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Shedd Aquarium's World of Water: What It Takes to Keep a Quality Environment for Animals
For a bunch of air-breathers, those of us trusted to keep our animals healthy and thriving are up to our "gills" as we're tasked to think about our water quality at Shedd Aquarium. As we near the end of National Water Quality Month, it's important to reflect and think about why water quality is a critical issue 365 days a year, not just during the month of August.

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Allen LaPointe, Vice President of Environmental Quality at Shedd Aquarium, takes a sample of the water in the Abbott Oceanarium.

Animals - whether in an aquarium environment or in a native environment - have no control over the quality of the water around them. We do. As a result, we have an obligation to ensure the very best water quality possible. At Shedd, this means putting the right water for the right purpose in the right place. That's no small task! Water comes in all forms at Shedd - clear, cloudy, salt, fresh, warm, cold - the list goes on! These conditions are carefully analyzed and adjusted as needed to create the best home for the animals that spend their lives swimming inside it.

How do we do that? We start in our own backyard, in the same waters of Lake Michigan that millions of people in the Chicagoland area use daily to drink, clean and cook with. All water that we use for our habitats at Shedd is first put through a massive charcoal filter - think about a home water filtration system, and multiply that by about 10,000. That's where the water for our habitats begins its journey. This removes impurities like chlorine, which can be poisonous to our amphibians and fish. From there, we apply a variety of techniques to purify this water, like running it through a reverse osmosis membrane - a very specialized filter that removes dissolved salts and other molecules that even charcoal can't capture. This process is necessary in our Amazon Rising habitats because Amazon river water in the native habitat is known to be very low in dissolved salts and we must replicate that for animals that have evolved in that type of water.

But that's just the start. Next, we must ensure the water is the right mix for the right habitat. Our Caribbean Reef exhibit - home to rescued sea turtle Nickel, stingrays and bonnethead sharks - requires added salts and warmer temperatures. For habitats that house endangered coral, calcium is added and phosphorus is filtered in to ensure a quality environment. These additions, subtractions and changes to the variety of environments are constantly monitored by a team of Environmental Quality Technicians - and supported by more than 60 volunteers! - who continuously test the water inside the habitats in our Environmental Quality Lab.

Through this research, we are constantly applying what we have learned and adjusting the way we do things. Over the past few years, we been exploring whether we could "recycle" some water from habitats within Shedd without impacting the health of our animals. Through careful testing, we have been able to reduce our water footprint by transferring water from some of our gallery spaces into our Oceanarium, therefore a decrease in the amount of water we take in and put out.

Beyond the day-to-day monitoring of water quality within Shedd, we're diving even deeper. While the chemical composition is important to keeping our animals healthy, we're also closely examining the biological communities that share the water with our animals. The Aquarium Microbiome Project has begun studying the vast yet microscopic ecological communities within Shedd's water. This includes closely examining how these tiny bacteria, viruses and fungi interact with our animals, and the results have been fascinating. While we sometimes think of these communities as simply "germs," we have found they can be incredibly beneficial, if not essential, to the health of our animals. In fact, we recently studied the microbiotic makeup of the water in our Stingray Touch experience. Despite these animals being touched by more than 400,000 human hands through the course of the season, the results proved this experience has no negative effects on the animals. It actually improved some of the indicators of health and welfare like heart rate!

At Shedd Aquarium caring for the quality of water animals live in and depend on does not stop at the front doors. It's extremely important that we as a species are constantly aware of our impact on the water systems we - and all animals - rely on around the world. Choosing public transportation, participating in beach clean-ups, avoiding products that contain microbeads and refraining from disposing of medications down the drain are all examples of small but important steps we can take to improve water quality at home, and by extension, around the world.

Bill Van Bonn, DVM, is Shedd Aquarium's vice president of animal health. With more than 25 years of clinical veterinary experience, Dr. Van Bonn strengthens the aquarium's established animal care and health expertise, overseeing its diverse aquatic medicine initiatives as well as furthering innovative veterinary science at Shedd. Dr. Van Bonn specializes in preventive medicine and enhanced clinical veterinary services for aquatic animals, with a focus on marine mammals. At Shedd, he focuses on providing top-quality care and applying his knowledge of animal health to conservation of their counterparts in the wild. He also oversees the aquarium's Microbiome Project.

