TRASH: anycoloryoulike is a remarkable art intervention for urban beautification and environmental awareness.

The project is developed by the New York based artist Adrian Kondratowicz who created colorful trash-bags and distributed them to members of his local community.

By using the new bags instead of the traditional ones, the standard piles of trash on the streets were transformed into vivid sculptures of color.

The project has been a massive success and the community around it seems to be growing and spreading to other cities.

And naturally, the bags are 100% biodegradable.

• www.anycoloryoulike.biz

A subtle intervention by Canadian artist Lauren Marsden in which she knitted covers for street signs on every street which she has lived in Victoria.

The knits were based on the actual size, colors and dimensions of the signs.

In a slightly similar project, Lauren covered a lamp post with images of bark to make it look like a tree.

Related: Jagtvej Street Name Hack

• www.laurenmarsden.com

A documentary-like video showing how to create sustainable graffiti.
As it says: "Fuck Roundup. Grassfitti can't be stopped."

• Video on YouTube

"It was 300 days too long. He gave me his cell phone so I couldn’t call him any more."

Museum Of Broken Relationships is a website and touring exhibition of stories and donated objects that represent broken relationships.

You can participate by donating an object and sharing a story. A donation form can be found at the museum's website.

Next stop will be at the Root Division in San Fransisco. The reception is today, Feb 14 - Valentine's day!

• www.brokenships.com

"But what are we going to read?"

During Buy Nothing Day, adverts in a London tube train were replaced with white paper by The Space Hijackers - a group of anarchitects who oppose the way that public space is being eroded and replaced by corporate profit making space.

Related: Delete

• www.spacehijackers.org

In 2006 AOL foolishly released a text file on one of its websites containing twenty million search keywords over a 3-month period. Before realizing their mistake, the file had been mirrored and distributed on the internet.

None of the records on the file are directly personally identifiable but each user is identified on the list by a unique number, which enables the compilation of a user's search history (New York Times actually managed to identify some of the users).

Now, the history of one of these anonymous users as been made into an experimental episodic documentary called 'I Love Alaska'. The movie tells the 'true search history' of User #711391 - an obese religious woman from Texas, who is looking for a way to rejuvenate her sex life. She cheats on her husband with a man she met online but regrets her deceit and dreams of a new life in Alaska.

I Love Alaska is made by Lernert Engelberts and Sander Plug for MiniMovies - a platform for documentaries made for the digital age.

• minimovies.org

Why follow the lines, when they can follow you?

Intervention by Sara Dierck and Michael Dodge.
Check Sara's website for more art projects and quirky designs.

• www.saradierck.com

The Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal is currently running the excellent looking exhibition Actions: What You Can Do With the City.

The exhibition documents and presents 99 actions - or 'urban interventions' - that instigate positive change in contemporary cities around the world.

Common activities such as walking, playing, recycling, and gardening are pushed beyond their usual definition by international architects, artists, and collectives featured in the exhibition.

Two of my favorite actions included in the exhibition are (P)LOT by Michael Rakowitz and Football Field by Maider López (see images). The exhibition also includes the brilliant Camera Surveillance Players and the excellent PARK(ing) project by Rebar.

If you can't make it to Montreal, you can view the 99 actions on the exhibition website. The site also contains a user-generated section which makes it possible for anyone to submit their own actions. The most popular ones will be featured in the physical exhibition later on.

• www.cca-actions.org

Moving Forest is a park on wheels. The park is made of trees in shopping carts that allow the public to rearrange their own little park.

The forest is created by Dutch architect firm NL architects in response to the lack of green nature in contemporary urban environments - which in the case of the Netherlands, more or less amounts to whole country.

Moving Forest was recently installed at the Experimenta Design event in Amsterdam.

• More images of the intruiging project is available here.

Causas Externas is a young design collective based in Barcelona who create experimental objects that play with the border between interior and exterior.

One of their objects 'Grass Tiles', is a modular object that makes it possible to add pieces of grass to your habitat.

The tiles comes in movable squares and can be used in either indoor or outdoor spaces such as terraces or houses with no garden or even an office space.

• www.causasexternas.com

Greece based designers Kathryn Sanderson and Aristidis Skarpetis are behind the online store ALBINO, which sells a variety of white T-shirts that you can colour-in yourself.

Each shirt comes with 3 color markers of your own choice and you can add additional markers to your order.

Albino is not exactly the first ever to sell colourinable tees online. Even Marks & Spencer have a similar product. However, Albino is solely focused on one kind of product and they've managed to create a unique and personal universe around it.

Currently, Albino tees are printed in more than 70 different styles.

Too bad the tees are for kids only.

