Tokyo Recycle Project: 24 Sep- 9 Oct, Sydney

"Masahiro Nakagawa and his team are bringing the Tokyo Recycle Project to Australia. A huge hit in New York, Hong Kong and throughout Japan, the project has generated great excitement from the outrageously innovative clothing the team has created.

The Tokyo Recycle Project began in 1999 and was born from Masahiro's personal response to Tokyo's overwhelming consumer culture. He tried to find a way to reduce waste in the fashion industry by reusing and recycling clothing in a way that would have new and fresh appeal. To use people's existing clothes was a fantastic solution as the clothing itself had history, meaning and a shared past with its owner. Masahiro could tap into this shared history and create a bright new future for these old and worn clothes.

Past projects in New York, Hong Kong and Japan have had an overwhelming response, attracting queues of hopeful participants. Sydney's recycle project will offer participants a choice of three levels of transformation running on a first-in-best-dressed system with online registration and payment.

Choose the degree to which you'd like your clothes transformed. There are three levels:

How it works

Level 1: Regular custom-made
Revitalisation of clothes through drawing, printing, sewing and more.
Cost: $100

Level 2: Street wear custom-made
Transformation of clothes into unique, one-off pieces that can be worn as casual streetwear.
Cost: $250

Level 3: Luxe custom-made
Total reworking and transformation of clothes into a never-seen-before and never-available-again haute couture garment.
Cost: $750

Powerhouse Museum members - you will be placed in a draw for an exclusive Japanese fashion pack including: book, t-shirt and lunch with the Tokyo Recycle Team for you and three family members or friends. Please enter your membership number and expiry date."

To find out more about the Tokyo Recycle Project, phone (02) 9217 0522 or
email: tokyorecycle@phm.gov.au.

W: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/tokyorecycle/index.asp

Karim Rashid talk: 19 Oct, Sydney

Karim Rashid featured on the latest issue of POL Oxygen

One in the series of talks by local and international design luminaries
Karim Rashid
An entirely different world

"From perfume bottles to cyber-couture fashion, this world-acclaimed designer has produced over 2000 products during his career. In Sydney to announce the winner of the Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Award, this self-described ‘cultural provocateur’ gives his unique perspective on design, “Everyday I live, I believe that we could be living in an entirely different world, one that is full of real contemporary inspiring objects, spaces, places, spirits, experiences”."

When: Wednesday 19 October 2005 from 6.00pm
Where: Coles Theatre
Cost: $50/$35 concession and members. Bookings essential
Presented by Bombay Sapphire

W: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/whatson/index.asp

The cutting edge: fashion from Japan: 27 Sep 05 - 29 Jan 06

"The Japanese have long been at the vanguard of international fashion. Drawn from the collections of the Kyoto Costume Institute and the Powerhouse, as well as private and public collections, this exhibition highlights the avant garde and the use of innovative textiles in Japanese fashion, with garments and textiles by leading designers such as Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and the younger generation Junya Watanabe, Jun Takahashi and Hiroki Ohya."

At the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.

W: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/exhibitions/coming.asp

Casual places for food and hanging out

Caught up with people from NZ, and the UK on Saturday. Went to Ichiban Boshi at Level 2, Galeries Victoria, 500 George St, Sydney. Had the Shio Butter Corn Ramen which had roast pork on top with a side of Gyozas. Yum! There's always a queue outside this restaurant and it's always full of Japanese people eating there so that's always a good sign. The prices there are v.reasonable. It was about $11 for the bowl of ramen I had.

Then visited the Kinokuniya Bookshop next door. Had a look at some of design books and bought the latest issue of Frame magazine and Monument magazine. Saw the Taschen 25th yr anniversary titles displayed. I got a few of the titles in Tokyo as I wasn't sure if they'd get here or when.

Then went to The Oaks in Neutral Bay that night. There's lots of rooms upstairs with comfy leather couches, pool tables, and an outdoor area with a bbq area where you cook up your steaks etc. You can also order a nice pizza. Chose the Tandoori chicken pizza with mint and yoghurt $20. It's a place that's packed on Friday and Saturday nights especially - mainly north shore young professionals, uni students etc.

