Retrospective on Futurism: N55

What snail shells and walking houses have to do with 13 years of art-science.

Remember Danish art collective N55 of walking house fame? Turns out they’ve been in the business of revolutionary ideas since 1996, and they have a book to prove it.

The N55 BOOK is a 200-page tome chronicling 7 years of innovative thinking — an accumulation of manuals for various things made by N55, from a clean air machine to a modular boat to a portable fish farm.

Perhaps the most fascinating part is the incredible retrospective the book provides on the relationship with public space and the art-science of sustainability — something that only recently reached critical mass, but has clearly been on the minds of the brightest creative innovators for nearly two decades.

Besides the practical concept-models playing with space and motion, the book also includes a series of exceptionally compelling essays on broader themes like the intersection of art and reality, the ownership of knowledge, and the ritual of living.

There is no meaning in talking about art without imagining persons, their behaviour, things and concrete situations. When one wants to talk about art, one must therefore talk about: persons and their behaviour with other persons and things in concrete situations.

The N55 BOOK is available as a free PDF download. It comes highly recommended as an intellectual and creative indulgence.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 6:45 am in art, culture, design, health, sustainability and was tagged art, books, cool, culture, design, free, innovation, science, sustainability.