We arrived at Campus-Party in Valencia, Spain to show Hug Shirts in a performance/demo in the afternoon but we soon learned that we were also scheduled for a big press conference starting almost immediately! The mannequins were already in place and quickly we put the Hug Shirts on them. With only a few minutes to go until the press arrived, we realized that mannequins wearing only shirts look a little… well, naked! We needed to find a way to clothe them and of course no one had extra clothes on hand.

However, in a moment of inspiration Francesca asks our hosts, “Do you have some extra CampusParty t-shirts?” Naively I wondered, “What are we going to do with shirts?” But, Francesca had a plan :) Literally within seconds she transformed the cool black t-shirts into really stylish looking skirts for the mannequins. During the press conference they complimented us on the design of the Hug Shirts and also on the skirts that went with them!

So, since really cool and affordable t-shirts are popping up every where these days (and really cool, affordable skirts are not), we thought you’d also be interested in how to make this kind of instant skirt! So, you ask, how can I make a snazzy skirt from a t-shirt? (in less than a minute?) Here’s how:

1. Get a large shirt you think will make a good skirt and that you are willing to sacrifice to the gods of fashion. Suggestion: Steal your boyfriend’s death-metal shirt! You’ll be doing him a favor.
2. With a fine pair of scissors or a seam ripper, cut the collar in 2 places where the shoulders are and open the top shoulder seam a little. This opening is the waist, so don’t open it too much at first. Try it on and see how much you need to open it.
3. Turn the sleeves inside to make pockets! If you want to get really fancy and make pockets that you can actually put something in you can turn the whole skirt inside-out so that you can stitch across the sleeve opening to close the pocket.
4. Finally, if you want extra refinement you can add a snap or tie-string at the waist to keep that skirt clinging to the hips. And voilá: A new skirt with a fancy 40s style tulip shape!

(click image for slightly larger version)

Thanks to all the folks at CampusParty for hosting a very unique and enjoyable event!

Now you can see all that we do at CuteCircuit at the new pictures page! We update the page very often with albums containing images from workshops, travels, and exhibits.

The most recent albums include the graduation show from Interaction Ivrea and the Future Fashion Show in Pisa.
Please contact us if you need hi-res images, we will be glad to send them to you!

London is cool every day of the week! Last night we went to the ICA Cinema, Institute for Contemporary Arts in London, for the screening of the Mirromask the fantasy movie written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Dave Mackean. Neil Gaiman is known for the series The Sandman, for the book Coraline, and dozens of other works. He also worked as a journalist and wrote a biography about Duran Duran! For the anime lovers: he also wrote the English script for Princess Mononoke!!! He also has a website, where you can keep up to date on his work.

Dave McKean directed beautifully, and the movie has a fantastic mix of fantasy visuals and suprisingly blue oceans from the coastal town of Brighton, that strangely reminded me of southern France. See his amazing illustrations on his personal website. I really love the Sphinx cats with rainbow wings!!!

If you are in London you should absolutely visit the ICA, they have several exhibits, movie screenings, a bar and club, and they also gift you with books and magazines. Last night we got a book about British Brands where more than half are Italian or American, and the latest issue of Dazed Magazine, that is really worth getting anyway since it features an article about John Maeda’s work and his 40th birthday!

See Dazed website.

We found these two lovely OwlParrots while wandering in the lane off Cheshire Street (London). Thought they were extremely cool.

Learned recently that this nice image was a solution to the tagging graffiti that was going on (you can see it under the birds). The building owner was getting sick of painting over the ‘tags’ and asked this artist to do something nice there. Now, the tagging has stopped! Cool. Respect.

On sunday evening we went to listen to Peter Sellars lecture at Teatro Palladium in Rome. The lecture was about art as a social action and Mozart! He talked about the new opera he is setting up in Wien for the Mozart celebrations in 2006 and gave a very inspired overview of what art can do for social inclusion. He is a great guy! Here is a short biography from Wikipedia. The recent opera Dr Atomic was staged in San Francisco last month.

Last week we went to see/hear the performance INSEN a great work from Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Japanese pianist and composer and Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai). The performance was excellent! Beautiful visuals such as gigantic stylized donuts were appearing, changing shape/color and vibrating from a huge LED screen during Sakamoto’s solos. The visuals were designed by Karl Kliem founder of the label Dienststelle. We spent some time trying to understand were the sensors where placed (yes, we are a little geeky when it comes to this).

To see some of the visuals you can visit Ryuichi Sakamoto blog, and to listen to the concert visit the Raster-Noton site.

This is a fantastic ice cream place: Fassi “Il Palazzo del Freddo” (the Palace of Cold), is an ice cream parlor in activity (still in the same place) since 1891!!! Their famous gelato is called “pezzo duro” (the hard chunk), and is a 8 cm diameter, 5 centimeters thick chocolate ice cream cilinder… Try it, is delicious, they cover it with a huge amount of whipped cream too.

Inside the store you can see ice cream machines from 1930s and a collection of their advertising posters from the same period. They were also famous in Europe for being the first to deliver ice cream from Rome to London (1934), with a special way to preserve it from melting! This is a real working example of good service design!

This is the book to read! John Thackara’s In the Bubble Designing in a Complex World. Published by the MIT Press .

We love mobile phones!!! Lovely Nokias are our obsession, they look cute and colorful, very stylish and kinky, like our friend Livia mobile that you see in the pic!

Ginza, a recent entry in our sushi list. We decided to abandon all the others! Is fantastic, with a nice relaxed atmosphere (they don’t try to rip your money off like in other sushi places in Rome) and the Japanese staff is lovely! Is the only Japanese restaurant in Rome that makes excellent unaju (a bed of rice covered with a layer of eel) just for connoisseurs…