art – Welcome

by Lukas Franz - February 1, 2021February 2, 2021

Mind food | Collection 01

This post will show best practices and interesting projects, products, and services that benefit mental health.

Emotional First Aid Kit

“What if we treated emotional health equally to psychical health? This kit is designed for very different emotional scenarios.” – Rui Sun

Sun, a graduate of the MA Industrial Design program at London’s Central Saint Martins, developed a toolkit to cope with stress and provide comfort.
The purple breathing mask emits calming scents when the user inhales, allowing them to think clearly in intense situations. The Indigo Third Eyeglasses have three lenses to remind the user to use their “third eye” and look at things from a different perspective, while the Blue Stress Buster is a portable speaker that visualizes sound with blue ink. Should the user get involved in an argument, the Green Meditating Stethoscope helps them tune into their breath and meditate, and a Yellow Confidence Booster is a super-light padded jacket that helps people who “lack the confidence to solve dilemmas or address a situation” [1].

Wakeout!

Moving is proven to reduce stress, makes you feel more energized, and enhances your mood. Lots of people have no time to work out and spend hours a day sitting on a desk. “Wakeouts” are movements that are fun, brief, and can be done just about anywhere, anytime. The app has over 1000 exercises and hundreds of routines designed in a variety of places over 2 years.
Quick Breaks are 1-minute, 4-movement routines that you start with a tap. Active Work Timer allows you to schedule recurrent active breaks to have a healthier workday. Wind Down routines helps you sleep better with relaxing routines before bedtime. Wakeout for Apple Watch lets you squeeze in 30-second Wakeouts right on your wrist. The new iOS 14 widget lets you start 1-minute quick breaks right from your Home Screen. Schedule up to 4 reminders to make sure you don’t stay sedentary for too long. You can also browse the massive library of location-specific movements and filter by mood (energizing, relaxing, intense, or fun), and by length (1 movement, 3 or 5) [2].

Naked Doorway by Marina Abramović

When I first visited an exhibition by Marina Abramović I was shocked – in a very positive way. Her works are dealing extensively with the human mind and intense emotions. Abramović’s performances deal with love, shame, inner demons, and the whole palette of emotions. 0ne of her most popular performances is the naked doorway where two naked persons, a male and a female stand in a doorway staring at each other while visitors should walk through them. I think it helps people to overcome their insecurity about their bodies and sexuality in general. Even though it’s such a brief moment, it definitely has an effect on many people who find it beautiful how this performance creates an intense experience with the outcome of learning to deal with the naturalness of our bodies. Its purity puts the human-being and their relationships in its simplicity into focus, which I find wonderful.

Therachat

Therachat claims to improve your mental health by offering Journeys which are bundles of evidence-based therapeutic activities to help you achieve specific mental goals. You can learn simple breathing techniques to cope with stress. As a sort of modern diary you can track your emotions to realize how they affect you over time. By reframing your thoughts you could break through common negative thought patterns.

The activity library:

Assessments
Brainstorming
Coping Skills
Emotion Tracking
Journaling
Mindfulness
Psychoeducation
Skill Building
Thought Reframing
Trigger Tracking

Therachat can be used by yourself or with your therapist. Using it with a therapist will increase the effect it has on you, so that you get more out of every session. Your therapist will be able to assign you custom activities relevant to your treatment and you’ll be able to securely message your therapist in between sessions.

References:

[1] https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/22/emotional-first-aid-kit-designed-help-those-stressful-situations-design-graduates-central-saint-martins/

[2] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wakeout-active-breaks/id1242116567

[3] https://www.therachat.io/

[4] https://channel.louisiana.dk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ABRAMOVIC_Marina_and-Ulay_A-Door-of-the-Museum_1200x675_NYT-SITE.jpg

by Leonora Bunjaku - February 1, 2021February 2, 2021

Typografie als visuelle Kommunikation – 1

Inhalt und Kontext der Botschaft, die man vermitteln möchte, wird durch Typografie in der visuellen Kommunikation beeinflusst. Typografie ist überall. Wenn wir durch die Straßen spazieren, in Zeitungen, im Fernsehen, in der Werbung, in diesem Blog, Infografiken, bei Ausstellungen, als Kunst, in jedem Material, das Text enthält.

