Fold Loud

Fold Loud by JooYoun Paek is a (de)constructing musical play interface that uses origami paper-folding techniques and ritualistic Taoist principles to give users a sense of slow, soothing relaxation.

Fold Loud interconnects ancient traditions and modern technology by combining origami, vocal sound and interactive techniques. Unlike mainstream technology intended for fast-paced life, Fold Loud is healing, recovering and balancing.

Playing Fold Loud involves folding origami shapes to create soothing harmonic vocal sounds. Each fold is assigned to a different human vocal sound so that combinations of folds create harmonies.

via JooYoun Paek | hat tip Swiss Miss

Polite Umbrella

Polite Umbrella is a shrinkable umbrella that enables users to morph its shape in order to reduce occupied space and to increase user maneuverability. Users can easily adjust their umbrellas anytime by pulling a handle so that they can protect themselves from harsh winds or bumping into others.

via JooYoun Paek

Stanley Kubrick on More4

This stunning promo was shot in one long take, and is a look behind the scences of Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining, all from the perspective of the director himself.  The spot produced by Channel 4 Creative, was meticulously researched and was even shot using the directors favourite lens.

Cultural preservation, team sports, and the usual skinny

The anthropologist Margaret Mead once observed that in the 1930s, when she was busy remaking the idea of culture, the notion of cultural diversity was to be found only in the ‘vocabulary of a small and technical group of professional anthropologists’. Today, everyone and everything seems to have its own culture. From anorexia to zydeco, the American philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah has observed, there is little that we don’t talk about as the product of some group’s culture. In this age of globalisation many people fret about Western culture taking over the world. But the greatest Western export is not Disney or McDonalds or Tom Cruise. It is the very idea of culture.

via Butterflies and Wheels

Hidden Van Gogh painting revealed by giant X-ray

It’s rare that new paintings by Old Masters are discovered. But that’s exactly what happened in the case of a recently uncovered work by Vincent Van Gogh. It was found at a museum in the Netherlands — but the painting wasn’t lost in some dusty corridor, it was hidden under the paint of another Van Gogh.

Scientists using a giant X-ray machine found an early portrait of a peasant woman beneath Van Gogh’s 1887 work “Patch of Grass.”

via NPR