Tuesday Lovin': Iconic Napoleon

The Ghost of Ernesto

There are a lot of "iconic" images of the 20th century but probably the most enduring and significant is this picture of Che Guevara.

This image, like so much that represented the rebellious individual during the middle of the 20th century, has been commodified and sold back to us. There is no such thing as cool anymore. If you didn't get the message, oh, say 1989 then look at what passes for cool these days. Not only are we sold archaic notions of the outsider, we see it perpetually reinvented and sold back to us yet again.

Napoleon Dynamite is the new Che Guevara, in spirit anyway, simply because he can satisfy the corporate need for an outsider icon and reinvigorate our ideas of rebellion. When bearded Marxists look a little too much like the Taliban and the image is so well worn that everyone who wants instant rebel pedigree papers mimics the image of Che, its time to look toward the low income, scrawny white kid with an afro.

The Argentinean guerrilla's family is now trying to control the use of the image. I am afraid that it is too late. We have long ago absorbed the image into our collective unconscious. What can they do? Rent Napoleon Dynamite, of course.

For a good analysis of the use of Che's image read Rick Poyner's Obey the Giant.

Bumpy Ride: Katrina and the Waves

The song goes something like this:

Do you know what it means to miss new orleans
And miss it each night and day
I know I’m not wrong... this feeling’s gettin’ stronger
The longer, I stay away

About 3 million people are missing home as they have been evacuated. Nearly 500,000 in NO proper. New Orleans, as we all know by now, sits below sea level.

If that first image didn't do anything for you then think storm surge and take a look at this image followed by this. The latter states that Category 4 storm surges can produce 13 to 18 foot surges. Katrina is a Category 5, I believe.

Yikes!

(BTW, the song above is Louis Armstrong not Katrina and the Waves)

The Halo Conspiracy

Our leaders are holier than thou. According to the press anyway.

Prometro: The Argument for Density

An interesting read in the Harvard Gazette (by way of kottke.org). A snippet:

"...It's the turn-of-the-century photographs that Jacob Riis took of the slums on the Lower East Side, it's the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis that had to be torn down in the 1970s. It's the image of the huddled masses, of disease, crime, congestion. But the statistics show that density is not a leading factor for these conditions. For example, the TB statistics show that the key elements are new immigrants and poverty. Similarly, it's poverty and the lack of job opportunities that drive crime and not density, per se."

The article highlights the benefits (and, well, joys) of living in the city. These include less environmental impact, better tax-base, and nearby high-quality institutions and cultural resources.

Friday Lovin': Worst Album Covers

Say no more.

(BTW, no, I don't visit the Sun regularly. Came across it at populicio.us.)

Design in a small town part 7: Technometrocentrism

Discover magazine has an article by Steven Johnson about Dodgeball - a chimerical tool made up of mapping/wayfinding and social networking technologies.

While it is an interesting little article that brings up the notion that more urban centers better cater to niche groups than rural or small suburban areas (a premise that is hard to argue against), the discussion implicitly follows several assumptions that I find a little problematic.

The gist of my criticism concerns the narrow definition of socializing and the implied socio-economic class and age of those that are assumed to be using Dodgeball. It is clear that the technology described is created for young, semi-affluent, somewhat tech-savvy users.

To go to a bar and hang out and meet "crushes" speaks loads about who this product is intended to serve. Johnson, in his analysis fails to mention the age and socio-economic factors. Johnson instead uses the example of a button store saying that it has a better chance of succeeding in the city due to higher numbers of button freaks. Sure, niche button stores in small towns don't make it but, really, mainstream grocery stores often struggle as well (although, I must say, the rubber stamp/stationary store in my town is not only still around after a couple of years but seems to be doing quite well). It often seems that the reason small town businesses struggle is that younger generations are sold on a mythology that life is better in the city and often that mythology aggrandizes and legitimizes the congregations of big capital and cultural institutions that benefit from being near well-established commercial routes (and those big business). This, of course, comes about as we moved away from small-scale farming towards large-scale agri-business. We are still holding on to the idea that to remain in the boonies means that we need to work on a farm.

