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Technical innovations shape only a small part of computer and network culture. It doesn't matter much who invented the microprocessor, the mouse, TCP/IP or the World Wide Web; nor does it matter what ideas were behind these inventions. What matters is who uses them. Only when users start to express themselves with these technical innovations do they truly become relevant to culture at large. Users' endeavors, like glittering star backgrounds, photos of cute kittens and rainbow gradients, are mostly derided as kitsch or in the most extreme cases, postulated as the end of culture itself. In fact this evolving vernacular, created by users for users, is the most important, beautiful and misunderstood language of new media. As the first book of its kind, this reader contains essays and projects investigating many different facets of Digital Folklore: online amateur culture, DIY electronics, dirtstyle, typo-nihilism, memes, teapots, penis enlargement ...
Something both good and absolutely irritating happened while i was reading the book. I usually jot down tons notes on bits of paper while reading a book i have to review. This time however, i was so engrossed and entertained, i have only two lines on the notebook. I wasn't expecting that, i thought the book was for real geeks, not Sunday web drivers like me. Digital Folklore fills a gap in the computer and network culture you'd never know existed if you attend only big tech or web design conferences. Subcultures peopled by lolcats, memes and unsightly fonts are conspicuously absent from these polished gatherings, but that doesn't mean that they are less relevant to computer culture than what you see in the PowerPoint of usability strategists, information designers and other web gurus. Almost everything i abhor and love about the internet is in this book. I was hoping not to face again those dreadful Blingee cards that many of my french-speaking contacts from Belgium were so keen on inflicting upon me during the Holiday season but the damn Glitter Graphics are indeed featured in the book. My eyes closed themselves at the mere mention of the Blingee but other than that, i learnt so many things that i'm sure i'm a bit closer to satisfying the authors who, while writing the book, were guided by the moto: "You can and must understand computer culture NOW"! I wish my education had always involved so much fun.
The first part of the book is made of essays, articles and observations by Espenschied and Lialina. Computer culture has evolved and been submitted to guidelines and 'best practice' since they started the authors activity of web users and creators in the mid-90s. As they told Marie Lechner in an interview for Libération: "The excitement raised by the Web as a new medium has disappeared. Nowadays every single interest has its own, perfectly-organised online space, communication has become very standardized. The Web is regarded as a tool also by amateurs. The idea of a homepage supposed to communicate from a bright future is regarded as a silly romanticism." Then come four essays by former Merz-Akademie students about online phenomena. The last section presents projects of New Media and Interface Design students at Merz Akademie. Here's one of my favourite, Bootyclipse. Dennis Knopf's YouTube channel archives and loops the few seconds that precedes the arrival in the frame of a girl who is going to shake her booty in front of a camera. Don't pay attention to what youtube writes, This video is suitable for minors. I found the design of the book particularly appropriate, smart and playful. The objective of the designer Manuel Bürger was, as he wrote himself, to create a real amateur spirit - though you can feel that there's a "proper" design approach which makes everything practical and clear. Images nicked from Manuel Bürger. |
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Publisher Die Gestalten Verlag says: Data Flow 2 expands the definition of contemporary information graphics. The book features new possibilities for diagrams, maps, and charts. It investigates the visual and intuitive presentation of processes, data, and information. Concrete examples of research and art projects as well as commercial work illuminate how techniques such as simplification, abstraction, metaphor, and dramatization function. The book also includes interviews with experts such as The New York Times's Steve Duenes, Infosthetics's Andrew Vande Moere, Visualcomplexity's Manuel Lima, ART+COM's Joachim Sauter, and passionate cartographer Menno-Jan Kraak as well as text features by Johannes Schardt about the challenges in creating effective information graphics and about the relationship between complexity, clarity, content, and innovation.
If you still had any doubt that data were the sexiest thing this side of the Milky Way, Data Flow 2 might very well make you change your mind. The book was published only 18 months after its predecessor and i hope the publishers make an habit of it. It is jam-packed with innovative, smart and gripping examples of the way designers, programmers and artist are giving sense and beauty to the humongous mass of data that is overflowing our 'digital age'. I guess i'm sounding over-enthusiastic here but truth is i am genuinely thrilled with this volume.
