#FYI: Music videos from outer space and other cool shit…

At one small seed we believe in the power of unique ideas and novel concepts. Ranging from technology, design, art and music, we’ve compiled a collection of crazy, fascinating, funny and bizarre findings that we think would be of interest to you. Here are some of our favourite finds this past week. Stay tuned for weekly material…

Levitation Bicycle by DEzien

Image: dezien.com

Design outfit DEzien has released blueprints for a futuristic bicycle that can charge cellphones. The concept bicycle is called Levitation and it features an integrated battery that is charged as the bicycle is ridden. Although the battery does not power the bicycle — which means your legs will can still get a killer workout — the battery can be used to charge mobile devices through a USB port that is neatly stashed into a removable handlebar grip. A wire would then be snaked into the port and attached to a cellphone to recharge its battery. The design includes a plan to make Levitation powerful enough to power electric cars, which is surprising considering the bicycles operates through USB ports. DEzien has also made provisions for the bicycle to be decked out with an LED display that illustrates the charge level of the battery, and a Wi-Fi hotspot to keep riders connected as they move. While Levitation is still being sketched and finalised, bicycle riders can expect a future of brilliant technology if the bicycle comes into fruition.

Grindrite ‘weed-stasher’ Watch

Image: gizmodo.com

Image: hightimes.com

The creatives at Vaporite have produced an interesting little watch that has a secret box to stash some herb. The nifty device has a removable watch face with a smell-proof space underneath to hide a few grams of weed. The Grindrite is also embedded with a mini herb grinder so that when 4:20 comes wearer’s are ready to go. While some might have doubts about the watch’s ability to function as a reliable timepiece, the Grindrite serves its purpose brilliantly.

PUNK: Chaos to Couture by Metropolitan Museum of Art

Image: dazeddigital.com

The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has released their annual exhibition showpiece and its theme is punk. The exhibition — called PUNK: Chaos to Couture — features a 100 costume designs for men and women ranging from original grunge punk garments from the mid-1970s to modern contemporary high fashion. The Costume Institute pays homage to punk and its influence on haute couture and ready-to-wear clothing lines, aiming to unveil the extent of punk’s impact of the fashion we wear and see. The exhibition artfully contrasts the ‘make it yourself’ concept of punk with the ‘tailored’ aesthetic of haute couture, illustrating how the two worlds interact to produce some of the most contemporary designs pieces. Presented as an immersive multimedia, multisensory experience, the clothes will be animated with period music videos and soundscaping audio techniques to mesh the feel of the 1970s anti-establishment atmosphere with the millenium age. The exhibition is on view from May 9 through August 14 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Exchange by NATIVE

Image: facebook.com

Launched by NATIVE, The Exchange is the world’s first ever cashless fashion boutique. Of course a cashless fashion boutique begs the questions: how do we pay for clothes? Well, while the clothing isn’t free, The Exchange is a concept created to aid those in need of organ donations. The pop-up store — housed in Cavendish Square, Cape Town — will not accept cheques, cash, debt or credit cards, but it will accept your help to register as an organ donor. The Exchange opened its doors on 10 May 2013 and will stay open until its range of clothing and accessories designed by 25 of SA’s top designers has been ‘exchanged’. NATIVE partnered with Organ Donor Foundation SA to make the project possible. Speaking on the idea behind the concept, NAVIVE’s Executive Creative Director, Ryan McManus said:

Fashion has typically been synonymous with consumerism. We were looking for a way in which we could change the currency of meaningless consumerism and shift it to the currency of life by purchasing fashion with organ donor registration

ANAR Child Abuse Advertisement

Image: psfk.com

Spanish child-help organisation ANAR Foundation has released an ad campaign that raises awareness around child abuse simultaneously communicating embedded messages child abuse victims, encouraging them to step forward and seek help. The ad uses a technique called lenticular printing – which is typically reserved for 3D posters – to create a poster that displays different images depending on the angle it is viewed from. To an adult standing above 1.3m the ad reads: ‘sometimes, child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it’ with an image of a boy in the background. From the perspective of a 10 -year-old boy with average height the poster shows an image of a child with brusies on his face, a hotline number and the message, ‘if somebody hurts you, phone us and we’ll help you’. The advert is a breakthrough is communicating with people who need help without alerting abusers as to the hidden content of the message. While the ANAR poster has been recognised because of its appearance on news and social media, future commercials of similar intent can go safely undetected to help people.

Chris Hadfield Shoots Space Music Video

Image: commons.wikimedia.com

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has made a name for himself and garnered thousands of fans from his brilliantly candor and beautiful tweets from space. After spending five months residing in the International Space Station, the space expert is set to return later in May and has marked his farewell to the cosmos with a cover of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’. The video is the first ever music video footage to be captured in outer space and is a one of Hadfield’s final shares from the space station with earthlings. While we’ll be sad to see Hadfield leave the supernatural otherworldy universe, we can’t wait to see what he’ll do when he sets his feet on the ground. Hadfield captioned the video with a nod to Bowie and an early goodbye: