Bright 33 is out now! Featuring the Volvo XC60 item I wrote about earlier. ‘Can we trust our cars?’ is the question I’m answering. Other work from yours truly about the successor to the Humvee and a Lamborghini that will never be built. Check out the digitally camouflaged QR codes on the front page at your local newsstand.

A few weeks ago we were shooting pictures for the University Medical Center Groningen. Two radiologists looking at the outcome of a scan. Photographer Roelof Bos made some great shots.

Afterwards we discussed the weird and wonderful things they see in scans sometimes: from cutlery to glassware to food. So a UMCG intern asked: ‘Do you ever have trouble determining what you see on the scan?’ ‘Sure. Sometimes you mistake an aubergine for a cucumber!’

For the upcoming Bright (#33) I’m writing an article on the responsibilities we entrust our cars with. To illustrate I’m testing the Volvo XC60 that can brake and accelerate for you and tell you when you’re dozing off. Marije Kuiper shot the photos last friday. I can’t give away the idea, but it’s gonna be a rocking picture.

I promise this is the last post I’ll write this year on the Porsche Panamera. But for now I’d like to proudly present the Bright.tv item I made with the boys from Schwung Visuell. You can find it here: http://www.bright.tv/series/porsche-panamera

Thanks to PON and Porsche Centrum Gelderland I had a new Porsche Panamera 4S for 24 hours. The adrenaline rush is just starting to fade a little. Here’s the lowdown.

First off: I’ve made a grown man fall asleep, a woman nearly pee her pants and another grown man cry out like a girl. The Porsche Panamera is a limo and a rollercoaster rolled into one. So am I hurting now it’s gone? The annoying answer is ‘yes and no’. A car like this, with a €185k pricetag, a roaring V8 growl and a young face at the wheel makes the world a different place for the driver. Visiting a petrol station one of my passengers got chatted up by the attendant asking where she lives and what kind of car we had. Minutes later a woman walked by the car, turned her head and gave me a smile never reserved for me when driving my Subaru stationwagon. All good so far. Behind the wheel there’s no negatives either. You can cruise along with a subdued V8 rumble and barely making more than 1000 rpm, ever. But at the flick of a switch and a stab at the pedal your limo has transformed itself into a rocketship. First skidding to find solid ground under each tire and then leaping forward with a violent growl. Not a single passenger I had came away unimpressed.

And there’s where it starts going in the wrong direction. The car’s genius, it just turned me into a very unappealing version of myself. Driving by Audi Q7 drivers I couldn’t stop myself pointing and laughing. The beat-up-Golf drivers that were staring at the car were met with a confident smile. And every chance I got to take over 5 or 6 cars in a row, I jumped at.

So where does this leave me and the Panamera. The relationship wouldn’t last and I could literally tell the car: ‘It’s not you… it’s me’. In recent years I’ve discovered it’s the wanting itself that you should enjoy, because as soon as you get something the fun is mostly over. A bit of ascetism wouldn’t hurt anyone, me included. But that doesn’t mean I don’t need my fix of speed every now and then. So access to the Panamera, yes, please! But ownership? Not for me. Reassuringly there’s a €185000 price tag helping me stay a little less annoying.

Roger at Schwung Visuell was his nice self in offering to make a videoregistration of the Concept to Creation get-together we recently had at the Academy for Pop Culture. The Schwung Visuell intern made himself useful by cutting out the totally incomprehensible conversations where the microphone got lost in the process.

So enjoy:

Deel 1 Concept naar ontwerp from SchwungVisuell on Vimeo.

Deel 2 Concept naar ontwerp from SchwungVisuell on Vimeo.

Deel 3 Concept naar ontwerp from SchwungVisuell on Vimeo.

Deel 4 Concept naar ontwerp from SchwungVisuell on Vimeo.

While half the world was contemplating the worth of an iPhone that can’t make a call and is sized for the visually impaired, I was sitting at home, hoping our latest project would be well received. Agentschap Telecom’s director Marita Schreur is leaving her position on february the 1st. Now she has told me from the very first time we met that she did not want to be seen as merely the people that kick in doors of radio-amateurs that are illegally transmitting. Agentschap Telecom is a company with highly skilled people, that occupy themselves with satellite permits, 3G internet, and so on.

Now anyone who has ever heard pirate radio knows that Marita is about the best name you can have if you’re a radio pirate. ‘Radio Marita’ it just sounds right. So the running gag had been around for a while. No better time to reveal her real identity than at the goodbye party. Roger and Ronnie from Schwung Visuell and me made a movie about the rise and fall of Radio Marita. We’ll post some clips here shortly.

A big thank you goes out to Hein, Gernant and Hans at Agentschap Telecom for commissioning this daring project.

I can’t really talk about the project I’ve been working on with Roger Muskee and Ronnie Zeemering yesterday, but I promise all will be revealed next week. There was lipstick involved, crowbars and a pearl necklace officially went missing. Although that wasn’t part of the script.

The friendly people at Unconvention Groningen just posted an interview with none other than me on their website. I feel obliged to pardon my french english. A definite mixture of american-sitcom, hiphopalbum and BBC match of the day in my accent.

Today Sef (Flinke Namen), Victor (Habbekrats) and me spoke about the art of bringing a concept to a product at the Academy for Pop Culture. Video material will be available shortly.

In the meantime you can find my keynote along with other concepting material at this website. Special thanks to Lenno Verhoog and the students from the HKU, who dropped by from Utrecht. We had a great time.