Orishas are the divine spirits West African (Yoruba) Vodun Religion. These spirits embody human values, qualities and natural phenomena. It is a common thing to see people manifested by an orisha as part of a vodun ritual.
The masculine figure is a hybrid of “Ogun” – god of iron, blood and rage, and “The Shadow” (Ha’tsel) – an Israeli a nationalist, chauvinist, militant rapper that gathered and formed “The Shadow’s Lions” – to protect Israel’s honor and foil left wing protests during operation “Protective Edge”.
The feminine figure is a hybrid between “Oya” (lansa) – goddess of the Niger River, storm, women and change, and “Abad” (Ortal Ben-Dayan) – a fashionista and a radical social activist (leftist, feminist, Mizrahi) that wouldn’t hesitate using violence when facing social borders and “red lines”.
Extreme religious manifestation of the pagan practice and violence are inseparable. The project tries to expose the moral relativism concerning violence in supposedly humanistic Israeli Hiloni culture.
A Design Kit for Shared Spaces in Elementary Schools
Illich Design Booklet – Click for further reading (hebrew only)
The kit enables a unique PBL process for study groups for children in the age of 8-10 years to evolve better feeling of belonging and linkage towards the physical space and educational process, in order to improve the quality of education.
Illich was my bachelor’s final project (Instructed by Prof. Kenneth Segal) in Hadassah AC Jerusalem.
I chose to focus on elementary schools in Israel – as a territory and as a pedagogical interface – because for me they were design hazards, mainly because most of them ignore many needs of the main user – the child.
Indirect Learning at Hanisuiy Elementary School – Jerusalem.
Most of my field study was made in Hanisuiy School, Jerusalem. Out of many schools I fell in the charm of this one – an “experimental” approach, very open and accepting – as long as my ideas are good for the kids. Many of the study hours in the school are spent not in classes, but in dedicated areas in the corridors and niches generally referred as Merhavim (“Shared Spaces”).
Toho Va’vohu (Chaos) – my first activity in Hanisuiy School, Jeusalem. Children reclaiming the shared space, changing it’s designation.
These “Spaces” are areas for different courses involving working in groups, Project Based Learning processes and crafts, and indirect classes such as studying math through card games or monopoly. These courses go twice a day, each lasting 1.5 hours.
“Creating Spaces” first booklet – Building our own tools – Click for further reading (hebrew, with many illustrations)
I looked at how children created and interfered with their space and wanted to create a platform to help them make school their own, the way they want it to look. I created a course for environment design and furniture building with two groups of 12 children.
In the course we re-thought the different possibilities existing in the shared spaces and examined specific needs, and came out with prototypes and re-designed a small space for relaxing, playing and watching movies. I tried to include as many reversible manipulations in the products, to make the experimentation less despondent and more exciting.
Through this process I found children were motivated by making relevant decisions about their environment. This made me decide to make a platform for design-groups that could design their own space from a kit, and chose to focus on a table, and a stool and a divider. The furniture is made mainly from birch boards, textile and connectors for different structures and assembling.
illich is all about sharing knowledge and experience – inside the community and between communities. The kit parts are made in local workshops to enable a continuous bottom-up relationship between schools, designers and the industry. The kit is hack-friendly and as modular as can be – all parts are reusable and 100% recyclable/eco-friendly.
Suf (סוּף) – a 33 cm (13″) Seder plate. locally designed and made in Israel.
the pictures are of the limited 2018 edition – a first generation of only 10 pieces, made from the original 3D printed mold with a mirror finish.
This item is sold exclusively through my online store.
A first product from the upcoming “Nudaica” – a modernist approach to judaica items – stunning flowing shapes with dynamic and organic features made by integrating old crafts with advanced CAD technology.
I love creating new shapes. Lately I started taking shapes more seriously and studied some advanced parametric & surfacing tools to achieve a wider set of approaches to making accurate shapes. there is no doubt elegant styling is always exciting, but I’m more concerned about creating objects that are simple, yet the opposite of boring.
This plate was made after a long time thinking what “Secular Tradition” means. at my mother’s house we have a good old ornamented plate which is very special to me – but it does not seem as if such plate would fit my kind of seder. as a Hiloni jewish designer looking at what one could purchase for a better Pesakh experience I sadly observed how nowdays lasercut designs flow the markets. the pieces are banal decorations with holes for small round bowls, which cost a fortune and are far more depressing then the old ones. I know “suf” has a place on my table, not only once every couple of years – but any day.
