Created on the premise that this genre of wearable art would never get made otherwise, founder David Stowe and an amazing lineup of artists have come together to bring Vannen to life. The first collection of limited edition Vannen Watches features designs by Buff Monster, Brian Morris, Chris Ryniak, Damon Soule and an exclusive Halloween edition by Dirty Donny.


Individually inspected, assembled and packaged by hand in the USA, every watch is treated like a true piece of art. Each selected artist is given a plastic watch as a canvas to showcase their original artwork and connect with the world. Constructing wearable art that is both functional and accessible - but still exclusive - Vannen has given the public a fun new way to show their taste in art and fashion and support a new movement in artistic achievement. And all artists design their own custom packaging.


Based loosely around the Swedish word vännen (meaning "friends") brings some of today's best lowbrow art to wrists. Longtime watch fan and founder David Stowe wanted to fill the void in a medium that doesn’t always pair fashion with function, while incorporating his idea that working with friends helps people discover artists thus creating new friends.

Stowe also hopes that Vannen Watches will transform the insular nature of collectors. “If someone buys an art toy, book or print, it sits on their shelf collecting dust only to be seen by people who come to their houses. With our watches, you can show the entire world your taste in art and fashion.”

The inaugural series invites you to experience a new world where art meets fashion. And at $65 per timepiece, anyone can afford to have art wrapped around his or her wrist. Created on the premise that this genre of wearable art would never get made otherwise, founder David Stowe and an amazing lineup of artists have come together to bring Vannen to life. The first collection features designs by Buff Monster, Brian Morris, Chris Ryniak and Damon Soule.

Individually inspected, assembled and packaged by hand in the USA, every watch is treated like a true piece of art. Each selected artist is given a plastic watch as a canvas to showcase their original artwork and connect with the world. Constructing wearable art that is both functional and accessible - but still exclusive - Vannen has given the public a fun new way to show their taste in art and fashion and support a new movement in artistic achievement. And all artists design their own custom packaging.

The heart of Vannen Watches is to expose extraordinary artwork to people that may never have the opportunity to discover it, much less incorporate it into their lives. Each collection of watches is produced with one goal in mind – to support the global art scene by bringing awareness to each artist and invite the world to experience something new. Vannen is not only collectible art; it transcends all ages, genders and nationalities.

Buff Monster lives in Hollywood and cites heavy metal music, ice cream and Japanese culture as major influences. The color pink, as a symbol of confidence, individuality and happiness, is present in everything he creates. Buff is known for putting up thousands of silkscreened posters across Los Angeles and also in faraway places. When his original and one-and-only wheat paste brush was no longer usable, seven years of frequent poster missions came to an end. Having given up a very productive street art career, he now works exclusively on fine art paintings, collectible toys and select design projects. His works have been exhibited in numerous galleries, usually accompanied by large installations to enhance the paintings. Aside from his Happy Creamy Vannen watch, he has many other projects in the works.



"It's a fun and happy design. I keep exploring all these other crazy themes in my paintings, but this is a core Buff Monster design. A watch is a really functional item, so you have to take that into account when you're designing it. And the packaging is really simple, but I really like the cardboard bubble pack that it comes in."


Chris Ryniak was born in 1976 in a safely distanced suburb of Detroit. He spent his childhood basking in the warm glow of Saturday morning cartoons, monster movies and flipping over rocks in search of insects and reptiles. In his teenage years, Chris' attention would shift to the world of skateboarding and the artists associated with the skate community, which later led to interests in commercial illustration. A graduate and former instructor at the Ringling School of Art and Design, Chris is now a painter and sculptor of all manner of critters that grace canvases as well as toy and print platforms. Chris' work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the world and his paintings have also been published in numerous books and periodicals. Chris currently resides in a coastal Ohio Dutch Colonial with his wife, two children, cat and frog.


"Chris Ryniak: The design is basically a carefully cropped version of my painting "The Order of Things." It was the first painting that I did that reflected my current visual direction, plus it was centered and had a face...like a watch. I had never given any thought to putting my art on anything that wasn't a large solid area (like a skateboard). I knew I wanted to use as much of one painting as possible, so I went through a lot of my paintings, trying to find the right one, and at the time, this one made the most sense to me to use on the watch."


