Talk - Creating meat with stem cell technology - Kings College London - 13th March

When news came out last year that a real burger had been made in a lab using stem cell technology I was immensely excited. As I've mentioned before, I care deeply about both animal farming practices and the environment, which could both be affected for the better by this research. 

It is extremely unlikely that people will just stop eating meat (it is DELICIOUS - I may be heading towards vegetarianism but I'm not ready yet - it's a struggle to even only eat free range meat, damn my love for greasy spoon fry ups and cheap fried chicken! I think I manage it 90% of the time though!)

Animals for meat require a lot of land, which could instead be used to grow food - grains, vegetables etc that could feed many more people than can be fed by meat produced on the same amount of land. Plus the huge amount of methane produced by cows, adding to the problem of global warming problem. And farming practices can be awful, causing unnecessary pain and suffering to the animals we eat to make it cheaper and use less space. As the population ever increases, the problems also increase.

So when I saw that Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University (whose team is behind this research and the burger) was giving a talk at KCL, I had to go. 

And I found it very interesting and informative. Prof Post explained the reasons behind the research (see above - environment/animal welfare) before explaining how the burger was created. This made sense to me at the time but I wasn't making notes so cannot now remember the how, but moving on, they are now working on perfecting the taste/texture of the burger, increasing the efficiency of production/sustainability and lowering the cost! Also - creating a steak is on the agenda. They think that in 7-10 years these burgers could be in shops, though this sounds rather overly optimistic to me considering the cost for the burger last year was something like £220,000!!

I do hope this research succeeds in creating affordable, ethical meat on a mass market scale though. How amazing!


Links:

BBC news - World's first lab grown burger
KCL - Creating meat with stem cell technology
Evening Standard article - image taken from this page
Scientific American - Meat/Environment
Wiki - Meat/Environment
Compassion in World Farming

Wildlife Photographer of the Year at Natural History Museum

I always enjoy this annual exhibition. Although every year it seems to get more crowded! So many beautiful photos though. Elephants greeting each other in the distance in black & white simplicity surrounded by sparse trees. A sunlit field of flowers. A view of trees from under water, framed by bubbles.

Here are two of my favourites.

Simplicity by Valter Binotto - blurred dew around a delicate violet.

Twin Hope by Diana Rebman - the MOST adorable baby twin gorillas in their mothers arms. No one I've excitedly shown my baby gorilla postcard to seems to think they're as cute as I do but I can't stop melting when I look at them!

Wildlife photographer mainly celebrates nature and its beauty but also at the end there are photographs showing how it is being destroyed. There seemed to be less of this, this year but there are some traumatising photos of elephants killed for ivory. It was really upsetting. Although the elephants had no heads, the guys who worked in the wildlife park could still tell which elephants they were as they had cared for them closely for so long.

I think the destruction hits harder after having looked at so many intimate photographs of life and beauty. I hope this exhibition can help us to think of the environment and creatures that live here. It's so hard to be good, everything seems to be bad. I'm slowly making tiny steps. I usually only eat free range meat. (I'm not ready to be a vegetarian but at the very least I think farm animals should be well treated and respected) I'm starting to avoid palm oil (I'm unclear on the details but I believe deforestation to get palm oil is destroying habitats). Sometimes it feels like these small things don't matter and can never make a difference and I get embarrassed if I have to mention it because people think I'm being ridiculous. But little by little attitudes do change and little by little things can change.

On till 23 March 2014.


Links:

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Diana Rebman

Valter Binotto

Compassion in World Farming

Say no to palm oil

World Wildlife Fund

Agnes Denes

Agnes Denes is an environmental artist who planted a wheatfield in the middle of new york, and planted a forest in a beautiful mathematical pattern. Planting things and nurturing life in the name of art seems very lovely to me. The forest is someting that will continue to grown in beauty over time and eat some carbon dioxide. Seeing a wheatfield in the city is an amazing contrast and thought provoking. Her ideas are simple, interesting and meaningful.

http://greenmuseum.org/content/artist_content/ct_id-198__artist_id-63.html

Fish.

I just watched this over at treehugger.com... I wish I had the moral strength to be vegetarian. But I enjoy my food so much. I try to convince myself it is ok to eat meat as I eat it rarely and I only eat free range chicken. But while I'm aware the fish is running out I've not thought about it.

