It’s that time again. Nokia research have a new film exposing the delights of how Nokia will be at one with your life and your life at one with Nokia. I have to admit this particular film narks me somewhat less than another offering a while back that fumbled around the Nano meme. However, i am still perturbed by it’s cleanliness, by its perfection. Knowing a little bit about how Nokia Research do their research I’m disappointed that a broader or more diverse context has not been explored within this narrative.

Obviously it is intended more as a PR piece than a genuine exploration of potential futures but even as a PR exercise it leaves me thinking,

“oh, shut up…lets say i do live an idealised Scandinavian life, i still don’t believe you Mr Nokia”.

I don’t think I’m alone.

I was enjoying a quiet drink with a few friends last night in Exmouth Market when across the room I spotted a Sense Summer Art Fair T-shirt! Curious as to how he’d heard about Sense I went over to politely interrupt his conversation. Turns out he read about Sense on the It’s Nice That blog, had loved our T-shirts and bought one and I must say it looked great. Safe to say he’ll be attending the private viewing this evening.
So watch out, we look forward to seeing more of them out and about soon.

As the recession continues to bite the armed forces are experiencing an increase in the number of new recruits – which has risen 10% on last year. This surge of interest is seems not only to be a product of the recession but the Forces increasingly extensive and sophisticated self-promotion.

In addition to the web and TV based ‘Start Thinking Soldier’ campaign are a whole host of offline, regional events. Potential young recruits are being targeted at consumer events, shopping malls and schools using experiential events and arcade-style virtual reality simulators. Even in my local shopping arcade is a shop dedicated to promoting the exciting adventures a soldier will embark on with the added excitement of virtual reality gaming and cool buggies to drive.

The RAF have also launched RAF Altitude – an online magazine portal for young teenagers to sign up and learn about RAF career options. The interface includes areas to register and ‘Dive In’ to learn about RAF survival techniques, RAF history and a Youtube channel dedicated to promoting the cool life of an air force cadet.

To sew the seeds of military ambition at an even earlier age are Hasbro’s ultra realistic Action Man dolls (seen here in the window of Hamleys in April 2009). Hasbro recently reintroduced the dolls with special permission from the MoD. The figures will now come equipped with accurate replicas of the weapons used in the Iran and Afghanistan wars as opposed to the more fanciful inline skates, water pistols and snowboards.

According to BBC News:

‘The MoD says it hopes the figures will boost the profile of Britain’s serving forces. [It’s] an ideal opportunity to raise public awareness of the armed forces and what the personnel do day-by-day,” says Squadron leader Stuart Balfour. “We feel by children playing with these toys, it promotes things like discipline, sense of belonging to a wider organisation and team work.’

RCA graduate Thomas Thwaites’ Toaster Project pursues a simple but daunting task: To deconstruct the most ubiquitous and humble of electronic products and recreate it from scratch. That the finished object resembles a caveman’s approximation of its Argos parent is comic in the first instance and then rather humbling when you see the incredible lengths he went to in producing it. On display alongside the toaster are the range of makeshift tools used in its manufacture. These include a leaf-blower and chimney pot iron-smelting furnace, electrolytic tanks used to refine the copper for the wiring and a mould for the plastic casing (hewn from a tree trunk).

At the culmination of the project he’d spend nine months, travelled the length and breath of the UK and spent £1187.54. The backbreaking endeavour involved in replicating a product which can be purchased for £3.49 in Argos powerfully invalidates the apparent convenience and viability of mass manufacture in itself. But the projects primary geniius is in how it confronts myth that modern man is somehow more intelligent and proficient than his predecessors – when in reality our modern lives are entirely dependant on a multitude of products and infrastructural solutions all of which we outsource to the third world and have no means or knowledge to replicate ourselves.

[Image from Dezeen]

Yet again we had some great inspirational talks last night, curated by the It’s Nice That boys, Alex and Will.

Johnny Kelly was the host for the third It’s Nice That Talk evening held up in our Sense Loft. A fantastic presentation to set the stall out for his two invited guests David McFarline from Spin and photographer Marco Bohr. You’ll be able to see the videos here and also available on iTunes.

We’ve also put up some more photos on our Flickr page.

Saw these at lunchtime. Tap Do-It-Yourself Water bottle lables. The blurb goes, ‘Each sticker pack contains 10 self adhesive stickers to revive, re-brand and re-use empty water bottles.  A handy drink-o-meter also helps you keep track of your refills, mark it off each time you refill and when you reach ten, recycle the bottle.’

So, the premise is you buy these packs of (vinyl btw) stickers to put on old bottled water bottles so you can reuse them and fill them with tap water. Does it not seem counter productive to buy plastic labels to put on bottled water bottles you shouldn’t have bought in the first place because you apparently care about the environment? Am I missing something?

