Took a jaunt through the UCLA Design Media Arts MFA 2nd Year MFA Thesis Show this evening, titled “Exit Strategies.” There were a couple of pieces that stood out to me in the exhibition, which ranged from rather cerebral to playful, all with a good scoop of design sensibilities. There was a good range of work here a…

Kotaro Watanabe is a seriously crafty design engineer at takram. He created this really nice water project that was exhibited at 21_21 Design Sight during their last exhibition titled “Water.” These paper plates have been made super hydrophobic using a compound that completely changes the behavior we normally expect…

Maintenance in an urban setting, scraping the bits of hardened gum and goo that inevitably find their way downward. There was an interesting dance around this worker that isn’t quite captured here, with the transitory swarms of Shibuya. People indirectly registering this diligent and slow worker amongst their own sw…

Spent a very cool conversational show-and-tell-y bit of time with dividual’s Dominick Chen and Takumi Endo at their new cozy studio digs. I guess Paul connected us last minute, which is basically how this whole trip has been, which is fine.

Nicolas Nova On Urban Computing from Julian Bleecker on Vimeo.

Carriers trail slime. Every bill I get for my iPhone has the evil smell of burnt sulfur. The carriers will die eventually — either that, or they’ll transform themselves or, more than likely, be run out of town by smarter, more people-centric enablers of networked sociality. Until then, though — most of us are stuck…

On Paul’s suggestion I went to the “XXI Century man” Exhibition 3 at 21_21 Design Sight in Roppongi. The exhibition theme was about the challenges posed to “man” (us living here in this world) eight years into the millennium. The question posed is where are we headed, now that we live in the century once hailed as t…

A topic near and dear to my heart, and I’m glad to rattle off some pecha kucha thoughts on this topic.

One often sees improvised power in urban contexts. Whether the “Diablitos” in Mexico or “Gato” in Portugal, tapping into the local power grid, usually from a street lamp, is pretty standard urban improvisation.