Sum of its parts
Art works featuring skulls are as common as those displaying unconventional spins on celebrity portraits. Berd Vaye’s pieces are particularly ingenious as they are made of vintage watch components, and so open the works to multitudinous interpretations. Hallucination, for instance, sees a skull made of watch gears floating within a lucite cube. One can also dub this The Mechanics of Mortality or The Prison of a Complex Mind. As Damien Hirst knows, genius is sometimes in the naming of art. The 25cm Hallucination is limited to 999 pieces and costs US$6,900 (S$9,500).
For more information, visit berdvaye.com.Kitchen omnitasker
If the Thermomix company had its way, its high-powered, high-tech gadget would be the only piece of equipment you will ever need in your kitchen. At its core, the Thermomix TM6 combines a food processor with an electric pot, allowing all kinds of possibilities including emulsification, low-temperature cooking, chopping, whisking, and even dough kneading. There’s also an integrated Wi-Fi system you can use to download recipes.A gift of sound and vision
Television screens have become a numbers race as brands compete to introduce the biggest, the clearest, and the most colour-accurate. Design, meanwhile, automatically veers to variations of the sleek black rectangle which, while practical, lacks that certain je ne sais quoi. So, thank goodness for the upcoming Beovision Harmony from Bang & Olufsen (B&O)!
It combines the Danish company’s sound-engineering and design chops in a LG OLED 4K screen for a living-room centrepiece that’s not just functional but aesthetically arresting as well. Loosely modelled after B&O’s mid-20th century Capri cabinet TV, the 77-inch Beovision Harmony features oak-veneered, three-channel speakers that open outwards like the wings of a butterfly for a slow, glorious reveal of the screen. Now, if that doesn’t elicit a conversation or 10, we don’t know what will.
(Related: Designer furniture: make a statement with these pieces for the home or office)