Because information visualization is a flourishing, manifold discipline, the editors of the book have interviewed a series of experts who, each according to their own competence, shed light on a particular aspect of information visualization. Infosthetics's Andrew Vande Moere and Visualcomplexity's Manuel Lima aptly open the round of interviews. Bloggers are the ones who made the broad audience aware of the existence and wonders of data aesthetics after all. Steve Duenes, graphics director for The New York Times, talks about how the work at his department relies on a mix of journalistic research and pure design. Cartographer Menno-Jan Kraak explains why map matter so much that they can inform and influence important decisions. ART+COM's Joachim Sauter gives his view on the difference between operating information in a design context and using information for for art's sake. Here's a fraction of the works i discovered in Data Flow 2: In the chapter dedicated to Dataprocess... Tim Knowles, Windwalks, a series of walks directed by the ever-whimsical wind using an array of mechanisms, filmed and plotted by GPS.
The Seed, by John Kelly, a two-minute animated voyage through nature's life cycle, following the tribulations of an apple seed. The Seed from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo. In the Datablocks section Aleatory Compositions is a book of sheet music written by people who had no idea they were composing. Hoagy Houghton asked people to fill a blank grid with 7 colours, shading the squares as they pleased. A colour scale translated their visual composition into musical notes.
In Datacurves Visible Sound, by SOUNDS.BUTTER, is the prototype of a sewing machine that converts sound input into a sound wave of thread on textile.
Rose of Jericho, by Martin Kim Luge, is a series of data sculptures that team up a mySpace.com friend and with a rose of Jericho plant (also called Resurrection plant) in an attempt to convey a general feeling of the friend's mood. This desert flower can survive very long times without water. When watered, the branches rapidly spread out. In Luge's project, the water supply for the rose is controlled by the friend's mood as described on mySpace. A computer program reads the mood adjective at the friend's account in realtime. The adjective is compared against a database to map a numerical value to the emotion. This value defines the duration of the water pump controlled by a microcontroller, which is irrigating the rose of jericho. The higher the value the more water is arriving to the plant.
Spamghetto, by [todo.to.it], is a spam-based wallpaper created using a generative software and based on up to 2000 different junk-mail subjects scraped from Gmail mailboxes.
One of the works of Datamaps Tim Schwartz's Geohistoriography exhibits the way the United States view the world. The data was collected from the New York Times, namely the number of articles written about a certain country for each year, starting in 1851. The result of his investigation shows how America's perspective changed over the last 150 years. The last few decades, for example, have shifted the red button focus from the Iron Curtain to the Islamic states.
And finally some Dataesthetic Michael Najjar's High Altitude is a series of virtual romantic landscapes in which cliff, slopes and rock formations represent the performance charts of indices of the world's leading stock exchange over the past 20 - 30 years.
French, Spanish, and German editions of Data Flow 2 will be available End of March 2010. Image on the homepage: Diana Cooper, Orange Alert, 2005. Related: Visualizing: tracing an aesthetics of data, Data Visualization panel at OFFF, Lisbon, Conflux 2008: notes from the panel Cartography of Protest and Social Changes. |
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Lars Müller Publishers says: In this important exploration of the sentiments of our time, World of Giving explains the motivations for why we give and offers examples of individuals, foundations, governments, multinationals and NGOs helping others. Jeffrey Inaba and C-Lab provide an understanding of the process of working toward a greater good by describing actions that build bridges between goodwill and need, intention and realization. The authors show that gifts form the foundation of all kinds of human interaction with each one establishing a unique relationship between giver and receiver. They illustrate that the gift too alters in meaning and value, detailing how it transforms as it circulates through what are at times a complex series of transactions. In place of the pursuit of personal wealth, World of Giving presents a mindset that is based on generosity and revolves around the gesture of giving. The book argues that giving is a powerful act that gains social momentum, benefiting not just the immediate recipient but typically others as well. Acknowledging that each of us is inclined to give, this illuminating publication reveals how a beneficent deed contributes to an environment of increasing generosity in addition to enhancing the capabilities of its recipient. As a shared value, giving can grow to be a meaningful collective force that affects the world in surprising ways.
Read also the introduction to the book by Jeffrey Inaba. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie donated $ 1 million to aid Haiti quake relief, Swiss supermarket Migros bestows 0.5 % of its retail and 1 % of its wholesale turnover to art and culture as part of a programme called Migros Culture Percentage. On the other end of the generosity spectrum, Italy's billionaire prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, had proposed to put up in three of his own houses some of the thousands of people made homeless by the earthquake that shake Abruzzo in April last year. The offer has often been regarded as nothing more than a PR move (rumours has it that he never even respected his promise.)