Passover is all about the way you tell the story of exodus. in an age of smartphones and streaming – I wished for something to keep the family gaze right at the middle of the table. this plate is a suggestion for a clearer medium on which each family could errange their version of the exodus.
Once again, I was proudly given the right of designing the Poetry Slam Israel Award. Unveiled at the Grand Slam 7.1.18 at the Tel-Aviv Opera House.
The “Gentle Wrestling Belt” concept was developed using a mix of visual motives that resemble the careful nature of poetry – Feathers, Leaves, Flowers and birds tied up to a collage of “Blasting” kindness, refined to resemble a crochet pattern.
The artificial leather belt was then hand cut, Painted and studded with double plated laser-cut Decorations and covered by a giant coated stainless-steel buckle.
-2016-
Designing the 4th Golden Mic Poetry Slam Israel Award. I always had a thing for mics & bling, so designing this one was kind of quick. a short sketch, and a few hard tests on the new metal laser cutter at work (Sharfman metal industries) and finally a beautifully accurate brass cut, accompanied with a goldie looking chain and a fitted nail – to etch your name on the black coated aluminum back.
all photos courtesy of Shhigg / Poetry Slam Israel.
Precious Plastic is a global community of hundreds of people working towards a solution to plastic pollution.
8.2018 UPDATE!!
I just finished repairing the shredder, the injection machine has a new screw die and the new extruder is just a tweak away from showing us what it’s made for!
many tests and molds were made since the machines moved to T.A. and soon we will move to a new home, nice and tidy – ready for production and open courses!
2.18 first tests for good old pizza-tray clocks!
4.18 Our first mezuzahs are out there
5.18 the making of Frames
6.18 First pair of Frames (Designed by Idan Angel)
8.18 first (serious) compression mold – cant wait to see the baked goods!
8.18 new laser cut molds for coasters, jewelry and more!
2.2018 the machines are now at Tel Aviv Central Station as part of ONYA collective’s project “HARAMPA”! We invite you to follow us on PLSTLV – help us spread the word <3<3<3
About the lab
On april 2016 I was exposed to Dave Hakkens’ Idea and looked for partners to build a R&D Center for Low-Tech plastic design. I Joined “Kayamuta” collective (an eco-active group and friends I knew from the days when I ran “Kehila Lema’an”) and together we started the first “Precious Plastic” community in Israel.
Long weekends of working with wonderful people in “Hamiffal” resulted in a working factory with a small plastic shredder, Heat-Compressor, an Injection molding machine and an almost finished 1″ Die Extrusion Machine.
Along 2016-17 we had open workshops on plastic up-cycling and recycling. We collaborated with David Schatz, an Industrial Design student from Bezalel who helped us create our Injection molding machine, and hosted his final project “Handmade Plastic”.
Randozilla is a 4-track digital audio recorder – sampler that builds up tracks randomly.
Take this autonomic device anywhere noisy enough and start tweaking!
Turn on, Choose tempo (50-250 BPM, BPM button + Random knob) and the number of channels (1-16, Buildup button+Random knob) and press REC!
the sampler starts catching sounds from the environment, choosing a proper channel and compressing the sound to better suit the newborn beat.
you can now choose the ΔRandom(tm) of the whole track (which is destructive) – this also affects all 16 channels separately.
Record to track (TrackPad 1-4 + REC button) – this track is now saved and is part of the piece. you can now
Play with it undestructively
Combine 2 tracks to a 3rd track
Delete Track
The Whole piece is saved when shut down and can be transferred to WAV/Cubase file
About the work in progress
Randozilla Sampler was made as part of a course given by Yoram Pony at hadassa ACJU on my 5th semester (2.2014). the course focused on design for sound, and street life. I started with concepts for 6 different apps and devices that go on the line between street music and guerilla activities, Drawing inspiration from rebels, ninjas, bards and musicians alike. I was aiming for dynamic urbanism – Piracy, Gamification, Versatility and environmental interaction.
