About a month or so ago, before the chaos of December arrived I was queueing this post up - a selection of 5 sensational experiences I had in the festive build up which I hope will still satisfy all your senses, even if they are well past their posting date!
1.Eastern Promises at the Rich Mix
If you haven’t seen it yet, do, it was one of the best films I saw last year for sure. A combination of tough Russian gangsters, young Eastern European girls tragically failing to make a better life for themselves in London, a midwife, a baby and the best fight scene of 2007 make this gruesome thriller led by Viggo Mortensen a stunning watch from start to finish. Be warned though, after viewing you may have violent dreams.
2. Eating great food and getting crack
At some point I paid my second visit to the mighty Great Queen St gastro pub in Covent Garden. Between the four of us we had excellent vension, burger on dripping bread and a barley, squash and mushroom risotto, all very tasty indeed! To complete our inner glow we took a stroll down the embankment towards the Tate Modern where we saw the crack before going up to level 7, where we shared four amazing desserts whilst London’s skyline became illuminated in front of our eyes.
3.James Murphy + Tom Mahoney = Fabric live 36
After a hectic electronic start to the mix (which isn’t too studio friendly late morning I’ve found) things calm down and slip into a funkadelic, disco experience that makes you want to dance sexy.
4.International Lefthanders Day
At the time I wanted this poster a lot, it’s been made with Scandinavian skill.
5.Apple iPhone
It’s not about what this first generation product can’t do, it’s all about the amazing things it can do. The touch screen interface is absolutely superb, you consume lots of stuff, you stroke it alot, it’s incredible. I have had iPhone-itous for two months and it feels great.
Good news. The lovely organisers of the Medialab Prado let me know that there is a fantastic opportunity to participate now in one of their upcoming events in Spain, titled Digital Networks and Physical Space by submitting project proposals and papers.
Its really quite an amazing opportunity as I experienced myself while I was there and Im sure if your project / paper gets accepted youll have a fantastic experience when you go there and get to meet lots of interesting people from all over the world. If your project doesnt get accepted, and youre still interested I think you can still enlist as a collaborator on one of the accepted projects.
*Medialab-Prado* issues a call to participate in the *Second
Inclusiva-net Meeting: Digital Networks and Physical Space, *directed by
*Juan Martín Prada*, that will take place *from 3 to 14 March* *2008*.
The purpose of this open participation meeting is to explore the
relationship between digital networks and physical space in the context
of the increasingly widespread use of portable technology and Web
applications in connection with the production and management of
geographic information.
Through and open call, projects to be collaboratively developed during a
production workshop and papers to be publicly presented will be selected.
Submission Deadline: *30th January * 2008
Notification of Acceptance:* 8th February* 2008
So my two weeks in Spain are over and Ive spent my first few days back in sunny stormy Yorkshire recovering from mystery manflu.
I went to Madrid and the Medialab with very few assumptions about what Id end up doing. I was very excited at the prospect of spending two focused weeks on Miguel’s Humanflows project, and learning as much as possible in that time. It would be safe to say I wasnt dissapointed. In fact I was pretty overwhelmed by how good it was and what I learnt!
As well enjoying the fine company of my fellow group members, I felt quite humbled in the presence of some incredibly talented people who were working on other interesting projects. here are some of those who I spent time but I didnt get to mention in my other post about visualizar. Elie Zananiri (tweetpad), Irad Lee[other projects] (Spamology), who’s haunting live composition is still in my head. Not forgetting to mention the fantastic Julian Oliver and Ricard Marxer Piñón who were on hand to offer help every step of the way.
Although I’m very glad to be back and looking forward to exciting projects here and keeping in touch with a few of the people I met who werent from spain, Im longing to go back to spain soon and spend some more time there.
and heres the project in action, its basically the kiosk app I put together for presenting the project, but it has the definitive why’s and hows! Thanks again to Nathan for hosting it, to Miguel for allowing me to be a collaborator on his project. The Medialab for being such good hosts and for my school, ADA at the University of Huddersfield for funding me to go.
Im currently in Madrid for a fantastic two week production workshop and symposium “Visualizar“, with Ben Fry and Adrian Holovaty, organised by Medialab Prado. The days start at 10am and end at 9pm. I’m very excited to be collaborating on the humanflow project by Luis Miguel Cabanzo. alongside Nathan Yao, and Monica Sanchez.
Here are some of the other interesting projects which will be in intensive production over the next two weeks.
The Humanflows project is about designing purposeful, playful interactive visualisations which offer thought provoking views of historic and current data on “Human migration flows, its causes and repercussions”. My personal interest stems from the fact that its a purposeful visualisation, with the potential to educate an audience in an engaging memorable manner. Im interested in designing and prototyping the visual notation system and thinking about the types of interaction which can be quite meaningful in this context
Ill be updating this post daily after the jump.
There is no gold, sliver and bronze to be awarded here - all three are absolute winners…
1. Stevie Gee + Big Active
I’ve finally tracked down the creators of the awesome artwork for the latest Athlete album.
2. Vampire Weekend
Punk / New Wave / Classical sounding stuff from New York based band that I have been very lucky to see play a couple of times recetnly.
This exhibition is the first UK showing of Taryn Simon’s latest project, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, a culmination of four years extensive research and documenting of the unseen and inaccessible hidden below the surface of national identity.
I’ve been and it’s well good, it’s free to get in and you get to meet Kenny the white tiger who is on this planet as a result of selective inbreeding don’t you know!
Last week I went to the D&AD Presidents lecture where straight talking, non computer using, rubbish collecting graphic designer Ivan Chermayeff took centre stage and shared stories from his 50 year (and still going strong) career in design. He showcased projects he was invloved in on behalf of his company Chermayeff & Gesimar, including brand identities, exhibition design, motion graphics and art in architecture. As you may expect it made for a very impressive and highly motivating evening.
Towards the end of the lecture he presented a selection of motion graphic projects his studio has produced, one of which was a project called ‘Logomotion’ where a selection of their identities are morphed in and out of each other, excerpts of which can be viewed here. This organic sequence of events reminded me of a little typographic place called Bembo’s Zoo. Enjoy.
On Thursday night I was very lucky to go to the closing night gala of the BFI London Film Festival, red carpets and film stars aside this was all about Wes Anderson’s latest film The Darjeeling Limited.
The film tells the story of a spritual journey across India by train undertaken by three brothers, Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Scwartzman). They have not spoken for the last year since their father’s death, the trip is planned to allow them to reconnect with each other, to be brothers once again. Without saying too much the trip doesn’t quite go as planned and events unfold to take them on a new journey.
The film was preceded and will be when it’s released later this month by Hotel Chevalier, an entertaining short where Jack, the youngest brother and his ex-girlfriend (Natalie Portman) are reunited in a hotel room in Paris prior to his trip to India. Whilst it isn’t essential viewing before TDL, it introduces you to a heartbroken Jack and allows you gauge the temperature of what is to come.
So for the main attraction, it goes without saying this film is beautiful to look at, the exposure of the indian landscape and culture reinforces it’s place on my list of countries to visit. The sound track is fittingly quirky and at times perfectly introduced by Jack with the assistance of his bose iPod speakers. The deadpan chemistry between the brothers will keep you engaged from start to finish and you will love the 11 piece family crested luggage, Francis’s control freak personailty and the prescription drug abuse. As much as I wanted to love this film completely it doesn’t quite pack a loveable punch for me. For sure it’s a great film to see on the big screen and I would recommend you to do so, although you may come away like me wanting a little more from it.
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!
