The Scent Of A Human: Eau De Schwinn?

The Gray Lady wonders this morning if New York can truly (re)vert — or reinvent — itself into Neue Amsterdam via bikes. Her focus du jour is the Dutch “It” bicycle , and the question is that of how to look delicious(ly continental) while doing so.

It suggests looking like the guy pictured here… in which case I heartily approve.

However, trembling under those textiles is the unSPOKEn (10 point pun, don’t you agree?)dialogue in this aestheticised vision of a psuedoeuropean paean to fashion a la bicyclette: that is, that bicycling leaves one… shall we say… moist?

The “>LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards from the USGBC (United States Green Building Council) — the official granter of “green” status to all things architecture and design — award points to both commercial and residential with bicycle parking facilities. So too does its pragmatism include SHOWERS in these aforementioned parking facilities, so as to allow one’s workers to… freshen up… before a day in the office.

But few of our offices have such amenities, and not everyone is going to stop at the gym before work. Besides, let’s be honest — many who bike do so for both environmental as well as financial reasons, not to mention to forego the sterile hamsterwheel-meets-club-con-meatmarket environment of many such facilities.

Which leaves us — even if we are riding lovely $1000 bikes and are nattily dressed — a little, well, RIPE. Remember all the things one hears about Europeans? In addition to fashion and food, there is also: unshaven women! wantonness! bidets! Yes folks, the Europeans [stage whisper]: touch themselves in that private place.  Every day.  To WASH. Which means a whole slew of things involving accepting dirt, sweat, autosexuality, the human production of juices and so forth and so on.

The real question to pose is: are we ready for the sweaty, higher libidoed, pungent masses? For it’s not something that turns me off — or most Continentals I’ve met, for that matter (don’t forget the wantonness!) but its something we at least keep the illusion of keeping out of the offices, schools, and other fine establishments. Restaurants, your patrons may comingle with your tantalizing aromas not only in their eau d’homme et femme avec cologne et parfum, but so too with eau de… homme et femme. Eau de NOUS. The smell… of US. And we may find that after dinner we want to… take someone home for dessert.

Walter Benjamin, writing in Paris in the 1930’s, queried:
“Who still knows, nowadays, where it was that in the last decade of the previous century women would offer to men their most seductive aspect, the most intimate promise of their figure? In the asphalted indoor arenas where people learned to ride bicycles. The women as cyclist competes with the cabaret singer for the place of honor on posters, and gives to fashion its most daring line.”

For Benjamin, and many of his contemporaries, the image of the fairer sex astride a bicycle was akin to the switch from sidesaddles to that same, er, mounted position in equestrian riding — a not only novel but radical, sexual one. And irregardless of which gender you might admire, there is a notably erotic element in the rosy cheek and heaving lung of the cyclist: when paired with a natty get up (for which Paris then as now was never lacking) the effect is nothing short of arousing.

The mood on the street as these two-wheeled darlings of athleticism and aesthetic aplomb change the pattern of our walking, the speed of our gaze, the rhythm of our breath and theirs — is undeniably HUMAN. They alter the staid concrete and breathe life into our humdrum hours — for there, amongst the mechanical carriages and caverns of steel and glass they move, darting in and out like sparrows, foxes teasing through the hunts’ hooves. And so begins a fissure in the financially-fashioned fabric of America.

When one visits Europe one can’t quite put a finger on what tickles the nose, the skin, what rides in the air of the cities there — is it to bold to suggest this invisible energy is directly linked to the long time tradition of the streets filled with bicycles? To put it shortly — yes. There is an unspoken, unmapped humanity that is exuded from masses of persons who are in very fact “auto-mobile”: a populism, a hint of revolution, an acceptance and demonstration of willed physical exertion. The biker says without a word: in my calves lies the power. Independence of movement releases one from the grid, from the preordained paths, from the nodes of mass transit and the standardized mapping of Place — and so too does the fabric of “knowledge” (what we know and how we know it) further unravel.

The question, then,  is not only what to wear to the Ball of Ourselves, but, are we ready for the party?

By L DeSilva-Johnson (via BrooWaha New York and her personal blog)

First Loves in Polaroids on ourfirstloves.com

The site ourfirstloves.com has collected many such stories, from falling in love with spaghetti to memories of first pets. They’re funny, heart-warming, and sure to make you laugh. There’s also someone who shares my first love. His name is Frank and he is 80 years old, but I think I have to visit him someday because he has what I want: an own library.

