daydream.

I Monster- Daydream in Blue

there's something about snails

Felt Snail Brooch by OSmanufacture

"Keong Emas" aka "Golden Snail" Imax Theatre, Indonesia

My pet Gary the Snail , I feed him with PEZ on daily basis

Snail Shell by N55

Snail Magnets by JooJoo

Monster Snail Pet by .lb

Giant Pink Snails invading the city by Cracking Art Group

plastic bags.

It takes between 500 and 1000 years for one plastic bag to disintegrate. And yet, we throw them away so easily. I've dug up two brilliant short films about plastic bags which were made to raise awareness about the issue.
First one is a BBC-style mockumentary  narrated by Jeremy Irons which captures the journey of one lone plastic bags as it encounters many obstacles on its way to plastic bag heaven - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Second film stars another plastic bag which is searching for its maker, a woman who took the bag home from the store and eventually disposed it. Narrated by Werner Herzog.

And don't forget to turn off the lights today for Earth Hour!

cloudy day.

Cloud Pet via Michael Casker

Cloud Cookies via Forty-sixth at grace

Cloud Umbrella via Joonsoo Kim

Cloud Gate via Anish Kapoor

Cloud Playhouse via Dietrich Wegner

Cloud Dreaming via Patrick Tsai

Synesthesia!

I wonder what it would feel like if there were no custom boundaries between senses. If you could taste different tastes when hearing different words or smell different smells when seeing different images or see different colors when hearing different music.

People who have the ability called synesthesia feel the world just as described. Stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. Over 60 types of synesthesia have been discovered, however there are not enough scientific studies about all of them. And even within one type of synesthesia, the perception varies among synesthetes ( for example not all synesthetes see number two as green, some perceive it as red, some as blue etc.).
Synesthesia can occur between any two senses, but there are extraordinary examples such as Solomon Shereshevsky who experienced synesthesia that linked all five senses. I saw a movie called Away with words ( San tiao ren ), directed by Christopher Doyle who was inspired by life of Solomon Shareshevsky. Movie has some stunning images and the main character's ability to associate words with objects, colors and smells got me to exploring this topic more thoroughly so this movie is my warm recommendation.
One of the common types of synesthesia is sound-color synesthesia. Just imagine seeing music in colors and shapes. There are many studies concerning visualizing music.
One of my favorite explorations on this subject is Olafur Arnald's video for a song Ljosid directed by Esteban Diácono.

Happy Pi Day !

Yep, today is the day that celebrates that amazing never ending mathematical constant Pi- 3,1459265…..So how do we celebrate Pi day?

Eat a pie and discuss the importance of Pi. Ok, that’s precisely what we are about to do. 

First a pie…

And then some Pi chit chat...

Pi is an irrational number meaning its value cannot be expressed exactly as a fraction so its decimal representation never ends or repeats. So far Pi has been calculated to five trillion digits by Shigeru Kondo. This Japanese businessman set the world record in January this year using a home-built computer, almost doubling the accuracy of the previous world record.

And here you can have some fun by finding out if YOU are in Pi.  ;)

And since I’m truly impressed by relationship between mathematics and music ( all about Golden ratio, Fibonacci numbers and music-some other time) , here is how Pi would sound like according to a musician Michael John Blake who translated each of the first 31 decimals into a note and performed the piece on various instruments.

Springtime!

I could definitely feel spring in the air today. I decided that it's time for my spring resolutions :

-be less moody
-be more friendly
-take more photos
-be less moody
-consume Nestle's Crunch 40g instead of Crunch 100g
-explore the neighborhood
-be less moody
-listen to Jazz FM more often
-drink more tea and less coffee
-be less moody
-spend more time on my balcony
-go for long walks more often
-oh & also, be less moody.

And if you liked the picture, the artist's name is Natalie Dee.

one-minute fly.

Do YOU have your own "to do" list for the things you should do before you die?

B-A-N-A-N-A

You probably know someone who's a sucker for banana stickers or you yourself might be a proud owner of an admirable collection of banana stickers, right?!
Chiquita company's blue sticker is one of the most famous banana stickers and as the company claims, each sticker is carefully placed by hand , without using any machines for the sticking process (hmm?!)
Last year this company had a wonderful viral campaign which centered on stickers of course. 25 stickers were created which turned each banana into a different character.

Cool, ha?
Witty line "don't let another good banana go bad"  was incorporated into each part of the campaign.
Campaign's website contains viral videos, place where you can create your own character stickers and my favorite-flash game where you can do the boogie dance battle against a banana that already turned to the dark side.

 Campaign's Art Director and the man behind the idea is DJ Neff , you can read more about the campaign in the interview he gave to design:related.

Dot.

Stop motion animation has a long history and there's something truly magical about real objects that appear to be moving on its own. And I keep discovering some great stop motion videos lately but this one I would like to share as I can only imagine how much patience and time it took to make it.
It is called Dot, it's about a girl named Dot ( she is 9mm tall !!! ) who is trying to escape from a world that appears to be crashing. Video was actually made to promote Nokia N8 and an invention by professor Daniel Fletcher called Cellscope which is a device with a microscope which enables doctors in remote places to take pictures of blood samples with a mobile phone camera before sending them off for analysis.
So, Dot was recorded using Nokia N8 and Cellscope and it is officially the world's smallest stop-motion animation. Of course, you need to see the "making of" in order to fully admire this video.

potechi + ki = poteki !!!

Now here is something I most definitely need! ^ ^
Poteki - potato chips tree. Designed by Kazuhito Ishida .
It looks so simple and elegant, I love it. Packaging is also perfect, check the shop on his website for more details.

Viral Ads

OK Go's video which I wrote about in one of my previous posts reminded me of the website which I saw few years ago.It took few days because I couldn't remember the name of the site but I finally dug it out. It's a website for dutch department store HEMA ( just wait for few seconds, don't click on anything).  It's one of great examples of viral advertising. To promote the online shop HEMA asked the agency CCCP from Amsterdam for a viral. Instead of a viral they turned the website of HEMA itself into a viral.

And while on subject of viral advertising and Rube Goldberg machine, here's a great viral for Google Chrome. The video includes three crazy tests in which Google Chrome is put up against some very mighty opponents : lightning, sound, and a potato. =)