alex-vf.com/blog

CPA and Finding the Fish

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:30:00 +0000

The Ongoing Moment" - this fabulous book by geoff dyer has taught me a big big needed lesson on slowing down. in his essays, photographs that i probably wouldn't have looked at twice become microworlds of association and storytelling through his imagineering - all you need for your own imagineering is to just have the patience to 'stop by' and look and dive into what's there. achieving that mental state though is the hard bit.

slow food etc, we've been there, but the whole discussion can be taken to a whole new next level when we take it from a (physical) consumption to a (mental) perception context. how could we be in control speeding up and down our own visual perception / contemplation mechanisms? i'd like to train myself a bit better, i'd like to become more fluent in my visual thinking.

constant partial attention: driven by the desire to not miss anything, we feel compelled to always have 'half an eye' out there for something else. this isn't necessarily a bad thing, however some times the scanning and skimming mechanisms do take over, and it takes a conscious effort to change gears, to change direction, to find the way out of this semi-automatic surface scanning in order to dive into the 'depth' of a textual or a visual world.

what are interface mechanisms that can help explore (digital) content in both breadth and depth? current design explorations seem to hint at a better combination and integration of zooming and scrolling such as seen for example in microsoft's seadragon or other maps like browsing paradigms (ok, that was soo 2 years ago, but what's next?) ... however, these mechanisms are somewhat limited as they do not help making decisions at a very top level - people who access maps do usually know where they want to start, and the actual experience is about the seduction of 'falling down' into the richness of content that lies in the depth ahead somewhere.

so how to design for top-level blink of an eye decisions? presented with a 'streaming ton' of information, what are the signals and signposts in (digital) content itself that can help people make decisions which routes to take alongside an x, y and z-axis of an 'information engagement' space? (x,y,z-axis, ie 3d space, is probably not the right metaphor and working model here in the first place; i think that understanding information happens in one at the same time deep and shapeless space... but that's just me and how it feels to me).

what are the rules behind non-digital artefacts that successfully manage to 'turn my attention round' to them? rule nr1 (there is only 1 so far... but i am searching for more): they do give me enough info and resolution on both detail and distance level at a first glance. i start to move them 'around in my head' immediately, and i turn my attention towards them a tiny tick later (most people probably know that feeling when they have turned over a page too quickly and then having to flip it back because there's something that needs to be 'looked' at). this seamless/simultaneous resolution across detail and distance... it doesn't exist in digital at all.

detail design and preserving detail traces in a digital context: i came across this same photo (top of post - a whale being butchered) in the guardian's online- and offline editions. in the online edition, i barely noticed the photo (to be fair i think i had forgotten it before i'd even seen it if that is somehow possible). in the offline edition i couldn't take my eyes off it - the image was too well resolved, i could see the fine fur (do you call it fur??) of the whale, and i could see the men butchering it, standing ON THE WHALE'S BODY in puddles of whale blood, splashing around in their yellow wellies... i can think of no way of reusing the same content (here: the photo) to convey the same meaning in both offline and online - a simple 'enlarge photo' function preempts itself as we are looking to design for instant encounters.

we have accepted different editorial- and production needs for offline/online textual content long ago, but how to appropriate that insight for visual offline/online content?

ps i love the fact that the wikipedia entry on continuous partial attention starts off with a quote about finding the fish (ok, a whale is a mammal.... but still):

"[CPA] usually involves skimming the surface of the incoming data, picking out the relevant details, and moving on to the next stream. You're paying attention, but only partially. That lets you cast a wider net, but it also runs the risk of keeping you from really studying the fish."

Square Smileys on Google Reader?

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:43:00 +0000

oh the extravaganza :) - also nice how the star icon looks soo distinctly 90s compared with the happy face

Poetic Failure

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:11:00 +0000

i'm a sucker for random poetic breakdown like this (can't render uncertainty in wikipedia's "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics" :)

- btw this has been fixed now -

Smile by Design

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:10:00 +0000

i have been mulling about the question what makes us laugh in design, where we accept obvious failings with a smile and where we just get frustrated.

i've learned quite a lot about our instinct to smile from 2d/character design. full-on posters of grinning disney figures always make us smile back, but how does this instinct work in a functional design context (and by functional i mean, electronically enhanced and interactive)? when have i last smiled back at a piece of grinning technology?

doesn't happen often with (perceived) multi function products. i don't say good morning to my nokia, and i don't accept it's oddities or failures with some form of character recognition and/or sympathy for the poor thing. (ok, if i had an iphone. but no, don't think so either).

could happen rather often with (perceived) single function products. i can imagine an alarm clock that i say good morning to as well as good night, and i would know exactly when to slap it and when to leave it alone in case of a malfunction. (no, i don't have a million tamagotchis at home, and i don't intend to get a tama-farm started soon).

the less perceived functionality, the more room for bonding, dialogue and character design in digital devices?

