Last night Awesome Squared headed to Kanapai, a wonderfully dirty Japanese den in South Yarra. We were out for two reasons: 1. Have a sake bomb: Asahi, chop sticks and Sake. We’re not sure how much of the contents made it to our mouths, as opposed to the table, floor or Erika’s jeans. 2. It was our second grant giveaway. After mountains of sushi, not enough fried chicken, and much debate, we came to a decision as to who we would swing 1K across to. httpmote. Mitch Denny is a dad, a husband, and also a dabbler in many visual & tech things. According to his application he thinks of 100 new ideas a week. This one in particular took our fancy: Mitch hates remote controls. Funnily enough, so do we. Mitch wants to build a system where he can use his iPhone to buzz open his garage door. He also wants to share that buzzer with his friends and family, and even when he gets Jim’s Mowing to mow his lawn. This would work by ‘sharing’ the remote via a text or URL, with a time limit so that when ‘Jim’ comes to mow his lawn, he can buzz… read more →
We’ve been quiet here at Awesome Foundation San Francisco for a little bit, but excited to say that we’re back this month with a duo of amazing projects that we’re thrilled to be a part of. One is a dance party, another is a game festival. Presenting… 1) The Balloon Powered Dance Party George, Will, and Issac are these three guys that we met recently who in their free time have been launching various items into the stratosphere using hundreds of helium balloons (see, e.g. a Christmas tree). They’ve teamed up with the good people over at the Million Fishes Art Collective in the Mission to do an installation that will fill their massive 22,000 cubic feet gallery floor to ceiling with balloons. We’re funding them to do as much. This alone would be probably awesome enough to warrant an Awesome Foundation grant, but the added twist is that they’ve been playing around with little radio receiver/speaker/LED units that will fit inside a few hundred of these balloons, allowing them to broadcast some bumpin’ tunes and shine a weirdo ethereal light through the morass of inflated elastic that people will be allowed to wander through. The results, we expect, will… read more →
Wednesday, November 16, 2011:
It was a dark and stormy night, but that didn’t keep our legion of loyal supporters from representing.
What would make LA stop, drop and …eat? Well this months Awesome LA winners, Farley Elliott and Danny Cohen, think they have the answer: one giant kick-ass picnic. In a city that is far too often characterized by its traffic, and its residents constant rush to get from point A to B – these two awesome individuals want to given LA a reason to stop for a bit, enjoy the day and break the bread with their fellow Angelenos! In their own words: Picnic baskets, blankets, kites – all the makings of a classic picnic, but on a massive scale. Baskets as big as a sofa, Paul Bunyan-sized sandwiches and enough grapes to make Caesar blush. It’s a giant picnic in size, scope and mission. There will be food, games and an open invitation for anyone and everyone to stop by and meet their neighbors. Here’s a few more awesome facts about these two picnic-neers : 1. They are improvisers at the amazing Upright Citizens Brigade (clearly they know how to have a good time!) 2. Have you heard of Minutiæ ? If you haven’t you should check this brilliantly satirical magazine that Danny and Farley co-edit! 3. They’re simple… read more →
Our recent recipients for February are working on the first episode of a gothic play/audio tour that will explore the Chinese heritage of Surry Hills, an inner-city suburb in Sydney now pretty well gentrified, with a great selection of restaurants, cafes, bars, pubs and designer retail. But it wasn’t always this way. As Mei Tsering, one of the writers/developers from the project explains, “The setting of the sound walk will be in contemporary Surry Hills but will go back in time to the early 1900s of plague quarantines, (when) rat catching was a lucrative job and the war was seen as a ‘restricted holiday’ out of the Surry Hills slums. The streets were run by fashionable young gang members and the Chinese living in the area were a dying community following restrictive immigration policies and problems with gambling and opium dens.” “The walk will follow two cousins of Chinese descent as they try and find the home of their ancestors. They hope to make an offering to be rid of a hungry ghost troubling their families. Hungry ghosts are spirits that return to take what they can if sufficient offerings haven’t been made by their living relatives.” We can’t wait… read more →