Click here to view the embedded video.

The carpet picks up the radio waves which your body receives and makes them “hearable.” When walking on the carpet you can tune it to a certain frequency, similar to the tuner of a radio.

I really love the idea of engaging with the things in our home to make them come ‘alive.’ Without the user, the carpet is silent and functions in a regular way. Walking across it completely transforms it into an interactive soft technology and brings a new element of sound into the environment.

Swedish designer Hedvig af Ekenstam has completed a number of product designs that do just this. Her ‘knitted radiator the ‘knitted radiator’ is designed using heating cables coiled to create a new type of radiator. The design is a flexible and lightweight screen that can be shaped to fit the user’s needs. I love it!

Her project ‘Heating Curtain’ is another radiator design. The curtain is made from fabric and has a heating coil woven into it to provide heat.

This light, visually attractive mobile heating unit is a beautiful and innovative alternative to the typical electric heater found in the market today.

Danish artist Marco Evaristti took 780 gallons of red paint, three fire hoses and a 20-member crew  to Greenland in search of a blank canvas large enough to accommodate his creative impulse. The result is a blood-red iceberg now sitting off the country’s western coast. The work is part of his Trilogy series.

“Trilogy comprises three projects that deal with the themes of territories and states. Using fruit color and fabric, Evaristti coloured an ice cube in Greenland, areas of Mont Blanc and a sand dune in the Sahara, red. He then declared them all as his territory and named it ‘Pink State’. The work is a series of transient changes in nature, touching on issues of environmental pollution, territorial demands and political methods.”

Evaristti was arrested during the Mont Blanc painting.

“This simple, yet effective concoction is an old favourite of gardeners trying to encourage moss growth and provides an excellent alternative to spray paint.”

You can create your own, slow growing, natural (organic) and impermanent murals, typography, or graffiti anywhere!

Find a suitable damp and shady wall on to which you can apply your moss recipe (I’ll provide that, via mossgraffiti). Paint your art or design onto the wall by hand or using a stencil. Eventually, as long as the conditions are good and damp, moss should form and grow into a whole rooted plant – maintaining your chosen design before eventually colonizing the whole area.

Here is the Recipe:

• 1 can of beer
• 1/2 teaspoon of sugar
• several clumps of garden moss
• You will need a plastic container with a lid, a blender and a paintbrush.

Now that you have the recipe, you are free to go out into the world and create green, living graffiti!

I find the ways in which people personalize the urban world around them fascinating – especially when it is in such a unique way! I was familiar with guerrilla gardening, but this is completely new and exciting to me! I might just go make my mark on the world this weekend!

I was sent a link to this TED talk from my lovely friend, who recognized the frustration and insecurity I often feel when I perceive a lack of creativity from myself. This is an unfortunate thing for a student at an art or design school to encounter – especially one with “big ideas” that have due dates attached to them.

Thank you Marlieke for sending me a reminder that yes, this is normal, and yes, this creative block shall pass. Perhaps there is hope for us after all.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And just for interest’s sake:

“The artist should fear to become the slave of detail. He should strive to express his thought and not the surface of it. . . The artist has only to remain true to his dream and . . .must see naught but the vision beyond. . . Have you ever seen an inchworm crawl up a leaf or twig, and there clinging to the very end, revolves in the air, feeling for something to reach? That’s like me. I am trying to find something out there beyond the place on which I have a footing.” – Albert Pinkham Ryder