February 2012
6 posts
WatchDear everyone, we are about to launch a poster-mag called La Pandemonio that we totally believe is going to be utterly fantastic.
We are 20 votes away from being able to enter crowdfunding. Please be a darling and help us out by voting!
Mirror, mirror. Who is the truest of them all?
@MrPatatitaBrava told Mr @onafrica he should watch Black Mirror. So he did, and I joined him. We watched the first episode, ‘The National Anthem’ and I must say it’s just brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Charlie Brooker, you are one twisted genius bast*rd, sir:
If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side-effects? This area –...
Polly Pockets
Tuesday again… find me here at ¿ Y Por Qué No?
Sostenibilidad roja (Red sustainability)
It was Tuesday and this is what I wrote for Y por que no?!
Enough is enough
Cheesy, I know. But it’s not about barbie-fying oneself, even if Lana del Rey is telling me that heaven is a place on earth with me on my Spotify. It’s about something simpler, something smaller. It’s about bras and tits.
I was talking to one of my witty lady friends the other day, and she was complaining about the difficulties of buying panties. Because, you see, she just...
January 2012
13 posts
En los zapatos de la sostenibilidad (In...
Hey! It’s Tuesday and I’m trying vegan, made in Spain, 100% biodegradable shoes by OneMoment for ¿Y Por Qué no?
PS: I owe this site a gazillion posts, but I’ve been insanely busy with workshops. I shall resume regular activity really soon. Thanks for bearing with me!
La locura, la vejiga de cabra, los pedales y la...
Weekly post for ¿Y por qué no?, again!
We, Millenials
When I was a kid I used to hear about the Generation X and feel envious of them because they had such a defined identity, they had a name, they were a group (I guess this was before everything was called a community). Eventually, I grew up and so did everyone else around me, and someone decided we were not going anywhere and therefore we would need to get a name too, and Generation Y was...
Pinterest: the good, the bad and the ugly
Today I realized I’ve got 170 followers in Pinterest. Granted, some people out there have hundreds of thousands. But, still, for something I don’t nurture per se, it’s quite a lot. But I’m not here to pat myself on the back. No, ma’am.
I’ve known and used pinterest for a while (damn, I was a beta user, I’m that metal). And I keep on having two...
Con un poco de ayuda de mis amigos (With a little...
It’s time for my weekly post over at ¿Y por qué no?
Keeping the devil down in the hole (on Design...
Mr. M. and I are watching The Wire (we’ve just started the 3rd season, so please! No spoilers! Thanks!). I am going to skip the whole “It’s the best TV series ever- It’s so overrated I want to cry” debate and go straight to what I wanted to say: I love seeing how the team works to solve the cases.
I have been going nuts all over Google trying to find an image of...
Turquesa Jenna (Jenna Turquoise)
New article for ¿Y por qué no? ready!
“Awesome! You can now comment on each post!”
Tu mierda me ilumina (Your shit illuminates me)
Article for Lecturas magazine here.
Also available in the Texts section.
December 2011
17 posts
Somewhere between what you need and what you know
Remember the fabulousness of Sarah Key? If I recall correctly, she mentioned that an exercise she proposes to her poetry students is to list “10 things they know to be true”. Since she is now in my unlikely “list of women I’d like to have tea with and maybe pay them to become my friends” (Miranda July, Louise Bourgeois, Camilla Engman et. alt. are also in there), I...
Píntame un sol (paint me a sun)
My weekly post for ¿Y por qué no? is here!
Swap a little, live a lot
When I saw this clip in Jezebel, it made me feel I found an answer to what I was saying yesterday. I kept on thinking about whether something like that could have happened in Spain, and I guess the trick is to think that it couldn’t, the same as thinking it couldn’t happen to oneself. Nonetheless, family ties are, generally speaking, stronger (or merely more present) in mediterranean...
The possibilities of a future
I have been waiting for The Future by Miranda July (who doesn’t completely adore her?) to hit the Spanish cinemas. I sitll haven’t been able to go watch it, but I’ve been subscribed to her future-telling newsletter for a while. And it’s been a spooky experience. She, kind of… guesses? makes me feel like she guesses? some things. Maybe it’s just coincidence, or...
Hack Your Job (via the 99 %)
I found this inspiring interview here. And here’s a few highlights:
“What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.”
“After work and on the weekends, I kind of secretly built out a little screen printing studio. Once I...
Hacer la comunión (taking comunion)
New blog post on Ikea’s sustainability strategy for “Y por qué no”. As usual, also filed in my Texts.
El futuro de Vermeer (Vermeer's future)
Little post for ¿Y por qué no? available here.
