BE OPEN Forum Makes Big Noise at Designboom

from left to right: dawn goldworm, marije vogelzang, carter cleveland, marcelo coelho, tuur van balen, and jamie zigelbaum
image © designboom

BE OPEN is a creative think tank whose initiatives strive to promote the work and ideas of global creative minds particularly in the areas of arts,  business, design, education and media. their 2012 / 2013 program is running under the core theme of ‘design of the five senses’ and at design miami/ 2012, they hosted a forum which presented five speakers practicing within diverse fields of design from product, to utilizing food, scent, biochemistry and haptic technology, developing sensorial experiences which are heightened beyond the ones we experience on a daily basis. 

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From the Sensory to the Intuitive

The BE OPEN forum explores human perception and how to design for it.

BE OPEN partners with Design Miami/ to launch the BE OPEN Forum, a portal to the future of design practice.

Each of the Forum participants practices outside the boundaries of traditional product design, utilizing food, scent, biochemistry and haptic technology to make research accessible to the global community and imagine the possibilities of design through sensory exploration.

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BE OPEN Forum at Design Miami/ 2012

Dawn Goldworm, Marije Vogelzang, Carter Cleveland, Marcelo Coelho, Tuur van Balen, and Jamie Zigelbaum

The diverse group of speakers at the BE OPEN forum represented the frontier of design. BE OPEN, an initiative that seeks to foster discourse on technology innovation, hosted a compelling panel of designers that break the categories of design, art and problem solving. The forum focused on the idea of sensory design and highlighted a selection of designers who work with the senses to create new solutions and experiences.

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Designing for the Senses, Designing for the Future

The BE OPEN Forum at Design Miami/ reveals the sensory visions of today’s most innovative designer.

Imagine if you could design a product that appealed to the sixth sense – something that felt intuitively ‘right’.  It would be a runaway success because everyone would want it, without questioning it.  This is the area that the BE OPEN Foundation has chosen to research over the next year. It launched the project at the 2012 London Design Festival with a series of events that focused on the sense of sound and how to design for that.

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The Art of Noises 100 Years Later

The Art of Noises 100 Years Later

Predicting the sound of the future is an indvidious task. Listening again to the work of Francesco Balilla Pratella who wrote the Manifesto of Futurist Musicians in 1910, it is surprising just how dated the music is.

It could have been an Italian version of the piano sonatas that Stravinsky wrote but disavowed later in his life as being too like late Beethoven. Pratella’s piano piece, La Guerra, captures a world of established structures collapsing; what we understand as the tonality is frequently suspended but never fully lost. The focus on chords and their progression is dissolving but we recognise the series of notes played on the piano.  It sounds like Europe as it plunged into the First World War.

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“Magic” Portal Lands in Trafalgar Square to Transport Us to the Next Frontier of Sound

THE BE OPEN sound portal is open to the public 19-23 September

London, Wednesday 19 September:  The BE OPEN Sound Portal has arrived in London’s Trafalgar Square.  A mysterious, black, rubberised cube, it will host five soundscapes over the next five days so that the public can ‘switch on their hearing’ to appreciate the most advanced audio technology in the world.

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BE OPEN: Sound Design Talk

BE OPEN: Sound Design Talk

Source: wallpaper.com

The debate in Covent Garden last night was a sound argument for a sonically enhanced future. Can intelligent, personable sound design encourage us to spend more in retail environments? Could sound help the older generation feel more comfortable? Will electric cars soon be jamming our streets, all playing the same sonorous ‘G’ note from beneath their bonnets? Can a better understanding of sound and our sensory systems help us design anything from household products to skyscrapers that can breathe, grow and ‘think’?

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BE OPEN: Awards

BE OPEN: Awards

Source: wallpaper.com

Last Friday night at London’s Earls Court exhibition centre, a panel of prestigious design-world figures put together their creative minds to select three future-thinking young designers to win the 2012 BE OPEN Awards. The awards programme, launched earlier this year at Milan Design Week, was set up to support emerging design talent by the BE OPEN foundation, a creative Think Tank headed by Russian entrepreneur and philanthropist Elena Baturina.

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BE OPEN: Sound Portal Lunchtime Talk

Source: wallpaper.com

‘Do you remember the very first scene from “A Space Odyssey”, where the monkey picks up a bone and whacks the other monkey over the head with it?’

Ben Evans, London Design Festival director, is describing the inspiration for the design of the BE OPEN Sound Portal, an audio installation that was placed in the centre of Trafalgar Square during last week’s Festival. ‘In the background of the scene,’ he continues, ‘there’s a big black obelisk and no one explains to you what it is. It appears again at the end of the film as a metaphor for the past, present and future.’

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