Containers and Containment

This video brings to light some of the issues I've been thinking about regarding the container and the thing contained. Fionn Regan, an Irish singer-songwriter, performs his song in various arenas, and the camera jump cuts to him at each different juncture. He doesn't just lip-sync, though, so you can hear the ambient noise (or lack thereof) in the different arenas. I think it is a great illustration of how the environment (or the container) shapes the thing contained. The music takes on different meaning and tones depending on location. Think of that the next time you pick up an old tattered book and begin to read...

I've found the perfect website for those of us who can't afford to travel but still want all the travel junk anyhow. KIOSK - Interesting Things From Interesting Countries is the place to be if you are interested in design and items from other countries. I think that my favorite is the tar-candy, the commentary on which is excerpted below:

To some people, summer is defined by the perfumed odor you have walking by warm train tracks. To others, summer is just a great time for candy. Well, some smart Finn said, “Let's combine the two!” Yes, this is tar-candy! Very diluted wood-tar-water is used to make these licorice pastilles have a distinct taste of tar. Tar was long considered a multi-cure that healed all illnesses and wounds, together with sauna and vodka the three were the cornerstones of Finnish healthcare. Today, most would agree that too much tar gives you a stomachache, too much sauna gives you headache and too much vodka will give you both. Nevertheless, in smaller quantities they are quite divine. Tar-candy, much like sauna and vodka, does have a threshold before you start liking it. The first few pastilles will taste strange and unfamiliar, but soon all you want to do is to walk along those train tracks with a tar-pastille in your mouth!

Awesomely Messy

Here's a link to an awesomely messy commercial for Sony Bravia televisions. I love this commercial, but the best part is that all of this is real! Here are some stats:

70,000 litres of paint
358 single bottle bombs
33 sextuple air cluster bombs
22 Triple hung cluster bombs
268 mortars
33 Triple Mortars
22 Double mortars
358 meters of weld
330 meters of steel pipe
57 km of copper wire

And quoted from the website:

TV ad - featured massive paint explosions - took 10 days and 250 people to film. Huge quantities of paint were needed to accomplish this, which had to be delivered in 1 tonne trucks and mixed on-site by 20 people.
The cleaning took 5 days and 60 people. Thankfully, the use of a special water-based paint made it easy to scrape-up once the water had evaporated.
Keeping everyone safe was also an important factor. A special kind of non-toxic paint was used that is safe enough to drink (it contains the same thickeners that are sometimes used in soups). It was also completely harmless to the skin.

They also have some really great links to other commercials, like the one where they send 250,000 Superballs down the hills of San Francisco.

And, because I'm an idiot, and I forgot to post it earlier, here is the link.