Arr it's so difficult and expensive to try and live right. To be completely good is impossible. But it's important to have the right attitude at least and to make the best choices you can.

I hope this fish 4 u stuff is available in my local sainsburys.

shadows to blinds...

Now I'm making linen blinds with shadow casters attached behind. Trying to sort out the sustainability of linen...so far I think it's pretty good...apart from the bleaching...but I want it white! Thinking thinking.

Yu Jordy Fu

Recycled paper lasercut lampshades. Sort of like something I might have done which makes me feel a little unoriginal! :) my stuff is more surreal and illustrative and less 3 dimensional but really similar...lets hope this inspires me to innovate :)

http://www.jordyfu.com/

Out There - Nikola Basic

Amazing beautiful concepts...He has built a Sea Organ - pipes that play music as the waves move so the sea is playing music..listen to it here...it's incredible!

More related to my work, is Greeting to the Sun - "Symbolic urban installation which, by means of photovoltaic cells built-in sea walkway, changes solar energy into lighting spectacle"

It's sustainable, interactive, dramatic. I'm not sure what I think of it visually...the photo looks pretty but I watched some videos on you tube that weren't very interesting or attractive. However I havn't actually seen it and it sounds like it has the potential to do many things, project images, interact with people and nature...I'd love to go see both these installations in real life.

Photo taken from here.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Shtu5HI15_U&feature=related

Out There - Junya Ishigami

Beautiful detailed charming drawings depicting scenarios where nature and architecture blend.

Sunlight Transportation Systems

So interesting! I wish the bookshop had had this.

From Now to Eternity

Plastic Nostalgia by Raw Edges

Plastic Fandangoes by Committee

Exhibition about plastic - pros and cons. Some designers celebrating plastics versatility and others highlighting it's drawbacks. It was interesting. For some stuff we really need plastic. But it is misused alot too. And it is hard to recycle. I've been talking to a guy at an acrylic company and while they recycle everything internally, there is no system to collect acrylic from outside because if it contaminated with other plastics it will degrade the recycled product. I'm really mixed up over whether I should use acrylic or not...

The Lamp of Memory by Ruskin

I'm borrowing some of the new Penguin Great Ideas range from work. They are such beautiful little embossed matt books :D I read this one too quickly and it was difficult. I probably shouldn't have but the superior tone grated on me and it was quite religious too. But I could agree with some stuff he was saying like that we don't appreciate things enough and that understand their meanings. And that architecture is full of memory and meaning, it contains the past? There was a huge section in Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame saying the exact same thing I think. Anyway I think Ruskin reckons we should take as much care over the building of our own house as of like a cathedral, it should be as beautiful and well loved. I think I see, like if we took care, put our hearts into our homes and everything, we wouldn't throw away and consume so much?

Giles Miller

Previously I posted about Greypants cardboard lampshades...then Stephanie showed me Giles Miller's cardboard work which takes it alittle furthur - working in floral designs. It's lovely but so expensive! I guess it must be alot of work. I'd like to have a go though :) Work in some sillhouettes! Giles Miller is part of Farm...so that's where you can see all his stuff and other lovely stuff.

Design Debate - Grand Designs Live and Icon Experiment

Went to Grand Designs/Icon Experiment at Grand Designs :) It were good.

There was a design debate, with Jurgen Bey and Tony Dunne vs Dick Powell and Luke Pearson. I missed the start but I couldn't quite figure out how they were making different points. I think they were all saying the same thing. That designers are not designing for real needs but for brief wants. (Obsolescence) And that designers need to take responisibility. Really think about whether what they want to do is neccesary and what materials etc they use. Future design should be positive and attempt to change things. Sustainability should be forefront. It should be more than lip service. (ie. rather than ooh this is 20% recycled, stop and think is this product neccesary at all)

At least, that's what I understood. And I agree...but I don't know that consumption can decrease, especially just because designers stop designing. I think they said something about educating consumers, but how can that be done, really. Bah, this is too much for me to think on right now. I'm not sure I'm making sense or that I understand myself.

http://www.iconexperiment.co.uk/

http://www.granddesignslive.com/home

Kurt Jackson <3

Kurt Jackson is my definite favourite artist. I love the energy and passion in his work. I think it's utterly beautiful. His paintings remind me of my childhood. And of happy moments when I can stop and breathe and appreciate. He paints the same scene repeatedly in different lights, moments. These paintings are memories. And they capture how beautiful England is :) I love England so much...I think sometimes people don't realise how lovely this country is. And it hurts to think what climate change might cause us to lose.

