September 30, 2012
Artist and inventor Dave Hakkens was fascinated by the fact that porcelain shrinks when you bake it. He used that notion to create a series of jugs where each jug formed the basis of a cast for the next one.
Starting out with a 5 litre jug he ended up with 14 jugs, of which the smallest has a volume of 10 millilitres. The jugs are for sale.
See also: Two inventions—a charger in a safe, and a power strip in a book (and a bonus invention)
(Link: Bright. Photo: Dave Hakkens)
Tags: Dave Hakkens, jugs, porcelain
September 29, 2012
Jan-Dirk van der Burg curated an exhibition called Censorship Daily which is on display now at the Persmuseum.
It shows the handiwork of Iran’s censors with regards to Dutch newspapers. NRC has a selection at their Inbeeld website.
Van der Burg is a photographer whom we wrote about before.
Tags: censorship, Iran, Jan-Dirk van der Burg, NRC, Persmuseum
September 28, 2012
Last March, the world famous, colourful Bill Cosby sweaters got their own blog, which was an opportunity to remind everyone that they were all designed by Dutchman Koos van den Akker.
This week until October 7 at Theater Bellevue in Amsterdam, Van den Akker, 73, will be on stage being interviewed — all very spontaneously — by friend and acteur Marcel Musters. In a performance entitled ‘Rietje meets Koos’, Musters plays a middle aged woman who is a big Cosby fan and is excited to discover that Van den Akker designed those sweaters.
Van den Akker’s jackets, sweaters and shirts have a carefully crafted collage style, works of art that are now a source of inspiration to designers such as America’s Marc Jacobs.
(Link: www.elsevier.nl, Photo of Cosby sweater by Felix Jackson, Jr., some rights reserved)
Tags: Amsterdam, Bill Cosby, Koos van den Akker, theatre
September 27, 2012
The Dutch use English swear words all the time now, including at work where an employee of food wholesaler Sligro called his team leader a ‘fucking whore’ (in Dutch, ‘fucking hoer’) and was fired on the spot for it.
The employee who had been working there for 10 years was all like fuck this shit and sued his employer. Usually, in the Netherlands if an employer wants to fire an employee they have to go to a judge to ask permission, except when it is down on the spot according to severe guidelines. The story goes that a group of employees had issues with the team leader and like the Dutch say, the tall tree catches the wind.
Not only does the employee get their job back if they want it, but they will also be paid for the time they could not work. Yes, it’s not nice to call your superior a ‘fucking whore’, but it’s not grounds for dismissal, just grounds for some finger wagging.
On a similar note, back in 2011, a Dutch court ruled that ACAB was not insulting to cops, an abbreviation meaning ‘All Cops Are Bastards’, which was tattooed on some guy’s body while another guy had it printed on a jacket.
(Link: www.welingelichtekringen.nl, Photo of Middle finger by Jone Samsa, some rights reserved)
September 26, 2012
Rotterdam artist Florentijn Hofman, the guy who brought us the big cute ducks, big bunnies in Sweden and in Nijmegen, and much more greatness, just finished a show in Angers, France with giant slugs made of plastic bags (slideshow).
The work is made out of 40.000 plastic bags that move in the wind. The slugs are ascending this steep city staircase that leads up to a huge Catholic church, essentially signifying their slow crawl towards death. The work reminds us of religion, mortality, natural decay and the slow suffocation of commercialized societies.
(Link: www.designboom.com, photo florentijnhofman.nl)
Tags: Florentijn Hofman, France, Rotterdam, slugs
September 25, 2012
HEMA, one of the country’s favourite stores, has started selling headscarves — the only major Dutch chain ever to do so. They are selling an ‘easy to wear’ version and a ‘traditional’ version, both at difference prices and in a range of colours.
Ironically, last year in Genk, Belgium a HEMA employee was threatened with the non-extension of her work contract for wearing a headscarf and refusing to take it off. In their defense, the Belgian shop said they didn’t want employees with any kind of religious symbols, not even heavy tattoos or piercings.