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Dolphin Project On The Ground As Taiji's Hunting Season Begins
Fourteen years ago when Dolphin Project first stepped foot onto the shores of The Cove, I committed to exposing the brutal slaughter that takes place there every year. And I haven't stopped since.

This year, as in other years, we are the only organization on the ground. In fact, since 2003, we are the only organization to have had a constant presence in Taiji during the dolphin hunting season.

Although a 19-day incarceration last winter, resulting in my deportation from Japan will prevent me from personally going, our team of Dolphin Project Cove Monitors will be on the ground throughout the entire killing season to live stream and disseminate information to the rest of the world. I do plan on being able to visit Japan again, a country that I love, and Dolphin Project is currently appealing the deportation through the Japanese legal system.

Every year from approximately September 1 to March 1, a notoriously cruel hunt of some of the most sentient and sensitive creatures on the planet takes place in Taiji, Japan, made famous by the 2009 Academy award-winning movie "The Cove." During this period, fisherman, or more appropriately, dolphin hunters, "drive" the mammals to their capture or deaths via means of physical violence and acoustic torture.

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The Japanese government's official quota is 1,820 dolphins of various species. Trainers, working alongside hunters, will also select approximately 150 wild bottlenose dolphins, "presold" to marine parks in Japan and overseas - a process where an untold number of animals are injured and/or killed, their numbers never recorded.

They used to do this in Futo and Iki Island too. The only reason they stopped is because they killed them all. I'm afraid the same thing is going to happen in Taiji. It's genocide.

As I write this, I am in London for Japan Dolphins Day - one of 50 events across the world where thousands of people will voice their opposition against the Taiji dolphin slaughters.

Together, we WILL end this.

How You Can Help

Interested in joining our team as a Dolphin Project Cove Monitor?
Click here to submit your application free of charge.

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Take the Pledge to NOT Buy a Ticket to a Dolphin Show

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DONATE
Your support has never been more crucial and is greatly appreciated. Click here to donate.

Dolphin Project is the only organization to have been on the ground in Taiji since 2003. We have revolutionized live streaming and broadcast throughout the entire season.

Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project is a non-profit charitable organization, dedicated to the welfare and protection of dolphins worldwide. Founded by Richard (Ric) O'Barry on Earth Day, April 22, 1970, the mission of the Dolphin Project is to end dolphin exploitation and slaughter, as dolphins are routinely captured, harassed, slaughtered and sold into captivity around the world - all in the name of profit.

Dolphin Project works not only to halt these slaughters but also to rehabilitate captive dolphins, investigate and advocate for economic alternatives to dolphin slaughter exploitation and to put a permanent end to dolphin captivity. This work has been chronicled in films such as, 'A Fall From Freedom,' the Oscar-winning documentary 'The Cove,' and in the Animal Planet mini-series, 'Blood Dolphin$.'

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Reflections on the Anthropocene
"However these debates will unfold, the Anthropocene represents a new phase in the history of both humankind and of the Earth, when natural forces and human forces became intertwined, so that the fate of one determines the fate of the other. Geologically, this is a remarkable episode in the history of this planet."

This is a little too big to simply call "news." Indeed, I can't move beyond these words -- especially that heart-stopper, "intertwined" -- until I'm able to summon sufficient inner quiet and humility. Geologically, the paradigm has already shifted. How about spiritually?

The words are those of four geologists and climate scientists, including Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, writing in 2010 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology (and quoted at phys.org) -- making the point that the human phenomenon has become, for better and for worse, essentially partnered with nature, a co-creator of the planet's future.

This hypothesis has returned to public attention, as the International Geological Congress meets in Cape Town, South Africa, and a working panel has voted that the Anthropocene Epoch -- a planetary shift to a new geological state of existence -- be officially acknowledged by the world's scientific community. That is to say, the planet has moved beyond what has been called the Holocene: some 12,000 years of climate stability, which emerged after the last ice age. In this window of opportunity, human civilization created itself and, in the process, seized hold of, and began changing, the planet's geological infrastructure.

The current hypothesis is that the Anthropocene began, uh . . . about the time "Ozzie and Harriet" was hitting the airwaves, disposable ballpoint pens were finding their market niche and the Baby Boomers were starting kindergarten. That is to say, the 1950s.

The primary cause of the geological shift, the Guardian reports, are "the radioactive elements dispersed across the planet by nuclear bomb tests, although an array of other signals, including plastic pollution, soot from power stations, concrete, and even the bones left by the global proliferation of the domestic chicken were now under consideration."