Brian Morris lives on the southern side of Chicago, married, eats a lot of red meat, prefers pinot noir, favorite color is black, draws because he likes to, second favorite color is black, born in '76, works in advertising, '62 Cadillac in the garage, dead kitty's name tattooed on his wrist, doesn't believe in God, believes in people, heavy metal poser, country music, Sharpies, Faber-Castells, doesn't correct his drawings, tattoos, deep in love, early to rise, saver not a spender, knows you can't take it with you, raised in a small town, college degree, practice makes perfect, loves toys, collector of HotWheels, enjoys the darker side, steak, potatoes, breakfast with his wife at the Ramova Grill, not a big fan of TV, would go to bed at 9PM if he could, smokes too many cigarettes, doesn't smoke enough cigarettes, loves black cherry Kool-Aid, boobies, and he won't design you a tattoo.


"Brian Morris: Themes of life and death play a big role in the works that I create. This watch was an excellent opportunity to share my belief that "time waits for no man." I hope that each time the wearer checks the time they are reminded to make the most of every moment. Time will pass you by if you let it, but the end will not. [Watch design] has its challenges: The shape, materials and functionality were all things I'd not worked with before. The art was created in the same way I produce all of my drawings; it was the application that was real fun part."


As a child Damon became so engrossed with drawing that it became a distraction; at age 16 he dropped out of school opting for the immediacy of a GED. At 19 he moved to San Francisco and enrolled in the Interdisciplinary Program at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1996 Soule became the Art Director and Co-founder of FIT Skateboards and Civilian Clothing. After art directing the brands for a number of years, he sold his portion of the business to pursue art full-time. Soule's art has been featured in group exhibitions in San Francisco at 111 Minna Gallery, Punch Gallery, Southern Exposure Gallery, Culture Cache, New Langton Arts and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Recent shows also include "New Works by Oliver Vernon and Damon Soule" at BLVD Gallery and "Green Art Exhibition" at Robert Berman Gallery.


Introducing Vannen's first Special Edition Holiday Watch. And what better holiday to begin with than Halloween?

Dirty Donny (poster artist/fine artist/gearhead extraordinaire) was selected to create this extremely exclusive holiday watch because of his incredible repertoire of devious little monsters, ghouls and goblins. His characters and illustrations are notorious for their spectacular color and personality.


Donny’s creatures are sometimes playful-yet-spooky while others are just so wild and mischievous they almost jump off the page and bite you in the face. We knew a Dirty Donny watch would be perfect as a Halloween exclusive that's wearable all year long... and we were right! Donny's Halloween exclusive is a black and purple watch with flying bats all along the straps and a warped, twisted, ghoulish neon face on the dial.

This exclusive watch is limited to 150 pieces worldwide, but because we loved the art so much we decided to throw in a little treat and make another super-limited variant known as the "Toxic Chase" color way. The Toxic Chase watches are so extremely limited that only 50 exist in the entire world.



Vannen's Halloween exclusive is packaged in an orange Trick-or-Treat bag filled with goodies!

Vannen Product Page Link
Prices start at only $65! Very cool collectibles...

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Any Guesses? My first instinct was that it could be a Joan Mirólogical Machine or even better, an Alexander Calder inspired timepiece...I mean how cool would Calder's mobiles be in the miniature world of a watch? Ha... I actually know but I'm not telling until it is released on October 29th, stay tuned and see future teases here or at the Maximilian Büsser & Friends website.

Below is the first visual teaser/hint MB&F is providing...



MB&F website->LINK

Related MB&F, Max Busser, and Horological Machine Posts-->LINK

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DALI DIDN'T JUST MELT CLOCKS Y'KNOW...

