Galleries and Exhibitions

Touch and tweet, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Touch and Tweet was one the most excting exhibtions I have been to to date. Although small, the work on display show cased the role of design in society using interactive technology. These roles included activities using interactive softwear for children with learning disabilities, enviromental improvements such as solar powered paint for road lighting and sensored lighting for safety in cities at night. 

The image above is one of a collection of posters created by Hellicar and Lewis to communicate their ideas and how their company works. Each poster uses shape and structure to comminucate its aims, for example the image bellow holds the caption "...Good, fast and cheap refers to the impossible triangle we often have to present to our clients. You can only pick two! I.e a project can be good and fast but it won't be cheap, or it can be good and cheap but it won't be fast." 

This was one of my favourite collections of work from the exhibition. The posters uses two main principles for communication; structure and shape. This simplicity and clarity creates an extremely effective method of communication, something that as a designer I often over look as I miss out the importance of how effective a simplistic aesthetic can be to communicate more complex ideas and methods.

Stedelijk Museum- Design from the 1940's onward 

INFIDEL, Tim Heatherington, FOAM Museum, Amsterdam

A photographer I admire 

Heatherington uses photography to explore human nature when faced with extremes of brutality, agression and suffering. He finds these extreme ways of living in war zones, for example Infidel, his final exhibtion as he was sadly killed in cross fire, was based in Afghanistan. 

When entering the exhibtion  in Amsterdam's foam museum I felt an immediate sense of sadness, his photography made me feel as if he had stripped his subjects right down to the very core to find our most sentive and some what private emotions. There was a deffinate sense of something very honest about Heatherington's work which i later came to realise was closely linked to the very personal feel of the exhibition. 

Most inspirational photograph of the Exhibition

most inspiration film installation of the exhibition

I've choosen the two pieces of work above as the two that inspired me the most through out the exhibtion. When earlier I talked about a 'personal' feel to Heatherington's work I meant this in the sense that Heatherington looks passed the soilders shared and some what obviouse agressive emotions and unearths their more sensitive fearful natures. In a short film installation Heatherington uses three screens to follow three men and their journey from sleeping to back fighting on the front line. Through the film he captures the death of a young man as he sleeps and emotions this causes the rest of his crew. In the second piece, a photograph, Heatherington show's compassion and love as the driving force for agression through the need to injure others in order to protect your own family. These pieces of work show vunerability and sensitivity two emotions that are juxtaposed with their setting in a war zone. It is these that best illustrate a quote that largely inspired Heatheringtons work "Only in War is it possible for men to demonstrate their love for one another."

Memory Palace- Victoria and Albert Museum, London 

Based on sections of Hari Kunzru's 'Memory Palace' the exhibtion commised 20 typographers, illustrators and Graphic Designers to create work in response to each of the sections of the story they were given.  

The stroy itself is set in future London after a giant magnetic strom wipes out the worlds information infrastructure. All technology is lost and London is taken over by a group who force a life of extreme simplicity, where all recording such as writing, reading, drawing and art are forbidden. 

Developing the theme of recording and memory each designer uses their own skills and mediums to communicate sections of the novel. This created a sense of irony as the story itself is about how the people are banned from recording information. Using their own distinct style a large and diverse range of work was created, show casing many different interpretations and methods of communication. 

Hey Studio!- Kemistry Gallery London 

Working with clean lines, geometric pattern and block colour Hey Studio presents 'Oh My God' at Shoreditch's Kemistry Gallery. A playful and some what imaginative exhibition the Spanish based studio re-creates a serise of 'god' like figures communicating their powers, weaknesses, stories and personalities. 

What I particularly enjoyed about the exhibition was seeing the studios own representation of each god as opposed to using the public or well know story behind each figure. This created a somewhat personal feel as well as injecting some humour and light heartedness into the work.