I find it immaterial to argue against the reasons that urban areas grow and their importance in general but what I do argue is that we keep pushing the city on children and I think in the future it might be a pretty stupid thing to do. We should look at building all sorts of opportunities and institutions for all ages and socio-economic brackets in rural areas as well.

Johnson remarks:

Dodgeball suggests an intriguing twist on long tail theory. As the technology increasingly allows us to satisfy more eclectic needs, any time those needs require a physical presence —whether it's sipping your cold soup or meeting your crush in a bar —the logic of the long tail will favor urban environments over less densely populated ones. If you'’re downloading the latest album from an obscure Scandinavian doo-wop group, geography doesn'’t matter: It's just as easy to get the bits delivered to you in the middle of Wyoming as it is in the middle of Manhattan. But if you'’re trying to meet up with other fans of Scandinavian doo-wop, you'll have more luck in Manhattan.

Ok. I am surprised this comes from Johnson. I don't think the popular discussions about internet and community were bunk and I would argue that not only does the technology sometimes sublimate for physical proximity (come on, how often would you really go and hang out with Scandinavian doo-wop fans?) it also provides interpersonal distance. And sometimes, if done right, community develops around resources to which people in rural areas connect. Also distance, if you live in the country I would argue, is even perceived differently than in the city. One city block could be 40 miles in the country. I would argue then that people in rural areas are not disadvantaged at all but have an option to remain at a distance and sublimate through technology or can engage by driving *short* distances if they so choose, communicating by phone, or, like me when I feel completely disengaged, visiting cities when I so choose.

To conclude, Johnson's comment about technologies like Dodgeball leading to bigger cities, I think is crazy. As populations age and the technology mutates into something just as meaningful not only for rural and suburban folk but for far older, or younger, or less affluent users it will not draw people to the cities. In fact, it may, with some change in our mythologies revitalize the small town and relieve overburdened populations in the cities.

14 Days and the Anti-War Movement

There is a palatable sense that the anti-war movement is gaining momentum. Anytime Bush has to take time off from his vacation to travel and sell the war it means that public sentiment is changing and moving against the war. Beyond the media attention to Cindy Sheehan's vigil, I assume the new momentum is due to that fact that things in Iraq look worse today than they did 6 months ago.

While looking through my massive bookmarks used for class stuff, I came across this and wondered what it'd look like now.

Mixing Worlds

Wired Magazine has a number of articles today about the intermingling of virtual and non-virtual worlds. They are interesting in that the underlying theme seems to be that there is some therapeutic effect of virtuality - whether it involves an immersive Falluja-like world used to cure Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or just hanging out with an artificial puppy.

Following a link from the PTSD article, it is a bit disturbing to continue on to USC's Institute for Creative Technologies and view the project list.

If you ever maintained any doubt that the entertainment industry and the defense industry were co-dependent, you will be complete disabused of that thinking. An example is The Concept Development and Visualization group that pairs concept or production designers with military folks to think up wonderful new ways to kill and mame people worldwide!

Maybe I am being a little harsh. But there is hope as I think Deuce Bigalow would make a great non-lethal weapon!

Sunday Lovin': Spamusement

I thought I could avoid it this year but it is back: the 'sunday before school starts' blues. Luckily, someone recommended this for a few laughs and it is very spamusing. It might just do the job and cure this funk.

In the same vain...

Slate has an article about Islamic video games.

Getting Serious about Machinima

Although I have known about Machinima for several years, I never really gave it much attention. Machinima (pronounced ma-shin-e-ma) is a type of filmmaking using game engines. What does that mean? Well, individuals record their actions within a video game environment such as Doom or Quake or Halo and edit the 'footage' later to create a story.

My prejudice has always been that the engines used are often 1st person shooter games and I couldn't understand how you could have a very interesting story made from the prefab components.