• www.myalbino.com

Color Pencils by the Finnish artist Jonna Pohjalainen, created during a workshop in environmental art at the Open-Air Art Museum in Pedvale.

• www.environmentalart.net

Humongous knits, used as decorative sitting objects. Looks very comfortable.

Designed by Bauke Knottnerus who apparently also created a magenta covered room long before the Pink Prank Project became a viral smash hit.

• www.baukeknottnerus.nl

'Haircuts by Children' is relational performance orchestrated by Toronto based art-collective Mammalian.

In collaboration with communities around the world, Mammalian work with groups of local kids to give them the skills and confidence to give public haircuts.

After a ten-day period of workshops in art, politics and hairstyling, they set up shop in a salon for day of haircuts - free of charge for adults.

Related: A fashion brand created by youngsters.

• www.mammalian.ca + YouTube documentation

A Spanish debt collecting agency is using an alternative strategy to make people pay their debts: Public humiliation.

One of their methods is to dress up in flamboyant costumes and confront debtors at their homes or in public in order to attract maximum attention.

Not sure what is most humiliating: To be confronted by someone wearing a ridiculous outfit - or being the employee who has to wear it?

• El Cobrador Del Frac + You Tube

"I left this here for you to read" is a magazine-project by the artist Tim Devin.

About once a month, the magazine is printed in just 50 copies that are left for random people to find at public places, such as park benches, on buses, in airports etc. The magazine is distributed on Boston, New York and L.A.

Issues are not reprinted and cannot be ordered. The only way to have a copy mailed to you is to help edit, write, design, or distribute it. According to Tim, he prints everything he receives.

Related: Lost sculptures

• i left this here for you to read

Simple DIY hack that solves a classic problem.

• anti-seat-back

The Danish Design Center in Copenhagen is currently showing the traveling exhibition Sauma [Design as Cultural Interface], a presentation of innovative contemporary design from Finland.

The exhibition - produced by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York - contains around 20 projects that on different levels experiment with themes such as usability and user-experience.

My favorite projects has to be the most experimental ones. Like the Dance Shoes and Jacket for Lonely People by Aamu Song & Johan Olin as well as the intriguing roller blinds Better View Blind by Elina Aalto.

For some reason, the Design Center changed the exhibition-title to [User Driven Design], which is somewhat misleading if that is what you are looking for. Besides, an exhibition featuring user driven design from Finland would surely include Nokia and Linus Thorvalds who took a user-driven approach long before the term became popularized (neither are included).

In any case, if you can't make it to the physical exhibition space, SAUMA is accessible and well presented on the web too. It's worth a visit.

• www.saumadesign.net

A bit of self promotion: A new souvenir concept that I have developed for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark just launched. Here follows a description:
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Social Souvenir is an installation and souvenir concept that creates links and social experiences between museum visitors.

The concept is based on 300 T-shirts that are exhibited and put on sale at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, Denmark. Each T-shirt is imprinted with a text fragment inspired by 15 renowned artists represented in the museum's collection, such as Yoko Ono, Erik Satie, Marcel Duchamp and Per Højholt.

Visitors can buy a T-shirt of their own choice, the only condition being that they share a bit of personal information about themselves, or more precisely: their name and address. When paying for the T-shirt at the museum-shop, the information is automatically mapped in Google Maps, thereby making it possible to see where each T-shirt ends up after leaving the museum.

During the course of the exhibition, the 300 T-shirts will gradually disappear from the physical museum space only to re-appear on the web. Consequently, by buying a T-shirt visitors do not simply get a personal piece of the installation - they also help contribute to its collective development and distribution.

• www.socialsouvenir.net

www.aliensvote.org is a newly launched website that gives non-US Americans living in the US a chance to vote at the upcoming presidential election.

At least one out of every ten people living in the U.S. today is an alien. That’s approximately 29.1 million people; equal to the entire population of New York & New Jersey combined. But Despite contributing as much to society as most other Americans, they can’t voice their opinion in government elections.

In order to vote at aliensvote.org, you must live in the US and be able to verify your existence, which - like so many other things nowadays - is done via a cell phone number.

Related: Sell Your Vote A somewhat more conceptual and radical approach to the same topic.

• www.aliensvote.org

In conjunction with the Amsterdam Fashion Week earlier this year, the local fashion store SPRMRKT staged an unconventional catwalk show.

SPRMKT briefly hijacked the nearby Albert Heijn supermarket causing a line of models to mix with everyday groceries and surprised customers.

If you wonder about the connection between a fashion store and a supermarket: The name SPRMRKT is an abbreviation of 'supermarket'.

• Video on YouTube + Images

Critical Run is a sweating debating format for criticism.