None of this is good news. Short-sighted human behavior, from nuclear insanity to agribusiness to the proliferation of plastic trash, has produced utterly unforeseen consequences, including disruption of the climate that has nurtured our growth and becoming over the last dozen millennia. This is called recklessness. And mostly the Anthropocene is described with dystopian bleakness: a time of mass extinctions. A time of dying.

But I return to the words quoted above: ". . . the Anthropocene represents a new phase in the history of both humankind and of the Earth, when natural forces and human forces became intertwined. . . ."

What I hear in the silence of these words is something far more resonant than mere pessimism or cynicism. I hear awareness. I hear urgency. I hear hope.

I hear the largest challenge that humanity has ever faced or imagined -- a challenge that transcends religion, politics and science, indeed, everything we believe and everything we know, or think we know. This includes a belief in our own reckless immaturity.

Consider: "Human occupation is usually associated with deteriorated landscapes, but new research shows that 13,000 years of repeated occupation by British Columbia's coastal First Nations has had the opposite effect, enhancing temperate rainforest productivity."

The story, also at phys.org, talks about research data showing that the trees growing at sites formerly inhabited by the tribal peoples "are taller, wider and healthier than those in the surrounding forest," thanks to various practices, including the burying of the remains of intertidal shellfish over thousands of years, enriching the soil. "For more than 13,000 years --500 generations--people have been transforming this landscape," environmental scientist Andrew Trant is quoted as saying. "So this area that at first glance seems pristine and wild is actually highly modified and enhanced as a result of human behavior."

There are many, many examples of how "primitive" cultures have been true stewards of their environment and enhanced its health and eco-diversity, but such stories are easily dismissed with a despairing shrug: This isn't how the modern world works. Nor has eco-stewardship been the force that has brought on the Anthropocene. That has come about, rather, by a combination of extraordinary technological breakthroughs and cold indifference to their consequences: human evolution, you might say, outside the circle of life. But here we are nonetheless.

". . . when natural forces and human forces became intertwined. . . ."

It's time to grow up. Simply looking at the news in the context of the ongoing geological shift puts things in a radically different perspective. I grab, almost at random, a recent story that slapped me in the face with its absurdity: San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sends shockwaves across spectator America when he refuses to stand for the national anthem. Fans burn replicas of his jersey.

What I see in Kaepernick's courageous act transcends even the racism he was protesting. The consciousness symbolized by the national anthem -- that only part of this planet matters, and all of it is available for our exploitation -- is what has cluelessly ushered in the Anthropocene. We need to build a new world on the far side of that consciousness: on the far side of the flag, on the far side of the national anthem.

- - -
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.

© 2016 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, INC.

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In the Fight Against Climate Change, "Renewable" Energy Isn't Enough

Flash flooding, long periods of sustained drought and even more extreme storm seasons. The impacts of climate change are already being felt here in the U.S. and around the world. We need to act fast by ending our use of fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy soon, if we're going to meet the goal set by the Paris agreement of staying under 1.5 degrees of warming.

We risk doing harm to both people and our planet though, if we support any kind of so-called renewable fuel, without fully considering the impacts. The transition away from fossil fuels must be a transition towards truly clean, community controlled renewable energy. We cannot afford to place our bets on false solutions.

In recent weeks, two new publications have helped illustrated the risk of false solutions, specifically related to the Renewable Fuel Standard (known as the RFS). This policy was put in place with good intentions in 2005 and expanded in 2007, the idea being to support a policy that provided a liquid fuel alternative to fossil fuels - particularly gas - for transportation fuels in the U.S. However, despite good intentions this law has not been good for the environment or for people living in poverty around the world.

Next-generation fuel has yet to develop in significant quantities, and so more than 10 years after the law was initially passed, we remain dependent on food and land based biofuels - particularly corn ethanol. When you take into account the total emissions from producing, processing and burning these biofuels, they often fail to reduce emissions.

But it doesn't stop there, because the RFS has helped drive the expansion of corn and soy mono-cropping in the United States. This conversion of natural grasslands to farm land has not only been bad for the planet, but undermines biodiversity of both plant and animal life. As for the impacts on people, food-based biofuels increase hunger and undermine land rights globally, as local farmers are pushed off their land to make way for biofuels plantations.