Recently, however, I've come across several sites and projects that are pretty interesting. The classic, really, is Red vs. Blue. It is funny because the writers give the normally hyper-stoic warrior characters silly personalities. The disjunction is often funny but wears thin with multiple viewings.

Today, I've seen a lot of blogspace dedicated to This Spartan Life. This Spartan Life is a talkshow created in Halo.

Sounds ridiculous but don't think that. Give it a chance. The interview with Bob Stein is not only subtly funny but very thought provoking as well. The segment, to me, is a great exercise in making explicit the possibilities inherent in the medium.

I have to admit that seeing Red vs. Blue and other machinima films I have been completely consumed by the idea that game engines really are a spectacular if only nascent tool for storytelling. The physics, lighting, character movement, and, perhaps most importantly, often unlimited camera movement (a unique feature of games, if you think about it) are all preprogrammed allowing machinima directors a certain level of freedom.

I think we will continue to see a lot more convergence of filmmaking and gameplaying in the future. I am consumed by the desire to create an engine add-on for some of the new next gen game engines allowing for a more elevated level of cinematic production. Imagine directing your own Godfather flick....

Friday Lovin': Lilo's hoo hoo dilly

Cat porn?

(Thanks to Mona from Seattle for exploiting her cat. Photo from Flickr)

(BTW - Mona explains: "It's a she and that is not Lilo's hoo hoo dilly.")

Visual Perception

I have learned more in the past few minutes from Jayme's wonderblog Visual Perception than I have all year. Check it out!

Watch Out for Rof! (Unless it's for sale)

It's nice to see when professionals mess up. But it really messes with my mind, man. Case and point...

I visited a news site (whose name I will not say other than it starts with a 'C' and ends with an 'N' and has another 'N' somewhere in the middle) and went to find out more about the earthquake in Japan.

This is what I found:



I had never heard of 'rof' before so I did what any concerned citizen would do I googled it. I mean, if rof is so dangerous could it possibly kill me? Does rof attack only during earthquakes? Or could it happen, say, during a tense barbeque or mildly foggy day perhaps? I want to know.

The search results yielded little unless, of course, it was the Registre des Ostéopathes de France that fell and injured people in Japan. But more clues were uncovered. Look:



Apparently, you can buy rof (or used rof anyway) on Ebay.

To solve this once and for all, I did an image search and this is what I believe fell on those poor Japanese:

Don't Pretend Lunacy

Here is some interesting Japanese propaganda from WWII.

The views of Asia pre- and postwar are informative. The additional pamplet directed at US soldiers, less so (but no less entertaining).

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

In an earlier post I talked about Jules Verne and Paris in the Twentieth Century. One thing I failed to mention as being off in Verne's prediction is that transportation in his vision is primarily through elevated pneumatic tube trains.

Well, although this may not quite be pneumatic it got me thinking about PITTC again. Looking at the concept more closely, I wonder if it'd really work? It's wacky but if someone told me that you could propel a car with an machine that, when fed dead dinosaur juice, makes little explosions a number of times every second...

I'd be curious to see a critique of the system. I, for one, don't really get excited by travelling in an airless tube at 4000 mph. But, hey, New York to LA in less than hour without having to eject myself from atmosphere, hmmmmm, I may have to think about it.

(photo credit: Carole N., image found at stockXchng (sxc.hu) a free stock photo community website)

Keeping up Appearances

An interesting little tidbit about website appearances highlights how certain designs are more "masculine" than others. Glean from it what you will.

Friday Lovin': Earth from Space

Why not spend quality time at work watching the earth from one of the many satellites circling the planet?

Thought: Remember the iconic image of Earth from the moon? It seemed for a while that the image spoke loads about how we are stuck on this planet together and that we desperately need to take care it. Then the Hummer was created. Sigh.

Design in a small town part 6: Bad Design/Liability

On a cold and blustery day last fall I was driving to work when I noticed something odd downtown. Every 3 feet or so there was a traffic cone placed in the middle of the sidewalk. On my way home I made sure to stop and see what this was all about.

