Fun Stuff Cafe

Thumb wooden fork by Keisuke Tsubakimoto

Fun Stuff Cafe — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:40:02 +0000

Keisuke Tsubakimoto’s fork design that looks like a hand, even including a thumb!

A Vibrant Kindergarten by Alejandro Muñoz Miranda

Fun Stuff Cafe — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:15:59 +0000

I love when light and colour are combined in architecture, don’t you? Changing weather, seasons and settings mean light dances across buildings in ever-changing and dynamic ways. Spanish architect Alejandro Muñoz Miranda designed this kindergarten in Granada, Spain around a central courtyard or playground that serves as the heart of the centre. With a striking and modern white exterior, the school features frameless rainbow windows in communal spaces like hallways while leaving the glass in classrooms colourless. The result is corridors full of dazzling, multi-coloured light that is constantly changing as the sun moves during the school day.

Alejandro’s design really feels like an interpretation of a child’s paint palette that seamlessly marries modern architecture with childlike wonder. If I went to this kindergarten, I would be counting the minutes until break time so I could pick a patch of coloured light to explore for the day…

Aérial by Baptiste Debombourg

Fun Stuff Cafe — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:54:40 +0000

Aérial by French artist Baptiste Debombourg flows like a monumental wave of broken glass into the Column Hall of the former Benedictine abbey ‘Brauweiler’ in Cologne. Carrying with it the light that passes measured through the windows. The crystalline structure of the Broken seems petrified, frozen in a moment of unrestrained movement. It took about 420 hours and two tons of glass to complete the project. Baptiste Debombourg explained ‘the mind is everything. The material is the servant of spiritual.’

Explosion

Fun Stuff Cafe — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:18:44 +0000

For their series Explosion, Joschi Herczeg and Daniele Kaehr synchronized a camera with a custom-built detonator to snap a photo at the exact moment of explosion using complex pyrotechnics.

Lifes of grass by Matthieu Raffard

Fun Stuff Cafe — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 13:23:02 +0000

The Lifes of Grass, sculptures made by Matthieu Raffard – French artist based in Paris, show the effects of transformation of the material as a metaphor of the transformation of the body. Time sculpts the forms, makes them change and then decay. Through these anthropomorphic and organic sculptures made of soil and wheat grass seeds, Matthieu strive to show that food, it’s origin, it’s transport, has an impact on us beyond it’s taste. The power inside it affects every organ of our body. Observing nature and being aware of what and how we eat makes us more sensitive to food cycles in the world – of abundance, of famine – and allows us to be physically, intellectually and spiritually connected to a global reality.

Via Matthieu Raffard.

Underwater Portraits by Jacob Sutton

Fun Stuff Cafe — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:25:33 +0000

Beautiful and ghostly photographs from New York-raised, London-based photographer Jacob Sutton. Sutton is probably best known for his fashion photography, but his photo series known as Underwater Girl is equally stirring. The series, thus far, consists of three black and white portraits of a girl submerged in water. While two the images appear mystical in their haziness, making it somewhat unclear that the images are underwater, there is one with a single tiny air bubble floating just a few inches away from the model’s lips that reveal the true setting.

Music tip: Antony & The Johnsons – Bird Girl

Land’s End by Mac Oller

Fun Stuff Cafe — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:30:20 +0000

Beautiful photography of the equally beautiful UK from talented Mac Oller. Mac Oller, born 1986 in Elblag, Poland, currently lives and works in Sopot on the Baltic coast. He is self taught photographer, specialising mainly in landscape, cityscape and fine art photography. He often uses long exposure technique photographing in poor lighting or with use of strong neutral density filters. His photographies are pure in form, have an impeccable composition and are moody, calm and still.

Music tip: Ludovico Einaudi / Indaco

Artist Statement:

“From the moment I released the shutter for the first time photography to me became more than just a hobby. It is mostly an individual way of looking at the world, observing reality through the prism of frame and composition.

The difference between what one sees in reality and what can be seen in a picture, which can be considered a glimpse of the world captured by a photographer, is fascinating. When taking pictures I try to go beyond the boundries of a human eye and capture the flow of time.

What I find most interesting in photography is capturing light, composition and documenting a given part of the world in my own way. I take with me the places I photograph, forever present on my pictures. Each of them is unique. The moment it has been captured in will never repeat itself. And that, to me, is the essence of photography.“

Naked brands

Fun Stuff Cafe — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:05:19 +0000

”MyHOTJuly” from Romania shows us not what companies want to tell us, but what they’re really about. This multitalented 25-year-old freelance graphic designer specialized not only in graphic design, but also in video and photography.

‘Even if a brand is trying hard to express his core values and identity through a logo , there will be always another side that we see, as a customer, based on our experiences and visions. I tried to “undress” some famous brands in this personal project made just for fun.’

Via Behance.

Rainbow Queen

Fun Stuff Cafe — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 07:28:19 +0000

I think The Queen and I share an affection for bright colours which is why I love this colour chart created by Vogue Magazine. Charting her hue and pattern choices in every outfit worn over the last year, Vogue discovered that Her Majesty’s favourite fashion colour is overwhelmingly blue (worn 29 per cent of the time) with floral patterns, green, cream, pink and purple next in popularity. At the bottom of the list is beige with only a 1 per cent showing wardrobe-wise. With that colour fact in mind, I think the Queen and I could totally hang out. (click on the image to zoom in on the chart)

A Return to Nature Movement: ‘Off The Grid’ Photo Project

Fun Stuff Cafe — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:20:14 +0000

For a variety reasons — from witnessing the devastating effects of modern society on the nature, to the way people are pathologically attached to electronic devices, or the way the rat race of consumerism envelops the fabric of our communities — many people have chosen to pursue a more ‘down to earth’ existence, getting them in touch with nature in archaic, almost forgotten ways.

French photographer Eric Valli spent a few years with 4 different groups of these intriguing people, taking intimate images of their everyday lives in the American wilderness that they now call home. The images we have here are from 3 of those groups, each with a varying level of societal connection.

The first, a lone huntsman living in the southern bayou, looks to be somewhat connected to modern technology. He has small battery-powered lighting, a modern canoe and has a bottle of ketchup on his table. The second, a family who dresses in almost Amish fashion, steps further from modernity, living by lamplight, using horses and growing their food themselves. The third group however, takes living in the wilds to a whole different level. These young wilderness seekers have donned leather clothes of their own making, bows and arrows, and look like they could have walked off the set of Dances With Wolves. While the picture of this less than cleanly crew inside a modern grocery store certainly raises some questions about how much they actually live in the wilds, it could be simply to emphasize the contrasts of their life against the modern world.

Interested to find out more about these highly unique individuals? If you read french you’re in luck, as Eric Valli recently published a book about his experience, titled Rencontres hors du temps. You can also find a sneak-peek of Valli’s upcoming film, Lynx, which follows one of these individuals as she trains others about living outside of modern civilization. For more of his thought provoking photography, see Valli’s website ericvalli.com.

Via Eric Valli.