"No photographs please"

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:30:00 +0000

i want to be able to take pictures, fairly, as i please and with respect, wherever i go - especially in inspirational/educational environments such as art galleries and museums. i've been reading up on this mission impossible and have been entangled in a whole web of arguments why this could be too hard to come true.

there's the bad-bad-artists against the good-good museums stance, aka copyright issues: firstly, museums do not generally hold any copyrights for the artworks they physically own or exhibit. secondly, museums ~might~ be held responsible by the copyright holders ie artists to protect the holder's copyright within their four museal walls. thirdly, museums will just switch off any threat of copyright infringement by default as a consequence as anything else will be too hard to manage. (i haven't found any signs of a shared directive across museums on this copyright/protection issue so do believe that interpretations and actions are mostly down to individual and institutional contracts and policies. omg, just imagine the operational mess that comes with every major exhibition...)

then there's the museums-as-moneymakers conspiracy: museums would have a vital interest in not allowing photography of public domain artwork* from their collection as that would immediately affect postcard sales from their museum shop. really?? this seems a pretty stupid argument, i don't think so. someone who'd like to have a sketchy mona lisa snapshot on their iPhone wouldn't be in the market for a high-end mona lisa postcard reproduction in the first place. i would love to hear some museum employees' voices on this one, i don't think we'd be having much of a fight here...

picking up on the word reproduction, there's a slightly more esoteric conversation around reproduction and aura on flickr initiated by an actual museum containing rather interesting thoughts of actual people entitled "Why do people take pictures of works of art?"? so why are people doing such crazy things? some just want to capture the moment. some just want to capture themselves. some do create unique photographs, portraing the whole gallery space rather than any individual pieces of art (i just love the example of the photo series exploring reflections of art on gallery surfaces). some want to document a detail of an artwork that won't be covered in any kind of professional reproduction (a repro, i'm pretty sure, will always aim to produce an 'average' visitor's view on any artwork - which is the same as saying its product will be a compromise on personal seeing, more apt to please someone who _has not actually visited_ the artwork rather than a person who has experienced it with their own eyes).

so... where does that leave me with my quest?

there's no point in trying to convince museums and art galleries to change their policies long-term... camera phones will win. there's some short-term gains to be made though by making today's visitor experience less miserable. don't make people feel bad about carrying a camera, don't make them hide their tech like they had just gone shoplifting. be transparent and actively inform you visitors about your photo/copy policy and the reasons behind it. make sure people know which artist is ok with visual takeaways and which isn't (as soon as artists get individually and visibly marked... they might change their attitude). allow your visitors to photograph without flash as much as they like and as long as they don't go in full repro mode. if the artist/copyright holder doesn't mind, do allow them to go into full repro mode. have museum guides offering to take pictures of visitors in front of artworks. sell better digital photos in your shop and allow people to send and share them. (where's all your other digital products, in the first place?). last but not least, make sure your guides know whom and what they are supposed to protect.

ps i read in a quote the other day where a school girl was told to cease and desist sketching in front of a classic painting... much to learn from that mal-behaviour.

Ghost doors @ the Barbican

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:32:00 +0000

everybody is familiar with the strange atmospheric feeling that goes by the name of 'Barbican'. i have a couple of routines there (going to the cinema on level 4, going to the curve gallery on level 0). without the Barbican branded mini moments of oddness, i doubt i'd be enjoying the movies and art as much as i do.

my favorite one is the ghost door on level 4 (right), a lonely door in an absurd desolate corridor leading to cinema 2 that just can't get it's motion sensor right - the way the door automatically opens and closes for any visitor approaching is calibrated slightly wrong, it makes you want to stop in your tracks, it makes you feel like a ghost just walked through and you don't know whether it's coming right at you or whether you'll be safe. just a tiny tick, but it makes me nervous every time. (i don't think i'm the only one - building management put up a sticker pointing out that this is an 'automatic door' - see bottom sticker on door).

another can-i-trust-my-eyes moment usually grabs me when i enter the ladies room on the ground floor (left). the passage way through to more toilets is so oddly designed that i usually mistake it for a mirror from which my own image is miraculously absent. just a little shock, but it works every time. (i don't think i'm the only one - building management put up a 'more toilets this way' notice, pointing out that this is a way through, not an ending - see sign next to frame).

