Author: Kbaumlier

Kristen Baumlier’s work spans the full spectrum of interdisciplinary media, including performance, interactive installation, video and audio works.
Edible Spoons:  Eat your Soup and the Spoon Too

Edible Spoons: Eat your Soup and the Spoon Too

A disposable plastic spoon in the best conditions will take more than 20 years to decompose. Under less than ideal conditions, such as in a landfill, plastic will take more than 1000 years to decompose.  The design firm Triangle Tree has created Edible Spoons, a eco-spoon design that can replace our plastic spoons.

The spoons are made of corn flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, eggs, separated milk, spices and herbs and comes in three flavors: plain, spicy, and sweet.  When you use one of the Edible Spoons, you can either compost or eat them. The spoon is also designed to break apart when you eat it, making the spoon into an easier snack to eat.

Triangle Tree who designed the spoons talk about the principle of uniqueness, and on their site they state the following values:

– Less is more. We are inspired by the simplicity of genius and the satisfaction of using a lovingly made product.

– Hybrids are hot. We endow long-familiar objects with new functionality borrowed from other objects or invented outright.

– Green or bust. Every one of our products considers the environment first and foremost.

– Objets d’art. We make beautiful things, pure and simple.

Want to eat your soup, ice cream, or noodles then eat the spoon? For more information about the spoons, you can read more on Triangle Tree’s website.

 

Image Source:
triangletree.com/index.php/industrial_design/edible-spoon/
Links:

 

triangletree.com/index.php/industrial_design/edible-spoon/

 

 

Zeega:  A New Web Storytelling Tool

Zeega: A New Web Storytelling Tool

Every few months, I get an email about a new online storytelling tool.  I have tried some, but few of them seem to provide an experience that is visually interesting.  I’m not exactly sure how I ended up on the Zeega website, but I was immediately drawn in to click on and watch a piece called KOSMO KAT – Silk Water.  This Zeega piece was a combination of music and animations that featured a 3d wireframe cat, sushi, and electronic music that sounded like the band Kraftwork.

So what is Zeega?  It  is a free online website where you can make an account, and use music, gif animations, and movie clips in order to create cinematic experiences comprised of looped clips.   The project promotes itself as, “Make the web you want.”  I recently navigated to the site, and when watching “The Most Insulting and Offensive Pizza in the World,” I was able to click on strange shaped pizza images, and read text about pizza while a rap song about pizza played.  The experience is kind of like an interactive youtube – but the high-quality image, and loops of the videos somehow make it into a new experience.

To make pieces, any media can be used in any cloud or online space, and the entire screen is a canvas to create in.  When navigating Zeega, and playing the featured pieces we are instructed to “Turn up the volume, and use arrows and hotspots to explore.” Currently the website features virtual exhibition the creators’ of the website favorite pieces, which were chosen from 1,000 contributions from 60 countries and 6 continents.   I must not be the only person who has gotten drawn in to playing Zeega pieces, the project was recently featured at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Some of the pieces featured on the front of the site include The Making of .. Journeys, Ghosts and Thunder, Traveling Man, The Making Of. The City, and Ode au bungalow.   Zeega originates from one of the startups in Matter, a San Francisco-based accelerator for mission-driven companies committed to changing media for good.  The site is made to be used by anyone, and when you goto the website, make sure you have at least a few minutes free, it’s easy to spend time there checking out the pieces.

Image Source:
zeega.com/

Links:

zeega.com/

El Arbol – The Bike Tree

El Arbol – The Bike Tree

El Arbol, the Bike Tree, is a unique bike that looks like a large green tree on wheels (with two people pedaling on the structure.) The bike was made by Rock the Bike, a group which originates in Berkeley, CA and is comprised of bike users and advocates who create unique bikes and events in order to get people in touch with issues of climate change.  The goal of the project is to spread “the spirit of the bike to others.”  The group aims to inspire others to want to ride bikes by organizing, entertaining, inspiring, and inventing new ways to get others excited about books.

