and spread the love.
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Mathematics? Leave me out. Fashematics? Now you’re talking! This gem of a site is a runway equation that adds up to a whole lot of wonderful.
Baltimore Mural by Josh Van Horne
My friend Josh Van Horne, a local Baltimore artist, did this amazing mural in our neighborhood that depicts the history of this warehouse-laden area.
Sometime in 2010, the folks behind Dirty Dishes had the slightly silly idea of using cheeky vintage photos and putting them on dinner plates. After doing lots of research, talking to lots of people, and receiving loads of positive feedback, they wondered if this idea was so silly after all. And thus Dirty Dishes was born. Read more
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