The book World of Giving navigates the world of generosity with brio and erudition. Whether they are good old christian charity, sincere kindness or corporate philanthropy, acts of generosity are everywhere you'd care to look. From the velvet monkey that puts its own life at risk by emitting calls to warn other troop members of the approaching predator to the welfare pioneers of the Calvinist Dutch Republic. From the rise of US philanthropy to Communism's re-conceptualization of the act of giving, etc. World of Giving explores generosity through times and cultures. Philosopher, and historian David Hume described men as being fundamentally altruistic. Philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith believed that men are motivated chiefly by self-interest, even when they display some generosity. World of Giving has a more balanced approach. Far from being a mere attempt to substitute Gordon Gekko's 'Greed is good' with a call for openhandedness, the book uncovers the mechanisms and strategies of giving. And its economics, as anyone involved in thebusiness of giving away free digital goods can confirm.
* i can't recommend enough their Volume magazine. Related: Open City: Designing Coexistence - Part 3, Reciprocity. |
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Publisher Birkhauser says: Designers and architects have to make decisions regarding color every day. But how does one find the necessary inspiration? The appropriate color? How do other designers and artists deal with the issue? With "Chroma," the Greek word for color, as its title, this illustrated book provides answers to these questions and makes it clear that color is much more than mere decoration - it is one of the central problems of creative work. In the process, "Chroma" embraces the sensuous experience of color, inspiring and seducing the reader with unusual projects, from industrial products to color field painting. The book presents works by younger designers like Stefan Diez and Arik Levy as well as famous artists like Ellsworth Kelly. All of the works are presented in large-scale reproductions and also in a kind of color gradient, in which they are assigned to the chapters "monochromatic," "multichromatic," and "achromatic." The spectrum encompasses all conceivable shades and combinations, from brilliant and colorful through tasteful and subdued all the way to black-and-white contrasts. An additional chapter analyzes the work of outstanding artists, architects, and designers like Gerhard Richter, Konstantin Grcic, and Sauerbruch Hutton, who grapple with color to an unusual degree and have formulated characteristic chromatic worlds. An alphabetical index provides background information on the artists and studios selected.
The book is delightful and colours are dangerous. They'd make you buy and like almost anything. Hundreds of photos illustrate the importance of colour for turning buildings and vases alike in drab to fab and glorious. The first 273 pages immerse you in colours. The volume begins on a pale mayonnaise hue and evolves gradually to the deepest black via the most vibrant or faded pink, red, yellow or blue. I didn't see much turquoise, that so-called 'colour of 2010', though. Without any text to disturb the chromato-orgasm, you're left to make your own conjectures and connections.
Following the complaints of the neighbours, the orange building had to be repainting in green:
Did you ask for multichromatic?
The purely chromatic experience is followed by interviews with or essays about mighty colour-wizards: designers Fernando & Humberto Campana, Konstantin Grcic, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, architects Sauerbruch Hutton, UNStudio and artists Rupprecht Geiger, Gerhard Richter, Anselm Reyle. No a single woman then. The texts reveal the role of colour in their work, the way they combine it with shapes and materials, the control they might or might not have on the shades they use, the ones that intimidate them or those that have had a particular importance in their own story. Nothing will prevent me from closing this story with yet another Carsten Höller:
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Publisher Princeton Architectural Press says: Interactive Architecture is a processes-oriented guide to creating dynamic spaces and objects capable of performing a range of pragmatic and humanistic functions. These complex physical interactions are made possible by the creative fusion of embedded computation (intelligence) with a physical, tangible counterpart (kinetics). A uniquely twenty-first century toolbox and skill set--virtual and physical modeling, sensor technology, CNC fabrication, prototyping, and robotics--necessitates collaboration across many diverse scientific and art-based communities. Interactive Architecture includes contributions from the worlds of architecture, industrial design, computer programming, engineering, and physical computing. These remarkable projects run the gamut in size and complexity. Full-scale built examples include a house in Colorado that programs itself by observing the lifestyle of the inhabitants, and then learns to anticipate and accommodate their needs. Interactive Architecture examines this vanguard movement from all sides, including its sociological and psychological implications as well as its potentially beneficial environmental impact.