Ichiban Boshi: http://www.ichibanboshi.com.au/
Kinokuniya: http://www.kinokuniya.com/
Oaks Hotel: http://www.oakshotel.com.au/

Represent Creative Conference - 14-15 Oct, Sydney

Two day design conference to be held at Luna Park, Sydney on the 14-15th October 2005.

Speakers: Lee Quinones, Andy Howel, Umeric, Brand New School, Supreme/Anything, Lizzie Finn, Mr Cartoon, Estevan Oriol, Rob Abeyta, Collider, Pablo Ferro, Keepleft Studio, Marc Atlan, Neckface, SBTG, Odd Studio, Askew/Disruptiv, Angela Boatwright.

W: http://www.rprsnt.com

Masters of Marketing talk - 15th Sep

"If there's one topic that accomplished business owners agree on - it's that the right marketing strategies can mean the difference between success and mediocrity. At this special Small Business September event you can get your burning marketing questions answered by three masters of the game.

Speaker 1: Tim Pethick, Nudie Juices
Within two years, the founder of nudie juices and brand guru, Tim Pethick built nudie into a business turning over $18m a year and a brand recognised as one of the top 10 most influential in the Asia Pacific region. More

Speaker 2: Kate Vale, Google Australia and NZ
Kate Vale is head of Sales and Operations for Google Australia and NZ. Her many years of online advertising experience help Google's advertisers generate returns from their online advertising campaigns. More

Speaker 3:
Tim Cavill is Director of SAP Australia & NZ's Small to Medium Business. In 2004, Tim achieved the phenomenal result of increasing the Small-Medium business by 148% over the previous year. Tim is responsible for the marketing and distribution of SAP products. More

Learn from the Best! Three successful marketers show you how to make the most out of your. Identify the hidden assets in your business. Learn something new that you can take back to your business and use straight away.

W: http://www.inspiringwomen.com.au/events/

Artists and government bureaucracy

Article in the SMH about Centrelink trying their best to place artists into any job they can do, rather than recognising that these artists do have a profession and it's being an artist and creating and thinking art. The article's about the government not really being able to offer any real financial assistance and support, and are usually just classified as unemployed if they're not in some sort of 'paid work'.

Article title: Making a living turned into a fine art
W: http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/making-a-living-turned-into-a-fine-art/2005/08/21/1124562744723.html

Experimenta Vanishing Point - Thu 1 Sep, Melbourne

1-30 September 2005

Opening Night Invitation

Step through the looking glass into EXPERIMENTA VANISHING POINT
An exhibition of interactive installations and screen-based works by Australian and international artists that explore a world of enchantment and illusion.

The Board and staff of Experimenta are pleased to invite you to attend the Opening Night of EXPERIMENTA VANISHING POINT.

Feel free to to distribute this invitation to your friends, colleagues and email lists. We hope you can join us for the opening of this spectacular new media event.

Artists exhibiting:
Stephen Barrass, Chris Gunn (Aus)
Ji-Hoon Byun (Korea)
Penny Cain (Aus)
Wu Chi-Tsung (Taiwan)
Daniel Crooks (Aus)
Alex Davies (Aus)
Leslie Eastman, Natasha Johns-Messenger (Aus)
Shelley Eshkar, Paul Kaiser (USA)
Julie C. Fortier (France)
Shaun Gladwell (Aus)
David Haines, Joyce Hinterding (Aus)
John Howland (Aus)
Luke Jerram (UK)
William Kentridge (South Africa)
David MacLeod, Narinda Reeders (Aus)
Minim++ (Japan)
Martina Mrongovius, Sruli Recht (Aus)
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba (Japan/Vietnam/USA)
June Bum Park (Korea)
Hiraki Sawa (Japan)
Lee se-jung (Korea)
Momoyo Torimitsu (Japan)
Two Heads Productions (Aus) with HitLab (NZ)
Daniel Von Sturmer (Australia)
Craig Walsh (Australia)
Boyd Webb (New Zealand)
William Wegman (USA)
Yang Zhenzhong (China)

Date: Thursday 1 September, 2005
Time: 7.00pm til late
Venue: BlackBox, the Arts Centre,
Upper Riverside Terrace, Adjacent to Hamer Hall
100 St Kilda Road, Melbourne.

