Bruce Sterling delivers Cranbrook commencement + Dharmesh Patel and Marty McElveen win Daimler Emerging Artists Award

At the moment, I can't think of anything more flattering and awesome for a pair of self-styled cyberpunks than to have their engagement announced on WIRED by Bruce Sterling!

If you're not properly nauseated yet, here is another photo - this one snapped by Scott Klinker. Back on topic of art, design and culture, take the time to watch Sterling and Klinker discussing spimes at Google last week.

Sterling gave a dynamic commencement speech for the Cranbrook Academy of Art masters of art and architecture class of 2007 yesterday. To distill it to few key points: the world is very fast, think and act globally, real art ships, and the "Cranbrook Mafia" has both the ability and the right to shape the course of the future. He told some poignant and funny stories about Charles and Ray Eames and Damien Hirst. The speech was taped, so hopefully it will show up on YouTube soon.




Passage Pavilion by Dharmesh Patel and Marty McElveen




Bench by Dharmesh Patel and Marty McElveen

Big congrats to Dharmesh Patel and Marty McElveen for winning the prestigious DaimlerChrysler Financial Services Emerging Artists Award. This is not only the first time the award has gone to graduates of the architecture program, but the first dual award. They will be living and developing their work in Berlin for a month, and scooting around in matching Smart cars. (Maybe not matching, but we really like the dorkiness of that mental image.) Background on the Emerging Artist Award here and more images of Dharmesh and Marty's Systematic Surfaces here.