Serendipity Book

Everything is Interesting

Everything is Interesting was an exhibition of work by Canadian artist Kelly Mark at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham in 2003.

It consisted of several events, interventions and performances through the city which Mark responded to with the proposition that ‘everything is Interesting’.

This badge, measuring 38mm in diameter, has been reprinted due to popular demand.

Get yours here for 50p. I'm off to Birmingham to get mine tomorrow.

Open Plan Office Paranoia

I saw this fantastic mirror by Sebastian Wrong (great name) whose work is sold via Established & Sons (another great name) when I was in Liberty the other day.

Taking his inspiration from car interior rear view mirrors, Sebastian Wrong has created a wall mounted convex mirror for the home. It provides a panoramic view of the room behind you and has a steel ball joint at the back allowing movement along three axes. At just under a metre wide and available in the classic 80's colours of red, black and white this is a pretty striking object.

It reminded me of an outsized version of the desk mirrors that office workers use to see who is coming up behind them out in the wilds of the open plan. 

Most of the office staff I worked with in South Korea had one of these little mirrors (pictured above right) perched on their computers so they could see when their supervisor was approaching.

Sebastian's mirror is nearly 5 times the size of one of these so I think it would make quite a statement.

Along with good old privacy screen filters (not cheap you'll notice) rear view mirrors are considered to be the norm in open plan offices in South Korea I gather. Presumably paranoia is more socially acceptable than it is here?

With or without a mirror, nothing beats not actually being at your desk as a strategy for getting work done and avoiding interruptions as the New York Times noted recently.

The Joy of Not Being Sold Anything

Banksy sells his brand by tagging an empty billboard with the anti-capitalist message "the joy of not being sold anything".

You can see a still of the finished article over at Glyn Britton's Flickr photostream (Glyn is head of planning for Albion London).

The Naked barcode delusion

This is a clip from my favourite film of all time: Mike Leigh's 'Naked'. I tried to describe this scene to a colleague the other day. It wasn't easy to do it justice, so here's the clip itself.

I gather the script was largely improvised during rehearsals. Sadly there are still no plans to release 'Naked' on DVD in the UK but I managed to import a Region 1 copy from the U.S. where it is pretty easy to get hold of.

Shelf Life

I do love Zaha Hadid's pavilion design for Chanel (via Contagious)

Being a pavilion it presumably won't be up long enough to suffer the fate of one of her earlier buildings, the Landesgartenschau (LF1) in Weil Am Rhein near Basel, which at only 10 years old is looking very much the worse for wear...

Via Archidose

Ideology Plays Strategy

I love this t-shirt by Barnbrook design (available at 2K and sold in the wonderful Magma in Covent Garden and Clerkenwell). It's just a shame that the one I tried on was fives times as wide as it was long!

It says:

"THERE ARE NO LONGER POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES, THERE ARE ONLY CORPORATE STRATEGIES"

"Barnbrook Design is one of the most well known design studios working in London today. It has been producing innovative work since 1990. The studio works across a broad range of disciplines including print design, industrial design, typeface design and commercials for television. The studio's clients range from international museums to underground music magazines and self-initiated exhibitions. Barnbrook design also teach and lecture widely."

"Jonathan Barnbrook and his studio have been active since 1990, working across a broad range of disciplines including graphic design, industrial design, typeface design and film. Barnbrook Design is based in Soho, London and consists of three designersÊand a coordinator, originating from England, Japan and Brazil. They are Jonathan Barnbrook, Elle Kawano, Pedro Inoue and Marcus McCallion."

They're also known for their contributions to 'Adbusters' and for designing Bowie's last two album covers.

Fabulous Danish Domehouse

  My Home 
  Originally uploaded by Voetmann.

Do people live here or is it inhabited by little furry creatures?

See the rest of the house here

Happened upon by chance whilst searching for CC images for a presentation!

Rings Around the World

Some lovely work by illustrator Jamie Wieck for Virgin Atlantic. Each ring shows the skyline of a major city.

Art Deco Glory

Open House again. This is one of a series of photographs of the Art Deco interior of the wonderful old Daily Express building on Fleet Street (the paper relocated to the south bank many years ago) by Ayres No Graces. If you want to find out more, City of Sound kindly wrote up their visit to the building in 2003 here and the V&A profiled it here as part of their Art Deco exhibition in the same year.

Open up, make room for me

Open House. 30 St Mary Axe. That view! Doc 18 again.

More photographs from inside London's hidden gems here at the Open House Flickr Group.