The concept is developed by artist Thierry Geoffroy and the purpose is to train the awareness muscle by discussing a topic while running. Distances are relatively short and participants are often dressed in normal shoes and clothes.

Topics discussed so far include: "Does art has an impact in political decisions" and "optimism at the age of global war".

Critical Run has taken place in New York, London, Istanbul, Athènes, Paris, Siberia, Copenhagen, Moskow, Napoli and den Haag.

Check the website for upcoming runs.

• www.emergencyrooms.org/criticalrun.html

The popular illustrator and New York Times blogger Christoph Niemann designed the bathrooms in his new apartment with pixel drawings made of colored tiles.

The drawings were inspired by famous artists and the creative process is documented on his blog. Nice stuff.

• niemann.blogs.nytimes.com

If you're in Copenhagen before March 15, don't miss the exhibition 'Til Vægs' (To The Wall) at Kunsthal Charlottenborg.

The recently appointed acting Director Maria Gadegaard was asked to take over amid a turbulent time when there was basically no budget as well as an empty calendar and exhibition space to fill out.

Consequently she turned the problem into an opportunity and invited 40 local artists and asked them to paint and draw directly on the walls, thereby avoiding expenses for travel, transportation, insurance, materials etc. Paint was sponsored by Dyrup (a paint manufacturer) thus further reducing costs.

The result is impressive - like walking through an overdimensional visual book with every page offering something new - and the exhibition has received tons of much needed public as well as critical acclaim.

Image: Snapshot of Ida Kvetny's piece.

• www.kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk

Oeps Crew are two anonymous girls (supposedly) from Copenhagen who create small graffiti-inspired motifs using plastic beads

Their work can be found in galleries as well as urban spaces around the world. However, their unique urban tags are never up for long as they are quickly removed - or 'stolen' - by fans.

Check the Oeps Crew website for documentation as well as gallery updates.

• www.oeps.dk

A few months before the senseless events on 9/11, the performance-group eteam took part in the LMCC artist in residence program that had studios on the 91st and 92nd floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

On the night of March 29 2001, the eteam created a temporary light-sculpture using illuminated windows in the North Tower to spell their name in capital letters. To create the letters, they needed 279 'dark' and 127 'light' windows on 7 floors (from 89th to 95nd). The event was carried out in collaboration with 12 offices located on the respective floors.

During their stay, the eteam did another site-specific event called Quick Click in which they made photographic portraits of people in the studio from a helicopter hovering outside the building.

Related: MIT students already carried out similar window hacks in the 90's. See also the famed Blinkenlights project in Berlin, launched on september 12 2001.

• 127 Illuminated Windows

This week, more than 100 international + local artist will transform New York City into a laboratory for exploring the urban environment.

In other words, it's time for the annual Conflux Festival, a four day event devoted to contemporary psychogeography (the investigation of everyday urban life through emerging artistic, technological and social practice).

The theme will be investigated through an impressive array of lectures, guided tours, performances and projects. Following this post is a shortcut to some of the great-looking projects listed on the Conflux website.

Image: Manhattan's Urban Fabric. A collective mind-mapping and knitting project by Liz Kueneke.

• confluxfestival.org

Conflux:2008 #1

Sit Projects by Paola Mojica and Daniel Clapp is a series of service-oriented installations inspired by the pressing need for seats at bus and subway stops in New York.

The installations are based on disposed chairs that are recycled and placed at selected bus and subway stops.

By adding something practical and at the same time unique to the otherwise generic world of public transportation systems, the idea is not just to meet commuter's practical needs but also to create a situation for surprise and social interaction between commuters.

• Sit Projects

Conflux:2008 #2

For the Conflux Festival Lucas Murgida will construct a cabinet on wheels and leave it on the sidewalk. The artist will hide inside and not reveal himself until someone assumes possession and brings the cabinet to their home.

The cabinet will be in place west of the Center for Architecture and south of Washington Square Park on Saturday, September 13th, from noon onward. While in the cabinet he will be loading live feeds from his cell phone to Twitter.

Following the happening live could be an interesting and potentially nail-biting experience!

Nb. The cryptic title 9/10 refers to a quote-phrase saying that possession is 9/10 of the US-culture. And so, the project plays with the notion of ownership in public space.

• 9/10

Conflux:2008 #3

They raised $100 each.
Together they had $1000 in cash.
Then they gave it all away in the park.

The Generosity Foundation is a project that aims to re-inspire creative thinking and action in everyday people by removing a small barrier and providing encouragement.

10 members of the Foundation met random people in a park and gave away small grants (10-60$) for creative projects thought up on the spot.

Instant grants were given to a merchant marine, two 10 year old girls, a US soldier on leave from Iraq, an accordion player from Alaska and around 40 others.