W: http://www.experimenta.org/vanishingpoint/index.html

Weekend

Did a bit of furniture window shopping in the weekend. Trying to just tidy up my work and living space a bit.

Went to Moore Park and walked through Freedom Furniture and Ikea, then went to O'Riordan St, Alexandria and went and had a look at Space Furniture for some inspiration. It's always nice to just look at the furniture they have there and the way they've set it all up - a bit like a modern furniture museum.

The first thing I probably need to do is to just tidy my place up. I find that when I'm working away, the piles of paper just seem to grow into more and more piles.

Freedom Furniture - some nice homeware things: http://www.freedomfurniture.com.au
Ikea: http://www.ikea.com.au
Space Furniture - great all round inspiration: http://www.spacefurniture.com.au

Bob Perry's talk

Went to Bob Perry's talk a couple of weeks ago on 'Designing for Density'. It was a great talk!

He talked about Paris and how the locals buy from the markets and the councils assemble the framework and dissasemble the stalls and clean up afterwards. The stall holders also display the produce and other goods really beautifully. There's such a variety of goods as well.

He talked about scale and perspective and context, and how tall buildings are not necessarily a problem if it's designed well, and the spatial relationships and scale is designed well.

He talked about Tokyo and the regional areas of Japan. He showed lots of really beautiful images of Tokyo. In Tokyo, the underground train system is very reliable, and extends to all areas. Also, you can basically walk everywhere and there's things to look at. All the areas are connected rather than having to drive to a destination and the rest is just roads and highways with nothing to look at. Tokyo is very suited to walking and biking. Tokyo is very much built up with around 6 or so storeys and yet it doesn't feel impersonal or overwhelming in scale.

He also showed images of China and how the bike becomes part of the stall and the people lay out their goods on the street and then pack it all up at the end of the day and go home to replenish their goods and do it all again the next day.

He likened cars to cane toads on the road, choking the Sydney landscape.

He said we chose this way of planning and this lifestyle. We choose to go a shopping centre and to park our cars there and to shop at the large malls, rather than to support street corner shops and small shops.

It was a really good talk with lots of food for thought and hopefully inspired some of us to act on some of these ideas too. We can vote with our feet and support more markets, cycling, walking etc.

Artisan Focacceria

Happened to be in Darlinghurst last Saturday and then decided to have some lunch around there. Drove past a cafe on the corner and decided to try it out.

Turns out it's Sam and Catherine's new place. They were the Sydney couple from the first My Restaurant Rules TV series. Their restaurant then was called Cucina Vera.

Their new place is called Artisan Focaceria. They've been open 2 weeks. There's a brekkie menu, a salad and pasta lunch menu and foccaccias. We tried the lasagna al forno and the chicken schnitzel. Both were nice. The lasagna $16 was one of the best I've had. It was really, really yummy.

Location: Shp 1/ 230 Palmer St Darlinghurst 2010. Ph: 02 9326 9227.

W: http://www.artisans.com.au (just a splash page up there at the moment).

Opposite the shop there's a nice house renovation where the security doors and windows had a really nice patten to it - reminded me of the Tokyo houses.

Took a couple of photos but the software on the notebook is stuffing up again and can't download them right this moment. Keep doing reinstalls and downloads for updates but then it seems to crash every time anyway. Will get a new phone when my current plan expires.

The true cost of your home loan

"How the non-bank lenders have us all in shackles. If you leave, 'cheap loans' can prove expensive, writes Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon.

High-profile non-bank lenders are hiding the true cost of their loans by slugging unsuspecting borrowers with penalties of thousands of dollars for paying out their mortgages early.

The article lists: 'The ten lenders that will charge you the most'.

W: http://www.domain.com.au/Public/Article.aspx?index=PropertyNews&id=1122143820249

Planners with designs on Harbour's darling

"A HARBOUR beach, Venetian-style canals and 32-storey skyscrapers are among the futuristic designs short-listed for a $1 billion waterside CBD development site.

Five designs for the 22 ha East Darling Harbour site went on public display yesterday.

The competition received 137 entries, making it the most hotly-contested since architects tendered for the Sydney Opera House in the 1950s..."

W: http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1260&storyid=3562035

Choc tops in the attic - 15 Aug

"Tech Ed workshop: Frontiers in filmmaking
This is a NEW event!

