I am pleased to announce the launch of my new work entitled The MeMo Organization Cabinet.
In conjunction with the exhibit, Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection the cabinet will be on display at the Chicago Cultural Center from January 28th – July 8th.

The Latin phrase memento mori,meaning “remember you will die”, denotes objects which remind us of our mortality. What alternative Memento Mori rituals might be created in light of current developments in technology, philosophy and science?

Cloaked in the fictional identity of the MeMo Organization, I present a cabinet of seven curious objects and stories that explores a range of poetic practices and attitudes towards death and mourning. MeMo is a research-based initiative that recognizes the way cultural shifts have created new relations toward death and experiences of finality. Such change opens the door to more personal, relevant and contemporary experiences of death. The MeMo Cabinet distills research ranging over a wide field into a collection of tools which facilitate a series of intimate narratives voiced by characters struggling in various ways with mortality.

The MeMo Organization Cabinet will be accompanied by three MeMo seminars hosted by the Chicago Cultural Center and open to the the public. Participants will explore past and preset attitudes towards death and discuss the new practices proposed in the exhibit.

Visit MeMo website for a listing of times, location and guest speakers.

Concept, writing, drawing & modelmaking by Jessica Charlesworth
MeMo Identity,  booklet typset & layout by Romain Andre
Presented by Michael Graham of Balloon Contemporary

Sounds To Die By, 2012: Story and Sketch from the MeMo Booklet

Sounds To Die By, 2012 : RP ABS plastic, leather case, foam, jack plugs, latex

Our BioAge, 2012

Our BioAge, 2012

MeMo Organization Cabinet Installation at Chicago Cultural Center

Without You, 2012: Sketch & Story page from the MeMo Booklet

Without You, 2012: Latex, polymer clay, leather, chain. microphone head

Ambient Traces, 2012: Pencil on Paper

Ambient Traces, 2012: Sketch & Story page from the MeMo Booklet

For As Long As We Both Shall Live, 2012: Sketch & Story page from the MeMo Booklet

MeMo Booklet

Introduction page, MeMo Booklet

The MeMo Organizaiton Plaque was made by a local southern Chicago tombstone makers, Monumental Artworks.

Side view of the MeMo Organizatino Cabinet on the 4th floor lobby at Chicago Cultural Center

Seven objects fill the vitrine

Winning second place, this short film was entered into recent competition Future of Money Design Award for 2012 London Digital Money Forum, on the 28th / 29th March, organised by Consult Hyperion.

A cautionary tale exploring the intersection between emotional impact of spending money and evidence of that emotional impact. How could you enforce an emotional connection with financial transactions that would act as a new credit scoring system? What evidence would there be to suggest emotional effort and perhaps indicate the impact of the desire to spend? What if evidence was in the form of bodily fluids?

Obtaining some of these certain bodily fluids require more effort than others and potentially have varying market values. Tears are hard to generate and require time and high emotional impact. Sweat requires physical effort and nervous energy, Blood can be generated under some painful circumstances ( a pin prick, blood donation or menstrual bleed) With that in mind, the format of a cautionary tale suggests how and why this new system could exist.

A proposed new system for establishing credit score worthiness.

Tears can be measured according to potency of the antibacterial enzyme Lysozyme

A glass lachrymatory tear bottle used in the drive-in weeping booths. Each bottle uses ceramic filter membranes to absorb tears. Potency of antibacterial lysozyme is measured in docking station.

Salt content of a sweat produced saline solution can be measured by a refractometer

Saltree crystals suspended in saline solution harvested with every drop of sweat

Blood can be donated on a monthly basis as a tax to contribute to society's credit score

Monthly blood tax donation measured with bullseye target bloodbag

© MAK / Georg Mayer

The Golden Section Finder

The GOLDEN SECTION FINDER is a lens through which you can find proportional “perfection” in your surroundings. The golden section is a number regularly found when calculating the ratio between the dimensions of natural and geometric forms. Artists, designers and architects have used it as a means of defining beauty theoretically rather than intuitively. Designed and produced in Chicago with Tim Parsons

Lasercut and laser-etched acrylic in fluro orange, fluro blue, tinted or clear.
Currently available to purchase at ODLCO

Golden Section Finder Rings

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ODL Pop up STORE

PHRENOLOGICAL FACULTIES: An exploration in progress

The Secret Return Of... Catalogue

MicrobeSky featured in The Secret Return Of... Catalogue

The Sci-Arc exhibition host committee—Douglas Chrismas, Frank Gehry, Greg Lynn, Jeffrey Kipnis, Eric Owen Moss, Thom Mayne and Wolf Prix invited Marei Wollersberger and I to send one image from our Citizen Evolution project exhibited last year at the MAK Vienna to become part of the Secret Return of Noever exhibition and exhibition catalogue.

This will be on display along with many many others including documentary videos directed by Peter, copies of every catalogue produced during his tenure at the MAK—more than 300 displayed on 25 custom-designed tables— and a 7,000-square-foot architectural installation listing the names of every exhibition under Peter’s direction.

Seeking to acknowledge Peter Noever’s unique contribution to the architecture discourse, SCI-Arc organized The Secret Return of Noever exhibition in recognition both of the “unprecedented interrogatories in art and architecture sponsored by Peter during his time at the MAK, and in anticipation of the “return of Noever” now in the offing.”

The exhibition runs at the Ace Museum on South La Brea from December 12 – 30, 2011 and will be open Monday through Friday from 1 to 5pm.

The Secret Return of Noever, exhibition design by Alexis Rochas

MicrobeSky from our Citizen Evolution project on display

Awning used to document 25 years of exhibitions at the MAK

The main exhibition space at the Ace Museum

Images from all exhibitions curated or directed by Peter Noever over the past 25 years.

Subscribe to GOOD to see it for yourself!

GOOD's Data Issue, Fall 2011

FOSKBoutique's Happiness Scale exercise on inside cover

Dear Reader, Are You Happy Right Now?

Tuesday September 6th, the day after Labor Day.
Martyrs’ @ 8p, 3855 N Lincoln Avenue.
Get tickets now at martyrslive.com
$1o a pop

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The blurb:

Chicago’s Volume 19 features 6 minutes and 40 seconds each of Go! afficianodos Bob Barber and Mark Rubenstein, Brit adhocist Jessica Charlesworth, the Factoter Tim Fawkes, CPS teacher Lucy Hilarides, mimicing musician Chris Neville, Circuit Court Judge hopeful RoxAnne Rochester, along with her Amber doll, we expect to see the real Amber Hawk Swanson, young architect and Rural Studio alum Evan Forrest, intelligent coffee dude Stephen Vicks, another Stephen, architect/urban planner Stephen Yas, and Dawn Hancock, who advocates good design for good reason.

The official poster of Volume 19 is designed by School of the Art Institute graduate, Rachel Yas.

Devised and shared by Klein Dytham Architecture. PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat”, it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.