Tiaras are magic, ask any girl who knows how to turn herself into a princess. Bompas & Parr’s Magic Crystal Tiara kit, created to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, makes magic even more magical.

As Bompas & Parr say –
Crystals are probably one of the most mysterious things on the planet and so is the Queen. Since the dawn of time crystals have been used for ancient ceremonies and rituals like the coronation. Grow your own magic crystal tiara by adding the crystal solution to the tiara and watch it blossom with white crystals. Don’t drink the solution though – danger of death.

This little kit provides the tools to make magic – on sale at Selfridges on Oxford Street, London for the month of May 2012.

Photo credit: Bompas & Parr

Interactive technology that takes it slow and fast at the same time – The Walker Art Center created analog tweets for the 2012 American Association of Museums Annual Meeting & Museum Expo in Minneapolis.

The idea – You write it, we tweet it. The analog tweet system was created in partnership with Lunalux’s Jenni Undis. It’s a system for connecting with people but done on two very different scales – There is an in-person one-to-one exchange of hand written messages with lovely letterpressed card. Those notes then get sent out to the great wide twittersphere of Walker’s twitter & facebook followers. So that’s one in-person smile and a message out to roughly two thousand people at the same time.

On the Walker blog, Scott Stulen explains how it works:
We partnered with local print shop Lunalux to create telegram-like letterpressed cards. Each card contains metered spaces for the 128 characters (140 minus the #analogtweet hashtag). You are invited to compose your message, remove the perforated receipt, and we will tweet the message and include a picture of the physical card. It is actually hard to compose a tweet without the ability to have characters auto counted and writing it in one draft…don’t worry we have scratch paper!

If you missed the April conference, you can still stop by and send out your own analog tweet through the summer at the Walker’s other long-time lovely project – Open Field.

Photo credit: Scott Stulen

This is bling, it’s tasty celebratory bling. I have to admit it’s not the first time we’ve done this. I also have to admit that the cookie is already fine in the original format – delicious, perfectly portable & edible, and my intervention maybe just complicates things.

But then… what it does do – It’s a way to call out celebration, feels like it’s yours, you get to own it, wear it, feel silly wearing it, eat it.

This batch was made to celebrate the creativity and hard work students put into the final presentation of the week-long Extraordinary Ordinary workshop – A project for Re:Active magazine with Michael Etter and Scott Ponik at Field Work, in Portland, Oregon.

Cookie bling in the audience.

Scott Ponik (left) and Michael Etter.

Go ahead, try it yourself:

Ingredients:
8oz / 200g dark chocolate, broken to pieces
2 cups / 250g all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup / 175 gram / (2.5 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup / 125g packed dark brown sugar
2/3 cup/ 84g granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon mint extract
4 oz / 100g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

Extra supplies:
- bakers twine, found in the cooking supply aisle, cut into lengths of about 30″
- aluminum foil, for wrapping

Directions:
1. Either in a microwave or a double boiler, melt the 8oz. of chocolate, stir until smoothe and let cool.
2. Mix flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.
3. Beat butter in large bowl until creamy, using electric mixer at medium speed. Add sugars and continue beating for 2 to 3 minutes or until mixture is light and fluffy. Add egg, vanilla and mint, and beat well. Stir in cooled chocolate.
4. Beat in flour mixture in two additions, using low speed. Stir in the 4oz. chopped chocolate. Cover and refrigerate until firm, about 4 hours or overnight.
5. Preheat oven to 350°F/ 200°C. Shape dough into chunks and place on prepared baking sheets, place dough on top of a length of string. Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until no imprint remains when lightly touched with finger.
6. Wrap baked, cooled cookies with aluminum foil. Tie string at the ends to make the necklace. Delicious with milk!

How can choreography lift a participatory experience? Move: Choreographing You at the Hayward Gallery, London, showcases the influence of dance on contemporary arts since the 60ies, in an open format for anyone to take part.

The show is very much like a playful choreography workshop. Different tools and set ups invite visitors to explore new ways to move and experience space. Some dance students warm up the air for participation. Guides are also present to help you through a variety of performances. Feel the anxiety of squeezing in Bruce Nauman narrow ‘Green Light Corridor’, test your agility crossing William Forsythe’s ‘The Fact of Matter’, a forest of suspended rings, or challenge your equilibrium while playing with Bodyspacemotionthings, a set of sculptures by Robert Morris…

Everything is in place to have visitors transformed into dancers. Plus, the exhibition is beautifully designed, with giant folded paper sculpture by Amanda Levete Architects that punctuate the visit.

More information here
Interesting article here

Open Museum is an outreach service run by Glasgow Museums in Scotland. They work in partnership with community groups across the city to create handling boxes, reminiscence kits, travelling exhibitions, community venue displays and exhibitions inspired by Glasgow’s collections.

