The Toaster Project book 9 September 2011

Finally, the book of The Toaster Project is published by Princeton Architectural Press! I have been sent an advance copy and I am well pleased with it – a big hat tip to Paul Wagner the designer at PAPress.

It becomes available (according to Amazon) on the 1st November 2011 – weirdly seeing it available for pre-order on Amazon makes if feel really real. But I am quite looking forward to walking in to a bookshop and finding it… ‘Available in all good bookshops’? I hope so (though I’m not sure it’ll be on the counter at Waterstones or whatever, like my friend Pat’s excellent book which is somehow both less, and in a way, more niche).

So, you can buy it from amazon here or direct from Princeton Architectural Press here if you feel so inclined!

I will also be having a book launch at some point in November somewhere in London. I’m not entirely sure where yet (any suggestions?), but I’ll put it on my calendar of events when i’ve worked it out.

Unlikely Objects: Products of a Counterfactual History of Science 8 May 2011

The website for my new project (kindly supported by the Wellcome Trust) is online! Thank you to Studio Myers for the web design, and Nelly Ben Hayoun for the fabulous illustrations.

Unlikely Objects: Products of a Counterfactual History of Science is a project where I’m designing and making some objects which might exist today had debates in the history of science turned out differently. The objects themselves will be exhibited from the 27th June in London, venue to be announced. Watch this space!

Policing Genes Questions & Answers 19 January 2011

Regine from the excellent site we-make-money-not-art got in touch with some good questions about Policing Genes, which she’d seen in the windows of the Wellcome Trust (pictured).

The questions and my quite exhaustive answers are published here.

The Toaster Project book 18 January 2011

I’ve just finished (as in yesterday) the third and hopefully mostly-final revision of the text of the Toaster Project book which is going to be published by Princeton Architectural Press. I wrote up the project in a kind of book (graphic designed by my friend A Young Kim) which I exhibited alongside the toaster. In a moment of ‘slightly drunken networking’ (the only ‘networking’ I do), I showed it to Michael Bierut who’s a partner at Pentagram design in New York, who liked it and who showed it to his friend who’s a publisher at Princeton Architectural Press, who also liked it, who’s going to publish it! It needed extensive revision though, which is why it’s taken me so long. It’s coming out in Autumn 2011 (there’s a weird thing in the book world apparently where one only publishes one’s book in either the Spring or Autumn).

TED Lecture 18 January 2011

I gave a lecture at TED Salon (kind of half-yearly mini-TEDs they run) in London before Christmas about my toaster project.

The whole TED thing was quite nerve wracking – they really drum it in to you that you must be well rehearsed, and that some great people have come un-stuck on the TED stage by being underprepared etc. I think one person giving a talk on the day took this rather to heart, and it was like they had memorised the whole thing which wasn’t a good strategy. Anyway, being over-prepared is something I’ve never had to worry about (its opposite has caused me a lot of extreme worry in the past however), and my talk went well, and it’s recently been posted on the TED website.

Lots of comments which is great, some positive, some critical and valid given only the 8 minutes of talk or something, and some critical and just inane. Anyway here it is!

Unlikely Objects: Products of Superseded Science 13 August 2010

I’m extremely pleased to announce that I’ve been awarded a grant from the Wellcome Trust to persue my project Unlikely Objects: Products of Superseded Science.

More details soon…

Getting to know you, WordPress 13 August 2010

Congratulations! You are viewing the updated site of me, Thomas Thwaites.
I can only apologise to the thousands of people who visited my previous, pretty much constantly out-of-date website. Hopefully they’ll come back one day…
So, a year after graduating from the Royal College of Art, I have finally found myself up-to-date with my emails, my accounts done(!), and with a current project with a flexible deadline. With these aspects in rare alignment, the long delayed task of tasks could be delayed no more… The sorting out of my website.

To that end I have installed WordPress and will begin the process of making a template and populating it with my work and inane posts like this!  Watch this space.