Das geht über eine einfache oder zufällige Anordnung von Buchstaben hinaus, es ist eine Kunst, die Marken hilft, etwas auszusagen, eine Botschaft zu vermitteln. Typografische Formen sind nicht mehr ausschließlich phonetische Symbole. Im Laufe der Zeit werden sie von verschiedenen Künstlern und Designern auch als grafisches Objekt an sich betrachtet und erforscht. Ein Ansatz, der mit der Demokratisierung des Computers, der digitalen Möglichkeiten noch weiter zunehmen wird.

Typografie als Kunst definiert jede Form von Kunst, die Buchstaben, Wörter oder Sätze beinhaltet. Sie wird in verschiedenen Medien und Ansätzen eingesetzt, Dazu gehören Malerei, Skulputur, digitales Rendering oder jede andere kreative Technik, die der Künstler/die Künstlerin verwenden möchte.

Im professionellen Grafikdesign bezieht sich die visuelle Sprache auf die Bedeutungen, die durch das visuelle Erscheinungsbild von Text und Bild erzeugt werden. Im Vergleich ist mit verbaler Sprache die wörtliche Bedeutung eines Wortes, Sätzen und Phrasen gemeint.

Der Bildsprache Typografie übernimmt in diesen Fällen als visuelle Sprache das Verbale und dient somit als effektives Kommunikationstool.

Kommunikation einer Marke

Jede Schrift erzählt eine eigene Geschichte. Die Wahl der Font, die man für eine Brand verwendet, beinhaltet stets ein Konzept dahinter. Dieses Konzept muss nicht immer sehr laut sein. Zuerst wird die Typografie gefühlt und danach verstanden. Die Wahl der Font sagt sehr viel über eine Brand aus, ob sie modern oder klassisch ist, konservativ oder verspielt oder auch beides.

Durch die Gestaltung einer individuellen Typografie kann eine Ambivalenz von Werten zusammengebracht werden, welche leicht identifizierbar ist und die sich aus der Masse der visuellen Identitäten herausheben lässt.

Man kommuniziert mit der Schrift und vermittelt mit ihr Botschaften und Informationen. Durch Formensprache und Farbe, werden Assoziationen und Emotionen geweckt.

Dieser Technik kann man sich in der Werbung und in der Erstellung von Brand Identities zu nutze machen und kann damit eine bestimmte Wirkung beim Betrachter erzielen und das, ohne sich selbst erklären zu müssen.

by Kristina Reischl - January 30, 2021

Joyful Design 10

Jeff Koons
An excursion into the art world

Round shapes, colors, nostalgia, beauty in skilled performances—all those terms are indicators for joyful design—and when looking at Jeff Koons art we cannot deny that all those elements synergize in his works of art—making Jeff Koons a perfect example of how to consciously use all those “ingredients” to create joyful experiences.

Jeff Koons finds beauty in the ordinary and overlooked things of our life and is considered the most bankable contemporary artist alive—his stainless steel Rabbit (1986), sold for $91.1 million in 2019, is the most expensive artwork by a living artist to ever be sold at auction. The concept of the readymade—displaying an ordinary object in a new context as a work of art, is the foundation for most of Jeff ’s work. He says the idea that he “could acquire things and let them just display themselves” was a revelation. Knickknacks, comic books, ceramic figurines, and domestic appliances act as a springboard for his imagination. His works are clearly inspired by pop culture, consumer desire, sexual freedom, childhood wonder and self-acceptance. While other artists only stay relevant for a short time, nobody else has stayed so relevant for so long.

His pieces provoke smiles, gasps, cringes, laughs, and, above all else, the individual’s investigation of those reactions. He doesn’t shy away from candy-colored excess. His signature motif, the high-polish surface, reflects our experience of his art back onto us.

“It’s really the quality of his work, interlocking with economic and social trends, that makes him the signal artist of today’s world.”—New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl.

*Inflatable Flower and Bunny (Tall White, Pink Bunny),* 1979

Nostalgia, Colors, Round Shapes
Inflatable Flower and Bunny was the first piece of art that brought toys and mirrors into Jeff’s artistic vocabulary. He picked the bunny because it reminded Jeff of the Easter decorations in his hometown. Several motifs, namely the cartoon iconography and use of reflective surfaces, are still central to Jeff’s work today.

*Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank*, 1985

Skilled Performance, Round Shapes, Nostalgia
“I wanted to keep it a very womb-like situation with water,” Jeff Koons commented in a 1992 Taschen monograph. But this vision proved to be incredibly challenging. To bring his idea to life, Jeff consulted Richard P. Feynman, a Nobel Prize–winning physicist, to devise a method of filling the balls and tank with the correct proportions of distilled water and highly refined salt so the balls would float. Temperature fluctuations and visitors’ footsteps blend the water and sodium, causing the balls to sink; the artwork has built into it an inevitable failure, requiring reinstallation every six months.

