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A service design course in the north of England, I’m not entirely sure of how interesting the structure sounds to someone who knows nothing about the field.
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Molly Steenson’s lens on cultural ephemera, must watch.
Archive for August, 2007
links for 2007-08-31
August 31, 2007Interface glitch of the day
August 31, 2007Lack of contextual understanding makes some systems seem dumb. On signing up a
links for 2007-08-30
August 30, 2007-
Hema is the Dutch equivalent to IKEA (actually they claim that IKEA stole their idea ) and Mediamatic just opened an exhibition about a mashup of the arabic communities in Holland and Hema. Will definitely go to check it out when I’m there.
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Great gallery of pictures taken in the former industrial sections of Germany
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Nice looking bakery in town, i wonder of the bread is like the finnish one.
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Nice clothing transformation.
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I never thought I’d link to VW but this is an interesting list and set of assumptions about the future state of entertainment and media in the future.
Living your lifestream yet?
August 30, 2007This article prompted some thoughts about this society’s obsession with documenting everything. The article starts rather nicely with
“When I was a boy—I can remember how my Mother would spend a good part of her Sundays. She would take out her phonebook—a tattered collection of names and numbers written in handwriting you could barely read, and re-connect with her personal network—an intimate collection a family and friends. She didn’t create media other than the pictures she took or the video my father shot on his 8mm video camera. ”
Somehow this sounds way more soothing and relaxing than what we’re living now. With these “lifestreams” we’re creating, these social networks, having friends see every corner of our conscious and subconscious existence, pictures, statuses, pokes, twitters, games, applications, we’re also creating an unprecedented set of expectations. “I should post more often on Flickr before I drop off the map” was something I heard recently. These things are starting to sound like work.
Being dedicated at doing something used to be for workaholics. In the meantime we’ve all turned into sociaholics. Progress in society meant we would one day have more time to ourselves:the illiusion of the Homo ludens. But as the NYTimes was quick to point out, we are enjoying less and less free time. So we’ve turned fun into work and are desperate to have fun at work.
There used to be a trend in interaction design of thinking aboutslow technology and creating relaxing experiences for people to have, like slow food, slow travel. But technology by definition has never been slow. Interacting with technology isn’t a slow activity. It’s about being efficient, getting things done, so that you can… hmm… post pictures up on Flickr.
So I have to wonder,will we collectively keep going or will the height of this bubble be a collective “stop”, a global yearning for a technology-lighter existence. Will this be the push towards AI where we literally have nothing to do, no button to push, tranquil in the knowledge that everything is already being captured, edited, published, without us having to lift a finger. Will we actually ever live a moment without having to absolutely, irrevocably, reach down in our pocket for our phone camera and push that button?
Or maybe we were never meant to be totally ludens in the first place.
Quote of the day
August 29, 2007Talking over coffee about the number of “web2.0 consultants” around these days Matt said:
“During a gold rush the people making money are the ones selling shovels”
links for 2007-08-27
August 27, 2007-
Very US focused at the moment, I think from now on end, there is no excuse for any web2,0 conference to not include a number of women speakers
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Religion and economics are never far away from each other. Now the Vatican has signed a commercial accord to offer low cost day travel to pilgrims between various holy cities.
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Am quoted at the bottom of this article, I think it’s about interaction design but it only seems to be talking about IA stuff… dutch help anyone?
Random bank holiday thoughts
August 27, 2007I’m spending a first weekend of downtime in a while walking around London, cooking with Matt and letting just random realisations bubble out. A few:
. Why does everyone in design and technology have architecture envy? Everyone talks about urban spaces, psychogeography, gps, architecture… most of these subjects it seems have been covered by scores of people before. There’s loads to read about the subject. Is it because it’s such an established field, with loads of thinkers and theories around it, or is since we got GPS and Google Earth appeared. And why only architecture? Why not product design? Is it because it’s seen as less accessible therefore more enviable.
. I’ve been reading a lot of Kundera in the past few months simply because it gives me a great opportunity to read more French (my mother tongue) and reading L’immortalité has been surprising. It’s simply the best example of a form of writing that hints of how the internet way of understanding information turned out to be. It is a meta book. A book about a book and writing a book, a story about another story with a story to compare it to.
. This has also made me think that I need to go back to the classics and start hacking away at that long list I always said I’d read one day. A brief history of time will be my first one. If it’s true that we are a forgetful species and that everything has already been thought and done maybe some answers to problems lurking in the future lie in what was written in the past.
links for 2007-08-26
August 26, 2007-
Another great post, he’s on vacation, and writing again, hurrah!
Politics and education in art and design
August 25, 2007
“We expect art to be shocking, extreme.” say Dunne and Raby.
I think it might be the other way around sometimes though, art tries to be just art, and we somehow decide to take it personally. Maybe because it’s one of the last uncommercialisable and don’t-have-to-be-politically-friendly forms of expression. Maybe because you can’t call the cops because you’re being personally offended by what’s being displayed.
Or can you?
For example, if you try to exhibit a chocolate Jesus at Easter, well your show might be canceled.
Or if you’re not of the same ethnic background as the person you’re sculpting you might have people protesting to the government.
I’ve written a lot about design and education in my interviews lately and I feel that the same education also applies to art. To understand art and it’s value, it’s value as a commentary, a personal vision, a stance is something that is taught. To understand the value of the design methodologies to better a business, see the potential in an idea, think out of the box about a certain problem, needs education as well. But what does it take in North America to achieve that when european dry design is met with suspicion.
Being a young country, maybe North America hasn’t been exposed as much as Europe has to a history of art. Growing up in Paris, I was taught art history at age 7 and knew my Gauguin from my Seurat. I doubt you could say the same from most young kids now.
In the UK, a few years ago the Design Council was involved in an endeavor to push design classes to take place in primary schools. I hope that comes back as a part of the national curriculum, as Denmark did with user-centered design.
The earlier you learn about the value, place and potential of art and design in the world, the less likely you are to grow up to be the kind of adult who calls up your local council with a petition because someone’s exhibiting an egg-shaped baby.
links for 2007-08-24
August 24, 2007-
Topoware article included in this 7th edition of Ambidextrous.
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only one of the millions of entertaining things about living in the UK
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the absolute best use of flash I’ve ever seen for an online portfolio, its all about timing and refresh and no fucking intros thank you very much!
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want!
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netflix for books, brilliant for those who only read leasury books, wouldnt work for me and my heavy design books