If you’re ever in New York and missing the smell of the countryside, check out the ‘Earth Room’ – a room filled with 127,300 kg of earth.On display to the public since 1980, this second floor Soho gallery has been host to 197 cubic meters of natural earth. The lack of any other visitors, as well as the moist, warm air give the place a quiet and heavy atmosphere, where it feels like nothing has moved in the last 31 years. The white gallery walls are a stark comparison to the living, black soil that sits at it’s base – this really is a strange, but oddly enchanting place. Cameras aren’t allowed so these are the best ones I could find on the internet.

Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room, 1977. Long-term installation at 141 Wooster Street, New York City. Photo: John Cliett. Copyright Dia Art Foundation. Main Events and Public Programs Overview Visitor Information Artist Biography 141 Wooster Street New York City

It felt a bit like the natural opposite of Richard Wilson’s 20/50 (1987) installation that uses recycled motor oil.

Photo: Art News London

What emerged through the course of the talk was that Self has been converted from a driver to a walker of cities. He was very inspiring about how walking allows one to understand the city in a way no other form of transport allows (the ‘psychogeography’ of a place). His contention was that in order to reach this level of understanding you need true commitment, like any higher calling. This is not about a short stroll in the park, but necessitates high mileages, upwards of 25 to 30 miles in a day if one is to reach such a state of blankness (someone once said ‘munching on nothing’) that the mind is set free from the ‘man/machine matrix’ of the city.

His description of walking to Heathrow airport from South London was entertaining, as was the idea of then getting on a plane to LA or NYC and immediately circum-ambulating that city. The extreme combination of international jet travel and walking, our most ancient form of travel and our most modern, is stimulating. As is the idea of walking such distances in an urban setting – so challenging to the conventional bucolic experience of rambling. Interestingly, in his walk to Heathrow, Self claimed that in the 18 miles or so, only three had to be walked on public roads.

Still, when I tried to explain this in the studio this morning, the first question I got was ‘hasn’t he heard of the Heathrow Express?’ which means that my relaying of the arguments are wholly inadequate. I guess you had to be there as they say, but because you probably weren’t you could read Walking to Hollywood which will expose you to the full Selfian satire and wonderfully baroque vocabulary without any blunting of it by me.

The installation was part of our ongoing work for Deloitte, with a brief to brand the security check-in area of the main event. Considering the profile of Davos and the incredible, if not slightly random list of attendees (David Cameron, Bill Gates and Robert De Niro to name a few) we were keen to do something pretty spectacular with the space.

Our final idea was to construct an enormous 440m² anamorphic installation, transforming the boring, functional corridors of the security check-in into an immersive, typographic experience. Titled ‘A new perspective can change everything’ a Deloitte message ‘Stay a step ahead’ was woven into a broader story, encapsulating the forward thinking ambition of Davos and the World Economic Forum as an organisation.

So, what was it like creating a 440m² anamorphic installation your client and prime minister would be walking through? Alas to say it was pretty interesting. With absolutely no means of testing before the event went live and no plan B my nerves were running pretty high on route to see the space for the first time – the mountboard mock ups I had stuck together before Xmas were suddenly feeling quite inadequate.

Thankfully the installation came together and looked superb on launch, quickly becoming the visual talking point of the event. From day one the Deloitte installation was featured on a number of international news sites as stories from Davos unfolded. I’m pleased to say that after some pretty extensive searching the Deloitte installation was the only company space to achieve this recognition.

A huge thanks to everyone involved in the project, some superb work from Eskimosquare and their 3D visualising skills and some incredibly accurate production from our friends in Switzerland Messerli.

Here’s a video of the main anamorphic in all it’s deconstructional glory. I shot this film at 5am on a hotel porters trolley so please excuse any wobbles.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Selfridges is stampeded by bright yellow sheep

We were amused to read, in the Evening Standard the other day, that Selfridges has recently come under attack from a flock of bright yellow sheep.

As part of a campaign to celebrate British Wool Week, the landmark store was over-run by the woolly masses in a PR stunt that was undoubtedly eye-catching – if not a tad familiar…Despite being impressed with the campaign idea, and being fans of British Wool, it did seem to bear a striking resemblance to a campaign that we ran for Saks Fifth Avenue back in 2005 as part of their cashmere promotion, where we unleashed Cashmere goats on the store.

Melinda and TEDx Host

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited along to the latest TEDx event in London. As we’re arranging our own TEDx event in October – TEDxNewSt – I was interested to see, first hand and up close, how they are run.

The event was held at the Science Museum in London and was the first event, of its kind, ever. The first session (95 mins) was broadcast live from New York. 82 events took place in 40 countries, simultaneously, around the world, all live-streaming the NY feed. Once NY had wrapped up the first session, each individual event got on with hosting their events independently with their local speakers live in the room. There was a group in Auckland (NZ) who were hosting their event at 03:30am in order to take part and as we live-streamed them in to say hello, we were told how their adverts for the event read “Pyjamas are optional, progress is not”. Nice. What was even nicer however was the fact that there were indeed people in their pyjamas in the room too.