I love that he lives in Cornwall with a big vegetable garden near the sea :D and he paints the garden and the vegetables and his wife tending the garden. I know gardening is hard work but it sounds so dreamily idyllic. I imagine him spending his days painting the land he knows and loves so well and coaxing delicious fruits and vegetables from the garden and everything being simple and beautiful. Probably nothing of the sort but I like this idea.

The paintings are even more intensely wonderful in real life, I grab any opportunity to see them for real. I hope another one comes soon!

Greypants - Beautiful Cardboard

Look! A video of cardboard furniture making! By Greypants. Bit more sophisticated than mine though :) And these beautiful cardboard lamp shades that cast textured shadows. I still have alot of card...I wonder if I could something like this and incorporate imagery...

James Lovelock - The Revenge of Gaia

This book has left me feeling terrified and hopeless. It is a good book though and I've learnt alot from it, how every aspect of the planet affects each other and works together. And how people are over paranoid about certain things yet do nothing really about climate change. That like during war, people accept hardship and rationing, that we could pull together and do something, and yet we don't, we won't really believe we need to until something catastrophic happens. By which time it may be too late if it's not already.

I now understand that we need to use nuclear power and stop using fossil fuel asap. Nuclear is less wasteful, more efficient, less harmful to the planet. Renewable energy isn't advanced enough for our needs yet and we need nuclear until it is. We are paranoid about nuclear for the wrong reasons, it is dangerous but we don't mind many more dangerous things.Lovelock uses a village near a dam in China and a village near Chernobyl as an example. About 75 people died as a result of Chernobyl. If the dam burst, millions would die.

I've been feeling like what can I do, I can't persuade people to accept nuclear energy, I can't get nuclear power stations built. I can't change peoples opinions and behaviour. Other folks like James Lovelock are trying and not really succeeding. Yeah he got me, but I aint doing anything. And I almost didn't read the book because it had gaia in the title and I thought it was some hippy book. I read it because it was borrowed to me. People who don't already care about the environment probably won't read it. Then again, like Lovelock says, fiction gets through to people. Maybe design too. Maybe I can do something... Bah. So much to think about :( I don't want to preach to people or anything. And there's so much I don't understand.

D'aaar

I've never wanted to make work that made a statement. Or to change life for the better in any other way than to self indulgently make things I found beautiful, because beautiful things make me happy and perhaps my beautiful things could make other people happy. Because it feels good to be surrounded by beautiful things. But I do want to be as sustainable as I can. I don't want to contribute to throwaway trends. And I don't want to be bad with chemicals. But I do love delicious shiny plastics. And lovely glossy naughty inks :( It hurts my head thinking about it. I need to find a way to do what I want to do sustainably...

Nebula and Phillip Delamore

Phillips Nebula Project

I've been researching light...and the Phillips Nebula Project is very similar to my project. I'm making bed lighting to soothe people to sleep - dimming like dusk. Nebula is interactive though, people can project any computer image or message on to the ceiling, they can scan anything in.

Emotionally durable design - it can change continually and personally.

My design falls down in that respect. However I do intend mine to be a beautiful, well made piece of functional bed-decoration. The dimming light should be a part of the users bed-time routine. In being a beautiful, comforting, daily part of the users life I hope it would not be gotten rid of. Anyhow, I will be thinking of ways my design could be interactive.

Also went to talk by Phillip Delamore - designer/researcher at LCF - about Digital Futures.

Similar to Cradle to Cradle he spoke about how our vision of the future hasn't changed since the 50's - but he sees a soft, organic, furry future.

One of his projects was an enormous repeat print, so big that no two garments had the same patterning - mass individualisation - meeting individual needs on a production level. Other examples were moving prints projected on to garments, photographs were taken and the customer chose from the stills which print they actually wanted.

