OK, I’m fascinated (again). The latest love child between IT and art is called the Twiller, and it’s a spontaneously created novel, published 140 characters at a time, on no particular schedule, on Twitter.
This may be the seed for the next iteration of an Exquisite Corpse, like SMXL has going on over at Tagfilm.com.
I have to admit, I don’t twitter. I’m not a big enough fan of the text message as a medium. Plus, I only pay for 200 of the things a month before I get overage fees (thanks, AT&T!). But I’m reconsidering all of this, knowing I can read a novel or two this way.
Maybe I’ll have to join the movement, and start directing a film that I distribute over AIM, using my webcam…
I think this is really clever… over at Pixeloo they are showing us what cartoon and video game characters would look like if they were real (Jessica Rabbit is my personal favorite… hubba hubba… in a creepyish kinda way)
A beautiful piece of public interactive art for sure:
(From Shape and Color)
Through a matrix of perforations, sunshine gets converted through the dome into lines of poetry underneath. For the text, Song chose classical Korean poems called “Sijos” and translated them into English. It takes about 8 hours to see the entire poem, with each line visible for about an hour. The design actually shifts poems based on the season (how they managed to get it to do that with only one set of holes in the top, I have no idea…). During the summer the poem focuses on a theme of “new life”, during the winter it turns to “reflection and the passing of time”. The time-lapse video showing the the delicacy of the words moving through the shadow of the dome is a must see.
But I have to say, I’m in love with the all the conceptual stuff that Jiyeon Song put into this piece. The project site is chock full of beautiful diagrams showing all the thinking that went into the project:
Sometimes the directions for how to do something can be just as beautiful as the actual thing itself… well, to design geeks anyway
Obama is, in my mind, the most sophisticatedly branded candidate yet. His brand is definitely the Apple to Hill’s Microsoft. (and hopefully he’ll be the Apple to McCain’s Wang…)* It’s no surprise that he seems to be doing so well with young people. (and us design conscious folks…)
The real question is, will the slickness, and sophistication of his branding backfire in some way? Will the republicans (or Hill) be able to pull of an us vs. them attack… the folksy vs. the sophisticate? Podunk vs. Madison Ave?
Obama’s brand definitely works for me. It communicates his message of change, and hope, and a new horizon. My political opinions aside, I am in love with Obama’s branding. Speak Up says it best:
“For each segment of people, the logo changes accordingly, tip-toeing a fine line between cliché and clever, and never crossing to the former’s dark side. The iterations are quickly identifiable and feel genuinely concerned with connecting to the people they are talking to, without pandering. The executions are rather flawless and work perfectly on screen with the detailed gradients and subtle background illustrations. Even the typography is lovingly handled, with each segment changing ever so slightly and unified by the use of Gotham in most of the applications, and using other typefaces as fitting — even the “kids” typography looks finessed, despite the looming pitfalls of faux child-drawn typography. This kind of playful flexibility is typically reserved for the likes of MTV, VH1 or Nickelodeon and the breadth of this kind of brand architecture for global corporations with endless divisions.”
*And to drive this Mac/PC metaphor into the ground:
Just listened to a piece on WNYC about protesters in the UK and Canada — and more recently in the US — who are protesting songs from a sub-genre of Reggae music called Dancehall.
The Dancehall music at issue contains extreme homophobic language. The lyrics laid out in the radio article went beyond using derogatory language for gay people, and described shooting and burning gays alive.
I find the sentiment in these songs despicable, and I personally wouldn’t spend my money buying recordings of these songs or attending concerts.
Protesters of these songs have managed to convince others not to buy the music or attend concerts, venues not to host them, and have even convinced iTunes Canada to stop selling them.
The artists and labels involved feel that these actions amount to an infringement on free speech.
The radio piece includes an interview of a very articulate woman who works at one of the labels — apropos, her name is Gargamel (hope she picked that for herself and wasn’t stuck with it by her parents). Anyway, Gargamel argues that while she doesn’t personally agree with the sentiment of the lyrics, that the protesters are misguided. She suggests that protesting the songs amounts to an infringement on free speech, and that protesters would be better off addressing their concerns and focusing their energy on Jamaica’s parliament, who do little to protect gay rights in that country.
While it surely is a worthy cause to promote gay rights in Jamaica’s government, I think Gargamel has got free speech completely backwards.
The guarantee of free speech in modern democracy is to provide a firewall between the government and freedom of expression. It would be a clear violation of free speech for the government of Jamaica, or the US, or any other State to shut down one form of music because it does not agree with the sentiment expressed by the speaker.
But, the POINT of free speech is for ideas — even wrong-headed hateful ones like in the songs profiled in this story — to be available to people to consume, discuss, enjoy, dislike — and yes, to protest.
And in a capitalist society, the most effective way to either endorse or disavow an idea is to vote with your wallet. Those who disagree with the hateful lyrics in these songs have a right not to buy them, not to attend concerts that feature them, and to encourage others to do the same. That’s free speech at work in the marketplace.
I wonder what would happen if those in our society who are appalled by such things as the use of “the n word” and degradation of women in some rap music, or the belittling of human beings on some reality TV, or anything having to do with Paris Hilton or Brittany Spears — simply voted with their dollars, and encouraged others to do the same?
Or, better still, used the terrific tools that are available to us all to produce media that presents an alternative viewpoint.
I have to say that the protesters in this case have a much better grasp of the power of freedom of expression than the one label representative who would speak on tape.
Freedom of expression includes the right to rail against ideas you find appalling. I’d go so far as to say that’s the point.
Don Downie | 
08 31st, 2008| 
