Matthew Hockenberry

Seeking Student Researchers for Fall Term

:: “We’re looking for students for the Fall Term through January. The Collaborative offers support, resources, and stipends to students engaged in the research process. Students should indicate which of the following two areas they are interested in applying to: Research Incubation - for students ...” Creative Synthesis Blog | Jul 24

chair bake

:: “ Tokujin Yoshioka’s PANE chair is made of a sheet of plastic fibers rolled into a cardboard tube and baked in an oven to retain its shape. It was the fruit of a three-year design process in which he aimed to invent a completely new chair unlike any other. He named it after the Italian word for ...” Creative Synthesis Blog | Jul 24

under the catwalk

:: “ I received this slide show purporting to document labor conditions in an Indian shoe manufacturer for a brand called Catwalk - although it’s hard for me to confirm any of this information. If you know about it, let me know, otherwise these are still pictures of people at work producing rema ...” Creative Synthesis Blog | Jul 23

Green 'Za

:: “ The concept behind Fort Lauderdale-based Pizza Fusion grew incrementally from a fairly straightforward goal:  market organic pizza.  As founders Michael Gordon and Vaughan Lazar worked in early 2006 to create a restaurant, they confronted factors that prevent customers from eating out organically a ...” Creative Synthesis Blog | Jul 23

tracking pills

:: “ By one estimate at least 15% of all drugs sold are counterfeit resulting in thousands of deaths. One reason Vardex Laser developed a technique to etch individual pills with 2-D bar codes in a process that takes “less than a millionth of a second” to mark a product in a process that is ...” Creative Synthesis Blog | Jul 22

shadow sign

:: “ The sign for the Gallery Hotel Art in Florence is very discrete - you can only see it at night, and it’s fashioned from small bits of bent wire, which when lit from above by a spotlight project shadows that reveal the hotel’s name on the stucco facade of the building. Creative Synthesis Blog | Jul 21

Speaking Books

:: “ As part of an ongoing outreach and education program for rural communities, the South African Depression and Anxiety Group’s (SADAG) Iincwadi Zethemba/Books of Hope project combines community healthcare with ongoing literacy education. The corporation produces illustrated books in five langua ...” Creative Synthesis Blog | Jul 21

Interactive Sonic "Blobs"

:: “ First presented at the 2004, Milan Furniture Fair, the collaborative, interactive, aural system Sonic Garden uses a cluster of cushy, comforting, vaguely weeble-shaped blobs to invite user participation and creation.  Developed by Inbal Gil and Roy Roth, music emerges from the installation as users ...” Creative Synthesis Blog | Jul 18

Carving Cartoons

:: “ CraftVillageUK is a web portal for a community of soapstone carvers in Kenya designed to allow them to sell their intricate carvings directly to consumers worldwide. According to their website, the carvers earn four times as much per sculpture by selling through the web, and their earnings represen ...” Creative Synthesis Blog | Jul 18