Nice details

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:51:00 +0000

left: love the fact that the taps in the barbican's women's bathroom do feature women's shoes - will have to find out what the gentlemen's shoe detail looks like...

right: bankside trees wrapped in red dots - at first i mistook this for a nice advertising detail but then i discovered that the polka dot trees are a piece by artist Yayoi Kusama who is currently exhibiting at the Hayward. just one more example of how the best parts of a blockbuster exhibition are almost always free...

A few things I liked at the RCA summer show

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:59:00 +0000

The Toaster Project "For nine months I've been trying to make an electric toaster, myself, starting from scratch. Travelling to disused mines around Britain, digging up raw materials, processing and forming them into a hand crafted pastiche of a product sold in Argos for the throwaway price of £3.94."

The Cloud Project" [...] a dream to make clouds snow ice cream [...]"

Open_Sailing "This is not a utopian architecture model, we are actually building it."

Radical Nature at the Barbican

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:33:00 +0000

radical nature? sorry, i don't get it... neither 'radical' nor 'nature' are being discussed much in this exhibition, and a lot of the exhibits feel rather gimmicky, naef, in fact. cut up a tree and reassemble it, let a couple of pseudo rain forest trees grow at an angel of 90 degrees within the gallery space, stuff a wolf and put it on a trailer (to comment on the, quote-unquote, 'traveling circus/carnevalesque-like commodity that nature has become' - bless the good person who wrote that review) -

i want my money back!! - but what was i hoping for?

hoping to look at un-green-clicheed takes on nature, for a start. the whole exhibition feels rather like being inside the womb of a no-questions-asked south ken wholefoods than being in the hands of a curator willing to deal with less kitschy and more relevant contemporary artists - i'm thinking loud here of steve kurtz (bio art), natalie jeremijenko (environmental art), maybe even edward burtinsky (photography), and most definitely the NASA engineers (thanks to bldgblog for the great image find)... all of whom radicalise nature, it's meaning, fabrication and utopia in different ways.

it is striking how the old grandmasters joseph beuys and robert smithson manage to shine the most in the show, roughly 40 years after their peak. my one shining exception is agnes denes and her wheatfield project, and i am looking forward to visit it offsite in action @dalston from mid july.

some public pictures of Radical Nature can be found here on the barbican site and here on the guardian site.

Chopstick Frogs: We ate this!

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:34:00 +0000

yes, we ate this: photo taken when we where in beijing, me and the fjord's chrises feasting away... luckily we are not the only ones who think that frogs and chopsticks make for a delicious match, there's more evidence here and here :)

Escapist Findings

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:21:00 +0000

after reading "the amazing adventures...", i wanted to stretch my own escapist experience a bit so went over to the British Library's image search to see what they'd have on the history of comics. i didn't find much about superman, but this is fascinating...

maybe old news to any english boy and girl, but i don't have much of an understanding of victorian newspapers, their circulation, production and consumption... so being suddenly exposed to a well-crafted tabloid such as the "illustrated police news" from saturday sept 22, 1888 makes my brain jump and want to know more.

