"Nina Maron's self confidence and sense of humor are refreshening, to live with her paintings is experiencing her Austrian temperament and vivacity in an enjoyable dialogue with her works. Austrian humor, compared to humor in Berlin, is light, more suttle, less offensive. It is about fine tuning, maybe a reason why she usually paints several small sized works to the same theme. Painted in a vigorous, energetic manner, it is obvious that behind the screen she aims at a variety of sophisticated shades.

In her paintings Nina Maron does not tell stories to laugh about, she rather observes people, looks at them from different angles, puts them into a sympathetic light. Contrary to a tale, that could end with a point, a fiasko, with a tragic or a funny turn, there is no beginning or end , but a constant observation of characters that even within the same painting could take many different turns. Than there is the aspect of a sequence of the same person in different small paintings. You look at Lucy, at another Lucy, there is no beginning and no end, but rather a comparison between two, three more different shapes of one and the same personality. Thus Nina Maron reaches an important aim of painting in a playful way: she does not reveal her actors, rather keeps their secrets, while at the same time the observer wonders, if it is possible to get access to Nina Maron's characters..."

Have a look at her work at the Raab Galerie, Berlin or Nina's homepage!

Ian Borden would argue that a car has the most advanced spatial interface around. Developed over the years with all the most advanced gadgetry available to the public, there are no similar spatial environments that are designed to such extreme complexity to conform to our bodies.
This is another example of such interface:
The Airstream have been building caravans for 75 years and they have always been above the rest. The new Airstream’s Bambi (75th anniversary) is absolutely wonderful. It goes beyond just fitting desirable utilities but they are designed in a way to create a truly enjoyable environment. Must check out ...

Product Page

via Gizmodo

If you are looking to make your keyboard a little more exciting and use photoshop all the time and always have trouble with those shortcut keys, this is for you! Not that is very useful but it also looks very cool too, especially on the black macbooks.

Product Page

For all you Calvin & Hobbes fans out there...

Here is the ultimate box-set collection of the adventures of notorious Calvin and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes. If you, like me, got a million laughs out of Calvin's view on the world and his own way to deal with it (be it as the fearless spaceman Spiff or his superhero alter-ego "Stupendous Man") then this is definately one to go for!

Best one ever is still Hobbes' answer to Calvin's question:"What do you believe happens when we die?" - "I think we play saxophone for an all-girl band in New Orleans"...

Any further questions...

The collection came out for christmas, so it should be available everywhere...

Very nice screensaver (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc..):

Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver run by thousands of people all over the world. It can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream", an homage to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Linky

"The Soviet Roadside Bus-stop:

Departure from the common and boring , Next stop the wild and crazy.

For the most part Soviet architecture and design is remembered for its heavy block buildings and functionally Spartan designs. Its overpowering desire for conformity left little room for individual creative freedom. A notable exceptions to this is in the transportation sector. One can admire this creativity in the Metro stations of cities like Moscow and Tashkent where the coldness and sterility of typical soviet urban architecture is abandoned and costs are not spared as creative freedom is unleashed. While many of us are aware of the elaborate splendor of the Moscow underground, it is easy to overlook the phenomenon of the common roadside bus stop as an example of soviet art and design letting loose and becoming a little weird and crazy."

Christopher Herwig photographed great examples of individual creativity on such a mundane structure.

have a look here...

This is not exactly new, but I only found this book last week in my local book store. Patricia Schultz really put together a substantial list of great places to see on this earth. Some are quite straightforward and obvious city sights, like the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin or the Sistine Chapel in Rome, but other tips for an interesting vacation include the snow festival in Sapporo, Japan or a hot air balloon safari in Africa. 

This travel guide also lists the local hotels (no cheap sleeps, mostly top range hotels) and the best time to go but apart from that I think it's just an entertaining and interesting read.

Where can I go next...?

Whoever makes it to all 1000 places gets a free T-Shirt...promise ; )

It's available in several languages and you can probably find it everywhere but definately at amazon.

Enjoy!

We at allmightys love bags. Whenever Kon and I meet we always discuss bags. He always brings along a new one and I am the one usually envious. Recently, my favourite ever bag started giving up on me ... I was given this bag as a birthday present by my wife and Oki Ni do not do the same model anymore :(. To find a new one, I have been doing a little research and here are the bag makers i find most interesting, my top 4 (not in any particular order).


Good Old Freitag
Great bags, great selection, a little expensive but eco.