By Jessica Binsch

Feininger had been a student at Bauhaus and never meant to become a photographer. Initially he was trained to be a cabinetmaker and then later worked as an architect with Le Corbusier. At some point he gave up on architecture itself and focused on its photography, which led him to become a key photographer at Life magazine for over 20 years.

When he immigrated to New York in 1939 he found his urban utopia, a place even more bursting with life than Paris and Stockholm, where he had lived before. Besides his work as an alround photographer capturing everything from fashion events to car accidents, he found time to walk the streets of New York and portrait it in all its facettes. But unlike Henri Cartier-Bresson or Robert Capa he never waited to capture the one decisive moment. He rather tried to built the perfect impression by craftfully staging the picture he had in his mind.

As one of a few photographers of his time he was capable of successfully mastering craft and techiques with art and design. He considered craftsmanship to be the basic tool for his artistic expression—he saw the camera as the photographer’s typewriter. And this, in the end, made him an expert among experts. He wrote a number of standard references to photography, one of which you will probably know if you ever got serious with this artform: The Complete Photographer from 1978.

His work continues to define the image we have of New York until today. This probably explains the nostalgic feeling of ours when we saw the exhibition. If you have ever been there or not – Feininger’s pictures still feel strangely familiar.

Andreas Feininger
New York in the Forties
18.02.09 – 18.05.09

Bauhaus-Archiv
Museum für Gestaltung
Klingelhöferstraße 14
10785 Berlin

[Show as slideshow]

My personal highlight comes with the quote of the day:
“Our computers are like SUVs – most of the energy they consume is used to propel themselves. Like the cars are so heavy they need all the energy to move themselves – not you!” so said Yves Béhar.

Yves Béhar is the founder of fuseproject and the dude who designed the Jawbone (a bluetooth headset that eliminates surrounding sounds while you speak) and the new NYC Condom dispenser:

With this quite plausible comparison (PCs = SUVs) he was referring to the One Laptop Per Child project started by Nicholas Negroponte. See this Video from the Design Miami 07 for a short wrap-up of the design side of the XO Laptop:

Yves Béhar is actually also one of the designers that contributed to the botanist series by orange22 that I stumbled upon later at ICFF. Orange22 claim that the pieces are sustainable and eco-friendly. I’m not too sure about that because the base material is aluminum. It is correct that aluminum can be recycled. But the amount of energy that is needed for the process is unreasonably high. No wonder the German green party has factually banned cans from the domestic beverage market. But anyway – I guess there are different shades of green, right? At least the look and feel makes me wanna have one (and you don’t throw benches away that often):

This one was designed by Yves Béhar but speaking of natural products you may also check out that one:

In fact they are all quite sleek.

Probably the complete opposite of it may be the chairs and benches that sixinch from Belgium put on display. They have really nice pieces in general. What they showed on ICFF was “classical” chairs covered with foam. Sorry, but that was just cheesy:

Again: check out their website as they have other stuff that I actually like.

Next thing that I want to point out is the Geneva Sound System. It has an iPod dock, radio and CD player while you can also close the top flap to make it look like a simple cubic speaker on a stand. This is (for me) one of the most advanced iPod based products that I have seen yet. As in the U.S. virtually everyone has one – why not?

If I will ever live and work in a loft, I’m sure I’ll go to M2L on 215 E 58th St in New York first thing in the morning to get one of these babies:

What you can’t really see on the picture is that you can flip the plate on the hemisphere in the front, which will serve as a table. It’s a great workspace when you just need a laptop and a phone to start working. And the look is so 60ies futuristic, it’s just beautiful.

M2L is represented as part of a Dutch collective at ICFF. Check this PDF out if you’re interested in more design from the Netherlands.

Other designers that I liked (but weren’t on the designboom market) where Takumi Shimamura and Isaac Arms(although his website sucks).

Last thing for today’s post is designboom.com which is a website/blog that covers art, design and architecture. They also organize design competitions, online classes, a web shop and so called ‘designboom marts‘ one of which is currently taking place at ICFF. The concept is to put 40 young professional designers in a flea market setting with products in a range of 10 – 100$. The designboom mart is really worth seeing and very different from the rest of the booths. What I really liked was the Milk Gone Bad lamps by Anatomic Factory:

Also quite nice the Block Night Light by 25togo:

They actually didn’t have that with them but sold their My Document laptop sleeves instead. But I like the lamps better.

These were my personal highlights of the ICFF 2008 in New York. I have to go…Good night!

By Semir (double post)