From the creator of the Bubble Project, Ji Lee, comes to us a new and novel way to make art out of your idiot box (television): the Abstractor. The instructions of this home-made art project are best described by Ji’s artful video, but I can tell you the basics. You can use matte black board or aluminum foil. You’ll need only duct tape, a measuring tape, a pencil, and a utility knife. Measure the size of your screen. Cut two pieces of board so that the the sum of them covers your screen (but for a thin slit in the middle). Duct tape to frame of Television. Turn on The O’Reilly Factor. Press mute. Prepare to be wowed– the show will have never looked so good. Kudos to Ji Lee for concocting a cheap and easy way to make art out of an otherwise overrated household appliance. He’ll also show you how to make an Abstractor out of a video billboard on the street if you want.

There are a wealth of laptop accessories on the market these days, and they all have one thing in common: they’re built for business and travel. Mike and Maaike, the talented San Francisco based design duo, have identified this common thread in the laptop accessories market and have ingeniously separated themselves from the pack by designing a new ‘Laptop at Home’ line for Belkin. The CushTop, PocketTop, and Sleeve Top products address the challenges of using a laptop at home, which happen to be very different than challenges realized when using a laptop away from home– factors like use in different locations around the house with different postures, increased desire for comfort, even fun and vibrant colors that you wouldn’t necessarily want the whole world to see but that are pleasing to you within the confines of your own home. Mike and Maaike have really hit the jackpot with these designs– a brilliant step ‘into the home’ for a market previously existing solely ‘on the road.’

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know that some of our favorite furniture designs come from luxury brand Atlantico. Made by London-based De La Espada, the Atlantico line is simple, minimalist, solidly built, made with sustainability harvested timber, and is at once modern and traditional. Atlantico recently introduced 7 new designs including a laptop console (shown here), and a beautiful bed (shown after the jump). An increasing number of retailers across the U.S. and Canada are carrying Atlantico– you can find out where to buy their new items by visiting their website. Lucky for me, there’s an Atlantico retailer in Colorado.
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Start Soma, the fine upstart art gallery in San Francisco that’s focused on three simple ideals — emerging artists, original art, and affordable art — is going to be hitting the road this April through 2008 with its Propaganda III Tour. The tour has stops all over the place– North America, South America, Australia, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The focus of the tour is not to sell art, but rather to celebrate free speech and freedom of expression. The format of this tour makes it a true exercise in global, peer-to-peer, open source political art showcasing. As an added bonus, all of the final collection of posters will be donated to the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in L.A. where they will join the other 50,000 posters in the CSPG archives. Get your overtly political designs going– the deadline for poster submission is March 15th.

Reykjavik is a new book concept from Scintilla Limited, created by artist, photographer and dreamer Ami Sioux. The concept for the book was originally born in East Berlin where Ami had been living– she noticed that on a number of occasions people had given her a map of directions to a party or to their house as East Berlin was still being rebuilt. Her experience of receiving maps as directions birthed this series of books. In each of the cities, Ami asks 50 of its residents to hand draw a map to a place of their choosing– a place that’s significant or important to them personally, for any reason. She then uses the map to navigate herself to the location and photographs it. The side-by-side view of map vs. photograph tell a powerful story. Check out their website for ordering information or a book store carrying the series in your area.

Via Coolhunting