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Stockholm uses digital art to combat commuter stress

The Emotional Art Gallery by Clear Channel, artwork by Jesper Lindborg

Stockholm – Outdoor media company Clear Channel has turned the city’s underground transit system into a digital art exhibition.

The Emotional Art Gallery displays artworks that respond to the mood of the city’s commuters. A tailor-made algorithm uses public data such as Google searches, news articles and traffic information to analyse the current mood of the city and decide upon which artwork to display at any given moment.

The artworks were commissioned from six artists who were asked to use Visual ASMR to express a positive feeling, such as peaceful, energized, calm and safe. ‘We thought why not use this type of real-time data as a new kind of creative input, whether this is through art or advertising. It makes the content more relevant and, in this case, better adjusted for spreading joy, energy and love to the commuters,’ says Finn Wikander, chief product officer at Clear Channel.

Rather than using billboards to advertise products and drive revenue, Clear Channel is using urban art to encourage positive emotions.

Gin made from discarded grapes hits supermarkets

Hyke Gin

UK – The brainchild of distiller Foxhole Spirits and fruit supplier Richard Hochfeld, Hyke gin has been developed to prevent 166m grapes from going to waste each year.

The spirit makes use of grapes that have been grown to be eaten but have failed to meet supermarket specifications because they are the wrong shape or size and so would otherwise be discarded. Richard Hochfeld loses the equivalent of 1.4m punnets every year either in this way or because the grapes have become detached during the packing and transportation process.

Each grape is pressed and distilled to create a grape spirit. This is then blended with a neutral grain spirit and botanicals including juniper, myrrh, coriander and rooibos, which are inspired by the grapes’ African and South American origins. Hyke Gin will be stocked at low cost supermarket chain Tesco.

As threatened supply chains and shortened food miles become more prominent, supermarkets must find ways to repurpose their products and eliminate food waste. For more, read our macrotrend Uprooted Diets.

UNStudio develops a paint to cool down cities

Amsterdam – The architecture studio has collaborated with Monopol Colors to create a reflective white paint that reduces the need for air conditioning.

The paint, titled The Coolest White, reflects the sun’s rays, limiting the amount of heat a building absorbs. It can be used to protect buildings from excessive solar radiation and reduce the amount of energy required to cool down buildings in tropical climates. ‘On the one hand, The Coolest White makes buildings more resilient, and on the other hand it can drastically reduce the urban heat load,’ says Ben van Berkel, UNStudio’s principal architect.

While most white paints have a total solar reflection (TSR) value of 70-75, UNStudio’s new paint has a TSR value of over 80. The architecture studio is hoping to putting the paint into practice by using it to cover an entire district in South East Asia.

The depletion of Earth’s natural resources is driving designers and scientists to re-appropriate existing energy sources and offer more sustainable options.

The Coolest White paint by UN Studio and Monopol Colors

Pocket is a short film made to be watched on your phone

Pocket short film by Pickpocket, US

US – Pocket invites viewers to experience a year in the life of its 15-year-old protagonist Jake – told entirely through content on his smartphone.

Directed by filmmakers Mishka Kornai and Zach Wechter, the 17-minute film is the first project to come out of the duo’s new smartphone filmmaking collective Pickpocket. During the course of the film, Jake, who is only seen through his front camera, explores Instagram stories, DMs friends and even browses pornography.

Pocket is shot vertically, meaning it’s designed to be watched on an iPhone with headphones, replicating the way that teenagers consume media. ‘We’re spending so much time in this digital space, but not enough people are telling stories that are set in that digital world and use the language and the methodology that we’re all immersed in,’ Kornai tells The Atlantic.

Entertainment brands must not ignore the iPhone but use it as inspiration for new formats of storytelling. Read our microtrend to learn about the rise of Chat Fiction among teenagers.

Stat: Chinese consumers are very interested in lab-grown meat

Two of the world’s largest meat producers are the most open to lab-grown meat or meat alternatives, according to a new study by Frontiers. The research found that 59.3% of consumers in China, and 48.7% in India, would be very likely to buy ‘clean’ meat which has been grown in a lab.

Meanwhile, in the US this number stands at just 29.8%. American consumers were also the most likely to say they would not purchase plant-based ‘meat’, despite many of the big brands like Impossible being based there. These figures suggest that alternative meat producers should perhaps be refocusing their efforts on markets such as China and India.

To see how consumers around the world are changing their eating habits in order to minimise their carbon footprint, meet our Low-impact Eaters tribe.

Thought-starter: Have humans forgotten how to be resilient?

This week, we unveil the three macrotrends defining 2019. The first, Resilience Culture, explores how we have been living in an age of self-censorship, hyper-safe spaces and social comfort zones. But as global anxieties abound, a countermovement of resilience is breaking through.

We become nestled among the people, platforms, places and behaviours where we feel like one of the crowd. But this bubble-wrapped existence isn’t working. As Greg Lukianoff, co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, says: ‘We are teaching a generation the habits of anxious, depressed and polarised people, and then we’re surprised that they are anxious, depressed and polarised.’

To help consumers break out of their mental and physical cocooning, counter-movements are materialising around the world. Schools are exposing pupils to controversial topics, the workplace is putting failure in the spotlight and the technology we rely on is turning its back on us. Consumers are embracing physical, mental and intellectual risk to re-assert their sense of self, their place in society and their collective strength.

Prepare for The Resilience Movement; watch out for our newest macrotrends here.