a hundred avatars

Mashups: Ice Cube + Eames

Richard Serra -- If Not Now, When?

Moderately painful because this address was given at Williams College, but I came across this again and it's fantastically straightforward and inspiring.

Just like Richard Serra's work.

Take risks. Break. Invent tools. Form obsessions. Cut through the weight of your education. It's difficult to think without obsession. Repetition not rote.

Play, where there are no ends, only means. (I don't often think 'play' when I think Richard Serra)

Process takes precedence over results (!)

My concern is that experience by proxy is a poor substitute for the reality of the interactive space we inhabit. As a sculptor I believe that perception structures thought and that to see is to think and conversely to think is to see. The virtual reality of the media, be it television or internet, limits our perception in that it affects our sense of space. It immobilizes our ability to apprehend actual physical space. Don’t let the rhetoric of simulation steal away the immediacy of your experience. Keep it real, keep it in the moment

If not now, when?

 

 

Transcript available here.

Pan Dulce

A day made of glass

Augmented Tachikawa

JJ Abrams + The Mystery Box

JJ Abrams on the importance of revealing less than...

Fascinating read

Thanks to Iñaki I came across this post from Some Clever Stuff on the power of being fascinating.

A Kelton Study conducted specifically to look deeply into what captures our attention, and how we can create fascination in our lives and livelihoods. A study was conducted of 1,059 Americans over the age of 18 in order to define the role of fascination in our lives, and measure it in tangible terms.

Without fascination, we can’t sell products, persuade shareholders to invest, teach students to read, or convince our own kids to stay off drugs. Some of the more interesting results are these:

* When asked how far they would go for a fascinating life, 60% of people said they’d be willing to bend their morals, standards, or loyalties.

* Only 9% of employees say their bosses are “extremely fascinating,” but 96% of parents say they’re fascinated by their own children.

* A fascinating brand can charge up to four times as much as an un-fascinating one.

* On average people will pay $288 per month to be the most fascinating person in the room. Five percent will pay more than $1000 per month. (Women will spend more to be fascinating than they spend on food. In fact, women will spend more to be fascinating than they spend on food and clothes combined.

Admittedly I'm fairly certain that lifting someone else's blogpost about someone else's blogpost does not make me fascinating. But she goes on to discuss the various triggers of fascination, in brands or in people, which is at the very least....interesting.

Nothing sadder than an Un-updated blog

I've been reduced so much to sub-140 characters lately, this blog hasn't been getting the love.

Nor will I now, but in the meanwhile, I'll freshen things up with a music video I quite like.

Black Teens on Unicycles

Here's a post based on my facebook status/twitter update based on a quick obversation the other day while driving through Mt Vernon not far from the Bronx.

 

Black teens on unicycles (I’ve noticed five or six on the street in Mt Vernon, Yonkers and the Bronx over the last six months) is shorthand for the way of the world.  The more we become a true multi-culture, a culture filled with a  multiplicity of various smaller cultures (not just White, Black and Brown, but surfers, eco-surfers, teachers, English speaking Latino Punks for Obama and so on) the more we have to keep an eye out for the Black kids on unicylces.

 A multi culture means that we are shaping a national narrative not with one overarching story, but with many. Not one big story, but a massive story that pieces together each of our individual narratives.  Culture used to mean the attitudes of a particular group. More and more we’re moving into the secondary meaning: that of a medium in which other things grow and flourish (like a culture of bacteria or some other living organism).

To see what’s growing and where it’s going, instead of watching the middle, we have to watch the fringes.

 This weekend’s New York Times had two articles that highlighted why the idea of Black kids on unicycles matter. 

The first is on the intergenerational differences between teens and 20 year olds today.  Kids under 15 already believe that information is something to be manipulated on screens, not keyboards and that email is as outdated as sending a note using paper. With things changing so quickly, the fringes become the center quickly.

Black kids on unicycles is also about making connections and noticing things. Check out this article on the rise of integrated thinking in business education (it's about time, right?). It’s about thinking critically enough to recognize the object, even if it is coincidental or not indicative of a broader trend (maybe there’s just a circus school nearby) as significant in some way. Business is about culture and about building the skills to read and respond to that, not just some vocational training program.

At the very least we have to recognize interesting things for their own merit, and use our ability for critical and creative thinking to integrate what are apparently contradictory pieces of information into an interesting whole.

Also, unicycles are cool. 

Planning killed the connections star

Maybe or maybe not. No time to respond really (and i've been meaning to read this for weeks anyway) but I quite liked this presentation from Gareth and Jason. Apparently connections planning needs some fixing. Hear hear. What doesn't? ;-)

Connections Planningness

View more documents from Jason Oke.