I recently saw the UK screening of Objectified at Curzon Chelsea cinema and really, really enjoyed it.  Objectified is a documentary film by Gary Hustwit about product designers and their obsessions with the conception of the objects we interact with on a daily basis. Hustwit’s previous work was the succesful Helvetica film that explored the world of the typeface and their creators.

The Objectified film does not necessarily offer a critical in-depth comparison between different perspectives of how to apply design thinking in industry but what I did enjoy was its sensitive approach to unraveling some aspects of the various design practitioners personalities (I particular loved the juxtaposition between Dieter Rams and his Bonsai pruning and Karim Rashid and his white nail varnish)

Yet it does explore and discuss the detrimental impact the designers contributing role has on the eventual impact of littering the earth with stuff, from over production and the constant built in obsolescence mentality of striving to design and develop new and “better” products. Rob Walker ,an amazingly critical journalist from New York Times for the “Consumed” column, gives a very insightful perspective on consumption and it’s impacts on the world. He is a great wordsmith and examines “those who buy things” ’s  behaviour from a hybrid business-and-anthropology standpoint. Its definitely worth checkig out his greatly titled blog Murketing.com

If you want to go see this film ( i highly recommend it) then there will be some screenings at the Barbican towards the end of May:

link

Last week I took myself along to the talk “How to Remember Things” at the School of Life. Based near Russell Square the School of Life offers a large array of courses, talks, Sermons and, if you fancy it, Psychotherapy. It was my first time at the School so I really did not know what to expect from this curious little place. I can honestly say that just walking in the store was an absolute delight. Greeted by friendly staff and a glass of wine I was able to peruse through a selection of intriguing and fascinating books while I waited for the talk to begin.

I digress.  Rita Carter. How to Remember Things. This was not, as it initially appeared to be, a talk on how to improve your memory. This was a talk set to give us a brief overview of our perceptions of memory, how our memory works and what memory actually is.

I often worry about loosing my memory and get annoyed that I simply cannot remember every tiny little thing. However Rita managed to settle my mind. Our memories are meant to be imperfect. They are meant to be fuzzy. Full of holes. Lost and replaced. For if we were to have an absolute perfect recall for every single thing we had said, done, witnessed, felt we simply could not function.

I highly recommend a visit to the School of Life. I think you’ll learn a thing or two.

Rita Carter - Mapping the Memory
School of Life

Over the weekend i watched a TED talk by Sir Ken robinson about education and creativity. He has done a series of talks now whilst promoting his new book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. He speaks very broadly about his passion and belief in creativity but it is his pinpointing (and finger pointing) of the huge schism in our education system that is really spot on. Essentially his argument is that we box up and sideline certain elements of intelligence and that in order to prepare for an ever increasingly fractured future we need to rethink our understanding of intelligence.

On a slightly different note it reminded me a lot of a conversation i had a while ago with James Woudhuysen on the failings of the advertising industry.  In it he derided the lack of polemic debate within the idustry and for its blinkered views on future talent. This has also led me to think back on a book i read 5 years ago now called The Seven Day Weekend by Ricardo Semler but i will save all that for another blog post.
The other reason to watch Sir Kens talk is for his wonderful stand up, comic timing…the whole thing is littered with quips and anecdotes such as the one about a child drawing God.
Teacher: What is it you’re drawing

Little Girl:  I’m drawing God

Teacher: But no one knows what God looks like

Little Girl: They will in a minute

FOOD HEDONISM: Was the name of one scenario generated during my internship for the Tacking Obesities project at the Government of Science’s Foresight think tank with colleague Michael Burton. During our research, we were influenced by an essay by one expert, “The potential of contributions from neuroscience and psychology for understanding and treating obesity” by Edmund T Rolls. This essay was sourced by the Foresight team detailing the psychological impacts of our hunger pains and relationship to food intake. We proposed the possibility of creating alternative taste buds that exist elsewhere on the body; could hunger be satisfied using the other senses?. Would they offer the feeling of a food,  a phantom food and satisfy the hunger of an individual? Would there be spas that people would go to to immerse themselves in the feeling of healthy food, but smell the sugar and chocolate at the same time. What other sensual mash ups might this ensue? What impact would this have on diabetics?
With this in mind i find it amazing to see that Le Whif has been produced. Le Whif is a revolutionary new way of eating chocolate that you inhale. David Edwards the founder of Le Laboratoire, a new artscience center in Paris in his new book , Whiff, outlines experiments in encapsulating flavours.

“In this latest experiment, the double-Michelin-starred chef Thierry Marx collaborated with the colloidal scientist Jérôme Bibette to introduce a new way of encapsulating flavors. Wishing to present these delectable capsules in an unusual way, a group of art and science college students developed with Edwards a new way of eating by aerosol, called whiffing.”