The Best Blog Ever!?!

I found this today and think that, for a short time anyway, it could be the best blog ever:

toby's monitor

(note: hope you enjoy this one, Amy)

Friday Lovin': Animation and the French School

I love this because it is so over the top: Le Building

There is a lot of really good stuff coming out of France. It's probably that Jesus-blood thing....

Strange Connections

(Note: I am in a cafe that is playing their 'worst of the 80s' cd so I apologize for any errors. My brain is melting!)

I am in a cafe because I need caffeine. I was up late watching a show on the History Channel called something like 'Beyond the Da Vinci Code' or 'Tantalizing enough to keep you awake until 2am'. Anyway, the show systematically debunked the interesting little stories and clues in the book (soon to be movie) The Da Vinci Code.

For those of you that don't know the premise of the book, the mystery centers around a search for the holy grail. The 'san graal' or holy grail, as author Dan Brown tells us, is actually 'sang raal' (royal blood) and the book provides a complex story about how the templar knights and a secret sect called the Priory of Scion (to which Leonardo Da Vinci, in the book, belongs) protect the secret that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalen and that they had a child (a girl named Sarah). Supposedly, Mary stole away to France where the holy blood line continued with the Merovingian royal family. The decendents of Jesus, following logic, went on to produce such rich cultural treasures as the Sophie Marceau teen flick 'La Boum' and the Citroen Deux Cheveaux.

Regardless, historians believe that Jesus could've been married to Mary as it was not unusual, at the time, for Jewish men to have arranged marriages in their 20s. And there is evidence that Mary did indeed escape to Egypt then to the south of France.

While this is all interesting in itself, I find a metareading of the Da Vinci phenomenon fascinating especially in light of several recent books: Everything Bad is Good for You and The Goddess and the Alphabet.

Let me explain: All these text, Da Vinci Code included, toy with the idea that there are fundamental ways of viewing the world (through Patriarchical and Matriarchical lenses is the most facile description of these viewpoints). Leonard Shlain's Goddess follows an argument that has more holes in it than a Fallujah Islamists' hideout but the central tenet that we privilege the written word and rationality to the point that disables the feminine in much of our lives. In The Da Vinci Code the Priory of Scion also believes that the story of Jesus and Mary is one more egalitarian than the church wanted. Da Vinci's symbology, Brown asserts, reaffirms the feminine in religious texts.

What does this have to do with Everything Bad, you ask? We often equate visual media as emotional (read not rational) and author Steven Johnson makes the argument that all sorts of visual media is not mindless but that is actually quite complex thus making us smarter. To me, I see this argument as part of the broader acceptance of the visual and, possible, a move from patriarchy-enabling rationalization toward more emotive egalitarian modes of thought. (note: insert tongue in cheek)

Then again my whole argument could just be result of my emotional state after be subjected to Kenny Logins' 'Footloose'.

Getting serious about Tut

It is not all fun and games when race is involved.

(BTW, visit Moveon.org to give your support to NPR and PBS).

Rem's Magic Playhouse

I am currently sitting in the Seattle room of the Seattle public library. Yes, this is Rem Koolhas' baby.

I find it a fascinating place. A bit cold and awfully open but I think that also gives it charm oddly enough. It is never loud (like I thought it would be) and I have found many spaces that quite comfortable (with squishy furniture).

As a library, I don't think the building will age gracefully. The first thing to go will be the spongy furniture, I am sure. Then the low stack will be need to be replaced with taller shelving and that alone will alter the visual experience. Public libraries show a lot of wear and tear very quickly and this space is not immune from that fate.

But that's just spongy furniture and shelving. The details are what makes the space unique. The windows (and the building's facade is essentially one giant window broken by a diagonal grid of metal beams) sandwich an aluminium (?) mesh that is both seemingly transparent and very effective at deflecting the light.

The carpet near an info desk takes it cues from a garden space directly outside the building and brings it indoors. The effect is a very funky, very contemporary space.

I can't help but think about a discussion I had with an architect friend of mine. He remarked that this building has very little to do with books, reading, and the normal functions of a library. In many ways, I have to agree. I can forsee a time in the future when this space serves another purpose. It would do it quite well (and perhaps age gracefully in this new function).

Design in a small town part 3

Sometimes good design has a lot to do with restraint. The coffee shop above is a popular hangout and one of about 200 of the same franchise in our meager little town. The interior has beautiful walls of exposed brick that, during renovation, revealed 80 year old (or so) painted signage and, I guess, graffiti.