Well, simply put, the town's walk of fame sidewalk plaques were, when sprinkled with frost and snow that had melted, extremely slippery. I had seen these little squares and had always thought of them as embarrassing bad design but it never crossed my mind that the design was so bad that it could hurt you!

Let's break it down. First, the aesthetics:

- The original design had two fonts (the rounded sans and a serif) that did not work well together (the serif - part of a logotype I believe, is now covered)
- The mark at the top is difficult to decipher (I think it is a representation of an artesian well. Either that or a picture of It from the Addams Family)
- The black granite is reflective often making it difficult to read the sandblasted lettering

Secondly, one should consider these other factors:

- The granite is extremely slippery when wet
- The walk of fame is a block away from a retirement home and the sidewalks are used often by people who have a difficult time walking especially in icy weather
- The solutions, so far, have rendered the original concept moot. The cones sit on top of the plaques and the no-slip safety tape obscure much of the writing

It seems that this is either something done by committee or by an individual who didn't think about these factors. The result is dangerous.

Design in a small town part 5: OTT

As usual I left renewing my car tabs until the last possible minute which meant I had to visit the local licensing office. Oddly enough, in this town, it means a visit to an old train station.

With a name like 'Pullman' you can imagine there'd be a number of train stations laying about and that some (if not all) would be repurposed. Anyhow, I walked into the station to get my new tabs when, lo and behold, the place was decked out with pictures of old trains, the original schedule board and seating area, a huge clock, and even a mannequin dressed as a conductor. The windows for the DOL are the same ticket windows used for fifty years at the beginning of the last century.

I was standing there when the little wooden window shot up and the gentleman asked how he could help me. I responded, "I'd like a ticket for the 12:30 to Chattanooga." Then I proceed to laugh at myself while the bloke stared at me completely straightfaced. To save face I said, "oh, that's right. I am 60 years too late." He still didn't crack a smile.

Come to find out the gentleman owns the place. As you can see from the picture above he must have a love affair with trains. In front of the station you can see an actual passenger car and in front of that you can see a wooden engine that was built recently. Wait! A wooden train engine?

As with previous entries, design in a small town often mean lack of restraint (and building codes apparently). It is one thing to have the interior of place dressed to one's fetishes but to impose a large and awkward wooden structure that has little use is another.

But, as usual, the deeper significance is that little strange things like this structure are oddly what give small towns quirky charm. The best thing to do, then, is to sit back, wait, and see what other craziness pops up.

Why I love Banksy

Me thinks these are strange times in the art world. Works that shock, works that don't, and old favorites such as ab ex and pop, while ever present, have transmogrified but don't seem to be cutting it. Whitney's biennial a few years ago questioned what could be considered art and found a chaotic breadth of work as an answer.

So, what is new? What is *ack* 'fresh'?

Take a bit of humor, a dash of bravado, a pinch of activism and you get...Banksy.

This link (thanks to Robert for sending it along) has some of Banksy's latest work in Palestine on Israel's 'security barrier'. It is very much a comment on the wall. The NEWS section of his website has more images of the project and Banksy is not afraid to add little transcripts of his discussions next to the images. Those discussions speak loads. An example:

Old man: You paint the wall, you
make it look beautiful.

Me:Thanks

Old man:We don't want it to be beautiful, we hate this
wall, go home.

His other work includes hanging his own pieces (of a stuffy 18th century royal who has just finished spraypainting graffiti, no less) in the National Gallery in London. His graffiti is so well designed that it'll make you laugh.

For more Banksy check out Banksy's homepage.

NASSA - The other space program

The Old Negro Space Program is a very funny mockumentary that simultaneously takes the piss out NASA, academia, the formulaic nature of the contemporary documentary, and American bigotry.

It sometimes treads lightly on uncomfortable ground but that is what makes it smart. Watch the whole thing - especially the part with the letter home.

Simple Messages

Dennis sends this one along. Funny and, oh, so perfect.

Forest Grove Estates: New Media Storytelling

Simple yet very compelling story