Under the RFS, the EPA is supposed to monitor the policy's impact on the environment and produce regular reports. However, the Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency recent audit on RFS implementation found the EPA had not fulfilled its legally mandated environmental oversight of the program.

In particular, the EPA has not produced the reports it's required to deliver on the impact the RFS is having on conservation (required every three years) and air quality (two reports no later than December of 2010). Considering evidence that food and land based biofuels hurt both, this is especially concerning.

Added to this, last Thursday, yet another study was published that found that corn ethanol is not good for the climate.

Many biofuel emissions models assume that growing and harvesting biofuels and burning them is carbon neutral. The idea is basically that the plants grown for biofuels absorb as much carbon as they emit when burned for energy. So any emissions from biofuels are from the processing of the feedstock into the fuel.

Bu this new research found that only 37% of carbon emitted through burning biofuels was absorbed by biofuel growth between 2005 and 2013. These findings suggest that the tools that environmental regulators are using to determine how environmentally-friendly biofuels like corn ethanol are, are fundamentally flawed, and ignore a significant amount of emissions.

If we're going to effectively and justly address climate change, good intentions and so-called green-solutions are not enough. Food-based biofuels will not help the planet, they'll only make things worse.

Food-based biofuels such as corn ethanol undermine food security, make air and water quality worse, and drive deforestation. In fact, corn ethanol might be worse for the planet than gasoline. This only continues the cycle that we have found ourselves in now, where energy consumption wreaks environmental and social havoc, warms the planet, but still leaves billions of people without their basic energy needs met.

The transition to renewable energy must produce truly clean, renewable energy, controlled by local communities. Renewable alone isn't enough.

Follow Kelly on Twitter: @kellystone6

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Get Smart Fast: The Social Cost of Carbon
Early on in its tenure, the Obama Administration created a measure to quantify the costs of carbon emissions, known as the "Social Cost of Carbon" (SCC). This standard allowed agencies to calculate the benefit of policies that reduced CO2 emissions.

The impacts of climate change are wide-ranging - rising sea levels, increased droughts, higher frequency of mosquito-borne illnesses and so on - and the SCC aimed to capture all of those impacts. After extensive analysis, the government determined that the SCC is currently about $40 for each emitted ton of carbon dioxide.

The Administration has used this figure to demonstrate monetary benefits of carbon reduction in the development of regulations governing power plants, vehicle emissions and appliance efficiency standards.

The controversial measure includes layers of assumptions about global weather trends, agricultural production patterns, and even how people will respond to changing climate. Some environmentalists argue that the number is ridiculously low and should be five times higher. Industry critics argue that the figure is too uncertain to provide a basis for regulation.

In 2014, a trade association challenged the use of the SCC in court. But in a ruling earlier this month, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Administration, strengthening the legal foundation for many environmental rules promulgated over the past several years. The SCC may not be precise, but given the consensus that climate change is having real effects on the globe, the court ruled that it was appropriate to use in policy-making.

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How to create new, new business

If you want to win new work from new clients (new-new business), where do you start? The days of cold calling and persistence being effective tactics are long gone. Today's new business relationships need to be fostered in much the same way you'd start and nurture a personal relationship. You don't walk up to a complete stranger and ask them to marry you. So why would you do the same with a potential client?

Your approach should be to draw your new client towards you, before you start to approach them. If two people are moving towards each other, they are more likely to keep going and close the gap. They also meet as equals. When one person pursues another, on the other hand, this can set that person running in the same direction. The chase is energy sapping for both parties. It also risks putting the balance of power in any conversation in the hands of the person being chased, which is not good for the agency.

So how do you draw your new-new clients-to-be to you? There is a path that you could follow called Know, Like, Trust and Buy. Here are the stages, described briefly, with some actions that build your credibility at each stage and could move you to the next.

Stage 1: Know. Your clients-to-be need to get to know you. This step should be made gradually, consistently, memorably and be relevant to your clients. Ask, “What do my clients need to know for them?” They're not looking for a new agency so the things about you are less important. What would be useful to them? And of all of that, what is the link to you and what you do? What matters to your client? What matters to you? And where do they intersect?

Actions: Do some research and gather your answers to the above questions. What is going on in the sector? Who could you ask? What do you think about this? Turn your thinking into a regular newsletter or blog to send to your clients-to-be. Give it a name, and a brand. Focus it solely on them and their interests and concerns.