I realised later that aiming for the streets means aiming for the outer shell, and that means trends. I wanted to create a device that lives longer, looks ageless, and still plays today’s rules – Simplifying and gamifying hobbies for the masses, making the creating of street music more cheap, fun and intuitive.
and still – making a non-app interface. I didn’t want any touchscreen interaction, in fact, when you feel the vibe – screens just suck, and flat surfaces are such a bore. no one would ever feel like a DJ sliding nobs with 3 finger tablet gestures. and I wanted pushy buttons, and a big, badass heavy knob in the middle of the whole thing.
I first worked on the design/interface architecture, the way you would with Apps, to simplify what the user -needs- to know in order to use it naturally, and all the boring stuff he doesn’t need in order to feel it just right. For a designer, it’s a little like writing the script before you write a synopsis, and it did feel a little like engineering at that part.
and then I could go and
I first worked on the design/interface architecture, the way you would with Apps, to simplify what the user -needs- to know in order to use it naturally, and all the boring stuff he doesn’t need in order to feel it just right. For a designer, it’s a little like writing the script before you write a synopsis, and it did feel a little like engineering at that part.
after the -boring- yet fascinating for me part, I went to really understand the FEEL of a live act, and aimed at how I would like to imagine that. I listened to lots of M83, Venetian snares and Aphex Twin in order to get my fingers moving the right directions.
And on to mock ups, testings… When I finally understood it wouldn’t cost much to make it flat today, and measure something like a Galaxy Note II, I went to design the final model.
The video is of course a concept demonstration. we are now working on a working prototype, mostly coding and trying to find cheaper solutions for production.
I really feel this is a gift for 16-year-old me (;
Shhigg
Hoisa Pencil Box is a camoflage kit for hiperactive and compulsive students. (Co. Designer – Aviad Zemah)
Hoisa Pencil Box was proposed by Aviad Zemah and I as a final in Design Strategy Course given by Dina Shahar at Hadassa ACJU on my 6th semester (6.2014).
Hoisa’s simple and quiet design was inspired by the many designs of Naoto Fukasawa, Sam Hecht and Oki Sato, But mainly by our colleague Ram. The course’s brief stated we should first go and make a short clip that best describes another student, without showing him or her.
Prior to Hoisa, Aviad and I made two more products under the pseudo-brand Ferrami – “Pegasus” A luggage tag and “Canter” Tabletop toy-horse, which both express Ram’s playful, silly yet bold attitude.
(Brief information in my Thingyverse page or by clicking on each image below)
Muki – Mohawk Cutter
Kipi – Yamulka Maker
I like 3D printing. for me, it’s like an intermediate course in LEGO – just that instead of the Wooshy Bricky sound in the living room – there are the quiet tweets of a RepRap printer in my small home studio while the build happens on its own.
This project was the final in a course discussing technology given by Atar Brosh on my 6th semester (6.2014). I was trying to break the barear of the 1$ shave (which is’nt hard – no shipping, no billing, no middle man – just print and use with good-old standard razors) , but found myself making something much more interesting.
The first razor I ever printed
2014 heading north – 3D printing is common, RepRap is a well recognised technology, self-customization and product modification is not a dream in the tech-talk – it’s a cliché. Musicians, Makers, Fixperts, Hackers, Terrorists – are all individuals acting in the tribes they choose to act in, re-designing reality. this glocal revolution is a huge step towards a post modern, chaotic world, full of anarchy and opportunities, just like the one described by Phil lord and Christopher miller in their 2004 “LEGO Movie” as “Cloud Cuckoo Land”:
and that is why LEGO – The movie is not only totaly awesome and best movie of 2014, but also (in my personal view) is more relevant then captain obvious’ psychological thriller “her” (Spike Jonze, 2013) ever was. LEGO says that not only sometimes the right thing is to build a spaceship, but also that the only person who can save reality is a master-builder (thus a radical, talented designer, unbowed to standards ). Also it states that in a utopian, chaotic world, were there is an abundance of world saving, genuine, creative change agents, maybe the most special one is the one that will use instructions when most people would’nt.
the two “double-decker couches” (if you wish to call them that way) with their eclectic design, use many structural methods that fit 3D Printing unlike any other technology. you might also say that they resemble legos – shiny colors, no screws just instant-snaps. they are a call for a new esthetic etiquette, coded by new radicals, working in this new technological environment. he should thrive , just like any avant-guard creator prior to him, to break the chains of past tradition in order to create something new.