Yoga Arms

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:50:00 +0000

since daniel craig started doing bikram yoga, more and more muscly men have started to appear in our sunday classes... and are having serious difficulties getting into the postures alright because their big muscles keep getting in the way! quiet giggles of revenge over here :)

a pose that seems to be particularly challenging is the eagle pose, performed above by this spaghetti-like man who can teach all the muscles a lesson - wonderful set up on flickr here.

credits: "See?!" originally uploaded by Levi Hastings; "devourer" originally uploaded by Talkingsun

The Escapist

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:57:00 +0000

"The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" by Michael Chabon is a book about escapism, in every imaginable form. escaping to survive, escaping as a cultural mindset and psychological opportunity, escaping as an illusion of safety and a form of imprisoning oneself.

escaping to survive: one of the central figures, joe kavalier, born a czech jew, manages to escape from nazi-ridden europe to america with the help of his magic teacher. houdini is present at all times.

escaping as a cultural mindset and psychological opportunity: in america, to earn their bread & butter, joe and his cousin sam invent 'the escapist', hero of countless comics and lead of their initial financial success. at this point, survival and escapist motives become one.

escaping as an illusion of safety and a form of to imprisoning oneself: needless to say, after their initial years of (financial) success, personal matters and motives take over, and it all goes haywire - i won't go into the ending but highlights before the ending include squatting in the empire state building, erotic freckles, dog love, crazy plane stunts in the arctic, and stinking seal skins. in fact, this is quite a 'nose' book - it makes you smell anything from the mud that the golem of prague was made of to the burnt meals in joe's aunt's house to the unwashed crazy soldiers lost in the ice... please, just go and smell it. it's phantastic.

Magic Button

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:35:00 +0000

this could have been good, but... (image shows wordpress ui promising click-of-a-magic-button blogger import)...

having been distracted by the FeeBies and tweeties of this world for, um, a few long years of noisy social networking, i've recently come to miss the 'talking to myself' quiet quality of my old little blog. strange to see how little things have changed at this end of the spectrum - blogger has become even more closed off (host it here! use our templates only! upgrade!), and wordpress.org now has a commercial little sister (host it here! use our templates only! upgrade!), but in essence both products still work & feel the same. which is rather less fluid and more time-consuming than i expected.

i was pondering playing around with something more advanced like apture for richer data but that'll have to wait til rather more basic problems such as displaying tags in blogger have been tried and tested...

Update

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 19:01:00 +0000

So why why why is nothing happening here anymore, people have asked. Ok. I've been busy, on planes to Germany (miriam's opening etc), on planes to Switzerland (dani's goodbye, including a mexican dinner party, francesco's birthday, plans for christmas in san francisco, sledding with megi, drinking with caro yana simon and lots of snow). I've spend too much time partying on palestinian fundraising parties (trying to capture sal on chip, trying to cope with the shishas). I've started working from a shared workspace in Angel, and our happy family has moved to a happy family house right over in Stoke Newington. Welcome wireless! Welcome garden parties! Paradise! Apart form that, I'm doing some client design work as well as spending ridiculous hours working for Uni (hey, you are getting better people - but i HATE latecomers!). Most of all, I've discovered paper, sketch, thoughts offline, so this is goodbye til next month. Bye and kiss, A.

Valentino, Oh!

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 12:57:00 +0000

now here's something refreshing from today's inbox: "women who love english men and go all romantic about *** or *** drive me mad. they not only do all these loveydovey things, but actually announce that british men are the best lovers... i almost choked!"

valentine's day, valentino, sounds pretty italian to me, hmm?

Ryan, No!

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 13:11:00 +0000

snip/

mon 13 feb, 8-9 pm, channel 4

DISPATCHES: RYANAIR: CAUGHT NAPPING A major undercover investigation into the way in which Ryanair, one of the largest and most successful low-costairlines, operates. Two Dispatches reporters spent five months secretly filming the airline's training programme and onboard flights as members of the cabin crew. What they found may make you think twice about flying Ryanair again. The undercover footage reveals what takes place behind the scenes: security lapses, dirty aircrafts, pilots complaining about the hours they have to fly and exhausted cabin crew. The cynical staff attitudes towards passengers and their welfare are also unmasked in Ryanair: Caught Napping. Prod/ Dir: Karen Edwards; Exec Prod: Steve Boulton; Prod Co: Steve Boulton Productions

/snip

Housecat

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 15:47:00 +0000

we've got a cat in the house now, and we already hate it. its way of saying hi to everyone was to throw up in everybody's room. officially, it had to come and stay with us cause its owner is on holidays. i think that's a lie: its owner is on holidays from his cat. it's utterly useless, the beasty: there's lots of rats in the frontyard, but the cat is a housecat. if let out, it'd probably be beaten and eaten up by the vermin in no time, and we'd have to return it stuffed. i'm sure its own uselessness has had an impact on its psyche - it sneezes all the time, i think its allergic against itself.

M.F.!

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 15:30:00 +0000

next months's motto. (love bad photocopies of Ryan McGinness's work)

No more...

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 15:03:00 +0000

nic told me it wasn't only my birthday today but also chinese new year. happy birthday to me, then, and: happy 2006 - will take the chance to restart my year cause this january has been just too much of a mess. no more berlin style living then, work is kicking in again - .

Brokeback Mountain

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 11:45:00 +0000

it's utterly impossible for european ears to judge whether these actors are getting their coached american accents right (esp. if one of the accents is texanian). so while i thought this was an ok movie, solving the accent question kept me pretty preoccupied during the screening.

by all means, i'm not the target audience: "Brokeback Mountain" has been banned from selected theatres in utah, hooray!! (gay? cowboy? movie? first the marlboro man gets cancer, and now he's gone gay as well!! omg.). some intensity over there.

and here? i recently discovered that there actually ARE people in MY environment that suffer from homophobia (ok thats comes down to one sort of men having problems with another sort of men). honestly (have to be careful here), i had to laugh, couldn't take it seriously cause it's such a past issue; even for my mother it took less than 15 years to lose prejudice and to grow up.

But Beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 11:18:00 +0000

geoff dyer's book has blown me away, i've been listening to nothing but jazz since i started/finished it. slightly panicky, though, cause there's so much to discover! i love pop, as well, i love the way it burns down it songs until there's nothing left of them. generosity! but where's good pop? and why are babyshambles a success? i can't bring myself to finish their record even once, and yet they're not only all over england, they took german media in a storm as well.

Honest Complication

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 10:39:00 +0000

last night i found a mobile phone. it's very filthy, you can see (and feel) someone's been fiddling around with it for a long time. i want to give it back. unfortunately i've used up all its charge to browse through txts, pics, movs on it instead of putting down one or two contact numbers. now i'm locked out by pin, and i don't even have the right charger!

Cable Freestyle

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 16:04:00 +0000

i've often marveled at english cable freestyle. marveled at the way the english leave so many cables out in the open. if you pass one of these electricity boxes on the street, wide open, exposing lots and lots and lots of wires and cables - it's scary, it's tempting: i want to pull them all out and see whether the lights go down in my whole area.

Jarhead

noreply@blogger.com (alex_vf) — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 12:11:00 +0000

now here comes a blockbuster taking on the gulf war, telling its story from the perspective of US marine swofford who's really been there. i don't know a thing about mr swofford as i haven't read his book, but the way jake gyllenhaal as swoff is being introduced makes it clear: he's the good one. he's not as dumb as the rest of his unit (reading albert camus on the toilet); he's good at heart (loves his girl but oh she treats him so bad); and, ah yes, he's the best sniper around as well, bound to kill, if only his superiors would let him.

even when jake's stationed in the desert, going slightly mad, he doesn't lose his beauty. while a voiceover tells us about the obstruse acts of occupational therapy the marines go through in order to fight the boredom of not having to kill somebody yet (well, you name it, it's not a very inventive list, every second point being masturbation), the camera holds still on jake's face who shines like little innocent jesus in the dark.

the dilemma of this movie: it's an interesting portray of explicitly unpolitical marine soldiers. it has failed to sort out it's own politics, though.

i wasn't a big fan of michal moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11", but it certainly transported unique knowledge about soldier/army psychology in the context of the real gulf war. that's not jarhead's objective at all. it is fast-paced storytelling (fast-paced in the sense of history: the war has been 15 years ago, hey let's make a movie!). it uses the gulf war as a wrap for an action buddy movie.

it's not even an anti-war movie. it's absolutely perplexing that the strongest anti-war moment of the film emerges from the scene where the soldiers, not knowing yet they'll go to war, are being screened a copy of "Apocalypse Now" (the helicopter scene, in particular). the audience fiercely celebrates every comrad, every military aesthetic on screen. the soundtrack of francis ford coppola takes over (the only decidedly strong sound element in the movie, btw). at climax, the screening breaks off, and via loudspeakers, the soldiers are being sent to war. 'go on and get some, soldiers!' frenetic rejoicing.

some links:
the most critical Guardian article on this movie... there are more positive ones, but the authors don't seem to be sure why to like it, so basically they tell back the whole movie to us... the Timeout one...