(and added to my texts section)
When I woke up, the dance was still there
10th December - ‘A-Punk’ by Vampire Weekend. from lewisnluke on Vimeo.
Rumor has it the shortest tale in the world is by Monterroso and it goes like this:
When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there.
When I discovered The Art of Dancing (apologies for the lack of reference, I don’t even recall where I saw the site for the first time), I had one of those “duh!”...
Tales for cigarrettes
I saw this video of the author of Creating Wealth: Growing Local Economies with Local Currencies in Treehugger some weeks ago.
As you know, I keep banging about how the current economic climate in Spain should provoke loads of alternatives. And I’m so terribly happy to be able to announce one of them! (because that greatly reduces the amount of grumpiness of this site).
Inés is a...
tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?
Morran and Camilla
I don’t know if you ever had a dog. “Having” a dog is not quite the same as living with one. “Having” a dog means something very, very deep and it is difficult to explain (I’m not quite sure it works exactly the same with cats). You see, dogs are old souls. You can just see it in their eyes. They know and love you more than they seem able to. They are terribly...
On dropbox and love
Mr. M. And me share a little notebook computer. We take it to conferences and events, and I take it to the office. The deal is not exactly 50/50. I have a shy lonely folder called “Maria” which is my virtual Narnia. He’s furnished the machine with ubuntu and a dreadful ant screen saver. But that’s ok. There’s this box-shaped icon on the top bar of the desktop that represents dropbox. In the...
November 2011
10 posts
Happy, Thank you, More please.
Yup, I’ve borrowed the title from a cheesy movie. Gasp!
As a Spaniard I’ve never celebrated Thanks Giving day. But the more I think of it, the more I like it (if I proceed to thoroughly ignore the origins of the date).
This year i have finally been able to live in the present and that has been such a revelation. I was always striving to be elsewhere, doing more, doing better. But you...
Whispers and architecture →
Today I learnt that designing a space so that the resonance of your voice on one side of it travels to the opposite end is called telegraphing.
Imagine the possibilities of that.
The human life cycle of a product
A few weeks ago I was in Farnham for the Sustainable Innovation 2011 conference. A lot of the buzz during the event was on the product’s life cycle.
Here’s a personal interpretation of how that looks:
Planning (design), manufacture, distribution, selling (which could be argumentatively included in the previous), usage and end of life (disposal).
The speakers showed how the...
Curators that do not believe in material things
On the highlighted black box, the interviewer asks this curator if she collects art. She replies “No, I do not feel attachment towards material things”. In the middle column, the article explains how her next project consists of a new show to promote “young illustrators, with direct selling and pieces under a thousand euro, to ‘promote art collecting’”.
I do...
A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design... →
I’ve noticed I’ve started this blog with a lot of ranting, which wasn’t exactly part of the plan. So, for a change, here’s someone else’s ranting. And it’s rather interesting. Enjoy.
¿A qué huelen las nubes? (What do clouds smell...
(What do clouds smell like? The feminine imaginary of the Western sense of smell)
This is the cover of my MA thesis. researching, writing and presenting it was such a thrill!
I have not yet decided if I will present it somewhere or do something fancy with it (I shouldn’t say, but I got excellent feedback), so I’ll not post it online yet. But if you stumbled upon this looking for...
Don't kiss, but do tell
The picture above displays Benetton’s a/w 2011/2012 collection.
The picture below displays an image of a campaign run by Benetton called UnHate ( that “seeks to contribute to the creation of a new culture of tolerance”).
Whilst the top image hasn’t provoked anything (not even the dullest fashionista has pointed at any of those peachy colored outfits with a dreamy...
Facebook feedback
I repost my articles to FB, and see what happens. I love doing that because the results tend to be unexpected. Here’s what happened yesterday after passing on An Untested Idea on Voting:
PS: I thought about editing all the fb-ness out of it: the timing, the likes, the language changes, but opted to leave them in for the sake of transparency.
Eduardo Giménez-Cassina Bergareche Maria,...
An untested idea on voting
Before I start, may I say that I do not consider myself a very political person? I do not think like a political scientist (I know that for sure, my partner happens to be one), I think like a designer. I spot needs and try to solve them. So that’s where I’m coming from. I’m a feedback and discussion junkie and that’s what I’m trying to get to. Thanks!
Now, here in...
Again, for the first time
I’m guilty of Internet debris. I’ve got comatose accounts on almost everything that’s out there, and yet her I am, attempting to blog, again. Even though I have never solidly embedded a blog unto my website, and this is a first attempt.
This intends to be a space for musings on innovation, design and art. I shall not step unto the personal after this introduction. Other than...