“Ideas come from sensations. You don’t have ideas without having sensations.”—Jeff Koons

Colors, Nostalgia, Skilled Performance
Play-Doh took Jeff Koons 20 years from conception to completion. The piece of art is his memorial to innocent creativity—made up of 27 individual pieces of polychromed aluminum, it re-creates at monumental scale a colorful mound of modeling putty once given to Jeff by his son Ludwig. Play-Doh represents an inflection point of Jeff’s preoccupation with superrealistic, large-scale sculpture.

Skilled Performance, Round Shapes, Shininess
Balloon Dog started as a simple idea for Jeff: create something that would imbue adults with the delight that children feel at birthday parties. The execution proved more complex. In a feat of modern fabrication, Jeff translated this concept into an 11-foot-tall stainless steel sculpture whose dimensions precisely replicate its reallife latex counterpart.

Like many of Jeff’s high-polished works, these pieces engage the spectator and celebrate the surroundings of their installation with the intent of bringing joy to audiences the world over.

Source
Jeff Koons on Masterclass. URL: https://www.masterclass.com

by Theresa Dachauer - January 16, 2021February 1, 2021

The art of human anatomy

The spellbinding art of human anatomy

Ted talk by Vanessa Ruiz | TEDMED 2015
Medical Illustrator

Vanessa Ruiz is a medical illustrator and loves the human body and anatomy. This is the reason why she created Street Anatomy, a movement dedicated to showcasing how anatomy is visualized in art, design and pop culture. Through sharing these works of art she wants to lift anatomy out of the textbooks, make it tangible and take away the learned reaction of fear of anatomy and guts most of us have.

In her Ted Talk at TEDMED 2015 she tells her story and relationship with anatomy, gives a short history recap and presents some of her favorite artists. Anatomy isn’t only relevant in the medical field and these artists bring it into the public space.

One of the artists Ruiz presents is the Austrian street artist and illustrator NYCHOS who created the Rabbit Eye Movement.

by Theresa Dachauer - January 4, 2021January 30, 2021

Science & Art

The art of science and the science of art

Ted talk by Ikumi Kayama
Medical and scientific illustrator

Ikumi Kayama shares what scientific illustration means to her and what motivates her to keep going. In her work she creates illustrations of “dead things”. They could be plants, animals or humans. One of her focuses is human anatomy and she loves to give new insight about the human body to other people. Kayama emphasizes that the advantage of illustration over photography is that she can breath life into her drawings, make things see-through and direct the viewer’s eye to a specific point of the picture.

Some of Ikumi Kayamas work:

Integration of Art and Science

Ted talk by Yoko Shimizu
Contemporary artist and biochemist

Yoko Shimizu talks about the beauty of science, the way it inspires her and how she uses scientific principles to create fascinating installations. In her talk she shows three art installations about gravity, surface tension and sound waves. With her work she wants to show everyone that inspiration is all around us and that combining things that seem on different ends of a spectrum can lead to astonishing and beautiful creations. Visualizing the unseen is one of her key motivations.

Inside Futurelab – BioArt

Video by Ars Electronica

In this video Yoko Shimizu presents the Ars Electronica Futurelab, where they create creative and innovative technology with clients from around the world. Shimizu gives the viewers a quick tour of the Ars Electronica Biolab, which consists of two floors, a museum/galerie and laboratory. Afterward Shimizu talks about BioArt, her motivation and projects. She loves that in BioArt you start with something you designed but in the end you end up with something you couldn’t even imagine by co-creating with nature and living things.

_{It’s much more beautiful than something that you could’ve created on your own.}

When science meets art

Ted talk by Fabian Oefner
Artist

Fabian Oefner presents two of his projects inspired by science. The first one is based on sound waves. Tiny crystals are placed on a plastic foil above a speaker. They jump in the air once a sound is played. Using a camera that can take 2000 pictures per second he photographs this phenomenon. In his second project he uses ferrofluids (fluids that react to magnetic fields) and watercolors to create amazing organic images. Each of his projects is somehow inspired by science, because he doesn’t just want to create stunning images but wants to make people curious as well. His goal is to make the viewer stop for a moment and wonder how he did it and what the physical properties are.