The grants helped people make paintings, drawings and other creative projects that may not have happened had they not accidentally bumped into the Generosity Foundation in a park.

• generosityfoundation.org

Conflux:2008 #4

A subway swing will appear on the L-train in New York at various times throughout the upcoming weekend.

The swing is transportable and disguised as a handbag with adjustable straps that hook around the handrail of the subway.

The swing was designed by Caroline Woolard back in 2006 in the hope that the innocent amusement of swinging on the subway eclipses the atmosphere of numbness and suspicion partially generated by the infamous New York City subway dictate “if you see something, say something".

• Swinging Underground

Conflux:2008 #5

On Sunday, September 14th, Lee Walton will be holding a public Book Signing event at the Strand Bookstore in Greenwich Village, NYC.

He will arrive at Strand at 12 pm armed with a folding chair and a black Sharpie. He will be prepared to sign books for anybody interested in book signings. Apparently, you decide what book he should sign.

You will find him outside the shop, near the 1$ bins.

• Official Book Signing Event

Appeel is an analogue interactive installation based on thousands of colored stickers placed in a grid on a wall.

People are invited to co-create by removing one or more stickers from the grid and sticking them onto something else (walls, people, objects) thereby helping the installation develop in new directions.

Interactive art doesn't get much more simple and intuitive than this.

• thegreeneyl.com/appeel

Image Fulgurator is a camera-looking device that is used to smuggle visual information into other people's photographs.

The Fulgurator can be used anywhere where there's a another camera nearby that is being used with a flash. It operates via a reactive flash projection that enables an image to be projected on a surface the exact same moment when someone else is photographing it.

The intervention takes a few milliseconds and will most likely leave the targeted photographer puzzled as the motif he/she just photographed will suddenly contain an extra visual layer, somewhat like a watermark.

Image Fulgurator is a project by the artist Julius von Bismarck, who just recieved a Golden Nica Award at Ars Electronica for his work. Apparently he's about to patent the device - hopefully in order to block commercial misuse of the concept.

Related: SMS guerrilla-projector + Hello Mr President

• juliusvonbismarck.com + videodocumentation on youtube.

"Ur" (clock) is a time-consuming performance by the artist Mads Lynnerup, recently held at Karriere Bar in Copenhagen in conjunction with the U-TURN quadrennial for contemporary art.

From seven in the morning till midnight, the artist, supposedly, acted as a 'live clock' by manually changing numbers on a hand-held sign every single minute.

• uturn-copenhagen.dk

The artist Elke Veltman turned an elevator into a living room and stayed there for a whole day.

The event was recorded on the elevators' security cam and the footage shows how people (guests) enter and leave the elevator (living room).

Semi-Related: Random Lift Button.

• Video on YouTube and more images of the lift project here.

'AH to go' (a mini version of the Albert Heijn supermarket) at Amsterdam Central Station is not only a very busy mini-supermarket, but also a very user-friendly one.

Here you can bring your bike without employees freaking out and you can also use the microwave self-service to heat up your ready-made AH food.

The label on the microwave reads: please pay before heating.

I am not sure the informal usage and ad-hoc setup is what the retail-designers had in mind, but it's nice to see people tweak things to fit their needs.

• AH to go (retail presentation).

A physical representation of the computer desktop metaphor, which in the first place, is a representation of the physical world.

The image is from a project called Empty Trashcan by Monique Gofers and Hans Gremmen.

Related: Physical Scrollbars

• hansgremmen.nl

Here is an ambient advertising stunt with some basic qualities that should make most people smile and perhaps even eat more carrots.

Designed by a Portland based agency for Gorge Grown Farmers Market.

Related: Giant Adidas Shoe Box and Giant Lego Bricks.

• adsoftheworld.com

Platform21, BRIGHT and Superuse has a call for creative IKEA hacks.
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Hack an IKEA flat pack – a product you buy in a package and have to assemble at home. Make small alterations, or forget the instructions – let your imagination run wild and make something totally different out of it.

Deadline = september 15.

The winning design will be exhibited at the 2009 Montreal Biennial and at the BRIGHT stand during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven.
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Check out ikeahacker.blogspot.com for inspiration.

• More info at Platform 21

Here's a subtle alternative to the explicit nature of tattoos.

As the name suggests, Birthmark Tattoos, are fake - but permanent - birthmarks that you can add to your body. Aside from its decorative potential, birthmark tattoos makes it possible for your and your partner to 'exchange' birthmarks or to imprint your body with a secret message in braille.

Birthmarks Tattoo is a concept by Dutch designers Julia Müller, Arjan Groot and Menno Wittebrood who were commissioned by the magazine Identity Matters to come up with an idea for new ways of tattooing.

• Birthmarks Tattoo