Computers can simulate how a real product will behave, where it's weak points are etc. Can simulate the individual (bodymetrics/avatars) and these can be used for product development and seeing how clothes look on a person. The longer things are kept digital before being made real the less waste there will be. There is even research being done in to virtual touch! It reminds me of The Matrix.

Second life - virtual life, real business takes place in this virtual world.

If individuals begin designing for themselves everyone is a designer - perhaps the designers role will change - designing ways to design?

A digital future could be emotionally durable as it makes individual needs easy to meet on an industrial scale. It also cuts down on material waste. We wouldn't want to lose the creativity of doing things by hand though. Although much of my work is digital, I'm aware that digital work has a very different quality to hand-crafted.

Thinking back to Cradle to Cradle - does it mean we should eventually lose our history? There's alot of amazing design that is cradle to grave - I keep thinking about this and then realising it's silly - we will probably never acheive a completly cradle to cradle system, and the cradle to grave stuff is stuck here - it's not going to degrade, that's the whole problem. But. . .I can't stop confusing myself thinking about it.

Interactive Design

Phillips - Nebula

Philip Delamore

Cradle to Cradle and Emotionally Durable Design

I put aside the fiction for a couple of weeks and read these inspiring books. Worthwhile.

Cradle to Cradle is so positive! It's easy to understand, conjuring images of houses that are like trees, abundance that goes back to the earth, in a circle - the way that nature works. Everything is stepped out manageably and I find myself feeling all is not lost, people are creative enough change the way things are designed. The writers present several case studies of companies they had worked with - a company that made upholstery fabric - their effluent ended up cleaner than the water going in! And the book itself is not paper, but a sort of plastic that in recycling won't lose any quality.

A quote I like that may inspire future stories (relating to chemicals that are emitted from everyday materials):

"So be careful - you might un-intentionally be eating your appliances."

Emotionally Durable Design seems to aimed at Industrial designers really but the gist of it is that products need to have an emotional connection with the user to lengthen the life of the product. Todays culture is so disposable with many products being designed with built in obsolecense. People throw things away and buy things on a whim, slaves to trends. I think it's important for surface decoration (which is what I do) to take emotional connection into account too.

At the end of each chapter important concepts are listed, followed by suggestions for designers. Very useful. Despite this, while I believe I understood what the book was saying, I'm not certain how I would go about putting it into action. There weren't really any examples, possibly because there aren't yet any products really connect emotionally with the user. Also much of it related to industrial design as I said before. I probably need to look over the book again.

I think Linda Florence is an example of a designer who works on making surface decoration more emotionally durable. She has printed wallpapers/flooring using inks that gradually rub away to reveal a new design underneath. This kind of slow interaction draws out the life of the product.

Linda Florence
Cradle to Cradle
Emotionally Durable Design

Ever and Again - Experimental recycled Textiles

I just caught this exhibition before it finished yesterday at Chelsea College of Art and Design and I'm glad I did! It is the work of TED designers and some guest designers creating new textile products from old ones, giving things new and increased value.

I particularly like:

Rebecca Earley's heat printed shirts, old shirts freshly printed with gardening inspired prints. floral but modern, intended for wearing in the garden, growing your own food.

Emma Neubergs plastic bag/packaging laminated skirts. They are bright, fun, and make a statement by twisting the slogans. It is almost storytelling.

Kathryn Round and Charlotte Mann's work, printing photographs of old clothes on organic fabric, to keep the memory of well loved clothes. I hate getting rid of things so I have piles of useless things. Clothes that don't fit or that have no armpits or something. So I love this idea that I could still wear something that is really too old or doesn't fit. I don't know that this is recyling so much though. Is printing on organic fabric, a photograph of something old not a bit of a tenuous link? I guess it means the actual item can then go to someone who it does fit. Or also, it means the item has served another purpose even though it's part is soon over.

Gary Page's dress that goes through 3 redesigns to freshen it up and lengthen its life. It starts as a plain organic cotton dress. Then it is indigo dyed and ruffled. Then it is printed by Rob Ryan (Yay!) and finally its restyled and sparkled. The owner sends the dress to get redesigned when ever they feel it is time. This is a lovely way to lengthen the life of a product. In a way interactive. After being with a dress through 4 incarnations I can see a person being emotionally attached to the dress and less likely to throw it away.

http://www.everandagain.info/