Gestalten.tv

When it comes to soulful and emotional interactive design, there are many who try, but few who manage to come up with something that actually deserves these tags. Among those few is the Edinburgh-based company Found Electronics, which is an offshoot of Found Collective, a group of musicians, artists, and designers. Its founders Ziggy Campbell and Simon Kirby create interactive installations and experiences, mostly using sound and music. Their objects appear to have a life of their own and history to match and are nothing short of brilliant. Be it their BAFTA-winning robot band Cybraphon or a sound installation that remembers everything, Found Electronics' work will never leave you unaffected. Learn more about the Scottish geniuses in our latest Gestalten.tv interview.

What’s the difference between design and art? What if objects could memorize their history? And how can you see with your skin? Beta Tank creates design objects based upon cross-disciplinary research that insightfully explore new technologies and social phenomena—inspiring debate beyond aesthetics or function. In our latest Gestalten.tv video, Beta Tank founder Eyal Burstein sheds light on his ironic, clever documentation and analysis of the effect traditional, bureaucratic procedures have on innovative work. His work—featured in Gestalten's Taxing Art book—spotlights the largely underestimated effect tax laws have on where design ends and art begins.

DwellStudio is one of today's most innovative brands when it comes to high-quality bedding and baby, children's, and tabletop designs. The creative spirit and driving force behind the NYC-based company is founder and Creative Director Christiane Lemieux. Running DwellStudio together with her husband, the Canadian finds inspiration for her top-notch collections—which are a treasure not only for design-savvy parents who can't stand the ubiquitous teddy bears in the nursery anymore—in the worlds of fashion and art and when traveling.  Most of all, however, being at home with her kids acts as a first-hand source. In this interview for Gestalten.tv, she let us gain insight into DwellStudio's approach and their way of working.

For almost 15 years, the Berlin-based architect extraordinaire and his team have researched the relationship between the human body, technology, material, and nature, reaching new heights of innovative spatial creation and architectural solutions.  Recent projects include the spectacular redevelopment of the Plaza de la Encarnacion in Sevilla, as well as constructing a town hall in Germany. Juergen Mayer H.'s work is included in the collection of both New York and San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art. He has won numerous awards and currently teaches at Columbia University in New York. We met one of the most outstanding architects of modern times for a Gestalten.tv interview, taking place at Berlin's Kicken Gallery earlier this year.

Taking the term to whole new levels, the British food and design consultancy duo Sam Bompas and Harry Parr has breathed new, refreshingly artifical, and entertaining life into what is known as  "food experience." For example, they revived the basis of everything wobbly in Britain's kitchen universe: the jelly,  recreating—among other things—the famous St. Paul's Cathedral in gelatinous form. Using cutting-edge technology, they even beat the gingerbread house as the known climax of architecture and food symbiosis and came up with what is known as "Alcoholic Architecture." Though magicians won't ever reveal their secrets, find out more about the two Jellymongers in our latest Gestalten.tv Interview.

Kurt Weidemann, one of the most influential typographers of the 20th century, died at the age of 88 on March 31st, 2011. Weidemann helped form the identities of companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Zeiss, and Deutsche Bahn, changing their corporate designs not only for the better, but for the best. After returning from captivity as a prisoner of war in Russia, he took up a career in the fields of graphic design, typography, and moral courage that was second to none.Word came easily to him. His career did not. We met King Kurt—who was as anarchic and humorous as he was disciplined and hard-working—in his castle, an altered switch tower in Stuttgart. The King is dead, long live the King!

By definition, the Greek term Utopia is literally a non-place. Commonly, it is used to describe an ideal society, respectively a perfect community, which does not (yet) exist. By definition, an architect is a person trained in the planning, design, and oversight of the construction of buildings. Masahiko Yendo's approach reaches far beyond this simple term, as his "take on experimental architecture is non-built." So join his "process of discovering", and find out who really builds the buildings in our latest Gestalten.tv interview, which took place at Mas's studio in New York’s Hamptons.