Stage 2: Like. Your clients-to-be start to like you. How do we get to like someone? We feel they have empathy with our situation. And us with theirs. We feel that they “get us”. They understand what's going on in our world. And what they say or show us is useful to us. How do you enable your client to learn something new about themselves, their sector?

Actions: Notice what is happening with your communication. Is there some evidence that your readers are liking what you are writing? If you use a trackable delivery system for your email you will be able to see who is starting to warm to you. Join a LinkedIn group where your client community gathers. Post a link to your piece along with a question. Send those people who open your communication a short thank you note and a bonus item.

Stage 3: Trust. Your clients-to-be start to trust you. This is a big move and the phase where you start to share more of you. There is likely to be some sort of personal contact, some sort of investment by you in the relationship. You might look to meet them at an event. Or you could invite them to an event that you are putting on, or attending around a theme of interest to them. There could be a telephone meeting. But this is not the opportunity for you to pitch or to pour on how brilliant you are. This is still about, building the relationship, inviting your client to talk, asking them “What do you think and what matters to you?” This is about being true and authentic to how you have communicated to this point. And then taking it to a personal level.

Stage 4: Buy. This may start to happen when you've done all of the above. And this is where you get the chance to demonstrate more overtly what you can do. This is where you will need to make sure that all of your evidence of past capability and process is ready to ensure that your approach pays off.

It can take a while to get to the buy stage because clients are people. They are not “buying decisions” or “budgets”. Any more than you are “someone who draws for a living” or a “computer operator”. This approach requires patience. When the opportunity to talk about you comes, you need to be ready, know what you are about and have a sound process in place to prepare and deliver a great presentation. If you've done the hard work to build the relationship to this point, you will have laid the foundations for proving that you're the partner they need.

John Scarrott will be talking about winning new business at this training workshop.

The post How to create new, new business appeared first on Design Week.

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5 important things that happened in design this week

Somerset House opened a new virtual reality exhibition

"Björk — Björk Stonemilker VR © Andrew Thomas Huang

This week, Somerset House opened a new show dedicated to Icelandic songwriter Björk, using virtual reality and 360° video to trap the viewer within an immersive, musical experience.

While there are a few clunky, transitional phases to the exhibition moving between rooms, sitting down and scrambling around with headsets and earphones the show is an impressive depiction of how combining emotive music and inventive technology can create very powerful viewer experiences.

The show mainly focuses on songs from the musician's latest album Vulnicura, providing visitors with 3D music videos depicting Björk herself in both human form and as a strange, digital creature.

It's certainly an exhibition for Björk-lovers, but will also be inspiring and exciting for anybody interested in the latest applications of virtual and augmented reality, and 360° panoramic film.

Björk Digital runs at Somerset house until 23 October, and tickets are £15, or £12.50 concessions.

WKD had a complete rebrand

Alcopop brand WKD, known for its luminous colours and sugary sweetness, was redesigned by consultancy JKR this week, taking on a new “fun, exciting” concept.

The new look sees the brand ditch its embossed lettering for a cleaner typeface, coupled with a new exclamation mark motif, which looks to better align itself with its predominately 18-to-24-year-old audience.

The typography used is also transparent, allowing it to be used as a device for various “oil-painting-inspired” patterns, according to JKR. The bottles' caps also include a series of 1990s instant messaging-inspired emoticon motifs, which JKR says aims to increase the element of fun, but we assume also hopes to inspire some nostalgia in the brand's millennial drinkers.

The redesigned bottles will roll out with a range of four flavours in October, and with two low-calorie variants by the end of the year.

Ikea announced it would be opening a do-it-yourself restaurant

Furniture giant Ikea turned their hand to cookery this week, with a new dining space.

The pop-up Dining Club has been designed by Ikea's in-house team, and will open in London's Shoreditch on 10 September, and will be free for diners.

In typical Ikea fashion, the food's coming flatpacked diners will be able to attend masterclasses on topics such as Swedish Baking and Clean Eating, and will make their own meals.

The concept is based on encouraging people to spend time together through cooking and eating, Ikea says.

You can find out more about the dining experience here.

The Design Museum revealed the shortlist for its annual design awards

It was announced this week that the Channel 4 visual identity, the cover art for David Bowie's final album Blackstar and the Dreamland Margate theme park are all in the running for this year's Design Museum awards.