This will be a practical interactive demonstration on the use of new
technologies in filmmaking.

Live demo of new HDV camera and G5 computer.

Filmed & edited - on the spot.

For actors, writers & filmmakers
Attic Bar, ArtHouse Hotel (275 Pitt Street, Sydney)
MONDAY 15 August 2005, 6.30 pm - 8.30 pm

Tony Chu
0412 230 415
tony@doctorgram.com.au"

shin-ryoanji: a digital garden by sound artist michael fowler - 10-26 aug

"Shin-Ryoanji: A Digital Garden is an exciting new exhibition at the Japan Foundation Gallery combining sculpture installation and sound. The installation, which was inspired by the work of avant-garde composer and artist, John Cage, is based on the famous kare-sansui (dry landscape) garden at Ryoanji temple in Kyoto.
After concurrently discovering both the Japanese garden, and Cage's musical composition “Ryoanji”, Fowler was convinced that the translation that Cage had initiated in sound could be mapped into a sculpture installation that presented a ‘digital’ version of the original kare-sansui at Ryoanji.

Fowler’s “Digital Garden” consists of 15 speakers of varying sizes, which represent the 15 rock-sculptures in the original garden. Through a 15-channel, 15-speaker sound system, Cage’s musical score will be used to articulate the gallery space in sound, similarly to how the original garden articulates physical space. In addition to the diffusion of sound throughout the gallery space, Fowler will use computer-programming methods to subtly allow the 15 distinct sounds to ‘grow’ as a background foil to the looped presentation of the Cage composition. The 15 background sounds morph and change throughout the period of the installation."

When: 10 – 26 August 2005
Where: The Japan Foundation Gallery
Opening hours: Monday – Friday 11:00am – 5:30pm
Wednesday 11:00am – 6:00pm
Saturday (13 August only) 11:00am – 4:00pm
Public Talk: Tuesday 23 August, 6:30 pm
Gallery open until 6:30 pm on this day.
Enquiries: (02) 8239 0055 / reception@jpf.org.au
Admission Free

W: http://www.jpf.org.au/events/index.html

Pod Casting - Is It The End Of Radio? - talk Sun 14 Aug

Pod Casting - Is It The End Of Radio? Investigate the current developments of Podcasting.

Event organiser
Peter Mahony
Powerhouse Museum
Phone: 9217 0370
500 Harris Street Ultimo

Free with museum entry

W: http://www.sydneydesign.com.au/talks.php
Bookings: https://ecommerce.powerhousemuseum.com/event/details.do?eid=576

Durbach + Block - Thu 11 Aug, 6pm

"Award-winning architects Neil Durbach and Camilla Block discuss their recent work. University of Sydney, Faculty of Architecture, lecture theatre 1, FREE admission, no bookings"

W: http://www.sydneydesign.com.au/talks.php

Design Arena: Animal Logic and Spear Green Design - 16 Aug

"What do designers of special effects for film and luxury cruise ships have in common?

This event celebrates the growing trend towards multidisciplinary design practice. Angela Pellizari of Animal Logic and Jeremy Spear from Spear Green Design share their experiences of branching out and crossing over the traditional boundaries of design disciplines."

Incubator Studios, 724 Bourke Street Redfern, FREE, bookings essential (02) 9700 8189
Presented by the design institute of Australia (DIA).
TUESDAY 16 AUGUST, 6.00–9.00PM

W: http://www.sydneydesign.com.au/talks.php

Designing for Density: Bob Perry talk - 8 Aug 6pm

"High density living is not a new concept, but it is a very new way of life for many Australians.

Bob Perry, Director of Scott Carver Architects and Planners and of SCAPE Landscape Architects, designs large, mixed-use developments in Sydney that are a direct consequence of increased density.

Perry believes the citizens of Sydney – by virtue of our suburban lifestyles – are poorly equipped to deal with issues of density and advocates that dense cities are better cities, with examples of urban design concepts from Paris, Tokyo and Beijing."

Monday 8 August, 6.00pm
Museum of Sydney, Cnr Phillip & Bridge Streets Sydney,
bookings essential (02) 8239 2211

W: http://www.sydneydesign.com.au/talks.php