Shoot the day
Nish and I will be at the NYC Gathering for Photoshelter’s Shoot the Day event this afternoon. Judging from the program, it looks like it’s going to be a good, informative afternoon for photographers.
If you make it over, stop by the Artlog booth and say hello.
Glass Concrete and Stone
Get the Flash Player to see this sound.
by David Byrne off of Grown Backwards
→ Artists Forced to Explain Modern Art, Critics Complain @Eyebeam reBlog
I’m simply not convinced explanation or content gets in the way of art — though I will agree that there is no replacement for its experience.
Billboards no.05 (2008) by Branislav Kropilak
Lots of beautiful photographs on the rest of Kropilak’s site
→ “Yo” is the new “Hir”
Street term ‘Yo’ is being used by kids as a gender-neutral replacement for ‘he’ and ‘she’, according to researchers.
via project.ioni.st
Indaba and Mariah
Nish and I met with the co-founders of Indaba Music. Thanks for the introduction, Sam.
Matt and Dan are up to good things. It was awesome talking shop with folks endeavoring to do similar things online and hearing about how they engage the community over there.
Also big ups to JCN and the tech/design team for the great work being done (in rails).
Indaba launched a contest to remix a track by Mariah Carey this morning. Pretty rad on a several levels for them.
It’s been a while since I have listened to Ms. Carey’s music, but was jazzed to find that the song is called “I’ll Be Lovin’ U Long Time” and the album is called “E=MC².” It’s impressive the way Mariah mixes references without any regard for context like some kind of contemporary Andy Warhol while wearing big hair and a short skirt.
Mustache + soul patch + cycling cap
I’m here in the office programming all week so I have a new look to keep me psyched.
dylan's peppers in sararose's photos @flickr
Sara took some photos of the roof garden this past weekend.
Parisian trash rings
They are green trash bags on a green halo of steel attached to a post or freestanding. They are not bins. Nor are they trash cans. I guess I’ll call them trash rings.
I was in Paris the week before the U.S. launched the Iraq War. I found myself aware of these receptacles placed throughout the city. Their shape and the fact that they did a surprisingly poor job of actually keeping the city clean struck me immediately. The trash rings’ design is largely a society’s reaction to the threat of terrorism.
So as a given, these perform their container functions poorly. The bags tear, they overflow, they spill, they keep our refuse constantly visible. They do, however, do their part to minimize the ease with which a person could discretely place a bomb in a public place. And if a person did place a bomb in one of these containers, the bags’ transparency makes it more likely that the bomb might be discovered in time to avert a disaster. The lack of real structure would make reaching the bomb to defuse or contain it somewhat less complicated. Or if, the bomb was not discovered in time to disarm or at least clear the area, the relative lack of metal structural elements would minimize the shrapnel sent about after an explosion.
In this trash ring you find an important trade-off between functions. The public refuse container evolved out of necessity to organize and conceal the things we discard – to keep them out of sight and out of mind as soon as possible. The trash container must now also protect people from a threat as both immaterial and real as these trash rings themselves. In terms of designing for function, the latter purpose is opposed to the former. So we get trash cans that contain and hide our trash poorly as they have to assume a part in a public’s defense against terrorism.
Although you can’t tell from the photographs above, the bags have the words “vigilance” and “propreté” printed on them – placing vigilance before cleanliness (the similarity between “propreté” and “property” is interesting if nothing else).
Gosh, 2003 feels like so long ago. I am not sure that these are still in use in Paris today. Somebody, holler at me and let me know.
Pontoon bike
This is a pontoon bicycle that has been in my family for years. It’s fallen on hard times and as far as I can remember never worked quite right. It was certainly never able to tolerate much of a breeze on the lake.
It’s a brilliant concept though (“Let’s put skis on a bike and call it a boat!”) and a sort of found chindogu.