The overarching theme of the event was about the future and how we can positively effect global issues such as eliminating polio, fighting malaria, reducing child mortality rates and empowering women.

The speakers on the live feed from NY were really engaging and inspiring. As the event was co-conceived by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda was one of the key speakers. Her talk was very insightful as she spoke about how development agencies and NGOs could learn a few tricks from Coca-Cola in how to reach the far corners of the earth and inspire people to want to purchase their products/lifestyles. Hans Rosling was also on stage with some very encouraging stats on child mortality rates, delivered in his own highly inimitable style.

Hans Rosling

Also Mechai Viravaidya (or Mr.Condom as he was fondly referred to) showed a presentation on his foundation’s innovative and, frankly, awe-inspiring methods of introducing condoms into the Thai communities. He is responsible for this post’s title as that was one of the first things he said in his talk and it’s really stuck in my mind.

Mechai Viravaidya

There were many, many other speakers involved in the entire event, all of which were rich with content and inspiration. I would urge you to watch the recording of the NY live-stream available on the website as it’s really compelling.

And if that whets your appetite for being inspired and wanting to do things better/differently then be sure to find out more about our upcoming TEDxNewSt event on October 15th.

Starting on the journey in Farringdon

If you’re anything like me then you’re likely to spend an inordinate amount of your life plugged into a day-dream playing inside your (cavernous) head where you’re living out an alternate reality, traveling the world, experiencing new and wonderful places every day.

Imagine my delight when a colleague showed me a new internet site that brings my day-dreams to life (well, photo imagery at least) and shows me these places up close and on my screen.

Some smart folk have developed the ultimate Google Street View hack game/application where you can shuffle randomly through the streets of cities, in countries, on every continent*. Like a Chatroulette for globetrotting geeks.

*the continents that have Google Street View (5 currently)

One minute you’re exploring the back streets of Hong Kong and in the click of a button you’re whisked off (safely in your seat) to the winding mountain roads in Spain and…..*click*……off to the long, seemingly endless, stretches of roads through Central Africa. For a day-dreaming wannabe explorer like me it’s a great way of nosing around new places without the need for jabs and a moneybelt.

It’s incredibly compelling also just for the childish excitement that, at some point, you may happen across something really unusual and stunning (or rude!).

Go on, go and have a play here…and if you do find something particularly exciting then let us know by posting it on here. Thanks.

Missouri

Hong Kong

Spain

Africa

Australia

Denmark

The mystery of phantom traffic jams explained

If you’ve ever wondered why you can spend an aeon in a traffic jam on a motorway with no apparent cause, why we’re so intolerant of each other when we’re driving and why we think it’s ok to speed but never to go through a red light, then I’d recommend the book Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt…

As well as being a compelling account of the crazy paradoxes of the psychology of driving (for example SUV drivers are more likely to be talking on the phone and not be wearing a seatbelt because they feel safer, which means they’re actually much less safe than those in smaller vehicles), I’d also recommend the book to any fans of behavioural economics. In place of conventional economists, the too-rational target in this book are traffic engineers, who continue to plan road systems in the blithe belief that humans are completely rational beings. The book, sometimes hilarious sometimes tragic, shows us that we’re not, and that this has a huge impact on the way people live their lives alongside, and too often under, motor traffic the world over.

The book does have one hero however, in the shape of Hans Monderman who pioneered the ‘shared space’ approach to street design in the Netherlands. This concept of street design compels us as drivers to take more care by manipulating our sub-conscious to respond to a lack of rational information. A powerful example of ‘nudge’ psychology in action, Monderman’s approach is the reason why we now have more raised junctions for example, and that there’s a trend away from the compulsion of signs and markings to more effective ways of shaping driver behaviour. While this type of progressive design is seen mostly in built up environments, it’s the two-way, high-speed country road that’s the world’s biggest killer. This is becoming a massive issue for humanity as tens of millions get into cars for the first time in countries like China and India.

Ultimately, this is a fascinating book about how our pre-historic brains are incredibly bad at calculating risk within the sort of timeframes demanded of them while at the wheel of a car.

Wayne & Garth Spotted

Alongside the part of my phone that actually makes calls (the old fashioned bit), my Google Maps app is probably one of my most used. It’s become indispensable in the same way that being able to text once was. What would we do without it!