The tree is made of a hollow and see-through trunk, has lighting and speakers.  At events, the bike is setup and hooked up to a fleet of other bicycles that together create power for the Bike Pedal Powered stage, a concert event where individuals ride the bike to power up the sound system. El Arbol provides the sound, with its 2500-Watt double-stack main speaker that is inside of the trunk, and aerialists can hang off the top branch and perform at shows.

The Bike Tree took over 4 years to make, and can be seen both at events, as well as being ridden in the street.  The bike is a top/bottom tandem bike, which can be ridden on the street while pumping out music, and also has “roots” that can be used to swing out a lower speeds, to make it into a stable four wheeled structure.  Images of the bike being built over time can be seen on the project can be seen online

What has 2-4 wheels, is tan or green, and makes loud sounds?  El Arbol – the Bike Tree!

Image Source:
Rock the Bike

 

Links:

El Arbol – Construction Process Images

Rock the Bike

 

 

 

Butt x Better – Upcycling and “Trashion” in Berlin

Butt x Better – Upcycling and “Trashion” in Berlin

Ever see someone wearing a cardboard box, a paper outfit, or an acrobat on tightrope wearing a outfit made of upcycled materials?   The fifth Butt x Better will be held on July 7th in Berlin, which is an event for alternative designers, artists, and activists to use creativity and upcycling to bring attention to  some of the negative practices in the fashion world and provide a critique of consumer culture.

The event has a number of events that culminate in a large show that will be in the center of Berlin, at the Friedrichstrasse, which is a major shopping street.  Anyone is invited to participate, and the organizers write, “We want to call on EVERYBODY, to get involved! Friedrichstrasse is open for us, let’s start a parade which will blow off people’s clothes! Fight Fashion-Terror, Present Alternatives -that’s the motto!”

There are tents with upcycled materials, and participants also are invited to exchange clothes with others.  At the event there will be a parade, performances, art installations, music, and a fashion show on a large catwalk structure.  Speechs at the event will talk about issues, facts, and also communicate a call for change in the fashion industry.

The event is open, but the organizers promote several values that include:

– We promote ideas, attitudes and actions directed towards a more sustainable society. That means: We are not a promotion platform for products.
– We especially support unconventional forms of activism. Political correctness may be bent.
– We strongly encourage to irritate rather than affirm stereotypical images (e.g. about gender, ethnicity, bodies, etc.)
– We are against aggressive behavior and violent actions.

I watched a couple of videos of last year’s events that show people wearing amazing wing structures made of paper, stilt walkers wearing a cape made of post-it notes, and a woman wearing a bra that looks like it is made of fried eggs.  I can’t make the event this year, but I am keeping the website in my things to participate in the future folder on my computer – for the future.   Check out the videos, which are pretty interesting to watch (and funny.)

Image Source:
Fashion Circus “But and Better”: beatings on the catwalk Online Article (Translated to English

 

Links:

Fashion Circus “But and Better”: beatings on the catwalk Online Article (Translated to English

Video about the event

Video from the Butt x Better Event 2003

 

 

Food Font and Kbaumlier Have Relocated to North Carolina

Food Font and Kbaumlier Have Relocated to North Carolina

What fits into a box and an orange tube, and moved from Cleveland, OH to Durham, NC?  Food Font!  Well, sort of. The project is bigger than two boxes, but the materials used for live events (minus the table and tent) are currently packed in one box and a tube.

Kristen Baumlier, the founder of Food Font has relocated to the Chapel Hill/Durham/Raleigh area in North Carolina.  In the past few monthes lots of packing, cleaning, and moving has been in the works, but we made it!

Soon some summer Food Font events will be scheduled.  The development of the Food Font tool is continuing.   Currently the mechanics and design document is being authored, which is a detailed written document with screen shots and plans which is used by the programmer to build the tool.

Lately there has been some emails coming in to the Food Font site asking about when the tool will be available.  Thanks everyone for writing in. Official word is that the tool is planned to be up and working later this Summer!

In the meantime, why  not work on making some food alphabets?  Use the checklist and directions to get started!

 

Links:

foodfont.com