I was thinking about writing another ‘All the Senses’ post for the past week when Yacco tagged me in the current meme sweeping the blogosphere ‘My Week in Media’. So here it goes…

What I’ve read

On top of my daily ritual of blog browsing, aggregated by the lovely Google Reader, there are a couple of things that have caught my attention online this past week. Firstly the intensifying US electoral run-in, the commentary of which has been provided by the Guardian online. Secondly, Mr Nuzzaci introduced me to Time.com’s 50 Top 10 lists for 2007 - where I naturally gravitated towards the listing’s for films, the featured ‘The Lives of Others’ pictured above.

My breakfast porridge microwave blasting sessions have seen me give Creative Review, Grafik and Campaign magazines a good skimming, whilst my xmas Amazon voucher was activated and soon I will be the proud new owner of a copy of ‘The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few’.

What I’ve watched

After being seduced by the blue, yellow and red of Channel 4’s Big Food Fight my Monday night attempt at tuning into the Hugh’s Chicken run failed miserably. What started with good intentions soon resulted in Hugh being relegated to background tv, the only thing I can recall is that intensively farmed chicken’s only live for 39 days, poor little blighters!

By midweek things had picked up as a friend introduced me to BBC Three’s ‘Man Stroke Woman’ which reduced me to man tears on several occasions. The comedy theme continued with BBC2 and the excellent ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ where Mr Amstel’s target this week was ex Hollyoaks stud Jeremy Edwards, afterwhich I had my first experience of the laughter riot that is Little Miss Jocelyn.

The week of watching continued with a thrifty DVD night on Friday where I watched ‘The Bourne Ultmatium’ for the thrid time in as many weeks and we also pooped back and forth courtesy of ‘Me and You and Everyone We Know’. The final watch will be tonight as I have booked myself into ‘Louis Theroux: Behind Bars’, the documentary at California’s San Quentin prison.

What I’ve listened to
My brisk walks to and from the bus continue to be charmed by my festive soundscape of choice: Rufus Wainwright’s performance at Cancerigene Hall. The highlight of the week without a doubt was the rediscovery of my appreciation for the super Cornelius, who’s sound can be described as experimental and exploratory, well that’s what my recently restarted last fm widget thing told me!

I will now pass the meme baton of joy onto Joe, Asi and Iain. I will also leave you in Uncle Jack’s capable hands…

Here are two rather pleasant things that have been launched into the world wide web from Poke towers recently;

1.Orange Unlimited is a never ending page of interactive flash fun that brings to life the Unlimited campaign tag line ‘Good things should never end’. The characters you will meet were illustrated by the awesomely talented Rex, my favorite bit is the beat juggling musical characters on a washing line - it’s abit like a simpleton’s version of the incredible tenori-on.

2. Spinvox is a clever little thing with a tidy new website…’SpinVox is a service that can be accessed from any phone. Speak Freely and SpinVox will convert your words into text and send them wherever you decide: mobile, inbox, TV screen, blog and more. Give it a try now’

If like me you missed out on tickets for the Electric proms festivial you can now watch all of the gigs online until the weekend, including the excellent Cold War Kids. Absolutley Superb!

Unfortunately this isn’t a post about the legend that is Mark Morrison, it’s just good news, I’m back on PTN with 5 things from the last few weeks…

1. Poke have recently produced a campaign site for the WWF in an effort to help persuade the government to include emission-tastic aviation and shipping on the change climate bill, if you sign an online petition your name might just sail down the thames on a massive paper plane or boat. Iain has written about this in detail if you would like to find out more.

2. I found an old friend on the internet yesterday, she has a great photography portfolio.

3. I have been enjoying the uber user-friendly stats app extrodinaire aka. Google Analytics since hooking it up on my portfolio site last month, it’s well decent and so simple to add to your site, have a go.

4. Cookie introduced me to Raymond, a great french short film produced by the Mill that will remind you of the Ragdoll.
‘Raymond, a lazy swimming pool instructor, who would like to discover the ocean’s. A team of scientists with a brand new solution offers to help him’.

5. Some friends and I went to NYC at the end of September, it was incredible - here are the pictures which tell the story (well apart from the bits I wouldn’t want to show Grandma!).

Is the theme for this years Architecture Week. Last week I attended the AW onedotzero evening event, which showcased sustainable design work from Jason Bruges Studio, XCO2 and DIY Kyoto. The showcase reinforced the need for artists and designers to produce work which is powered by renewable forms of energy, aswell as create products that support us in our efforts to reduce our consumption of non-renewables.

Jason Bruges took centre stage first, starting with a quick introduction of the studio’s work, which for me is a mixture of information design, architecture and interactive / art installations. Following the intro Jason proceeded to present a series of the studio’s projects that have explored visualising prevailing winds, which have culminated in the studio’s RIBA London and onedotzero comissioned ‘Wind to Light’ installation at the Southbank centre (pictured above). Wind to Light uses ‘500 mini wind turbines to generate power, which illuminates hundreds of mounted leds, creating firefly-like fields of light, with wind visually interpreted as electronic patterns across the installation’. It will be onsite until September, to find out more read the project blog here. Following on from Jason, XCO2 (a group of engineers and designers) also spoke about the use of renewable energies to create function and aesthetic value in their work.

Finally, Greta from DIY Kyoto (who’s name is a reponse to the Kyoto protocol) presented the Wattson, a product which simply makes your electricity usage tangible. I first read about the Wattson in the papers a while ago, but what I didn’t know about was the development of a Wattson online community. This is a place where users can register and track their electricty consumption, a place where international comparision can take place. It was also suggested, tongue in cheek on the night that a dating group could be developed in the community where users could pursue those who used attractive amounts of electricity, now that would be sexy!

It’s true to say in 2004 when I was finishing my degree the internet wasn’t so communitytastic as it is now. So today in 2007 it’s great to find 5oup, an online community for student artists, which on the surface looks like a healthy mix of graphics, fine art, interactive and illustration. Its graduation time right now and all the design blogs are featuring student portfolio’s, from those I have had a quick glance at - Mr.Robert Holmkvist’s graphic design abilites have impressed me the mostest!

Made this site for my new mates in Australia, have a look, and maybe buy something…

p.s. I still like my old mates

“All the things you love about TV, fused”

Its a little odd and maybe needs some work, but looks like the future…

Just the way you like it…

1. Consume typographic excellence at Studio 8 Design.

2. Nice interface touches on the microsite for Richard Serra’s MoMA show.

3. I WANT MetaSerif Book.

Spotted anything interesting on Google Maps new Street View? It really is quite scary but also a great development on google’s behalf. Integrating panoramic flash content into Google Maps, is this the beginning of a real-time video view?

Top 15 Google Street View Sightings
Google Zooms In Too Close for Some
The camera behind Google’s Street View