Switched

1. Interactive, Flowering Flooring
ON Gallery artist and founder Megumi Akiyoshi collaborated with Evan Schwartz of Sign Expo, a company that makes interactive floors, to create "Blooming Steps" a flowering floor that responded to the footsteps and other stimulus of art show attendees. Turning the ground into a seemingly giant touch screen was more complicated than it seemed, though. A hidden camera recorded participants' movements, then communicated them to a projector overhead, which altered the image accordingly – all quickly enough to make the psychedelic exploding floral patterns appear immediately. More of Megumi Akiyoshi's mind-altering floral art at onmeg.com
More interactive floors at signexpo.com





2. Origami Bicycles
According to Mark Sanders, the man who designed it, The Strida is the first "completely new bicycle geometry in the past 95 years." What makes a Strida different than other lightweight folding bikes like the Brompton is its triangle shape. Apparently, owners are able to fold their triangle bikes down to a compact stow-able package in just five seconds (which is four seconds shorter than the quick-folding Brompton, in our experience). Short on cash or time? Have no fear, there are a number of different models that cater to various budgets and speeds. If folding bikes are your thing, make sure to also check-out Areaware's IF series. Also designed by Sanders in collaboration with Michael Lin and Ryan Carroll, the IF series was made for "discerning enthusiasts who appreciate the benefits of light weight, speed and comfort that are only possible on a fully suspended 20-inch wheeled bicycle. In other words, these guys have created a new series of folding bikes that unfold to look like – regular bikes! Both the Strida and IF series can be found at Areaware's site.




3. Imaginary Ethnographies
For their video installation, "The Ethnography of No Place," Saya Woolfalk and Rachel Lears created a vivid, faux-nature documentary about an invented species that shows the many legged, crazily costumed, absurd looking creatures going about their lives in an invented terrain constructed entirely by the artists. "My art is an experimental ground where I create alternative bodies, environments, and consciousnesses," Woolfalk says. Yeah, it's also pretty fun to watch. To see more, go to honeycombfilms.com/ethnography.html





4. Magnetic Hearts
You know how those refrigerator poetry magnets fall into the category of ubiquitous cultural debris that is inescapable, yet also somehow manages to remain tempting at the same time? Even if you think you're so over it, you can't help move just one word. Artist Seth Carnes' interactive "iheart poetics" installation is basically a giant magnetic poem with words the size of bumper stickers that onlookers are invited to rearrange. Carnes videos the whole process to show what interesting behavior patterns emerge. To watch the video, go to iheart.org/iheartpoetics001_martin.html




5. Retro Radios
These artfully designed, vintage-inspired wooden radios are first-aid for music lovers who like their stereos to have character and substance to spare. Don't be fooled by their old school appearance, though -- these babies are MP3-compatible with short wave reception. You don't have to feel bad about felling trees, either. All of designer Singggih Kartono's models are made from new growth wood, and for every tree that's cut down, a new one is planted. It's available directly from Areaware.





6. My Deer, I See Right Through You
Sculptor Midori Harima uses holograms, mirrors, video, and giant flat-screen TVs to assemble multi-media installations that she claims are meant to imitate, "how we create dividing lines and how things divided by those lines meet." Harima's arrangement of the many technical elements in her installation "Transparent Story" simulated a three-dimensional space in which a projection of the viewer becomes juxtaposed among her other reflected images, forcing the onlooker to become part of Harima's fractured reality.





7. Stackable Blocks of Time
An affordable object that we all use every morning, the alarm clock has been ripe for redesign for quite while. Designer Jonas Damon's "Numbers LED Clock" differs from your everyday waker-upper in that it is made of four separate cubes, each one displaying one digit of the time, that can be arranged in any number of fun ways. Also brought to you from the folks at Areaware in a variety of colors.



8. Track Eggshells
"When I started this project, I didn't realize that most cassette tape is tan, not black," artist Ula Einstein told us, wistfully. "Now I have to look all over the place for the black kind. We hope she continues to find it. The messy nests Einstein weaves out of the remnants of old friends' 8-track collections harbor delicate cracked eggshells, which she meticulously de-membranes and stamps with cryptic messages, an artistic process that seems to mirror the way our thoughts are altered by listening to that same song over and over again.