Heads up to our California readers: early tomorrow morning I’ll be on two Red Bulls and an airplane, heading to L.A. for a little hunting. I’ve spent tons of time in the Northern part of the state, but almost no time in the Hollywood/greater Los Angeles area, so if you know of some good things worth checking out, feel free to tell me about it. I’m only there through Thursday on what may turn out to be a packed schedule… but I’ve always been one to choose art/design over things that Heather tells me to do, so fire away, and I’ll do my best to get where I can!

Oh lovely; I adore writing about music festivals that I won’t be attending. At least Camp Bisco 6 looks like it will feature primarily electronica — a fact that will make both my future absence less painful (not really my thing), and prep those of you who are into that for some nail-biting, particularly once I get into the line up.

Taking place in Mariaville, NY from August 16-18, Camp Bisco 6 will feature a solid list of electronica/hip hop/rock heavy-hitters, including Girl Talk, Amon Tobin, the Bays, Shpongle, Bustle in Your Hedgerow, Lyrics Born and Hallucinogen: In Dub’s first ever U.S. performance. In following with the eco-concert trend, the event will be powered by 100% renewable energy, and will be attended by our friends Conscious Alliance, who will once again be collecting food in exchange for a Rob Pea limited-edition poster.

You can grab a ticket here for way less than what I threw down for Coachella, then hang out for three nights in a place that, incidently enough, sounds a whole lot prettier than Coachella. Yep, still not my thing, but I know some people who are awaiting this concert with the furor of the second coming, so have fun… hippies. Kidding! Kidding. Kind of. Sort of. (Not really.)

I don’t know what’s more charming about [Art]ifact, the latest book from Hong Kong-based art publisher viction:ary, that it seems like a legitimately great coffee table book of full clever reuses for household items, or that its description on viction:ary’s website may have been done with Babel Fish. Let me elaborate on both points. First the book: subtitled Re-recognizing the essential of products (see second point), [Art]ifact presents some re-purposing (a deflated basketball used as a fruit bowl) and some re-imagining (half of a bathtub turned into a chair). I enjoy these ideas and I think 312 pages of them would be great to have in my living room.

Now, the bad copy writing. Here’s the first sentence of the book’s description: “Obviously, it is about innovative product design that dare to go beyond the conventionality and bring a total havoc to our perception.” I’ve seen some bad Chinglish in my day, and this is by no means the worst, but it may or may not add to many enchanting qualities of the book itself. You be the judge.

Related: Our viction:ary Archive

Vault 49, the epitome of bad-ass’d-ness when it comes to mixing photography and vector illustration, has recently conducted a full site overhaul. New to the site, to the best of my recollection, are two sections of photography (without further embellishment) as well as some new collections for fashion brand Artful Dodger and some further print and design work.

In a world of vertically scrolling web pages, they have kept what has proven to be a unique sideways scrolling design. Vault’s clients include some biggies like Pepsi, MTV, and Levis, and their work has been featured multiple times in mags such as in Computer Arts and Creative Review. Go check it out for yourself, especially if you’re not familiar with Vault. Have a hanky nearby. You’ll drool.

–Danny Nathan

Last Saturday, architect-designer Chris Deam made a stop in Boulder to give a presentation at our local Design Within Reach. Deam’s work for Airstream, an unlikely alliance that has been met with surprising enthusiasm and success, recently led to the production of a DWR/Deam special edition travel trailer.

The DWR Airstream (which accompanied Deam for the presentation) proved to be a beautiful model of past and modern aesthetics and sensibilities. Using the classic Airstream shell as an inspirational base, Deam outfitted the interior with a dreamy selection of materials, appliances, fabrics and electronics. Eco-friendly flooring, a Nelson Ball Clock, a Tom Dixon coat rack, and metal perforated laminate doors are only a few highlights of the long list of lustables included in the DWR Airstream, but the real success of the collaboration is derived from the flawless compatibility of the design elements in unison. My favorite aspect of the trailer was the interior exposed aluminum, a creative decision made by Deam so that the exterior would be reflected in the interior, bringing the outdoors indoors and thereby adding a constantly changing element to the Airstream’s design.

Deam and The Airstream are currently touring DWRs around the U.S. To see if Deam will be anywhere near you, check out this map.

Related: This Don’t Be Your Everyday Trailer Trash

In the category of slick websites without a whole lot on them, we have taekioh.com, the portfolio site for designer Taeki Oh. Between the clicking menus and the porn-groove soundtrack, Oh has a real doozy on his hands. There is one very good reason to click over: his Conceptual Drawing Table. Now (and if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times), I support interactive home furnishings, and that’s what we have here. The Conceptual Drawing Table is a black wood, glass and (probably) plastic concoction that allows whomever is near it to change its look simply by touching it. The application of pressure—or possibly cool temperature, I can’t tell which — turns the jet black surface of the table to aquamarine along the trail of said pressure or temperature. Think of how great it would be to have a whole room of these things. You’d never have to pay attention to your guests again! Screw adult conversation! It’d just be like kindergarten again. Everyone could just doodle.

By the way, did you notice the punning title of the Conceptual Drawing Table? It’s a table that you can make conceptual drawings on/with, but while it might be a table for making conceptual drawings, it’s not actually a “drawing table” but more of an end table in form. And, as if that wasn’t enough, I’d say the whole idea for the table is pretty “conceptual.” So we’ve got a lot happening here in three words. My English major’s hat off to you, Mr. Oh.

Wants For Sale is NYC Garbage, viral-trash-selling genius (and friend) Justin Gignac’s newest project. Everybody wants something, and Justin and his girlfriend Christine are no exception. Armed with a handful of canvases, paints, and some pretty damn-good illustration skill, they went to town painting portraits of all the things (mostly material) they wanted. Each painting represents one thing they want — and costs the exact price of the real item. So the iPhone painting costs $649.17, One Month’s Rent comes in at $1056.06, and Another Guitar for GH2 comes in at $64.98 — one of my favorites. Others include a New Bikini for Christine, Abs (gym membership) and naturally, Financial Security for one million, natch. When someone does purchase the painting, its copy shifts from “want” to “have.” Also, if there is something you want, Justin and Christine will paint it for you — unless it has anything to do with the Yankees (they’re touchy). Great concept, guys!

Tonight at 7:15 pm (Sao Paulo time), Brazil’s — maybe even the world’s? — first Internet user-generated content program airs on television channel TVA, bringing to fruition a project that’s been patiently marinating in Web form for a couple of months soaking up viewers, submitters and the curious alike. Similar to MTV’s QOOB TV that I wrote about here a few weeks ago, the channel will broadcast audience-submitted entries like animation and music vids pulled from the Web site FizTV, all presented one after another without the aid of annoying hosts. But the videos have to cut it to make the cream of the crop, a process that’s as straightforward as the submission process; each clip’s worthiness for television is voted upon by the site’s visitors.

FizTV and TVA are both owned by super-media company Grupo Abril, which happens to also have MTV Brasil in its assets. I’m all for better TV in between the novelas and dubbed-WB reruns, so I wish FizTV all the luck. To all our Internet-savvy Brazilian readers, we’re curious to hear your comments!

An interesting and minimal twist on the floating bookshelf, the Deadgood Bookshelf utilizes a single simple wire. A cutout in one end is design to hold a single book upright; that book serves as a bookend to support its companions.

The Deadgood shelf is available in white, pink, and black powerdercoating and runs around $80. The fine folks also offer a sleek range of stools for your tush and limited edition art, available exclusively on their site. Check them out!

Via ATNY

–Danny Nathan