No such thing as viral anymore: really interesting tips on how to get your videos more seen. Link

Trees, artificially seperated from nature.
Via Everyone Forever

We are all aliens

Folkert Gorter aka Superfamous.com has left Amsterdam half a year ago to work on a unique multimedia project in Los Angeles “that will offer people a new way of thinking” and “that will let them take part in the evolutionary process of mankind”. The sneakpeak he offers me proves his he may just keep his promise! The thirty year old designer (formgiver in the case of Folkie - translator) has web-cred, since he started, together with Jason Kristofer, the website Newstoday.com. This elegant portal for the online designcommunity attracts roughly 11 million pageviews per month. Gorter’s new project is Spacecollective.org. Yet still hidden behind password protection, the launchdate is projected for 2007. De site will be a “non-profit, cross media information and entertainment channel for post-ideological, non-partisan, forward-thinking terrestrials”. Buzzword bingo!

In webisodes of three minutes each - non-linear minutes even, in which the focus jumps from moving image to streaming typography and short facts that will offer a psychedelic perspective in just a blink of an eye - Folkert creates, together with partners René Daalder (Bright issue 06) and Aaron Ohlman, a new version of the gold-anodized plaque that was compiled by Carl Sagan for NASA as a representation for human kind. The plaque (Bright issue 02) was shot into space aboard the Voyager, today still flying with a velocity of 1 million miles a day, looking for an exchange with extraterrestrial intelligence. From this analog plaque, named Murmurs of Earth, Spacecollective will create their own variation, this time allowing everybody to participate, without the censorship such as the brushing away of the male and female genitals at the time. Each member will get its own spacecapsule, for which the member can create messages that will be beamed to the stars monthly. This way everyone can, to quote the creators, “create its own digital immortality”.

SpaceCollective will be a trilogy. Apart from the website a reality-tv series is in the pipeline, in which groups of students, grocery-store employees or ex-astronauts will work on a capsule for a period of time; and a speculative Sci-Fi documentary about the state of the future of mankind. What is striking about the message is the notion that “the most hopeful sign of intelligent life on earth is the rise of the internet”. The creators look upon each human being as a neurone and the Net offers the synapses that will enable us to make connections. A new collective brain can bring us to the next level of human evolution, a development that is perceptibly increasing acceleration, and that will eventually, around 2060, lead us to the coming Technological Singularity. Meanwhile Gorter is all set. He thinks of himself as a testpilot who tests concepts to ultimately return them to improve the condition of mankind.

http://spacecollective.org

By Adam Eeuwens, Los Angeles
for Bright Magazine, Issue 10.

http://spacecollective.org/preview/

http://www.superfamous.com/empire/

It makes no sense for me to separate research, designing, writing and other (seemingly) more random things - together these activities form a practice that is genuinely interested in the relevance and potential of cultural production (be that design, graphic, artistic, literary or other).Increasingly my focus wanders to a form of practice that voices and/or facilitates dissent, that offers alternative modes of working, living, communicating, learning, participating that are not based on commodification and capitalization, but conviviality, multiplicity and democracy. For design this means not to stand in the service of the market, but the public.

Many aspects of my work don’t take on material form, but take place (and remain) in dialogues with students, colleagues, friends and allies.Here dialogue becomes a ‘material’ to work with and utilize, a means and an end. In this sense research and practice are undertaken collaboratively and in an ongoing process within and outside of institutions, working-hours and commissions. This kind of practice/research is by default not necessarily publishable, conductive within the (temporal, economic and textual) scope of research funding bodies, conclusive or saleable, but is foremost shared and lived/living. Other aspects may take shape in more concrete forms, such as installations, texts, graphic
design…

http://www.digmeout.net/

http://www.andrewseltz.com/2006/05/26/do-it-yourself-book-binding

Annual report that has to be cooked first. Content really informs form, nicely done.
whole story

Two styles and techniques. Both great.

this is fucking cool

http://www.abnormalbehaviorchild.com/skull.html

Andre’s Photo Blog Site

How to improve Youtube

Most watched video ever and viewed and responded on YouTube

Short Shorts is holding an open submission short film competition in Japan.

“Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia has been officially recognized as an Academy Award® accredited festival and is the only festival that has received this prestigious recognition in Japan. The winner of our Grand Prix award is eligible to receive an Academy Award® nomination the following year.”

Interactive Website. Random.

Selected Student Sites:

Robert Sollis

Amy Reid

Therese Vandling

Oliver Winser

Charlotte Coulais

More

Paul Rand Tribute Video-Site and Hi-Quality

Check out student work and Independent study

On Wednesday evenings (time yet to be determined) lectures and discussions
will be led by Professor Anthony Williams on the subject of graphic design
and its related topics in room 406 (tentatively) of the COM-D building.

Guest speakers and discussions will be arranged to help young designers
place themselves in context to the world of design. Topics will include, but
will not be limited to; typography, contemporary aesthetics, grid systems,
kinds of design jobs “out there”, etc.

This will be an opportunity for students to not only develop a more
comprehensive idea of their design and what graphic design they are
interested in pursuing as a career, but also to help create a stronger
community of youth who are excited or interested in graphic design.

Yours, Angela

Jackie was showing me her assignment for the class, and it reminded me about the things we were talking about. What is relevant to people today etc. Pretty interesting stuff, you can check out more of his assigments from this link. (good thought starters)

look up:
John Maeda communication arts
is Mr. Maeda a programmer, designer, artist, researcher or a scientist? why do you think communication arts is so expensive?

write:
write about a piece of art that you’ve seen within the last month and really liked. what made you stop and notice? how does it please or disturb you? what did you think the artist’s thought process was? what do you think was the discovery or observation that motivated the piece?

design:
your life.

bring:
photograph #5. set up blog, with all your photographs so far, and going forward, to be updated weekly.
your favorite example of graphic design/art direction. base entirely on aesthetic and emotional response.

Samples of student work I came across when looking for a web design class.
Eric Altbush-check out his banana video for 4D, someone actaully did something in that class.

http://www.ocasadimension.com/

this is what i was talking about

http://www.jetset.nl/lostformats/01.html

Sebastian Kaupert
COMD-459P-01
Lecture Tuesday 05:00PM - 07:50PM, Steuben Hall, Room 406

Description
Students establish and explore the principles essential to a holistic understanding of design. Flexing our communication skills, we look at people, relationships, business, culture, trends, history, media, results, professional practice, and technology, to arrive at a much broader understanding of creative problem solving.

Red Bull Headquarters Link

On the Planet of Wa, they had a custom that all Warians upon reaching adulthood would have to dedicate the rest of their lives to stage acting. Half of their daily lives would be spent on stage, the other half would be spent on whatever else they wanted. Their lives depended on acting though, the basic economy and social structure rested its heavy arms on it. everyday there were audiences, and when u were not acting, u could watch; and even when you were acting, you were watching too. Some Warians fall in love with stage acting that they dedicate more and more of their lives to it, forgetting their real lives outside of acting. Heroes are made through the theater, and losers too. The acting was important to a certain degree; it affected how you were treated off the stage. Acting was essential to the Warians because it allowed them to express themselves in ways they wouldn’t in their real lives.Some of the scripts were about the future, sometimes of the past. It showed what the Warians saw value in, their morals and their ideals.It was in a way their dream of what they think the world should be. But they knew it was separate from the real world, because liberties could be taken on stage, and stage life could never merge with real life, because it was only temporal. Sometimes they have a different script, sometimes they replay the same ones. Sometimes certain actors become too old to carry on playing a role, and they let the younger ones take over. it was a cycle that worked out and ensured prosperity for its people.

Then one day, the Warians decided to take acting to the streets.

And they never stopped acting again.