2016 marks the ninth edition of The Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition and awards programme, and sees a massive 70 designs shortlisted in categories including architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product and transport.

All of the nominated designs will be included in one of the first exhibitions at the new Design Museum, set to open in London's Kensington in November.

A winner will be announced on 26 January 2017. You can view the full shortlist here.

We debated when designers should turn their hand to writing

Should you call in a professional writer to help with marketing, or should you have a go at crafting copy yourself?

This week, the Design Business Association's (DBA) head of services Adam Fennelow considers whether passion and expertise in the design field can equal, or even outweigh, professional writing skills.

For more insight, head here.

The post 5 important things that happened in design this week appeared first on Design Week.

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GlaxoSmithKline reveals new smart tech research space

Consultancy PWW has developed pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) new research and development facility, Immersive Intelligent Manufacturing.

The new 697m² “smart space” is designed to demonstrate how “state-of-the-art systems and technologies can be combined in a manufacturing line and environment”, according to the consultancy.

Workshops, manufacturing and collaboration areas

The IIM facility is being used to accelerate technology adoption within GSK, and includes internal and external spaces that are interconnected. The “sandpit”, for instance, encompasses workshops, manufacturing and collaboration areas.

Other design features include a changing room complete with augmented reality lab attire instruction and compliance, which indicates whether the user is dressed correctly or not.

Colour has been used to improve the functionality of the facility by identifying different areas within it, as well as being incorporated in the signage, graphics and user interfaces.

“Show the art of possible”

PKK's design allows for flexible use of the facility, which is considered necessary due to the range of outputs and research carried out there.

Remote working is also possible through the use of technology that helps to control and visualise the manufacturing data.

Head of GSK's IIM project, Patrick Hyett, says: “We wanted to build a facility we can point to and show the art of the possible.”

The post GlaxoSmithKline reveals new smart tech research space appeared first on Design Week.

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Björk Digital: Bringing music to life through virtual reality

Somerset House prides itself on its photography exhibitions but those expecting to see anything two-dimensional within the gallery's latest show will be in for a surprise.

Björk Digital is an exploration of songwriter Björk's 2015 album Vulnicura, using virtual and augmented reality, 360° video, soundscaping and cinema to create an immersive and emotionally stimulating experience.

The exhibition space is split up into eight rooms, each presenting a different virtual environment either through screens or headsets, from an Icelandic landscape to a cosmic view of the universe.

At the centre of each experience is Björk herself, either represented through film in human form, as a virtual creature or even as a body part, as one gruesome piece shows.

While this might seem a little egocentric, there's a point to it the exhibition's use of interactive technology forces viewers to become part of the singer's tormented story. Visitors don't walk around the space surrounded by other people, but are instead trapped in a box with the singer alone.

This turns the exhibition into a deeply personal performance, helping viewers better understand the singer's own emotions throughout the album, from heartache to anger, as Björk herself explains.

“There is something about the 360° staging which is very theatrical and dramatic,” she says. “When you put those goggles on your face, you're in a very theatrical world. As heartbreak is the oldest story there is, I felt it could take this sort of experimentation.”

At the start of the exhibition, visitors enter a room lined with two panoramic screens on opposite walls, playing a short film called Black Lake, which features a distressed Björk strewn across a rocky, volcanic landscape in Iceland. The film, originally commissioned by New York's Museum of Modern Art, is a gentle lull into the more enveloping, solitary experiences which follow.

One of the loneliest and most affecting performances of the show is Stonemilker VR, a lengthy nine-minute-long 360° music video, which disorientates the viewer as they wobblingly swivel round on a stool with a headset on to capture Björk as she circles them against a beach landscape.

"7. — Mouthmantra VR, directed by Jesse Kanda

Things get a lot weirder with Mouthmantra VR, a headset experience filmed from the inside of the musician's mouth, with teeth, tongue and tonsils twirling in full view as she sings.

Stranger still is Notget VR, directed by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones, which sees Björk transform into a bizarre, moth-like creature. The piece requires users to stand rather than sit, allowing you to come within inches of Björk's perturbing, computerised form (or, more likely, back away).

While the majority of exhibits are ready-made interactive experiences packaged up for the audience, the Biophilia space is a more educational platform which lets users select their own journey through an iPad, experiencing different music, visuals, and explore different technologies and musical instruments used within Björk's work.

