A scene from Jonathon Keats' Cinema Botanica plant-porn video series.
(Credit: Jonathon Keats)Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has few qualms about exploiting the behavior of nonhumans. For one of his projects, presented last year, he choreographed a ballet danced by honeybees. For his latest project--video pornography for plants--he has gone even farther off-species and, many would say, farther still off the deep end.
Keats calls the genre Cinema Botanica and billed its gallery premiere, scheduled for September 10 at the 1078 Gallery, in Chico, Calif., as the "world's first porn theater for house plants." The logic behind the project, which now includes a trailer on YouTube showing plants being pollinated, is that "humans have more entertainment than they can endure. Yet organisms with populations far greater than ours are routinely ignored by MGM and Disney," says Keats, who is based in San Francisco.
Keats shot videos--"in gritty black and white"--of dozens of plants in flagrante delicto. He makes no claim, though, that the begonias in your window planter will become lusher--or seedier--after being exposed to the images. He's also looking for remuneration for his work. He says he'll take aim at the home video market and, to make the material financially accessible to plants, maybe take payment in fruit.
No one said being a plant porn star would be easy.
(Credit:
Gizmodo)
This is a fake gadget. Of course it is; after all, these days it seems like the top trend in gadget rumormonging is to tack a cell phone feature onto some other device and say it's "in the works." There was the iPhone, which turned out to be real, and the Zune Phone, which looks like it will turn out to be real. Now here's a Photoshopped "Wii Phone," as seen on Gizmodo, which is certainly not real. Yes, Gizmodo has reported that Nintendo does have a patent for a gaming phone, but I'm guessing it won't look like this.
Presumably, this hypothetical device would actually be a separate handheld gaming system, not a Wiimote, but it'd be funny if it could be used as one of the newly-iconic controllers. Instead of caller IDs, it could display the Mii of the person who's calling you. But it could lead to some difficult situations: when you're playing Wii Bowling, and the "phone" rings in mid-game, do you pick it up or keep trying to go for that strike?
(Credit:
HeHe Association)
A "cultural engineering" group in France, called the HeHe Association, has come up with a transportation concept that's a whole lot cooler than Segways: a "personal rail service" that puts small single-person vehicles onto abandoned light rail and tram tracks.
It's definitely conceptual, and likely will never see actual implementation, as it would hit plenty of roadblocks (ha ha). It doesn't look like they've made any concrete outline for how they'd be powered, though the creators have stressed on their Web site that it would be eco-friendly. There are also logistical issues, like figuring out how to prevent people from smacking into each other. And then there's the really big issue--making sure that nobody makes the mistake of taking their cute little transporters on tracks that aren't actually abandoned. Could get ugly.
But it's still an interesting idea.
(Via Boing Boing.)
Hey, friars! Taken a vow of silence, but still craving the new Decemberists album? (Give it a listen! It's good!) Well, your prayers may soon be answered--sorry, I had to throw that in there--if this prototype of a digital audio player hits the market. Called the "Saint B" and dreamed up by a Russian design studio, this little music player is shaped like a cross necklace and is sure to blend into any order's habits (though you'll have to find a way to hide your headphones). Just don't turn the volume up too loudly if you're listening to Metallica.
(Alternately, you could always just disguise your iPod Shuffle with an iBelieve add-on.)
Discovered at the Very Eclectic blog at Ozoux. Our apologies go out to any real-life monks we may have offended with this post.
(Photo: Manworks Design)
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