September 2008 Archives

Andre Jointe: Beautiful Decay

Andre Jointe: Beautiful Decay

One thing that I've kept my eye on for some time now are aging and disintegrating posters. What starts out as an immaculate cinema, theater or museum poster ends up looking like a collage of different typography, colors and textures all in one from the multiple layers passer biers have torn off. Another cool aspect is that it's like an artwork collaboration of the posters' original designers, with the city locals adding their own disheveling touch.  Although they're an eyesore for some people, there is an inherent beauty that draws me to them.  … MORE
Spaceship Earth 1

Spaceship Earth 1

Hello from the Great White North. The land of the gentle red maple leaf. The "We-Walk-Quietly-While-You-Carry-A-Big-Stick" country. Dusting off my layman's French and giving Quebecois a go, on this brisk 32 degree night I'm actually writing about something still in NYC: Starting With The Universe at the Whitney, a retrospective of the "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist" Buckminster Fuller. Go if you can, the show closes Sunday.

Though kind of campy in its mid-century magazine and film documentation, the show is well-placed right now, when green and alternative energies are at the top of our concerns, (if not completely trendy). Fuller believed, (like Charles and Ray Eames), in bringing the best design to the most amount of people; but he may have gone further by imagining, drafting and producing homes, transport, communities, etc. all in the hope of a responsible and conserving utopia...not an inaccessible, exclusive dream, but a probable, actual, doable reality.
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Candy-Colored News

Candy-Colored News

Marumushi's Newsmap is a visual stunner that seems, on first look, like the answer for any over-worked, time- and attention-deficient person headed out to a cocktail party: stories from Google's News Aggregator, laid out in blocks of color, treemap fashion, with boxes or bands varying in both size and shade as the story itself waxes and wanes. An easy wrap on the world in just moments.

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All Over The Map

All Over The Map

"Excuse me, where is Orchid Street? A waifish young lass asked me in the Lower East Side the other day. "You mean Orchard Street," as I pointed her to midtown. Feeling the end of summer doldrums and the only one not in the Cramptons this weekend, I filtered through the milling droves of tourists and became literal: I'll make beloved Labor Day all about work. (boo hoo shut up and get to work.)

Wondering why fantastic minds could come up with a cab mapper in real time, map the most famous voyages in history, map your interactive friend wheel, map all the public restrooms in the city, I thought, can't why not put the tourists into their correct place too? Color code them and give them some parameters so we can co-exist. For instance, If you are native, you are 100% cyan, majenta, yellow or black: you know where you are going. If you are a gawker, walkabout, or dawdler you recede to a noncommittal mauve, ochre or khaki. And if you slowly stroll hand in hand, or display any kind of p.d.a. in the middle of a thoroughfare you are not worthy of so much as a tint, but immediately become a target for the Street Wars.
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AC/DC's Elegant Form

AC/DC's Elegant Form

Here's what a composition from AC/DC's "Back in Black" looks like at The Shape of Song.

Visit the site to view a selection of songs or add your own MIDI file to the repertoire to see its musical form.

I'm thinking about asking them to consider a limited edition frame-able poster of "99 luftballoons".





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