In fitting fashion with the rest of the show, Björk revealed herself at the private view of the exhibition in digital form. Through the use of a motion capture suit and streaming technology, she appeared on a projection screen as a spacey avatar which mimicked her movements, able to interact with the audience and answer questions.

While seeing Björk in the flesh or simply via video stream might have also done the job, this avatar was a scary demonstration of the growing capability of immersive technology, mirrored throughout the rest of the exhibition.

The show is an eclectic mix some of the digital installations set within a cosmic environment are far removed from reality, while the 360° films trap the viewer within a very real-life world. But all of them prove how, while music and film can be very affecting on their own, technology can enhance and attack a viewer's senses. Björk Digital shows that isolating people within a virtual, non-real environment can ironically incite a lot of real, human emotion.

Björk Digital runs until 23 October 2016 at New Wing, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA. Tickets are £15, or £12.50 concessions.

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Freelance State of Mind: The real value in self-initiated work

It's always there. The latest achingly cool project you've stumbled upon in this crowded creative industry of ours, confronting your confidence, making you feel like you need to tailor your own work according to what is cool and what you think they would want to see in a portfolio.

Then there's a moment when it becomes apparent that you've lost your creative identity and strayed away from those college dreams, directionless and disillusioned. That's where I found myself six months after graduation.

Unless you're very fortunate, making money is essential. I did my fair share of drawing faceless people in suits climbing ladders into money trees among other tired conceptual illustrations for early clients with the best intentions and decent budgets.

“Personal work is easily abandoned in the face of fat salaries”

I held dear to my trust that they would be temporary, earning me the money to transition away from employment towards freelancing as an illustrator where I could be more effective in shaping my own destiny. The jobs that I really desired started to arrive when people saw my personal work, the stuff that is so easily abandoned in the face of fat salaries, trends, mortgages and that TV package.

The world is littered with examples of landmark projects born of expressions of individual experiences, drawing on the world around us. The Office was the product of Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais' comedic study on the world of middle management and one of the most successful self-initiated projects of all time.

I felt a tremendous sense of wonder as a seventeen year old, when Gorillaz arrived on the scene. Seeing what Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn had created made me yearn for the same belonging to something that I loved to do and was my own, despite having no clue where to begin. Some may have called that a fantasy for the young and naïve, but isn't that why we all wished to get into the creative industry in the first place?

I felt the same glowing feeling, a year removed from education, thanks to the roaring laughter in my shared studio when I presented a new illustration, featuring a boxing poster pitting Barack Obama against Hilary Clinton in what I called The Race v Sex Challenge. This was my way of expressing the dismay I felt with the media's persistent focus on the gender or Hilary and the skin colour of Barack.

It was in a meeting with the then design director of The Guardian, that my eyes were opened to the benefits of personal work. Flicking through my portfolio, featuring only one commissioned piece of work and 24 pages of self-initiated pieces, he stopped on The Race Sex challenge and told me that my angle on current affairs was different, funny and interesting. The self-initiated football work I created to show my knowledge was flagged as valuable too. To my surprise, I was working for The Guardian within a couple of months, despite an overwhelming competition field and vast inexperience.

Why personal work pays off

After that, only the commissioned work I enjoyed creating made the portfolio, while many jobs that provided nothing more than money were ruthlessly omitted to avoid attracting similar jobs with no creative benefit. Over 50% of the portfolio were works I had self-initiated, just like the Race v Sex Challenge.

On episode 25 of my Arrest All Mimics podcast, creative agency Human After All discuss how Little White Lies started as a university project and ultimately brought in work for the BAFTAs.

I won my first job outside of editorial illustration, working on a Channel 4 television trailer for season 3 of Skins. A chance meeting with a director from the TV station led him to Tyson v Thatcher, a follow on from The Race Sex Challenge. He found the piece hilarious, daring and saw a playfulness and energy in the work that he felt Skins was crying out for.

The Skins work continued for three years, brought me great creative pleasure and elevated my name, bringing me positive press and other jobs in new fields. Now, with eight years experience, I continue to play, to explore new ideas and harness that precious asset we all possess which is a unique journey.

Getting the balance right

Client work is wonderful and essential, but it is the work we create simply because we want to, out of some deep-rooted necessity owed only to ourselves that embodies the truly refreshing and qualities most likely to attract the work we dream about at college.

