Crowd container

Click HERE to read the BBC News MAGAZINE MONITOR article!

Baby box

Why do Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes?

Boxes for babies increase life expectancy?

Click HERE to view the video!

Source of inspiration 288: ShelterBox

Shelterbox web site

Source of inspiration 284: Cryonics

Please freeze me!

Cryonics pioneer

Source of inspiration 278 : Tiny box people

Source of inspiration 277: Fukushima

Tatitown!

You can see this dance, inspired by the film Playtime by Jacques Tati, on the 15th of June at the Square in Aurillac at 17:00. The troop is made up of ten amateur dancers from Saint-Eugène lycée and three pupils from La Manufacture dance school. The theme is people living in a conformist society...

Source of inspiration 252 (click on this title!): Andy Warhol's Brillo box

Source of inspiration 248 (click on this title!): Borg planet

Source of inspiration 224 (click on this title!): Stranger in a glass box

Quentin Shih is a Chinese American photographer. The photo above is one in a series called "The stranger in the glass box" for Christian Dior (the famous haute couture and perfumery firm).

The model trapped in the glass box is wearing Dior. Around the box are normal Chinese people dressed in their work uniforms. They are looking somewhat perplexed at this stranger who seems to have landed there by mistake.

This glass box is symbolic of the perhaps insurmountable cultural barrier between the rich West and China. These ordinary Chinese, trapped in a boring, grey, empty no man’s land, can only observe. They cannot touch this oversized beautiful alien being in her aquarium-like spaceship/cube. They can only desire her and what she stands for.

This advertising photo is not just aesthetically pleasing; it is a political comment on consumerism and globalization. It is about conformity versus individualism, about poverty and wealth, the many and the few, about desire and frustration.

Article by Annika Nischik

Source of inspiration 221 (click on this title!): Tativille!

These photos are stills taken from Playtime, a movie by Jacques Tati:

Comment on the last photo:

In the background, there are numerous grey cubicles, work boxes where people are confined. Everything seems well ordered; nothing unexpected can probably happen in their lives. It’s an image of a society where everything has to be perfectly organized and tidy. The fact that these people are closed up in boxes suggests they are strongly influenced by a society which dehumanizes them and prevents them from thinking for themselves or from communicating with each other. All these people, locked up in their geometric environment, seem trapped in an insane ideology.

Metallic grey is the dominant colour in this picture. It symbolizes the boring conformity of the characters.

The man in the foreground is Mr. Hulot, the main character of the film. He’s dressed conventionally in a grey coat and hat, and he’s holding a black umbrella.

Hulot does not seem to understand what is happening. He seems unsure of where he has to go. He appears to be an observer, alone, hesitating at the top of the escalator. He stands out from the mass of office workers by his behaviour.

Is he conscious of the absurdity of a world based on senseless work and order?

Article by Julie Botet

Source of inspiration 198 (click on this title!)

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=52577406

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/30/BAGDTEFA3G1.DTL

http://www.alternativedepressiontherapy.com/art-therapy-for-depression.html

http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi575537945/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-W9Tm1Clas&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjDca5xSFcs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVBC1Ht8iJ4&feature=related

http://conversationalreading.com/the-box-man-by-kobo-abe-and-the-question-of-the-unstable-first-person

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qifl9saFtSw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgKRHYa84eE&feature=related

Source of inspiration 180 (click on this title!): Memory box

http://www.haimbresheeth.com/memory-box/
http://www.lannylasky.com/boxes/memory_box.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_box
http://hearingvoices.com/transcript.php?fID=80

This type of box inspires me... I could make a memory box which I would decorate in an artistic way, that would show my preferences, what I am like, and my hopes too. It would be about my reality, maybe my state of mind, and my dreams. A memory box is about the past, about myth and reality.

Article by Marie Serre

Source of inspiration 163 (click on this title!)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8091890.stm

Source of inspiration 140 (click on this title!)

http://www.teachingchildrenphilosophy.org/wiki/The_Big_Box

Source of inspiration 125 (click on this title!): Game console

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXistenZ

This box is used for leisure. Children, teens, and even adults use it to play video games. But, this box can become dangerous! David Cronenberg in his fantasy film "eXistenZ" shows this rather well... It's a box that can make us confuse reality and fiction if we become addicted to it. We can become insane because of it; we no longer know who we are or where we are, if our actions are part of the game or if they are still part of reality...

Article by Marie Serre

Source of inspiration 106 (click on this title!): TV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27ugSKW4-QQ

The people who control television, control us! Advertising, movies, everything that comes through this box and into our brains, conditions what we think, feel, do… We believe almost everything it tells us.

TV eats up our time and energy. We are becoming zombies, real zapping addicts.

It stops us having more creative and social pastimes, but few people choose to live without a goggle box in their home…

Article by Melissa Ben Allal

Source of inspiration 29 (click on this title!)

Source of inspiration 27 (click on this title!)