"The Premonition of the Drawers" created by the great master of surrealism Salvador Dali, in 1973. This is the fifth in a series of eight such complex and vaguely menacing bronze forms based on a 1934 pencil sketch of a semi-reclining female figure with a number of partly open drawers, her throat and neck covered by her long hair. The head consists of an OMEGA electronic watch. The white Roman numeral dial with stick hands (special version) covers a "mouse" sonic resonator calibre 1220 whose case is held at the top by a single screw-in Catalan bean.

Salvador Dali, Paris

Longueur : 39 cm. Hauteur: 28 cm. Largeur : 20.5 cm.

1973

L'horloge est une sculpture en bronze patiné, vert clair, conçue par Salvador Dali d'après un dessin daté de 1934, La prémonition des tiroirs. Réalisé par le sculpteur Onelio Vignando, le bronze a été fondu par la maison Valsuani, à Paris. L'œuvre a été éditée en huit exemplaires, auxquels s'ajoutent quatre épreuves d'artiste, par la galerie André-François Petit à Paris.

Un modèle spécial de montre, munie d'un mouvement électronique à diapason, a été construit par la maison Omega afin d'être inséré dans la sculpture. Notons que le haricot qui la surmonte se dévisse pour permettre de l'enlever.

Dali développa, dans les années 1930, une suite de représentations allégoriques du Temps incluant des horloges et des montres.

D'après "Catalogue d'œuvres choisies"
Catherine Cardinal, Jean-Michel Piguet,
Éditions Institut l'homme et le temps, 1999

Collection of MIH (MUSEE INTERNATIONAL D'HORLOGERIE)

Related Posts at The Watchismo Times
All Artist Timepiece Stories


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The Sèvres Vase Clock, a prototype by Georgios Maridakis, indicates the hour with an audible knock. Just place the vase of your choice on the brass and wood stand and the hammer will strike the vase each hour.

Each vase makes a different sound, but adding different amounts of water for different pitches and notes takes it one step further. The modern take on a grandfather clock is a subtle, unobtrusive way to indicate time—we'd add a few flowers too.

Designer Georgios Maridakis is currently finishing a stint at the Royal College of Art in London. Visit his site for more info on this and other projects.

via CoolHunting / BoingBoing

Related posts at The Watchismo Times:
All Clock Stories


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Time in Six Parts

Time in Six Parts is a series of attempts to unravel and re-present time through alternative perspectives. The hope is to demystify scales of time that are out of our immediate reach and explore new approaches to marking time.

Six timekeeping devices were built as part of Che-Wei Wang's thesis project at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at TISCH, NYU.

3.16 Billion Cycles video

3.16 BILLION CYCLES CLOCK

Can we watch decay? Can we see glass as a fluid slowly slumping and deforming over time?

Everything is in constant flux, yet we consider many things around us static and fixed. 3.16 Billion Cycles is an attempt to unravel a seemingly unchanging 100 years into a set of relationships in digestible increments.

A 60 rpm (revolutions per minute) motor drives the entire mechanism. It rotates once every second. The following pulley rotates once every 5 seconds (1:5 ratio). The next rotates once every 60 seconds or 1 minute. Then 5 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 month, 1 year, and 1 decade. The decade wheel carries the load of the large arc. The large arc rotates once every century. The final ratio between the 60 rpm motor and the large arc is approximately 1:31.6 billion.

Each wheel is marked with a black nut to highlight a position that could be tracked over time. Along the arc, 100 lines mark the divisions of each passing year. When the clock finally reaches the end of a 100 year cycle, the arc falls off its track onto the floor.

ONE HOUR SPROCKET CLOCK

How accurate does a clock need to be? Most household clocks display time with 3 mechanical movements; the hour, on a 12 hour cycle; minutes past the hour; and seconds past the minute. How crucial is it for us to know how many seconds are past the minute? Do we need to know the exact number of minutes past the hour?

One Hour Sprocket is a wall-mounted 12 hour clock with a 60 tooth sprocket attached to a motor, completing one revolution every hour. From the sprocket hangs a chain that consists of 720 links. Each link accounts for every minute of a 12 hour cycle. Among the black chain links is one polished stainless steel link to identify the position of the hour past 12 o’clock. To tell time one can estimate the position of the “hour hand” or count the number of links from the polished link to the top of the clock for a more accurate reading.

