Hurricane Irene did not affect the Washington D.C. metro area with the ferocity predicted by it’s hyperbolic media. Which isn’t to say that it couldn’t have been terrible; North Carolina, Virginia, Puerto Rico etc. were hit quite hard.
Here is an incredible video of Irene from it’s birth to it’s death captured from space by the geostationary satellite GOES-13.
Video: Hurricane Irene’s Birth, Death Seen From Space
via Wired Science [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/hurrica
Matthias Stork’s Chaos Cinema is a series focusing on the framing, composition, and execution of action scenes in 21st century cinema. He argues that it is not meant to be coherent for the viewers and that it “hypnotizes” the viewers without engaging them emotionally or aesthetically.
“The video essay *Chaos Cinema*, administered by Indiewire’s journalistic blog PRESS PLAY, examines the extreme aesthetic principles of 21st century action films. These films operate on techniques that, while derived from classical cinema, threaten to shatter the established continuity formula. Chaos reigns in image and sound.”
Part 1 http://vimeo.com/28016047
“Part 1 contrasts traditional action films with chaotic ones and takes a close look at the “sound” track, especially its use in car chases.”
Part 2 http://vimeo.com/28016704
“Part 2 takes a look at the chaotic style in dialogue scenes, musicals, “shaky-cam” extravaganzas and mourns the rich history of early cinema.”
I had perviously shared a similar video essay called Everything is a Remix? by Kirby Ferguson, which is a 4 part series examining creativity. [http://goo.gl/UZYmU]
Design concepts:
Principles to good UI –
Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles “Good Design” –
Good design:
+Jeff Jarvis says “We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future”. And he explains why -
…our leaders keep trying to resuscitate old markets and old ways. Bailing out banks only transferred debt from them to governments (read: citizens), leading to Europe’s mess. Bailing out GM gave life support to an industry that deserves disruption. Fighting over debt in Congress — and reducing the markets’ faith in the markets, leading to this week’s mess — isn’t the issue. The question is, what should government be doing — where it should be investing — to improve our lot in the future as the size of government with the taxes available will inevitably shrink with the economy.
-from Google+
There are some very interesting discussions happening regarding Google’s policy to enforce usage of “real” names in Google+ instead of pseudonyms, online handles, and other versions of a person’s name. This applies not just to Google+, but also to most online social networks.
These two posts and the comments under it - by Dan Gillmor http://goo.gl/nhWZJ, and by Tom Anderson http://goo.gl/ME4fe, both discuss the issue in the context of an article by Dana Boyd of Microsoft Research titled *“Real Names” Policies Are an Abuse of Power* http://goo.gl/c0nUH
She has written a followup piece on the subject as well - *Designing for Social Norms (or How Not to Create Angry Mobs)* http://goo.gl/L5DVI
I am still on the fence about whether Google’s position on the subject is the right one. Their position is defensible when you consider that using real names enforces identity and responsibility. But at the same time, anonymity is very important in certain contexts to ensure personal security. For instance, the technology savvy participants in the Arab Spring need to remain anonymous to prevent government retribution. And this issue is different from the need for the user to represent his or her identity in a manner of their own choosing.
However, for an online social network to represent real-life social networks, certain aspects of a person’s identity needs to be made available to others in the network. And the user’s name is the most publicly known representation of that identity.
There are very few artists that strike a very personal emotional chord in me like Tinariwen does. I discovered them via a Dig For Fire video on Vimeo back in 2009, and have used their music in some of the videos that I’ve put up there.
While travelling in Morocco with Punnen Syriac and Swen George, I fell in love with the band all over again when we took a 3 day journey into the Sahara. We listened to their album “Amassakoul” during our taxi ride to Merzouga over and over again as the desert landscape sped by.
Their music is intricately tied to the land they come from. There is a minimalism, a sparseness to their arrangement. There is a melodic and thematic repetition in their riffs, licks and verse that is at once timeless and original.
They are coming out with a new album – “Tassili“. If you haven’t discovered them yet, I urge you to do it. There are very few artists this original.
Tinariwen on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinariwen
Tinariwen (Dig for Fire on Vimeo): http://vimeo.com/3071468
My videos featuring their music:
- “Backyard Barbecue” http://vimeo.com/4927853
- “The Farthest West” http://vimeo.com/23724361
via Punnen Syriac on Google Reader.
Morocco, a set on Flickr.
Collection of my favorite photographs taken while traveling in Morocco.
Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements exemplifying Bruce Mau‘s beliefs, strategies and motivations.
1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.2. Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where were going, but we will know we want to
be there.4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.5. Go deep.
The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.6. Capture accidents.
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.7. Study.
A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.8. Drift.
Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.9. Begin anywhere.
John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.10. Everyone is a leader.
Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.11. Harvest ideas.
Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas
to applications.12. Keep moving.
The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.13. Slow down.
Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.14. Dont be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.15. Ask stupid questions.
Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.16. Collaborate.
The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.17. ____________________.
Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas
of others.18. Stay up late.
Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.19. Work the metaphor.
Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.20. Be careful to take risks.
Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.21. Repeat yourself.
If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.22. Make your own tools.
Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.23. Stand on someones shoulders.
You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.24. Avoid software.
The problem with software is that everyone has it.25. Don’t clean your desk.
You might find something in the morning that you cant see tonight.26. Don’t enter awards competitions.
Just don’t. Its not good for you.27. Read only left-hand pages.
Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our “noodle.”28. Make new words.
Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.29. Think with your mind.
Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.30. Organization = Liberty.
Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between “creatives” and “suits” is what Leonard Cohen calls a ‘charming artifact of the past.’31. Don’t borrow money.
Once again, Frank Gehrys advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. Its not exactly rocket science, but its surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.32. Listen carefully.
Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.33. Take field trips.
The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic simulated environment.34. Make mistakes faster.
This isn’t my idea I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.35. Imitate.
Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You’ll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamps large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.36. Scat.
When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
38. Explore the other edge.
Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We cant find the leading edge because its trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.
Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces what Dr. Seuss calls “the waiting place.” Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.40. Avoid fields.
Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.41. Laugh.
People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I’ve become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.42. Remember.
Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.43. Power to the people.
Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can’t be free agents if were not free.
[via Ma.tt. The page that the post links to http://www.brucemaudesign.com/112942/ doesn't contain the manifesto anymore.]
Shot in Morocco between April 17th-29th, 2011
Music: “Oualahilla Ar Tesninam” by Tinariwen
Equipment:
Nikon D90 – 18-105mm, 50mm
Motorola Droid 2
It’s hard to believe that it’s only been a day since we got here at Casablanca, Morocco. Just one day during which, we visited the splendidly (overbearingly) large Hasan II mosque, and walked through the downtown area, the Ancienne Medina, and Boulevard de La Corniche.
The hotel we are staying in here – Hotel Central, is located inside the Ancienne Medina, near the entrance facing the Atlantic Ocean. This is a delightfully rustic hotel. There is a square in front of the hotel that is lined with cafes and stores. The square and the alleys that lead from it into the heart of the Medina are alive with the sounds people, animals and machines, late into the night.
After yesterday’s thoroughly packed itinerary of walks and visits, we are taking it a little slow this morning. We’ve booked the hotel for our stay in Fez, and will be leaving shortly by train. Despite an urge to stay here longer, the journey must continue. The rest of Morocco beckons.
![The Farthest West [on Vimeo]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3216/5718682199_1577bb95d1_s.jpg)