One of their most powerful tools are the Reminiscence Kits on offer through Open Museum to facilitate conversations and look back on times past. Kits focus on specific decades while covering themes from everyday life – Shipbuilding, A night out, Looking good, Tenement life, A night in, The 70s, Holidays, Sports, Shopping…

The Museum collections provide photos and real memorabilia – washboards, vintage fashion accessories, vinyl LPs (including record player) marbles and nappy supplies as talking pieces. What’s great is that the museum provides the structure and you provide the story. Being able to hold the objects from times past is a powerful trigger for bringing up memories and making connections. The kits purposely design experiences meant to make history exciting and personal.

You can find out more about the programme, browse the MUCH longer kit list, and even see the itemized inventory of what’s inside – here.

Rebel Dining Society showcases new and exciting culinary ideas, interactive art concepts and live musical performances that will immerse diners in an atmosphere bound to stimulate the senses and taste buds alike…

To begin the events at this dinner, guests were given instructions – to close their eyes and put their hand over their glasses. After a loud popping noise guests found the room littered with paper strips cut from books. As an ice breaker for a room full of guests who likely did not know each other, the activities of the evening centred around collecting scraps of wording and creating quirky compositions to be read aloud later by the presiding MC.

http://therebeldiningsociety.co.uk

This summer, artist Olafur Eliasson collaborates with architect Ma Yansong to create a sensory installation at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.

The installation challenges visitors’ perception and balance by playing with artificial fog, light spectrum, lowered ceiling and inclined floors — blurring usual references. Senses are fully engaged – visitors have to find new ways to visually and spatially understand their environment in order to navigate through it. This is what we call immersive…

More details (and pictures!) at Designboom.

A similar installation by Anthony Gormley, presented at London’s Hayward Gallery a few years ago moved people in similar ways, this time in a boxy, almost claustrophobic architecture and with intense white, blinding light.

You may find out more about that experience in this article from the Guardian.

For starters, imagining what everything might be like is a great premise to get visitor sensors turned on. The Museum of Everything is a temporary museum dedicated to outsider art. It’s had several iterations, including one that invited folks from all over Great Britain to contribute work for Museum of Everything – Exhibition #2 at Tate Modern.

We visited Museum of Everything – Exhibition #1, whose details caught our eyes and imagination.

Starting off in the lobby, asking for a suggested donation is tricky. Here it was made playful by presenting that step lightly. Suggested donations from £1 – £1million. A great sense of humour goes a long way and visitors gladly paid non-obligatory entry fees.

Exhibition #1 was selected by leading contemporary artists, curators & cultural figures. Every display label gives a personal statement by the selecting person, explaining what’s interesting and why they chose it. The small shift in presentation format (from more formal, singular description of works) makes for labels everyone wants to read!

EVERYthing, NOthing, LAST Thing – The museum is full of rules & clues for what to do. The tone here is good-natured egging on and enouragement to keep exploring.

The whole museum was adapted to its space with artworks in odd nooks and niches. This gets visitors ducking, climbing and peeking, which can sometimes feel like an art treasure hunt.

It opens up main gallery that’s so tall, the exhibition team provided benches with binoculars for far away viewing.

For good measure, magnifying sheets are also provided for super close-up viewing. It’s playful low-tech interactive.

Sprinkled throughout are low-brow good humoured instructions. In the gift shop (just beyond the sign announcing LAST thing) you can pick up some tasteful swag, including yummy sweets of everything.

The tricky part – It’s both temporary and nomadic, you’ve gotta catch it! Since our first visit, the museum has generated versions #2, #3, and #4.

Every institution has a tone of voice, a personality it presents to visitors. In this case the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark – reached via a short train ride from Copenhagen, in the village of Humlebaek – the tone is open.

On arrival, it feels like walking up to someone’s house – well, that’s because it is a house. One previously owned by Alexander Brun who happened to have had three wives over his lifetime, all by the name of Louise… and that’s how we arrive at Louisiana.

The house serves as a welcoming entry point and opens up to a sprawling building with loads of airy spaces and corridors to explore. Windows everywhere, it’s full of light and vistas onto the surrounding sculpture gardens. And then there are the terraces which open directly to water – the Øresund straight, off the Baltic Sea.

Photo credit: João Leitão

This oasis is the setting for consumption of an excellent permanent collection and rotating exhibitions of modern art. It’s a must-do Danish destination.

But the best, most lovely part – is when you stumble upon the Children’s Wing. It doesn’t feel exclusively like a children’s space, it feels open to those who want to create. This creative space is allowed to get dirty and visitors leave their creative tracks behind.

Permanent tinkering space – the lego area.

Activity rooms are transformed by curatorial themes, where visitors can explore creative methods connected to the art seen in current shows. In this case it’s Brassai, his distinct black and white imagery, made simple by letting visitors have free reign manipulating images with a photocopier machine.

Binders show the breadth of past creative activities.

Surfaces are covered- trash bins, sinks, windows show layers of heavy use.

The roaming activity cart can set up shop anywhere in the museum.

In addition to the creative magic oozing out of the Children’s wing, there’s one more magical treat – Louisiana is also home to a concert hall which hosts a regular programme of top notch music. In warmer seasons, you’ll be treated to performances outdoor on the terraces looking out on the water.

Photo credit: Peter Fristedt

Check out their site to find out more, and visit!