My wife’s the reason anything gets done. She nudges me towards promise by degrees. She is a perfect symphony of one, our son is her most beautiful reprise. We chase the melodies that seem to find us until they’re finished songs and start to play. When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised, not one day. This show is proof that history remembers. We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger. We rise and fall and light from dying embers. Remembrances that hope and love live longer. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love and cannot be killed or swept aside.
© Patagonia Films / Jordan Manley (via Vimeo)
Follow a group of skiers, snowboarders, scientists and healers to the birch forests of Japan, the red cedars of British Columbia and the bristlecones of Nevada, as they explore an ancient story written in rings.
I’m in love with the magnificent short documentary Treeline by Patagonia Films. Strongly recommend you to check out the other “films with Impact” the collective has produced “on behalf of our home planet” so far.
© Yuki Kawae (via Vimeo)
In traditional Chinese culture, the moon is a carrier of human emotions. The full moon symbolizes family reunion. Due to the Covid restrictions between China and the United States, my trip to see my family in Beijing, which was scheduled in early 2020, is on an indefinite hold. While waiting to go back for the past two years, I decided to create a video series with the general intention of bringing the moon down to me on the earth, inspired by a Chinese legend of the Han dynasty entitled, “The lake reflecting the divine moon.”
Every winter since 2020, I’ve filmed myself alone tracing moon patterns by dragging a suitcase on the snow-covered ground in the parking lot adjacent to my apartment building in Chicago, as if to create circular mantras suspended in a time of waiting. I also made two summer counterparts of the same ritual on a sandy beach by Lake Michigan. As long as I’m unable to go back to China, I will continue to film this same ritual in the summer and winter.
This installation by Yuge Zhou called Moon drawings reminds me a lot of the beautiful patterns Yuki Kawae draws in his zen garden —but in an entirely different dimension. Gorgeous, even more so when you know the background behind the piece.
Made to Measure is an experiment that asks if you can reconstruct a person based solely on their digital data trail. Can you build a doppelganger of a person you don’t even know? Record, recreate, and replay the life of someone and their personality in detail?
[…]
Take an hour of your time and join us in the world of digital trails. How close will we get to the person behind the data?
How much does five years’ worth of personal Google data consisting of more than 100 000 data points reveal about the life of a person?
Using the online data¹ from an anonymous volunteer, the Laokoon group worked together with data analysts to reconstruct this person based solely on their digital trail. The result of the experiment is shown in an intriguing documentary called Made to Measure which is available through the dedicated project website —alongside different media libraries.
¹ the data Google is legally required to release according to EU laws
For decades now, designers have been taught to consider human needs in their work — only human needs. But design that is good only for people, without looking at the well-being of our planet as a whole, has gotten us into trouble.
As mentioned casually in another context before, I admire the work of Space10 a lot. The Swedish research and design lab is funded by IKEA on its mission to “create a better everyday life for people and the planet”.
There are a bunch of great projects –including two wonderful books about ‘Future Food‘ and ‘Urban Futures‘– and an online journal full of interesting essays to discover, but for any creative, I recommend starting with this plea to move beyond human-centered design towards a “people-planet approach” published last year.
Der Himmel leuchtet in Schwarz und in Blau / Er schmückt sich mit Sternen / So als wolle er niemals wieder Grau / Und hässlich werden / Schrei mich an, wenn du magst / Lach mich aus, wenn du willst
Aber ich liebe es / Wie die Erde sich dreht / Und der Mond dann auf einmal / Hell und einsam über uns steht / Ich bin Freund von Klischees / Und von funkelnden Sternen / Und ich mag dich sehr, sehr gern
It’s curious that change is so fast technologically and so slow socially.
nocturnal sessions
A well balanced mixtape duo with moody music ideal for late night design sessions
Since back in the days as a young design student, I’ve enjoyed working during the quiet of the nighttime and I believe that’s something a lot of artists, programmers, writers, and designers share; We are children of the night. When it gets dark outside the demanding noise of everyday life with all its clutter steps aside to deep, overarching silence and the mind of many of us tends to be wide open and particularly creative.
At least for me, a proper soundtrack enhances those nocturnal sessions a lot —both in pleasure and outcome. Even though there are a lot of amazing LPs¹ to listen to, I’ve spent quite some time in 2020 putting together two long mixtapes made primarily for such occasions.
In total, these two Spotify playlists pack more than five hours of carefully selected and arranged tracks –90, including some Interludes and skits, perfect to get you into the tunnel and find inspiration during your extended late-night working sessions.
Apart from that, I draw on these mixtapes to find catharsis and come to rest during cold and dark winter hours and grey days in general, as well.
I often think that the night is more alive and richly coloured than the day.
— Vincent Van Gogh
Since there’s a lot of –to some extent heavy– bass and some rather high-pitched sounds, I strongly recommend a decent audio output device that can handle a broad spectrum of frequencies well in order to get the most out of this music.
part I: MANIAC
— 42 Tracks / 2hours 23minutes
part II: Wolves
— 48 Tracks / 2hours 59minutes
¹ thinking of M83, The XX, Her, Tycho, The Howl & The Hum, Howling, Son Lux, Darkside, and Portico for example
The idea is to find yourself a posse of misfits who have the courage to not only question authority but the whole dominant reality, and create magic together.
© Bendo / Macklemore / Jason Koenig & Ryan Lewis (via YouTube)
And I, know I gotta roll with it /
I’m well aware the universe doesn’t owe me shit /
I know that, all of this pain means the growth, I think /
That next year’s gonna be better than this (Let’s go)
— from the Lyrics of Next Year by Macklemore
© Reisinger Studio (via Vimeo)
‘Arcadia’ is a narrated short film that journeys through our collective twenty-first-century existential crisis. It is a groundbreaking interdisciplinary collaboration between artist Andrés Reisinger, musician RAC, and poet Arch Hades.
Arcadia is a prime example of how interdisciplinary collaboration in the creative field can produce truly astonishing audio-visual computer generated art. I strongly recommend watching the ten-minute film in fullscreen on a big enough display and with a good sound system –or capable headphones– plugged in to enjoy this poetic piece in all its glory.
The results seem to show PowerPoint is failing you in two key areas: increasing information transfer to your target and improving what people think of your brand (and you).
Using a real-world business scenario, PowerPoint was rated (by online audiences) as no better than verbal presentations with no visual aids. Ouch.
I haven’t used PowerPoint since back when I was at school presenting papers to my classmates and according to a recent Harvard study cited by Forbes, that’s apparently a good thing.
I am curious what iA is able to contribute to the field of presentation applications when they release iA Presenter, though. iA Writer is a great piece of software that remains to be by far my favourite writing tool —an usually rather unglamorous type of app, too.