Posts by Collective

In the summer of 1968 three men and good friends, climber and surfer Yvon Chouinard, climber and skier Doug Tompkins, and champion skier Dick Dorworth, set off from California in an old van to surf, ski and climb their way down to the southern end of Argentina, where they were met by a young British climber, Chris Jones. Their goal was to climb a mountain that had been climbed only twice before: Cerro Fitz Roy.

Little did they know, this journey would not only have a tremendous impact on their own personal lives, but would also help launch a movement by inspiring (and continue to inspire to this day, like the film 180º South) many other outdoor lovers, as well as set the tone for many future expedition/adventure films and documentaries.

Mountain Of Storms was shot on a 16mm Bolex (drool Charles Bergquist) by Lito Tejada-Flores, and is narrated by Tom Donahue.

Two of these men would also go on to found and establish a couple the most successful brands out there. Yvon Chouinard founded Patagonia, while Doug Tompkins founded (and later sold) The North Face.

Posted by B3PO

In sports car racing, there is a wonderful thing called ‘homologation’. Manufacturers hate it, car collectors love it. It means that in order to enter a car in sanctioned sports car races, it has to be based on a production model. Without going into a lengthy explanation, just appreciate the fact that it has brought the world some of it’s most prized street-legal race cars. The 300SL is undeniably one of the most iconic. In 1952, Mercedes Benz was feeling ambitious and decided they wanted to win alot of races. So they built an incredibly streamlined, lightweight, and reliable race car using some of the most exotic materials at the time – the homologated street version that was sold to the public a complete afterthought. It was then entered it into many of the most prestigious, and difficult, endurance races of the day. They succeeded, taking 1-2 victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Carrera Panamericana to name a few. Above are a few photos of the 300SL in action at the aforementioned races (the 2nd of which is the variant used in the trans-mexican rally, where the windshield had to be reinforced with wrought iron bars due to ‘buzzard collisions’). The second group of photos are of the oldest 300SL in existence, serial number zwei. It never saw any racing, rather it was used as a training car for the very capable Hermann Lang & Fritz Reiss (along with the rest of the Silver Arrows) who went on to take many checkered flags. Dragged out of the broom closet by Mercedes, it underwent an extensive 9 month restoration for it’s 60th birthday, and in celebration of the new SLS AMG. What a timeless example of German design – both in form & function.

Eurobus is a series of photographs featuring European tour bus designs by Taylor Holland, which was shot Spring of 2011, while on various bicycle commutes around Paris, France. The series was published by Matmos Press, an independent publisher based in Montreal (QC).

This book is dedicated to the anonymous designers of European tour bus graphics, who have embraced an underappreciated art space and made it their own.

Posted by B3PO

The wonderful work of Berlin based, self-taught photographer Matthias Heiderich has been covered here on the blog a couple of times before, but I thought I would check up on him to see what he’s been up to and glad I did so. He’s posted a few new amazing series and pieces since then, which I just can’t seem to get enough of. Great color and great composition.
Below are more examples of some of my favorites (hard to pick), which Matthias was kind enough to let me use for this post.

This also marks the first of the Weekend Inspiration posts I’ll be doing every Friday. This week is about photography, but I’ll be covering other subjects, as well doing a couple of process posts, weekend challenges and other ideas I’m cooking up. This is an effort to hopefully get all of us here on the ISO50 community to continue to be involved, sharing, and inspired enough to want to try and learn new things.
Please feel free to post in the comments below any ideas you may have for the Weekend Inspiration posts (challenges, process posts, etc.)

Posted by B3PO

In September 2010, Sculpture, an audiovisual performance duo from London comprised by electronic music producer, Dan Hayhurst, and animator, Reuben Sutherland, presented us with a flattened zoetrope on the surface of a vinyl record by the name of Rotary Signal Emitter (Dekoder Release 046).

The Victorian zoetrope, invented in 1834, was a three-dimensional object that consisted of a spinning cylinder with vertical slits through which still images appeared to move.