Alchemy Goods
New comer (i think). Similar to freitag, not much selection but the messanger bag  looks really good.



Canvasco
Great Bags!..Check out Swiss Blanket bags and the canvas ones. The deer skin looks great too although dont really fancy wearing deer skin and a little ££££.




Chrome Bags
Great messanger bags. I love their buckles. Must check out!



If you guys have any links to some interesting bag sites please let us know and give us your opinions on these above.

Great!...Must see!

- Fold your shirt in 2 seconds
- Falte dein T-Shirt in 2 Sekunden
- Plies ton shirt en 2 secondes

Watch the movie here

Sometimes products come along that are so beautiful that it is hard to resist. I absolutely love everything that is quirky in some particular way and object that we take for granted are transformed by simple process of creative thinking. This is one of those products.

"Ivy grows all over your walls to create a surface for hanging stuff on. It's functional and decorative like a plant. Using a single Y shape and a four unique connector types, Ivy lets you design a configuration that suits your own needs or whims. Combine multiple packs to grow a huge wall or use a single pack for smaller installations."

http://www.ivy.mos-office.net/

via inhabitat.com

Great magazine if you havent seen printed version. Worth snooping around ...

"Save a few trees AND dollars with Frame’s new digital version of their outstanding interior design magazine. Supposedly, Frame Digital will be just like their always inspiring, and often eco-minded print version, but with a few more features. They are offering a preview now, and if you give them three email addresses, they’ll give you the first issue free."

Check it out!

After years of speculation, apple phone is finally out! I am not sure there is much to say about this apart from Gimme, Gimme, Gimme :)

Here is an interesting article:
Wired: Why Apple Makes Me Cry

Unfortunately, us Europeans will have to wait till Q4 this year to get it.

If you haven't seen it already ...go and check it out!

One thing more on my list of expensive gadgets!

I am one of those people who loves changing his desktop on a daily basis. Unfortunately it doesn't take me long before I run out of new ones to use and the old ones just look too old. If you've been looking for a place where to get nice desktops, this is definately the one. There is also a choice between single screen desktops as well as multiple monitors. There are some that spread over 3 screens....very nice.

http://www.mandolux.com/

Laptops are so common these days ..almost every student has one….just in case If you ever wondered what would it be like drilling a whole though a laptop screen while its still on …kinda painful thing to do….but very exciting to watch … something peculiar about things we treasure and look after so much are so easily destroyed. you questions answered here

Benrik have released their fourth consecutive calender for 2007 and it is the funniest, most witty date-keeper I have ever come across...

Here's what they say:

"The very latest Diary Will Change Your Life is now officially out! The 2007 edition features terrorism, Paris Hilton, the Chinese security apparatus, burkas, the Virgin Mary, dead bodies, the British National Party and the apocalypse, but not all in the same task thankfully. Follow its instructions every week, and your life will definitely change, and very possibly end. And it has a nice cover. The Diary normally retails for an extremely reasonable £9.99, but the more savvy consumer can purchase it here for much less, although God knows how that affects Benrik's already pitiful royalties."

Check it out!!

We decided to use the products of American Apparel because of a number of reasons:

First, their T-shirts are really good! The fabric is excellent to print on and their general quality is excellent. Also, they have the colour range that we are looking for.

Last but not least, they are a "sweat-shop free" company. This means that the company follows a policy of fair treatment towards their employees and we like that.

Read more about this here...

24 November 2006 - 28 January 2007

The V&A and PlayStation present Volume, LondonCreated by United Visual Artists and one point sixA luminous interactive installation has transformed the V&A’s John Madejski Garden this winter. Volume is a sculpture of light and sound - an array of light columns positioned dramatically in the centre of the garden.Volume responds spectacularly to human movement, creating a series of audio-visual experiences. Step inside and see your actions at play with the energy fields throughout the space, triggering a brilliant display of light and sound.The piece is a collaboration between design collective United Visual Artists (UVA) and Robert Del Naja (aka 3D) of Massive Attack and his long-term co-writer Neil Davidge (as part of their music production company, one point six).

Laura Cooperman, an artist from Cleveland, Ohio, was educated in Maryland Institute College of Art. After painting for a while, she found out that paper is a very diverse and interesting material. I agree...

Take a look at her amazing and delicate cutouts...

Check out this site: http://www.xericdesign.com

You can download a little application that places a real-time map of the earth (more or less) on your desktop. It updates itself regularly via satellite feed.Good fun for a while, but I'm not sure if it's worth 19 dollars for the full license...