Between two 1/4” steel plates, sits a stepper motor, which ticks every 18 seconds. The hanging chain juggles with each tick reassuring the clock’s functionality.

Thermal Clock video

THERMAL CLOCK

We rely heavily on our vision to identify change. We see sand accumulating at the bottom of the hourglass. We see the minute hand rotate clockwise. How would our sense of time change if we cast time to another sense?

Thermal Clock is a timepiece that positions heat along a bar over a 24 hour cycle to tell time.

Using an array of peltier junctions, heat is emitted from a focused area moving from left to right along the bar over the course of a day.

Thermal Clock

Counting to a Billion video

COUNTING TO A BILLION

As a child, I remember challenging myself to count to 1000, 1 million, or 1 billion. I don’t think I ever made it.
Why do we aimlessly count? How long would it take to count to a billion?

Counting to a Billion is a device created to fulfill the desire to count. The electronics consists of a microcontroller, a speech module, and a speaker powered by a rechargeable battery. There is no/off switch. The voice begins counting at one, two, three and continues counting up until it reaches one billion at which point in time it will stop.

Counting to a Billion Clock

If it took a second to utter each string of numbers, it would take 1 billion seconds or 31.7 years for the device to reach its end. But since it takes more than a second to vocalize many of the numbers in the sequence, it may take upwards of 60 years to complete.

The unit is housed in a solid block of aluminum, cnc milled into a vessel that was designed to withstand substantial abuse over many years.

Cinematic Timepiece video

CINEMATIC TIMEPIECE

Time is our measure of a constant beat. We use seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, etc. But what if we measured time against rituals, chores, tasks, stories, and narratives? How can we use our memory, prediction, familiar and unfamiliar narratives to tell time?

As a child, I remember using the length of songs as a way to measure how much time was left during a trip. A song was an appropriate period to easily multiply to get a grasp of any larger measure like the time left until we arrived to our grandmother’s place. The length of a song was also a measure I could digest and understand in an instant.

The first iteration of Cinematic Timepiece consists of 5 video loops playing at 5 different speeds on a single screen. The video is of a person coloring in a large circle on a wall.

The frame furthest to the right is a video loop that completes a cycle in one minute. The video to the left of the minute loop completes its cycle in one hour. The next completes in a day, then a month, then a year.

Through various iterations, we intend to experiment with various narratives and rituals captured in a video loop to be read as measures of time.

The software was written in OpenFrameworks for a single screen to be expanded in the future for multiple screens as a piece of hardware.

IN A LIFETIME

click image to view "In A Lifetime"

We often compare ourselves to friends, colleagues, relatives, idols, etc. on a scale of time that’s beyond our comprehension. Full of hope and objectives that are far into the future, we strive to achieve as much as our parents, friends, and heroes.
What do you plan to achieve in the next 5 years? 10 years? 20? How long will you live?

Though there are many unknowns, we share one lifetime as a common measure.

In a Lifetime is a website that visualizes individual achievements and milestones along the scale of one lifetime. Each point along the arc represents a milestone where the top (12th hour) is their moment of birth, the right quadrant (3rd hour) is a quarter through their life, the bottom (6th hour) is half way through their life, and so on. The mapping strips age as a parameter from individuals and scales lifespans to compare achievements of one life with another.

The website collects information about each individual through a publicly accessible interface. Input parameters are, author, date of birth, lifespan, milestone or note, and significance (0-100). Anyone who visits the site can enter information about an individual to be mapped. If one so desires, you can enter your predicted lifespan to compare personal milestones to others.

Some patterns emerge. Significant achievements are made between the half way point and the 3/4 point of their lives. Beyond the 3/4 point, nearly all individuals stop accruing achievements .
Around the half way point in their individual lives, Albert Einstein wrote the General Theory of Relativity, Constantin Brancusi completed the Kiss, Le Corbusier completed Villa Savoye, Leonardo Da Vinci drew the proportions of human figure after Vitruvious.

Visit Che-Wei Wang's website

Related Posts on The Watchismo Times;
All Alternative Display Features

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