Sculpture’s animation requires the use of a video camera to convey its magic, but as can be seen from their videos the effort is well worth it. Just the knowledge of the latent potential contained within the vinyl surface serves to enhance the experience of the music and the spinning disc, even to the naked eye, is a hypnotic spectacle.

Sculpture’s music, is a mixture of psychedelia, hauntology and turntablism, is a perfect match for their striking visuals. Other films by the duo can be viewed on Tapebox (they’re very much worth your time).

Posted by B3PO Via Hardformat

ISO50 regular featured photographer Kim Høltermand just released his new series Monochronos and all I can say is…unreal.

You can also follow his great Instagram feed as well:
@holtermand

Posted by B3PO

Never thought I would ever really be fascinated by moss…but somehow that all changed as soon as I came across Mosser.

Mosser is a small glass terrarium filled with a simple round moss ball crafted by NY based designers Jennica Johnstone and Noah Atkinson, who I found out by speaking with them, personally cultivate, jar, label, package, and ship all units individually. They are very easy to care for and only need to be sprayed once every two weeks with filtered water.

Here are a few words and images Jennica and Noah were kind enough to share with us about Mosser, how it was conceived, what goes in to producing each unit, and a few ideas we can hopefully expect to see in a near future:

Mosser is about capturing simplicity and and keeping it alive in ones space. We recognize the need to have something natural at your fingers tips in this day and age.

The project had a very natural and unplanned start, one day we just decided to make a terrarium and not much has changed since that first one. There was no point in the beginning were we thought that we would end up creating a brand and selling these things.

Keeping it simple is key. Let the moss shine, it is such an intriguing plant. Its one of the oldest plants on earth and it can tolerate so many elements, yet it is rootless.

For the future, we would hope to have different customized containers to hold the moss, maybe a wooden base with a glass lid or a rectangular glass container.

Jennica and Noah have also launched a new project by the name of Co/Labs which intends to bring the design community together in many different ways.

Purchase Mosser

Posted by B3PO

Great work by Manuel Sepulveda, better known as Optigram, who is a London based graphic designer, art director, and record label owner (Citinite) responsible for many of Hyperdub‘s record-sleeve designs. He’s also apparently worked with Warp and Planet Mu. Really enjoy his use of color and geometric patterns.

Posted by B3PO

My good friend Alek Fin introduced me not too long ago to the Nervous Structure installations, while he was conducting some research on alternative ways of doing projections for his live show, and I’ve been hooked ever since (I one day plan on having one of these set up perminantly on one of the walls of my workspace or house).

Nervous Structure is a series of site-specific, interactive installations consisting of string and fabric structures illuminated with interactive computer graphics that react to the presence and motion of viewers and was developed by Annica Cuppetelli and Cristobal Mendoza:

Annica Cuppetelli (USA) and Cristobal Mendoza (Venezuela) are artists and collaborators focusing on the creation of site-specific, multimedia installations that address issues of space, interaction, and materiality. Their installations combine traditional craft and common materials with interactive video projections and computational design processes, and they address the formal qualities of a given site while creating an immersive and participatory environment. Cuppetelli obtained her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2008, and Mendoza at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2007. They are based in Detroit, MI.

Posted by B3PO

Musical Spectrum Analysis is a really interesting take on Spectrograms. Developed by Jon-Kyle Mohr, a designer/programmer/musician and member of the Cargo Collective team, and Lee Martin, a developer at SoundCloud, who built a generative incarnation with Canvas and the SoundCloud API, which can be located at spectrogr.am.

What you are observing above is basically this (as described by Jon-Kyle Mohr):

Sound frequencies are displayed as they are heard. Lower frequencies are mapped low (bottom) to high (top). Brightness is determined by amplitude.

Sweeping tones and rhythmic patterns create intricate structures. The circular form is in memorial of dead formats; the CD, MiniDisc and others. R.I.P.

Andrew Ohlman, who also happens to be a member of the Cargo Collective team, compiled a Quartz sketch which does similar things called Circular Spectrogram.

You can download the Circular Spectrogram application here to create your own visuals (currently only available for Mac users).

Posted by B3PO