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robertogreco + aesthetics   40

DAILY SERVING » Summer of Utopia: Interview with Ted Purves [via: http://randallszott.org/2012/05/25/ted-purves-aesthetics-social-practice-personal-economies/ ]
"I feel like a project is successful if we have had substantive encounters with people, if we have created spaces where a kind of exchange—whether it’s family history, or talking about why something should or shouldn’t be in an art museum, or sometimes it’s just swapping recipes—some form of animated or engaged dialogue comes out, or some sort of story emerges. It means we learn something, a story can be brought forward from that, that’s when things are successful. Another high-five moment comes when there is something compelling to look at. A lot of times when you see a social practice show, it’s either a room full of crap to read, or it looks like a place where they had a party and you didn’t get to go. I’ve been to a lot of those, and they’re not satisfying! You either wish they had just printed a book you could take home and read in your own chair—because it’s not very comfortable to sit in a museum—or you wish that you’d been at the party."
urbanism  rural  cities  urban  suburban  suburbia  suburbs  belief  via:leisurearts  democracy  alteration  change  perception  lemoneverlastingbackyard  wrongness  weirdness  glvo  openendedness  seeing  art  aesthetics  fruit  dialog  publicspaces  publicspace  workinginpublic  disagreement  decisionmaking  debate  negotiation  unplanning  thebluehouse  temescalamityworks  susannecockrell  sharing  2010  overlappingeconomies  capitalism  economics  utopia  thomasmore  socialpractice  tedpurves  from delicious
4 days ago by robertogreco
Augmented Paper - Matt Gemmell
"For me, software experiences that feel like Augmented Paper are those that second-guess our (developers’) natural tendency to put functionality first, or to think of our apps as software. Apps are only incidentally software; software is an implementation detail. Instead, apps are experiences. Design an experience. Make it as beautiful — and as emotionally resonant — as it can possibly be. Then adorn the core experience and content with only as much functionality as is absolutely necessary. Functionality…is like seasoning. A little is an enhancement; any more destroys the flavour…and may well be bad for you. These new classes of devices, so immediately personal and portable and tactile, aren’t desktop-era shrines demanding incantation and prostration. They’re empowering extensions to our real, actual lives - and that’s a profound thing. They take what was once prosaic or mundane, and give us just a taste of superpowers. They’re augmentations, and they should be beautiful."
instapaper  aesthetics  tactile  clear  invisibleinterfaces  instinctivecode  digital  minimalism  skeumorph  tablets  augmentation  mobile  ipad  iphone  applications  augmentedpaper  mattgemmell  2012  via:preoccupations  designasexperience  ui  ux  windowsphonemetro  windowsphone7  metro  windows  design  ios  apple  android  wp7  from delicious
6 weeks ago by robertogreco
Information Architects – Kenya Hara On Japanese Aesthetics
"A Japanese cleaning team finds satisfaction in diligently doing its job. The better they do it the more satisfaction they get out of it.

The craftman’s spirit, I think, imbues people with a sense of beauty, as in elaboration, delicacy, care, simplicity (words I often use). Obviously, this also applies to bento-making and the pride people take in making them as beautiful as they can.

There is a similar craftman’s spirit (“shokunin kishitsu” or “shokunin katagi”) in Europe. Yet in Europe I can see it coming alive only from a certain level of sophistication. –In Japan, even ordinary jobs such as cleaning and cooking are filled with this craftman’s spirit. It is is common sense in Japan.

While Japanese are known for their particular aesthetic sense, I would say we also have an incapacity to see ugliness. How come?

We usually focus fully on what’s right in front of our eyes. We tend to ignore the horrible, especially if it is not an integral part of our personal perspective."
bento  bentoboxes  knives  shokuninkatagi  shokuninkishitsu  glvo  craft  craftsmanship  via:tealtan  2009  design  n  japa  japanese  design  minimalism  culture  kenyahara  simplicity  aesthetics  japan  from delicious
7 weeks ago by robertogreco
An Essay on the New Aesthetic | Beyond The Beyond | Wired.com
"The “New Aesthetic” is a native product of modern network culture. It’s from London, but it was born digital, on the Internet. The New Aesthetic is a “theory object” and a “shareable concept.”

The New Aesthetic is “collectively intelligent.” It’s diffuse, crowdsourcey, and made of many small pieces loosely joined. It is rhizomatic, as the people at Rhizome would likely tell you. It’s open-sourced, and triumph-of-amateurs. It’s like its logo, a bright cluster of balloons tied to some huge, dark and lethal weight.

There are some good aspects to this modern situation, and there are some not so good ones."

"That’s the big problem, as I see it: the New Aesthetic is trying to hack a modern aesthetic, instead of thinking hard enough and working hard enough to build one. That’s the case so far, anyhow. No reason that the New Aesthetic has to stop where it stands at this moment, after such a promising start. I rather imagine it’s bound to do otherwise. Somebody somewhere will, anyhow."
machinevision  glitches  digitalaccumulation  walterbenjamin  socialmedia  bots  uncannyvalley  surveillance  turingtest  renderghosts  imagerecognition  imagery  beauty  cern  postmodernity  hereandnow  temporality  pixels  culturalagnosticism  london  theory  networkculture  theoryobjects  smallpieceslooselyjoined  collectiveintelligence  digitalage  digital  modernism  aesthetics  vision  robots  cubism  impressionism  history  artmovements  machine-readableworld  russelldavies  benterrett  siliconrounsabout  art  marcelduchamp  joannemcneil  jamesbridle  sxsw  brucesterling  2012  newaesthetic  crowdsourcing  rhizome  aaronstraupcope  thenewaesthetic  from delicious
7 weeks ago by robertogreco
Hi. My name is Anne. I make stuff with words. | Design Culture Lab
"I’m interested in words as materials for making, and in the written word as an artefact or thing that has been made. I’m also interested in why words (or the written word as distinguished from books) are generally not considered part of “Maker culture.”