Illustration, painting, drawing: Argentinean artist Irana Douer's art is a "huge mix" of many techniques and styles. In the latest Gestalten TV video, Irana, editor of the online art magazine Ruby, talks to us about the importance of color in her work, the role of women in society, and how she connected to fellow artists—over 400 of them—when compiling the upcoming Ruby: Otherworldliness book for us.

Paper doesn't blush. But it entertains in various unexpected ways and formats. This trailer is papered with bright, punchy and pop-culture relevant pieces from the Gestalten book and DVD Papercraft 2: Design and Art with Paper. Presenting the best bits of cutting-edge stop motion footage, animation, ace music videos, and smart advertising this Gestalten.tv feature shows the creative potential of what was once our primary material for communicating information.

The New York-based artist James Gallagher is a master of contemporary collage. As the curator of the "Cutters" exhibition, which has toured New York, Berlin and now on show at the West Cork Arts Centre in Ireland, and co-editor of Gestalten's Cutting Edges book, he is also helping define a new generation of outstanding artists and illustrators who are rediscovering an art form with an outstanding tradition. Although collage is not so much about what's in the picture but rather what's left out, we couldn't resist putting James Gallagher into the picture of our latest Gestalten.tv video interview.

Typographer, graphic designer and businessman Erik Spiekermann has created timeless, influential and, yes, Meta-physical work over the past three decades.Next to founding MetaDesign and FontShop, the latter being the first ever digital distributor of fonts, and designing more instant classic typefaces than any other, he has been recognized as an outstanding expert internationally.Listen to the design genius talk about new visual languages, design processes, the analogies of music and typography, and why we need better client culture in our latest Gestalten.tv video and you will easily realize why. Before heading to new visionary pastures, the bike enthusiast will make a short stop to receive the German Design Lifetime Achievement Award 2011 in February.

Introducing the American artist Shepard Fairey is a bit like explaining whose portrait he famously altered for the "Hope" campaign that was widely used by Barack Obama's supporters in 2008. Since the mid 1980s he has created outstanding (then: street) art that is strong, iconic, and expressive. Shepard Fairey is also a thoughtful, committed, and outspoken activist who revives the artistic virtues of standing up for the freedom of speech and fighting for rational and non-corporate ways of dealing with the issue of copyright. Obey the interview we did with him in Los Angeles in late 2010!

Artist Jennifer Rubell uses food as her canvas to create culinary concoctions carved straight out of a hedonist's dream. With a near demented sensuality, her installations, for example at the Brooklyn Museum and Simon de Pury's wedding, combine an appreciation for the rustic with a knack for the avant-garde: unctuous meats, glittering displays, an exact chocolate replica of Jeff Koons' rabbit sculpture, all to extravagant, delicious effect.Rubell's penchant for the lush life has her positioned next to prime players in the industry, like Mario Batali as the vegetable butcher at his grandiloquent Eataly. We speak to the daughter of collectors Don and Mira Rubell on location at her home and at Eataly in New York to learn just what drives her voracious appetite.

Florence-based collective Arabeschi di Latte has taken up the course of new design experiences. Providing a copious supply of inspiration with food-related workshops, exhibitions, and events, founders Francesca Sarti and Silvia Allori, together with Cristina Cortese and Arianna Pescetti encourage adults and kids alike to share their fascination for the power of food. We met the "women designers with a passion for conviviality" in London to recall the Pasta and create a better future.

Lupi Asensio and Martin Lorenz founded TwoPoints.net in 2007 and are paving the way for new and exceptional design work. Their book Left, Right, Up, Down: New Directions in Signage and Wayfinding is just one exciting example of how the Barcelona-based couple combines intuition and ratio, the subjective and the objective, and the experimental with the traditional. We trekked all the way up to the Catalan capital's mighty Mount Juic to chat about work that excites clients, work that hasn't been done before, and work that does more than just work.