Personal connects with a greater number of people while trends are forgotten very fast. The portfolio, no matter the discipline, is not just a showcase of what you've done or can do, but more importantly, has to be a statement of intent, packed with the ideas, honesty, oddity and originality found only in you.

Ben Tallon is a Design Week columnist, illustrator, art director and author of Champagne and Wax Crayons: Riding the Madness of the Creative Industries. He also hosts visual arts podcast Arrest All Mimics.

You can follow him on Twitter at @bentallon and see his portfolios at illustrationweb.com/bentallon and illustrationweb.com/tallontype.

You can read his Freelance State of Mind columns here.

The post Freelance State of Mind: The real value in self-initiated work appeared first on Design Week.

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Design Museum reveals shortlist for Beazley Designs of the Year award

The nominees have been announced for the Design Museum's ninth annual exhibition and awards programme, the Beazley Designs of the Year.

Celebrating the best design from all over the world over the last 12 months, the nominees span six different categories, including architecture; digital; fashion; graphics; product and transport.

The 70 shortlisted designs feature everything from high profile ad campaigns like Apple's Shot on iPhone 6, to innovative solutions to the refugee crisis, such as a flat-pack refugee shelter designed by the IKEA Foundation.

Dreamland Margate and the Channel 4 rebrand

HemingwayDesign's Dreamland Margate theme park is one of the nominees in the architecture category, while the Adidas x Parley running shoe made from illegal deep-sea gillnets and recycled ocean plastics is in the running for the product design prize.

The graphics nominees include the new Channel 4 identity created by 4Creative with Neville Brody and the artwork for the late David Bowie's final album, Blackstar, designed by Jonathan Barnbrook.

And the Lumos smart bicycle helmet is one of the shortlisted transport designs, comprising integrated lights, brakes and turn signals.

Part of opening programme

The nominated designs will form part of the Design Museum's exhibition programme when it moves to its new Kensington location in November. Sketches, physical designs, models and photography for all the nominees will go on display.

A winner will then be selected in each of the categories and an overall winner announced on 26 January 2017.

See the full list of nominees and find out more information about the awards here.

"David — David Bowie Blackstar album artwork

"intheeyesofananimal" — In the Eyes of an Animal

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‘Concrete can be beautiful': readers' modernist American architecture photos

We asked you for images of modernist American architecture. From Chicago concrete to Palm Spring aesthetics, here is what you've discovered

I took this photo during a three month sabbatical spent across Japan and America. Chicago was our final port of call before flying home, and the architecture we saw there was an unexpected surprise and a delight. I hadn't realised the ‘corncob' towers were even in Chicago, though I recognised them from Wilco's “Yankee, Hotel Foxtrot” album cover. I took the photo from the Chicago river as we sailed past on an architecture tour boat. The guide explained how they were part of a wonderful utopian idea to have homes, parking, shops, an auditorium, offices and a marina all in one place to encourage Chicagoans to move back downtown. Hence their name Marina Towers.

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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2016/sep/01/do-pink-floyd-belong-in-museum-v-and-a
Rock's old masters: do Pink Floyd belong in a museum?

The V&A has announced its exhibition dedicated to the psychedelic jesters turned unhip stadium titans. Can they do another Bowie? Is it even art?

Has the V&A gone a veteran rock group too far? Will its Pink Floyd exhibition next year put the public into interstellar overdrive or leave us comfortably numb?

This grand old Victorian museum has sensationally expanded its audiences and horizons in recent years with exhibitions dedicated to Kylie Minogue, David Bowie and opening on 10 September the great psychedelic rock age of the late 1960s. While Kylie may be regarded as a camp fashion-pop detour, David Bowie Is... proved a massive critical and cultural success, helping to generate a timely comeback for the star and enthusiasm from artists who count among Ziggy's most passionate admirers.

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art

Colors by Juan I. Cuadrado

Puesta de sol en la Montaña de Riaño. Sunset in Riaño Mountains.

That'll buff right out, no worries

Somerset House opened a new virtual reality exhibition

WKD had a complete rebrand

Ikea announced it would be opening a do-it-yourself restaurant

The Design Museum revealed the shortlist for its annual design awards

We debated when designers should turn their hand to writing

Workshops, manufacturing and collaboration areas

“Show the art of possible”

“Personal work is easily abandoned in the face of fat salaries”

Why personal work pays off

Getting the balance right

Dreamland Margate and the Channel 4 rebrand

Part of opening programme