Modern spoils aside, the success of Google’s mapping technology may partly be down to its adaptiveness. As with all good web services, the Google Maps API has spawned a mass of location based mash-ups. Google, for example, recently partnered with We Are What We Do to create the wonderfully rich Historypin. It’s all too easy to forget about the history that surrounds us here at The Partners HQ, but a quick post code look up perfectly placed archived and geo-tagged photos from over 100 years ago. To refer to images like this in isolation is one thing, to see them in context and contrast with our modern surroundings (places we inhabit everyday without considering the past) can completely transform our sense of place. Today, Berg London announced Dimensions. Born out of a series of workshops with the BBC, this set of mash-ups forces us to reconsider our surroundings by overlaying historical, political, and environmental data on to our own neighbourhoods. With these filters and layers applied, mapping becomes less about wayfinding, and more about changing perceptions of our sense of place; both of our own locality, and of others’.

With Google’s Street View, the mental images and memories of our surroundings are at once put to test, and the sheer volume of imagery captured by Google’s roaming cars across the world must represent one of the most significant image archives in existence. It provides us with an almost complete panoramic view of the urban environment, albeit one recorded in 1/100th of a second. For the virtual tourist, or the freeze frame voyeur, street view offers a world of exploration like never before. Last year, Art Fag City bought together snapshots of some of the more weird and wonderful findings. Our treasured Daily Mail more recently got in on the act with the story of a seemingly dead girl laying in the street.

Thank god last year’s AR craze has seemed to have died down, when every brand seemed desperate to get a piece of the emperor’s new clothes. This highly ironic video summed it up perfectly. Why do something that could be much better achieved without the added layer of a webcam? Context, of course, is key. ART + COM showed that there were practical and meaningful applications for the technology when they bought dinosaurs out of their skeletons and bursting into life at Berlin’s Museum of Natural History. And with dedicated hardware in gaming consoles, the opportunities still seem genuinely engaging. Oh to be a kid today!

Of course mobile and augmented technologies are a match made in heaven. Amsterdam’s Layar first launched on Android some years ago now, but the potential still seems to be slowly unfolding, and marketers are quicker now to spot an opportunity. While The Rolling Stone’s take on the Layar app for their Exile On Main Street album may have been overly literal, it’s interesting to think how we can begin to engage an audience not just online, but in the real world too. Over in Japan, where adoption of new technologies is often quicker than anywhere else, the Sekai Camera app spawned an ‘Air tagging‘ phenomenon. Surely it’s just a matter of time before this spreads. Let’s just hope users can learn to leave data behind that actually enriches our surroundings, and resist the kind of comments you’re likely to find in a shoreditch pub toilet.

Yesterday I received a notification from Google informing me I was now being tracked by Latitude. I’d opted in for this some time ago, only to be disappointed to find very few of my friends had shared my enthusiasm. Sharing your location with Google (search now factors in your location) is one thing, sharing it with your friends, it seems, is another.

The social aspect of location awareness is, however growing fast. And while Foursquare’s success may be in part down to its reward schemes and gaming aspects (ultimately, its competitive nature), the check-in concept now seems to be spreading beyond the merely physical, with more & more start ups like Gomiso allowing us to ‘check-in’ to movies and tv shows. It’s yet another way of allowing us digital natives to define ourselves not just by where we hang out, but also by what we consume. In 2010, privacy, and personal space appear outdated concepts, while the commodification of the personal reigns supreme.

If anyone can popularise the concept of location in the social space, it’s Facebook. Sure enough, Mark Zuckerberg recently confirmed rumours that Facebook will soon be adding location to its services. Facebook might just show Google how it should be done here. Friends & followers, are you with me?

With examples from around the world, and going beyond graffiti and street art, this book celebrates the next generation of urban artist. Some of them are beautiful, some of them are funny, some of them are poignant, but all of them are brilliant. Of course, we have some work in it also:

We’d highly recommend this book as it’s one you definitely need to have in your collection. Personally, I love it and have it, selfishly, guarded on my desk as I keep liking to flick through it and ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ at all the very clever and wonderful work. And no, on that note, you can’t borrow it. <clings tightly to book>

For those of you that don’t know, WEF is an opportunity for those who are at the head of the (board)table to thrash out their views about the state of the World and what they are hoping for in the upcoming year — a big, big deal. I overheard someone in the corridor saying; “If you’re in to politics, this is the place to be.” So no pressure then? Previous years have seen such heavy hitters as Richard Branson, Tony Blair, and even ex-president Bill Clinton attending the event hosted in the small Swiss skiing resort — such is the importance of the WEF conference. With the World economy recovering from crisis, this years WEF focused on the topics of Rethink, Redesign and Rebuild.

We were asked by our client to set up some digital brand communications within their corporate sponsored area. This took the form of a series of branded animations (two animations for each day of the conference) playing across large screens mounted along the walls so that the guests could watch, and follow, the animations as they moved through the space.

Without going into lots of information about the animations themselves, I thought I’d treat you to a video of my non-scripted ramblings via a Flip video camera that I recorded whilst I was there.

(Expect some mild expletives and some general poo-pooing of every other branding scheme…)

Click here to view the embedded video.