Street Art (13): Please Don't Pee in Public! – Luzinterruptus Intervention

Please Don't Pee in Public by Luzinterruptus 01
Luzinterruptus.com is a Spanish collective of artists specialized in Interventions. This time they draw attention to public urinating. By installing “public toilets” in places they chose by their noses, easy to find places where the smell tells, they hope to remind people to abstain from this anti social behavior. I second!

Please-Don't-Pee-in-Public-by-Luzinterruptus-04

What annoys us is seeing how during the day and nigh people urinate anywhere in the streets without any embarrassment. They just walk along, turn round, zip down and, even in crowded places, seen by passers-by, let go.

Please-Don't-Pee-in-Public-by-Luzinterruptus-03
Along San Ildefonso square and surrounding side streets in Madrid, Spain they installed 80 male urine containers, the ones used in hospitals, filled then with yellow water and added a little light. A powerful poetic protest I would say.

Please Don't Pee in Public by Luzinterruptus 02

Photographs from Gustavo Sanabria who also maintains a Flickr Luzinterruptus set

Via a wonderful site unurth – street art which specializes in street art from all over the world. Definitely worth a look!

Food Art – Insane Sandwiches

rubiks club wich

Rubik’s Clubwich

Thought we needed a smile after the seriousness of creativity from Chaos.

Came across this blog Insane Wiches, Insane Sandwich Fun, from which I’ll share a few good ones. He (or she?) is on Twitter as well: @insanewich, but not very communicative.

dadwich

Dadwich

And finally this very clever

Wino-Sandwich

Wino Sandwich

Let Chaos Inspire you – Grab a Sneak Preview

Regular readers know I publish on the side at Trendhunter, a cool community that scores the net in search of everything trendy.

Actually if you are really curious to know into what direction fashion, style, architecture, design, hotels, marketing, advertizing and many more topics are moving: Trendhunter offers you a daily one stop opportunity to remain up to date.

Like me, you could consider to become a free member and enjoy the thrill of a hyper trendy and creative community.

Being part of that community enables me to share with you a sneak preview of a very interesting upcoming book by the chief of the tribe, Jeremy Gutsche, Exploiting Chaos.

Jeremy is becoming one of the trend gurus by his own of this era. More than 30,000 members of the community contribute he skillfully knitted together contribute trends to the TrendHunter site. Like no one else Jeremy has his finger on the pulse of the crowds, or the tribes like Seth Godin likes to call us. He offers great insight and a chance to reflect on the near future.

DID YOU KNOW THAT Hewlett-Packard, Disney, Hyatt, MTV, CNN, Microsoft, Burger King, and GE all started during periods of economic recession? Periods of uncertainty fuel tremendous opportunity, but they also reshuffle the deck and change the rules of the game. That’s where EXPLOITING CHAOS comes in…

Read in the Sneak Preview about the fast changes that affect big companies and how small entrepreneurs were and will be able to thrive on new ideas.

The book will be available in the bookstores from September 1, 2009.

You can now download a 45 page Sneak Preview for free!

iFly – KLM Royal Dutch Airline’s new interactive online multimedia Inflight Magazine (Dutch Design 48)

ifly
Recently, after a testing 6 months with 3 numbers, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has launched number 4 of its interactive multimedia on-line in-flight magazine iFly. It is available in the Dutch and English language.

It is not KLM’s intention to scrap the paper magazine (yet?), but it is an interesting experiment. The topic presented to the viewer are based on the viewers behavior and interests, for instance the time a viewer spends on a certain topic.

An very interesting format for future blogs and hotel sites as well. Media gurus love the clickrate and time spent on the site….

Update.

I was a bit surprised not having found more on the subject.

Then I found this post of Junta42.com.

After each new issue they send an e-mail to their subscribers.

* After their third issue, KLM has found that iFly is their best marketing tool ever used to sell repeat tickets.
* The average reader spends 20 minutes reading the magazine.
* 20% read the entire magazine.
* Frequent flyers are heavy users of the magazine.
* The click-through rate of iFly is higher than any other online campaign from KLM.

Postcards from Scheveningen – A Plea to revive the Scheveningen High Back Beach Chair (Dutch Design 47)

Postcard of Scheveningen Beach dating before 1900
Postcard of Scheveningen Beach dating before 1900

Scheveningen is a suburb of The Hague and the main beach resort of The Netherlands.

1906 Postcard - Scheveningen beach with the Kurhaus
1906 Postcard - Scheveningen beach with the Kurhaus

Since we enjoy a wonderful summer here in the Hague, I’m remembering the typical good old cane High Back Scheveningen Beach Chair that used to be all over the Scheveningen beaches. These chairs disappeared completely from the Scheveningen Beach scene in the 70ies.

One problem was that they are very heavy. You need two persons to move them. The second problem is they were a bit unstable. With a bit of wind, they are easily blown over.

However, they had two huge advantages:

  1. Wind protection.
    By their design they already offered a nice protection against the wind. If you added a towel inside in the back the protection was complete.
  2. They offered you a nice feel of privacy: No strangers’ eyes burning in your back.

Dreamy Scheveningen Beach Postcard - Undated
Dreamy Scheveningen Beach Postcard - Undated

I’ve grabbed some historic postcard pictures from the internet to make my point while I was in search of modern equivalents for this wonderful beach chair, but couldn’t find a decent one. That is strange as the modern materials for outdoor chairs are so flexible. High Back beach chairs still do have a function as the following postcard fro a German Beach proves:
Postcard from a recent G8 Top
Postcard from a recent G8 Top

A recent G 8 top postcard with several World Leaders on a Northern German beach in its own model of a high back beach chair. It is much heavier, hence it is not feasible for Scheveningen where you have to adapt to the wind direction frequently, but a swiveling high back maybe?

So Chair designers out there: If the Germans can do this, why can’t the Dutch do this?