Month: September 2008

Street Art (8): The Kos Bush Cars


First i didn’t notice it,

but when looking twice I spotted a car,

a vintage French Citroen

a Citroen Deux Cheveaux (or 2CV)

The second a vintage British

Pinin Farina designed Triumph Herald.

They are on the opposite sides of the street a 50 meters apart.

Recently I was touring the Greek Isle of Kos on a scooter and came by two shops in a little city outside the city Kos. I lost the name of the place, but am sure it will come back to me.
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A wonderful combination of sustainably preserving vintage cabrio cars and guerrilla marketing.

This post is especially devoted to us, my wife and me, because a Ciroen 2CV (or Ugly Duck) was my first own car and the one we got married in and traveled in for our honeymoon and also devoted to a fellow TrendHunter who is “Unamused by the complexities of coaxing a 40 year old car through it’s MOT” while her car ( a Triumph Herald) is in far better state than this one, LOL.

Street Art (7) The Dog Artist

Your’s Truly spent a couple of days in London covering modern art and design, but this Doggy Street Artist in the neighborhood of Covent Garden made his day today.

Porsche to Design New Luxury Yachts – Luxist

Porsche Design is teaming up with Singapore-based yacht concern Royal Falcon Fleet on a new line of luxury catamarans and megayachts. The companies’ initial collaborative project will be a high-tech 135-ft. motor catamaran, dubbed the RFF135 (above), to be sold under the Royal Falcon Fleet brand. Porsche Design will design both the exterior hull and the interior of the megayacht, which is expected to do 35 knots and retail in the millions. Royal Falcon Fleet, which dubs its craft “the ultimate in billionaire boys’ toys,” has engaged cutting edge Swedish-based marine engineering firm Kockums and Australian catamaran builder Incat Crowther for the project’s naval architecture needs. No word yet on a completion date.

Porsche to Design New Luxury Yachts – Luxist

Dutch Design (32): Droog Design (i.e. Dry Design)


Recently Droog has revamped its website. From an artist’s point of view the earlier versions were probably acceptable, but they were not very useful for a Blogger like me who wants to highlight some scraps and pieces about them.

Portrait of Renny Ramakers and Gijs Bakker
A Short history of Droog:

In 1991 Renny Ramakers noticed interesting new products by young Dutch designers and she felt it as a sign of the time and decided to bring some products of these designers together and to present it as a common mentality. She organized small exhibitions in The Netherlands and Belgium. Beginning 1993 she met Gijs Bakker, her present partner in Droog. He was preparing a presentation of the same kind of products in Milan for the International Furniture Fair. So they decided to cooperate and Droog was born. The presentation in Milan was a big success. Reason for them to continue and to set up a foundation. In the first years they did the work for Droog in their private studios: after all it was restricted to the yearly presentation in Milan. From ‘99 they started to work in a small office together with a secretary. By that time, the work load had increased enormously. In 1996 they started to initiate experimental projects, beginning with Dry Tech which meant experimenting with high tech fibers. In 1997 Droog received the first commission of a company, i.e. the German porcelain manufacturer Rosenthal. In 2000 Droog became involved in the IM masters course at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. Since 2003 droog is leading this course. In 2003 Droog B.V. started, a separate company producing and distributing a number of the products in the Droog collection. And in 2002 Droog started a small gallery in Amsterdam. In 2004 Droog moved to a bigger location – in a beautiful historical building – which gives space for our office, a shop, exhibition space, reading room and a kitchen in which design dinners can be prepared.

Droog and Kessels Kramer (which is also involved in the CitizenM hotel design and launch) are teaming up for a presentation at the Venice Architecture Biennial: S1ngletown

As Droog Design has a lot of influence, one of its roles is the supervision of the Eindhoven Design Academy post graduate course, you will read more about its activities in due course here.

The Hague: 1 City/2 Days/20 Venues/200+ Artists – TodaysArt 2008


The 2008 (4th) edition of TodaysArt, the international festival for adventurous creativity in The Hague, The Netherlands, will take place on 26 – 27 September 2008.

You have to come to The Hague if you’re interested in:

Come and see!

About:

Every year, for one weekend, the TodaysArt Festival transforms the city centre of The Hague into an inspiring stronghold of creativity and audiovisual experiences. This year, over 200 artists will contribute to the festival, where many different art disciplines are represented, such as film, modern dance, visual art, photography and music. The fourth edition of the TodaysArt Festival will take place on the 26th and 27th of September, at 20 in- and outdoor locations. The title of the festival is Blue Light District, referring to the trademark blue artwork of the festival.

For the first time in TodaysArt-history, the Dr. Anton Philipszaal will be a part of the festival terrain next to annual venuas such as the Paard van Troje, De Nieuwe Kerk, Theater ah Spui and the Atrium (city hall). 1.890 Chairs will be removed to make this impressive concert hall fit for a large amount of festival visitors.

The Blue Light District, is the name of the festival area, in which a variety of art projects and installations are presented in interaction or confrontation with the urban infrastructure and architectural spaces. Consequently, there is the opening concert Station to Station from Staalplaat Soundsystem, Erik Hobijn en Mike Rijnierse, including trains as musical instruments and using the environmental sounds to create a sound composition. Even the thousands of bicycles in front of the station will be integrated in this sound piece. In addition there are several project anchored around the spectrum of artificial light producing stunning visual effects at various locations around the festival terrain. Many of the festivals activities take place in the public space where we created an infrastructure of large transparent greenhouses sheltering temporary galleries, project spaces, bars and restaurants.

Another highlight is the presence of State of Sabotage, an internationally recognized micronation in the city hall of The Hague. 1,000 official passports will be printed for visitors who bring a photograph. Also LAb[au], the meta designers from Brussels that transformed the Dexia tower in Brussels into an interactive canvas, will be presenting several special projects, including EOD02. An installation containing fishes that communicate with electrical signals, which are collected and transmitted into sound.