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Varna Diablo

One man can cycle faster than anyone else on earth.

You’ve probably seen them, the guys who kick back almost flat on those recumbent bicycles, darting in and out of traffic, too low to show up in people’s mirrors and - to my eyes at least - perennially on the verge of losing control. Georgi Georgiev’s Canadian company Varna builds a whole range of them; one, not for public consumption, is the Varna Diablo III, a bike that, ridden by Sam Whittingham, broke the world record for a human powered vehicle last week out on the flats of the Nevada desert at the annual World Human Powered Speed Challenge.

Competitors usually afford themselves only one run a day; the exertion is too great. But as the sun began to set over Nevada last Thursday, Whittingham saddled up for a second run, and, on a road that’s deteriorated over the last few years, broke the record at 82.3 mph: “I was flying down the course and was getting bumped around like crazy. It was one of the scariest runs of my life.” Whittingham had already broken the record three years in a row between 2000 and 2002. Clearly he wanted it back.

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Categories Endeavour Tags speed

By on 26/9/08

First Night

Night racing and the controversy of Mr. Tilke.

It’s the 800th Grand Prix since the format’s inception, the first in Singapore for 35 years, the first on an Asian street circuit, a pivotal race for the Driver’s Championship, there’s a forecast of torrential rain, and, most importantly, it’s the first Formula 1 race ever to be held at night: is this weekends spectacle destined to be remembered as rampant globalisation-inspired innovation, the death of Formula 1 or the birth of a brave new era? 

It will require 3,180,000 watts to light the track - not exactly a feather in the cap of F1’s green credentials - but the controversy doesn’t stop there. Lurking in the background, casting a proud eye over his latest creation, Hermann Tilke, the track designer, will be on tenterhooks. The multi-millionaire racing driver-cum-engineer-cum-architect provided the blueprints for all 5 of the new races on the calendar: Bahrain, China, Valencia, Turkey and Singapore.

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Categories Design Sport Tags F1 Sport Design

By on 25/9/08

Hello Logan

Video game or cinema? The lines are blurred.

Metal Gear Solid injected the world of gaming with stealth, subtlety and cinematic production. It set a precedent for the first person shooter, Snake became a hero to thousands, and smokers around the world delighted in being well represented; the protagonist smoked you see - how else would he manoeuvre around the laser-web alarm systems he’d never otherwise see?

The recent release of the new iPod Nano reminded me of the release earlier in the year of Metal Gear Solid 4. Eh? What does an aging Solid Snake have to do with an oh-so-brightly coloured mp3 player? The answer lies on Venice Beach, LA, at the headquarters of pioneering animation studio Logan. They created the new ads for the Nano, but far more brilliant were the teasers created for MGS4, as well as the opening sequence for the game.

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Categories Design Film Tags Animation games

By on 25/9/08

Wet Sounds

Underwater concert makes for a unique aural experience.

Sound travels faster through water than it does through air, so it follows that any listening experience will be very different submerged in a pool than it would be on dry land. This was the thinking behind this summer’s Wet Sounds tour, curated by Joel Cahen, which finished up recently having hit ten public swimming pools around the UK. Yep, swimming pools, with ticket buyers donning bathers and goggles before diving headfirst into a never-before-heard world of sonic experience.

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Categories Music Tags Wet Sounds Music Sound

By on 22/9/08

In Spite Of The Storm

Startling images do justice to the ferocity of Ike.

Perhaps the disaster capitalists described in Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine might see some good in the recently subsided bout of Atlantic hurricanes, but the rest of the world clearly doesn’t. Ike alone resulted in over 130 deaths and $27 billion of damage. But disasters do, invariably, propel creative people into action, with photographers leading the pack. These images are evidence of that - a telling reminder of a reality we in the UK will hopefully never know.

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Categories Photography Tags Ike Photography

By on 19/9/08

Olaf Hauschulz

If David Lynch took pictures of cars.

A period spent working in the darkroom of Mercedes HQ, Stuttgart, awakened Olaf Hauschulz’s love of cars; he’s since made his name as an automotive photographer. In this particular set he creates a sense of cinematic theatricality that befits some of the world’s most desirable automobiles.

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Categories Photography Tags Cars Hauschulz Photography

By on 18/9/08

Fear(s) Of The Dark

Rusty alleyways and vaporous ghosts.

Rare is the child that will happily kiss goodnight to his parents and head upstairs to bed alone in the dark, too young to reach the light switch as he goes. “No need to come and check on me,” he bleats. “I’ll be fine.” Grown men bristle when the lights go out; women shriek; kids freak. There’s no denying it, human beings just don’t get on too well with the dark. Fear(s) of the Dark, a new animated feature, brings together some of Europe’s leading artists in different disciplines to explore humanity’s frosty relationship with the dark.

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Categories Film Tags Animation Del Toro Film

By on 17/9/08

Re-imagining Sport

Paul Pfeiffer Travels Back In Time To Rewrite The Past.

Paul Pfeiffer, relocated to New York in 1990 after growing up in the Philippines, exploits what’s now become basic technology for his spooky meditations on sport and a culture obsessed by frenzied celebrity. One project, The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, sees Pfeiffer taking images of situations in sport, some known, others not, and removing them of all contextual detail. He leaves us with a solitary figure, devoid of teammates, a lone ranger watched by the masses in the stands above.

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Categories Art Photography Tags Art Basketball Pfeiffer Photography

By on 11/9/08

Heir To The Throne

ANDY MURRAY IS A FUTURE KING BUT HIS TIME IS NOT YET NIGH.

Andy Murray barely broke sweat when beating the ball back again and again from beyond the baseline against the world’s best player. Nadal, a beacon of athleticism, the ultimate in strength, speed and skill, was the one dripping with sweat as he scampered from one side of the court to the other, reaching, panting - screaming even - as the Scot stood bolt upright, firing groundstrokes to all corners of the court with power, direction and purpose.

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Categories Sport Tags Federer Murray Sport Tennis

By on 8/9/08

Data Patterns

NO LABEL DID THINGS THE WAY WE WANTED THEM TO BE DONE. Carsten Nicolai.

Nicolai, along with Frank Bretschneider and Olaf Bender, is one of the three founders of Raster-Noton, the minimal electronics label that, for twelve years now, has fused music with art through its sculpted sound objects and unique approach to aesthetics. The label has remained absolute in its commitment to physicality, to delivering objects of value, lovingly produced, making use of innovative design ideas, solutions and materials, while the quality of the audio product has always been a given. Earlier this year, Ryoji Ikeda (above), the arch-minimalist of Japan, resumed his relationship with the label with Test Pattern, an extraordinary album, not always easy to consume at once, but a work that, in its process particularly, perfectly reflects the stream of innovation pulsing through the digital veins of the Raster-Noton platform.

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Categories Design Music Tags Music Raster-Noton Ryoji Ikeda

By on 5/9/08