I assume the shop owners were worried that the facade wasn't fitting the feeling of the rest of the place. So, they took it upon themselves to add trompe l'oeil faux brick, windows and a handpainted sign. Although hard to see unless you are walking on the other side of the street, all of this is really overkill that does more to destroy the coherent design dialogue between the shop's established identity system and interior design.

Sometimes good design means whispering instead of yelling or, more to the point, knowing when to stop designing!

metasurface hiatus

I am currently sitting in an airport waiting for my plane to Seattle. I will not be posting as often as I would like (if at all). Hang in there and stay out of trouble.

Podcasting Television?

In informal discussions with students in my large lecture classes (~350 students) I have been surprised by how many students claim that they DON'T watch television.

Many claim that they have maybe 1 or 2 shows that they may record or watch but the truth of the matter is that DVDs, the internet and video games (even music) have taken chunks of time away from the tube.

It is really interesting how students take little bits of media and, more often than not, literally take it with them.

Although there are a plethora of portable media players (see gizmodo.com), the technology still hasn't hit mainstream.

At the risk of venturing into popular techno-fetishism, I think in the next year or two as the technology becomes widely accepted (in rural areas too) we are going to need to continue the project to reconceptualize graphic and interface design.

The media and the technology that support them, I posit, often promote quick and lasting changes that we (as lowly human beings too concerned with the mundane aspects of our lives) are unable to appreciate until it is practically too late. To quickly jump on hte bandwagon smacks of careless abandon and, in the case of education, pandering popular deterministic mythologies. What's a young educator to do?

The Visionary Imagination

(thanks to idfueland the nameless bloke who originally posted the image on Flikr)

Designers and artists often live in two worlds at once: the imaginary and the real world. Sometimes it is difficult for us to envision what the artist is showing us and other times it is simply magical. In good visionary projects we instantly get it and, for a moment, peer into another world. The object depicted above was created by French theater/puppeteer troupe Royal De Luxeto to celebrate the 100th anniversity of Jules Verne's death. This was one of a number of projects in Nantes, Verne's hometown.

With the ability to translate and share the imaginary comes a lot of responsibility. Ironically, Verne's last book Paris in the 20th Century has pretty much come to be. Maybe if he'd been responsible enough NOT TO DIE and had finished the sodding book and published it we wouldn't be in this mess!

(Yikes! Sorry for that outburst. I am going back to my tut heads...)

Slacker Guilt: Fun Post Freebie

I got so caught up in my own angst-ridden writer's block last Friday that I forgot to post. So here is what I would've posted:

A couple of weeks ago the NY Times ran an article about a visual reconstruction of the dashing young King Tut. Here's an image from National Geographic magazine:



Like any good educator I thought to myself: "How can I use this image to teach deep and meaningful things about our visual culture and our ability to see the (formerly) invisible?!"

Then I thought to myself: "Screw that! I just want to draw some funky hair on that guy!"

So, if you have Photoshop, go to this site and download some funky hair brushes, install them, and have at it.

Here is my latest creation:



Note: For those of you who perhaps noticed a similarity between the boy king's and my own profile all I can offer is this.

The Line King

During my lunch breaks these past few days I've been viewing The Line King . It's a quiet and unpretentious documentary about New York cartoonist Al Hirschfeld who passed away in 2003.

The documentary traces his life throughout the 20th century and, while I have been a fan for as long as I can remember, I hadn't stopped to think about what his signature style has come to mean. Basically, he IS New York City in the 20th Century.

Renowned for his caricatures of theater personalities and performing artists in general, Hirschfeld had the fortune of being in the thick of it throughout his entire life. If you want to find the essence of the magical impression that many have of New York, take the time to explore the body of his work. The DVD is a perfect way to do this.

Included in the bonus features is a segment where he draws Paul Newman. Hirschfeld is 99 years old and while much of his markmaking is scratchy he occasionally pulls off a sweeping line that is so elegant. I suppose it is like travelling in Manhattan and seeing the dirt, grime, and rats only to turn the corner to catch a glimpse of the Chrysler building.

Teaching Future Deep Throats

Now that the identity of Woodward and Bernstein’s infamous informant, Deep Throat, has been revealed it is safe to inform the world that Mark Felt is indeed a former University of Idaho graduate.

Felt graduated in 1935. If there was any question about his role in bringing down Nixon, here is a picture from his senior yearbook: