"Being an optimist doesn’t mean you ignore tragedy and injustice. It means you’re inspired to look for people making progress on those fronts, and to help spread that progress more widely. In 1990, more than a third of the global population lived in extreme poverty; today only about a tenth do. A century ago, it was legal to be gay in about 20 countries; today it’s legal in over 100. Women are gaining political power and now make up more than a fifth of members of national parliaments—and the world is finally starting to listen when women speak up about sexual assault. More than 90% of all children in the world attend primary school. In the U.S., you are far less likely to die on the job or in a car than your grandparents were. And so on. There’s also a growing gap between the bad things that still happen and our tolerance of those things. Over the centuries, violence has declined dramatically, as has our willingness to accept it. But because the improvements don’t keep pace with our expectations, it can seem like things are getting worse. To some extent, it is good that bad news gets attention. If you want to improve the world, you need something to be mad about. But it has to be balanced by upsides. When you see good things happening, you can channel your energy into driving even more progress" - Bill Gates in the latest issue of Time Magazine

Do colours only exist when looked at?

In progress: Meles Memorial Park in Addis Ababa by Studio Other Spaces

More than 660.000 Little Suns have been distributed all over the world since 2012 - 370.000 of those in areas without reliable energy access. More in Little Sun’s year 2017 in pictures

In progress: Meles Memorial Park in Addis Ababa by Studio Other Spaces

New works installed at the Studio Olafur Eliasson satellite in Marshall House, Reykjavik
Click on image for more works. All photos by Vigfus Birgisson

The Climate Museum is happening! Temporary home at Sheila Johnson Design Center, NYC, with an exhibition coming up in January. But they need your help and participation to make a permanent home that brings us together to reimagine our cultural response to climate change; that broadens a sense of urgency and inspires a sense of empowerment!

Our advanced geometry research department is experimenting with polyhedral maps - here is the surface of Mars projected onto the fourth stellation of a rhombic triacontahedron

Andreas Greiner's works Photosculptures and 8 Head High are featured in the latest issue of photo journal Filter #7: Photosynthesis. Greiner, a former participant of the Institut für Raumexperimente, has made portraits of micro algae in order to question the human – animal – plant hierarchy at play today.
Available at Buchhandlung Walther König

Viewing machines are a way of bringing attention to the structure of the eye, not just the physical shape of it, but also the role it plays. Addressing how we see the world, and why we see the world the way we see it - thereby, possibly, allowing us to start to evaluate and reconstruct this view, because we were given the opportunity to see ourselves from the outside
Click on image for more

On our desks #research #studio

Reality projector - exhibition at the Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles, opens in March