The Netherlands has no problems with employees wearing headscarves, and in many other stores they have colour coordinated ones that match the corporate image, making it a non-issue.
I recently bought some stuff at HEMA and the male employee had a visible ‘Live fast die soon’ tattoo that attracted my attention, but didn’t diminish the good service.
(Link: www.z24, Photo of Women wearing head scarves by http://www.flickr.com/photos/limbic/, some rights reserved)
Tags: headscarf
September 24, 2012
A two-metre-tall wooden penis was found to be insulting by a judge in Breda last Wednesday. Artist Peter de Koning of Steenbergen in Noord Brabant had made the statue to protest the way a police officer had treated his daughter. The officer had allegedly groped the girl from his car under the pretext of searching for marijuana late last year.
A note attached to the statue read “Protest statue, Nico van den Wijngaard, Steenbergen police”. Insulting the police is illegal in the Netherlands.
The court has sentenced De Koning to a suspended fine of 1,000 euro and also declared that the statue should be returned to its maker, BN De Stem reports. The police have yet to comply with that part of the verdict, according to Algemeen Dagblad.
In the meantime Van den Wijngaard has been transferred to a different patrol territory, for the second time in two years.
(Photo by Alan Woo, some rights reserved. Video: YouTube / Omroep Brabant)
Tags: Breda, Peter de Koning, police, statues, Steenbergen
September 23, 2012
De Veilige Veste (‘the Safe Fortress’) in Leeuwarden is an old police station repurposed as a shelter for young women who have become the victims of ‘lover boys’ (young pimps), abuse, human trafficking and the likes.
KAW Architects write: “these girls used to be hidden from view, but modern media hound them. That is why shelter organisation Fier Fryslân came up with the idea of ‘visible but safe’.”
The building will house up to 48 women aged 15 to 23, and still have room for 1600 square metres of office space. Visitors will have to pass four security measures to get in. Fier Fryslân figures these measures will hardly be necessary, as the perpetrators typically don’t want to come out in the open anyway.
If you don’t understand what they say in this video by Omrop Fryslan, don’t worry, neither do we. It is presented in Frisian, although the interviews are in Dutch.
(Link: Inhabitat. Image: KAW Architects)
Tags: domestic violence, Friesland, Frisian, human trafficking, Leeuwarden
September 22, 2012
Meet Hector, a robot developed by Dutch company Smart Homes (with the help of a lot of partners across Europe). His task is to help dementia sufferers around the home, and as a result help them be able to live at home longer.
Hector is an in-home caregiver for elderly people who have mild cognitive impairment. It provides reminders for everyday tasks, like taking medications, calling people back and storing grocery lists. For individuals experiencing occasional memory loss, it’s no doubt useful to have Hector collect wallet and keys. Hector can even detect falls and respond to verbal commands. He’s like a walking, talking smartphone, with a much larger touch screen and smarter “brain.”
Hector works by presenting his owner with reminders from time to time. It also monitors the owner’s health.
Not unrelated: researchers from the Radboud University in Nijmegen have called for a rethink of end-of-life care due to the ageing population, BBC reports.
(Source image: screenshot from the video. Video: Youtube / Smart Homes.)
September 21, 2012
Dutch researchers have won two Ig Nobel prizes this year, fun science awards which ‘honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think’.
Researchers Anita Eerland, Rolf Zwaan and Tulio M. Guadalupe of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam won the psychology prize for their study on why leaning to the left makes the Eiffel Tower seem smaller.
US-based Dutch biologist Frans de Wal and American partner Jennifer Pokorny won the anatomy prize for research showing that chimpanzees can recognize their fellow chimps from photographs of their butts.
The Dutch have won many times before. We posted about rats that cannot tell between Japanese and Dutch in 2007 and research on reducing astma symptoms by taking people for a roller coaster ride in 2010.
(Link: www.dutchnews.nl)
Tags: Eiffel tower, Ig Nobel Prize