Modern designers said – less is more, 1 size fits all, mass production, mass housing, Ronald Mc’Donalds, Fords and Levy’s. Universal (Inclusive) designers are search the answers where thwy see rare disabilities – OXO good grips is always the best worn example for this. I went on a more Brutalistic aproach this semester, and my say was – to each his own, and to each his own Tribe.
“#JEWDONTGETTO – If I’m not Jewish – No one is” – is one idea for a social network counter act as part of the new “tribal” activity.
On his book, “Makers – The New Industrial Revolution” Tim Brown states that following the mass infestation of 3D printers, the first industry that will probably have a very hard time will be the toy industry. the people at LEGO know this, but they shouldn’t worry – many toys will be printed and designed by us master builders, but people actually enjoy following instructions.
– –
2014 heading north – my wish is that more designers will stop designing cheap expensive toys, in exchange for better use of their time in changing sad truths. one is that most people still follow the instructions and playing part of a team, weather it’s their goal they are fighting for or not.
Hebrew settlement (התיישבות עברית co. designer Tal Shalev) – how would you make an Israeli, DIY chair? We chose Settlements as a raw material to revive into chairs. this is what we found.
the Israeli method of raising kids is a lot like scaffolding – empowering suitability and Capability, encouraging self experiences and exploration. our narratives are those of Traveling and settlement, destruction and revival. This is who we are. Israeli means Lean. We were wishing to make local, lo-cost, purposeful design.
We started this project thinking about the “products afterlife” as a point of view about the settlements in the west bank. we thought we will find remnants of civilisation after a place was evicted, which we totally found in few abandoned neighbourhoods in Elon Moreh, but we found the stories are much stronger than the items, and telling a solid story is more interesting than glewing stuff together into a collage chair.
The media depicts settlers as the problem. Cameras are always pointed at 15-year-old kids spraying graffiti on walls, going to destroy crops – these rascals are those few that ruin it for the most. The real “hard-core” of Yitshar, one of the most notorious settlements, is consisted by people living there for more than 30 years, raising children and planing on raising their grandchildren there.
These great, smart, idealistic, brave people are not our problem. in another scenario they were our social active neighbours, our leaders, our teachers, philosophers. the problem is the grotesque and inhuman policy of our government, and any enlightened government, towards individuals.
most people can not carry their day-to-day understanding that the government is the problem, because they live in a misconception that there is some sort of divine order and that in the core – there is something other than personal interests and beliefs.
Concrete was the main mass of our final design. In Yitshar we found most buildings are not made with building blocks but the terrace – the foundation is made of concrete. We wanted to find out what happens to a solid concrete block that you poor to the ground with the intention of pulling it out later on. what stories does it tell?
Our most important lesson from this very intense experience was that of peace. racism and any sort of collective hate can be terminated by a common denominator. once we try to reach and understand each other, we can see that we are humans, and our personal interests and beliefs may not be the same – but we all have them, and that doesn’t go without saying.
Gardening is one of my many hobbies, I like to think about low and high tech related ideas about how could we make gardening (and agriculture) more effective. this one was waiting in my drawer until 2014. it was a course called “plastics 101” and the tutor (Avi Cohen – design44) came to us with an LED flashlight and told us to redesign the case, with the included components, to meet a new scenario.
I smiled, and Immediately Sketched down what I had in mind. It was the shape of a sprout of some sort, a leaf or a mushroom, an objectification for the godmother fairy of the garden.
“Cleon” makes you care better for your plants. Whether you place it in a planter or in an outdoor garden. It reminds you to water the plants when it’s dark – and tells you which land is dry in which is moist – which also means you know if there is not enough drainage.
The course was mainly focused on design for injection molding – so I thought about having fun with it and committed to a complex, top heavy, organic shape.
The Product’s ribs and bosses are meant to keep the shell firm and hold the components together, but I couldn’t think of seeing rectangular grids through the glass clear polycarbonate lid. I built a leaf-like structure to support the console.
I had a strong commitment to make this product adhesive free and still waterproof, so everything had to snap together perfectly.
Later I found I could create a diagonal faced mold, making the product’s ribs and bosses a supporting skeleton for its vertical structure when being stuck to the ground.
This project focused on light, but my head is still working and my drawer is still full. I am searching for ways to measure different parameters from the soil (such as acidity and conductivity), making it part of the “Internet Of Things” – creating smarter interfaces between us and our environment.
