The Kids Trade Show Bubble have invited us to partner with them at their show, happening next week in the Business Design Centre in Islington, London. The event will run on June 21st and 22nd. Having just had delivered our first production samples of Punch’n'Cuddle, we are looking forward to some jolly days full of playful anarchy.

During Milan Design Week 2009, working for Core77, I sought to create a “Post Futurist Manifesto” through dialogues with some of the leading thinkers in the world of design. Interviewing designers, producers, publishers, gallery owners and sociologists, the dialogues centered around the new values that designers (and the design industry) should address, and the new approaches they ought to take in order to confront the paradigm-shifts that we are currently facing. Here’s the point of departure:

100 years ago the futuristic manifesto was announced in Italy–to express the spirit of the era, break with all the conventions of the 19th century and replace them with new values. We all know that the futurism of the 20th century went terribly wrong at one point, and eventually ended in fascism. However, it is important to understand that initially it was all about liberation and freedom–aesthetically, politically and socially.

100 years later, the world is in collapse. The futurism of the 20th century has reached its end, and it is well time to create a post-futurist manifesto that seeks to define the true nature of the 21st century, establishing a new value system to replace the ruins of the old.

Check out all the dialogues below or have a look at all posts in one place, including interviews with conceptual artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, ex-designer Marti Guixe, publisher Sven Ehmann, and many more.

Michelangelo Pistoletto Founding member of the Arte Povera Movement
Emma Firmin Co-Founder and Editor of DAMn Magazine
Marti Guixe Ex-Designer
Francesco Morace President of Future Concept Lab
Alice Wang Designer
Sven Ehmann Creative Director of Die Gestalten Publishers
Barbara Bondi & Marco Raino brh+ Architects of TURN
Marco Bettiol Researcher at the Venice International University
Snippets Three Main Ingredients

Tomorrow I will be off to Milan Design Circus – so here a quick glimpse of the L’Appartamento project that I am involved doing: Staff of the furniture company Lago and the online design magazine Core77 will be living together in an apartment on Via Tortona 21 for the duration of the design week, sharing the kitchen, shower and wardrobes. Some will leave to work on the fair in the morning and others will “stay at home” to welcome “off-show” visitors during the day.

Watch the Appartamento blog as well as Core77, filling up live while the project is taking shape. And if you are around you must come by and have a coffee with us! 

Shoot the Stylist! is featured in the new ”Love Design” book by daab publishers. During the Milan Design Week (on Friday 24.April) it will be released with the Love Design Cocktail Party. If you are in town please RSVP so we can have a lovely time together! The loveliest thing of it all is that my lieblings radio DJ Klaus Fiehe will be responsible for the sonic love vibes – highly recommended!

After we realized that we won’t be able to sort out the final tweaks via Skype video chats, I spontaneously ended up In the middle of nowhere between Padova and Venice, trying to finish a new prototype for Lago. Fingers crossed that the little “detail devils” can all be banished before Milan Design Week… which will happen in two weeks already – uuuaaarrrrgh!

Punch’n'Cuddle will participate at this year’s Kids.Modern presented by Showhome, the curators of London’s Midcentury.Modern show.

»Kids.Modern appreciates that children deserve good design. Modern-minded parents will love the latest in bright and clever design solutions for kids from celebrated international designers.«

So if you (and your kids) would like to have a jolly Sunday afternoon full of playful anarchy, please come and visit us – we will be happy to see you!
Sunday 15th February 2009, 10am-4pm
Christison Hall, Dulwich College SE21
Entrance £6 / Children £2

A very happy and exciting journey through o nine – wherever it may take you!

The ingenious website Cheatneutral offers a great service for all those who can’t help themselves but cheat on their loved ones. Particularly at this time of year with all those boozy Christmas parties taking place, it happens a lot that people end up in bed with someone else but their own partners. But thanks to Cheatneutral you can neutralize the damage you have done to your relationship by paying the small amount of only GBP 2,50 which will be used to offset your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and NOT cheat.

Obviously this website is not meant seriously but designed to ridicule the ridiculous idea of carbon offsetting. Carbon offsetting is about paying for the right to carry on emitting carbon. The Carbon offset industry sold GBP 60 million (!) of offsets last year, and is rapidly growing. Carbon offsetting is a joke – just like Cheatneutral!

I’m back in Italy again for today’s opening of the D_Art Lab exhibition where I participate in. As part of the Torino World Design Capital festival and the 10th anniversary of Cittadellarte, a number of prototypes of new sustainable design objects will be presented – created by 10 Italian and international designers for 12 companies from the Piedmont region (Northern Italy). The show will run until February 2009 – so if you are in the area please stop by Fondazione Pistoletto near Torino and have a look. There’s also a great restaurant here to enjoy slow food with mountain views.

Norwegian percussionist Terje Isungset has for years used a variety of organic sound elements in creating music and instruments, incorporating the sound of naturally found wood, stone, metal objects and industrial machines and processes in the creation of musical works. But his certainly coolest instruments are his ice instruments – made from solid blocks of pure ice, some of it more than 450 years old glacier ice! He is not only making them but also uses them to produce the most beautiful recordings of ethereal sounds and serious music under harsh and extreme conditions.

His series of ice concerts takes this one step further by presenting the same concept live, using fragile instruments with very quiet sound output. I was amongst those view privileged people who were able to listen to one of his wonderful and truly intriguing concerts that he gave in London last night. For you to get a better idea of what these amazing instruments actually sound like please follow this link and watch some amazing videos here and here.