Digital Paintbrush

For those of you with some sort of art background, you know you can't really beat the feeling of pencil on paper. But in this digital age and not knowing when inspiration will strike, sometimes your iPad is the only thing you have to express yourself. Well, maybe not me or you in particular, but for those iPadders out there. 
One architect/artist was using his iPad to sketch on and wasn't satisfied with the quality of lines he was getting with his fingers. Maybe the index finger made too chubby lines and the pinky, too skinny. Whatever it was, Don Lee didn't like it. So he created the NomadBrush. It is a handcrafted paintbrush with a blend of natural and conductive fibers. It allows for more fluid strokes when painting or sketching and more control over your lines. 
The NomadBrush will cost you $24; the Brushes App, $5; but the iPad, $500. But the creativity to create sketched good enough to post on their website Gallery is something you got for free.

Molding Curtains

No, not that kind of mold. This is a material that goes inside of curtains to give them form and make them moldable. Subcutaneous is a stiff material like rubber pieced together with a fabric membrane. This allows the pieces to fold into different configurations and become somewhat structural. Put this in the bottom of your curtains and the fabric no longer just hangs there, it becomes an object that can change forms.

You can see a few more pics here on the artist's, Anique Noordman,  website. You can also look through her other projects mostly dealing in fibers.

That Bitchumen', man!

Bitumen! It's not just for roofing or mummification anymore!
Laura Jungmann, a student at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, has created her FORMLOS collection using bitumen as a medium. Laura wanted to create objects that weren't defined by current trends. Her bituminous objects are "completely removed from the fate of up-to-the-minute style because it is constantly changing." As long as her objects are refrigerated, they stay solid as they were formed. As soon as they are put on display, the bitumen very slowly starts to "melt" and change form due to gravity and the high viscosity aspect of the material. It is so slow that you won't really be able to see it in action. So for instance, the pendant in the picture above will start with a cylinder of bitumen at the top.

Then after a very long while it will look like this...

Then eventually it will look like the photo at the top, dripping all over your hardwood floors.

I think part of concept that she claims "bitumen creates metamorphosis, and consequently avoids the temporary nature of current design" falls apart a little bit when you consider once the object has completely "melted" it was really a temporary object. Unless of course a puddle of tar-like substance is also a desired object. 

You can see more of her objects melting as well as some time lapse videos here or here.