To be honest, i wasn't expecting to be so impressed with the book. I've read and even reviewed e few books on similar topics. They are sexy, glossy, intelligent, packed with jaw-dropping examples of interactive architecture, they have the right amount of geekiness (it feels serious but not to the point of putting off a dilettante like me), their excitement is contagious. This book goes further though. Interactive Architecture explores the trends, promises, means and ways of IA as well as its sociological and psychological implications. Kemp and Fox embrace innovation and cutting edge developments but they are also wary of being over-enthusiastic. Throughout the book they tackle issues that are essential to but also challenging for the field of IA: its economical feasibility, the need for a new pedagogical approach, the necessity of a cross-discipline communication, the questions raised by privacy, ethics, environmental impact or convenience. The book doesn't waste time on the fairground aspects of everything interactive. Right from the start, the authors question the way interactivity is conceived today by refering to the pioneering works and reflections done by the cyberneticians of the early '60s. Their idea of interactivity was a two-way street, a 'conversation' between the human and the machine, no a mere reactive approach. Their work and ideas are coming back in favour today thanks to the likes of Usman Haque and Ruairi Glynn. The works that illustrate the book keep you on a roller-coaster: you might read about the way interactive architecture can help care for the elderly but a few pages later you enter sexier waters with Daan Roosegaarde's 4D-Pixel installation or with Servo + Smart Studio's Lattice Archipelogics. Interactive Architecture is a very approachable -but intense- crash course for anyone who look for an in-depth study of the IA field. It is also a book to put into the hands of the most devoted expert. Some of the projects and directions discussed by the book:
Image on the homepage by Rob Kassabian. |
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And now for something completely different...
The first book in this series, published by BIS Publisher and authored by Anneloes van Gaalen, was dedicated to design, another one is about advertising rules and finally there's the one that got most of my attention, Never Leave the House Naked and 50 other Ridiculous Fashion Rules. The series tackles the list of precepts that have conditioned the worlds of fashion, advertising and design for decades. Are these rules precious guidelines, sources of inspiration or are they instead tyrannic dogmas that need to be bended or broken altogether? Rules tend to have a life of their own: over time their meaning changes or the rule is adopted by a whole new group of followers. Take, for instance, the classic "Form Follows Function." It started out life as an architecture guideline but has crept its way into other creative fields. This evolution is reflected in this book by the chronologically placed quotes that accompany each rule and that are courtesy of designers, architects, fashion designers, typographers and other creatives. All rules are also accompanied by an image that either negates or supports the rule. Our aim is not to list all the rules that you need to adhere to. Nor do we take sides in the whole rules debate.
The book about fashion was the one i was most eager to read. It's hard to ignore fashion. The discipline has after all permeated many aspects of contemporary culture. Last year only, Valentino: The Last Emperor made the shortlist for Hollywood's Academy Award's best documentary category. Another documentary released in 2009, The September Issue, follows Anna Wintour as she and her team were piecing together the 2007 September issue of Vogue Magazine. Plus, there's that movie Coco before Chanel. Museums and galleries now routinely open shows dedicated to fashion designers or to the much-debated relationship between art and fashion. The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam will be closing in the next few days The Art of Fashion (see report part 1 and part 2) which investigates the borders between fashion and art. I've now stopped counting the number of books or exhibition catalogs written about the parallels that exist between fashion and architecture. I won't even get you on fashion and technology or fashion and hacking or activism. Talking from a more personal perspective, i'd add that the fashion world seems to have more sympathy and respect for bloggers than contemporary art. But that's another story. The truth is I love fashion because i'm vain. At least in Winter time. Summer never fails to anger and deride me with its stupid shapes and pastel shades. Rumour has it that the ghastly '90s are back this summer with bum bags, neon colours, kitten heels and cycling shorts.
But what about Never Leave the House Naked? Well, given its subject i'll start with its appearance. The book is neatly designed. Small format, great graphics and plenty of illustrations commissioned to talented young graphic designers. There are 51 rules, each of them exemplified by quotes from famous fashion designers or writers with a marked interest in fashion. The quotes either sharply confirm the rule or contradict them with wit and conviction leading you to believe that there is no rule. What remains, however, is the pleasure to discuss, question or embrace these rules. Nothing should ever be taken for granted in the world of fashion (or design, art and advertising.)
Here are some of my favourite quotes: "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society." Mark Twain. "Art produces ugly things, which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things, which always become ugly with time." Jean Cocteau.
"Women dress alike all over the world: they dress to be annoying to other women." Elsa Schiaparelli. I also read The Medium is the Message and 50 other Ridiculous Advertising Rules which was obviously great fun and thought-provoking but because the ad world has never quite managed to get my pulse racing as fast as a pair of electric blue low boots does, i'll leave you with a couple of illustrations:
and a view inside this facetious little book:
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