Flash drives: always on the go, without moving parts
From humble origins as geeky novelties, thumb-size U.S.B. flash drives have grown into a billion-dollar market.
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Review of the Impakt Festival, Utrecht
Biennials have it easy. They can always get away with focusing on the local, or with shoehorning a disparate array of works into preconceived themes. But what’s an old-school arts festival to do in an ever-expanding universe of ‘me too’ cultural manifestations?
Continue ReadingInterview with Bruce Sterling
What role does science fiction play on actual science and design? "I think you need a certain quirkiness of temperament to be a successful science fiction writer. It's like having a nose for news that hasn't happened yet."
Continue ReadingReview of Tim Braden at Juliètte Jongma, Amsterdam
The childhood nostalgia that became a popular theme in much 1990s art hasn’t yet disappeared, and many shows are still rife references to pop-culture detritus from the 1970s and ’80s. But Tim Braden pushes the nostalgia clock back even further, re-imagining a genteel 1950s boyhood consumed by daydreams of adventure, exploration and treasure hunting.
Continue ReadingDutchtub, a "new way of outdoor bathing"
It requires no electricity, plumbing or hot water. Just fill it with water, put firewood in the bin, light it up, wait a while and enjoy a 100-degree soak.
Continue ReadingReview of Pieter Hugo, Gallery Cokkie Snoei, Amsterdam
South African photographer Pieter Hugo, who rose to prominence in 2005 with ‘The Hyena and Other Men’, his controversial series of images of itinerant hyena tamers, has again made a series of large-scale colour portraits, this time of Nollywood actors.
Continue ReadingReview of "A Story of Art and Music": BOZAR, Brussels
The cozy relationship between music and art has been the focus of many recent shows, prodding BOZAR to steer clear here of art–music dabblers and dilettantes, and focus instead only on artists who treat music and visual art as equals.
Continue ReadingGeeks meet at "What the Hack" conference
Borrowing heavily from Woodstock, the three-day "What The Hack" convention is a self-styled computer-security conference dealing such issues as digital passports, biometrics and cryptography.
Continue ReadingInteractive parking garage
Often neglected as unglamorously functional, underground garages are sorely in need of some sweeping redesign. The interactive parking garage being built by Amsterdam architects Zwarts & Jansma is rising to the challenge.
Continue ReadingReview of Nina Fischer and Maroan el Sani, SMBA Amsterdam
The history of grandiloquent architecture is a long and rich one, and Berlin-based artists Nina Fischer and Maroan el Sani explored this history in Amsterdam’s ‘South Axis’ development project, a playground of gleaming office towers with interchangeable names like Eurocenter, Forum and Atrium...
Continue ReadingReview of Daniëla Wolfer, Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam
These glossy lacquers are only superficially superficial: by insouciantly sidestepping all things dour, they transcend their local origins and speak directly to an increasingly homogenized global youth culture.
Continue ReadingBrowsing the future: the third International Browserday
Designers here gathered to examine whether browser mania is just the latest form of "reinventing the wheel," arguing that typographers have spent centuries successfully honing the art of readability. Why add yet another meta-layer of color-coordinated symbols and rotating orbs that first need to be studied before being put into use?
Continue ReadingReview of Maaike Schoorel, Galerie Diana Stigter, Amsterdam
Despite humans' big brains and seemingly infinite storage space, when we think back to an old memory it's usually not hi-res video we conjure up but rather a still image, fuzzy around the edges and hard to keep in place.
Continue ReadingReview of Jan De Cock, S.M.A.K., Ghent
Museums, libraries, and old banks are all freighted with tainted history, hosting cultural heirlooms of sometimes questionable provenance.
Continue ReadingVan Gogh murder suspect arraigned
A suspected Islamic extremist of Dutch-Moroccan descent was arraigned in Amsterdam on charges of murder and terrorism today, accused of killing a director whose film denounced the mistreatment of women in Islamic communities.
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Review of 'I’m Not Here – An Exhibition Without Francis Alÿs', De Appel, Amsterdam
This exhibition is meant to recall that atmosphere of Francis Alÿs, while at the same time critiquing the very format of the solo exhibition – in this case, a group show standing for a solo exhibition whose protagonist is only conceptually alluded to.
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Review of Pieter Hugo, Gallery Cokkie Snoei, Amsterdam
South African photographer Pieter Hugo, who rose to prominence in 2005 with ‘The Hyena and Other Men’, his controversial series of images of itinerant hyena tamers, has again made a series of large-scale colour portraits, this time of Nollywood actors.
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Better vision for the world, on a budget
Self-adjustable spectacles, which let untrained wearers set the right focus themselves in less than a minute, greatly reduce the need for trained optometrists, who are rarely available in Africa and many parts of Asia. But the competition is sometimes palpable amongst the companies that want to be the first to distribute adjustable glasses in the millions...
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Collapsible shipping container, packed flat
A Dutch engineer has invented a collapsible plastic shipping container which, he hopes, will replace the steel ones. Because it is made of a fibreglass composite, it weighs only three-quarters as much as a standard container but—more importantly— when it is empty, it can be folded down to a quarter of its size.
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