Barry’s point was that Maker culture is specifically concerned with hardware, and since I think this definition is generally accepted then words-as-materials have no place there. If Making is about problem-solving, then creative writing has no place there either."

"So, does this mean that if the primary goal of (creative) writing is expression, the only way it can be incorporated into Maker culture is to use words explicitly for problem-solving, or the production of (cultural) solutions? How, exactly, does that differ from aesthetic goals–and especially if we do not distinguish between aesthetics and ethics?"

[Follow-up post here: http://www.designculturelab.org/2012/03/01/more-thoughts-on-writing-and-making/ ]
2012  peterrichardson  knowledge  discourse  glenfuller  kiostark  erinkissane  giovannitiso  tomhenderson  sallyapplin  design  materials  makerculture  makers  making  expression  comments  wordsmithing  writing  annegalloway  ethics  aesthetics 
10 weeks ago by robertogreco
Teaching: Cultures of Design, Or Design and Everyday Life | Design Culture Lab
"Original and world-changing design was long considered the product of solitary geniuses, masters and heroes, but recent research has argued that cultural innovation is often the result of everyday actions by ordinary people. This course critically and creatively examines the dynamic and collaborative networks that characterise professional and amateur design today, and prepares students to face the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead."

[Course aims, course content, course assignments (4 of them) follow, all worth reading]

To get started, students are required to complete the following task (adapted from The Exercise Book) for the first tutorial:

1) Go for a walk with a notebook and pay close attention to what’s going on around you.

2) Compose one written page with three sections. Start the first section with “I see…”, the second section with “I remember…” and the third section with “I imagine…”."
culturalphenomena  socialphenomena  place  objects  social  future  present  past  culture  innovation  creativity  cocreation  speculativedesign  amateurism  ethics  aesthetics  everydaylife  anthropology  classideas  criticalpractice  noticing  2012  annegalloway  teaching  ethnography  design  _socialphenomena  from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco
Journal of Aesthetics & Protest
design  media  art  protest  journal  activism  politics  culture  magazine  aesthetics  from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco
Five Years After Banning Outdoor Ads, Brazil's Largest City Is More Vibrant Than Ever
"Five years later, São Paulo continues to exist without advertisements. But instead of causing economic ruin and deteriorating aesthetics, 70 percent of city residents find the ban beneficial, according to a 2011 survey. Unexpectedly, the removal of logos and slogans exposed previously overlooked architecture, revealing a rich urban beauty that had been long hidden."
aesthetics  economics  urbanism  urban  architecture  2011  advertising  billboards  brasil  sãopaulo  from delicious
january 2012 by robertogreco
A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs - NYTimes.com
"…worked at what he loved…really hard…opposite of absent-minded…never embarrassed about working hard, even if results were failures…wasn’t ashamed to admit trying…

Novelty was not…highest value. Beauty was…didn’t favor trends or gimmicks…philosophy of aesthetics…“Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”…willing to be misunderstood…Love was his supreme virtue, god of gods…believed love happened all the time, everywhere…never ironic, cynical, pessimistic…choices he made…designed to dissolve walls around him…humble…liked to keep learning…cultivated whimsy…had surprises tucked in all his pockets…had a lot of fun…treasured happiness…set destinations…

We all—in the end—die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories…

character is essential: What he was, was how he died…

…final words were: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW."
life  death  work  happiness  stevejobs  monajobs  2011  eulogy  living  wisdom  storytelling  beauty  parenting  love  attention  failure  character  stories  fun  pessimism  cynicism  irony  virtues  art  time  timelessnessm  durability  workethic  ethics  philosophy  aesthetics  from delicious
october 2011 by robertogreco
The Department of Aesthetics
"The Department of Aesthetics is devoted to research, education, and exploration in applied aesthetics and the arts of living."
education  writing  art  research  artists  randallszott  aesthetics  artofliving  life  living  from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco
WE CAN WORK IT OUT by Randall Szott « 127 PRINCE
"In all honesty, I find journals, in the academic sense, mostly boring. If by calling this thing a journal we mean a peer reviewed and scholarly contribution to the professional field of art, count me out. Or maybe I mean if that is all it is, if the only sense of journal we embody is the academic one, then like Bartleby, I would prefer not to…<br />
<br />
If however, we mean by journal a record of observations, a place for inquiry, a venue for conversation, or what the art set now calls a “platform,” then by all means, please include me. My dear friend Ben Schaafsma (now deceased) had a blog called Center for Working Things Out. That economically describes my ambitions for this enterprise…<br />
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I’d love to keep the messiness of the human condition front and center, not the sort of messiness proponents of agonistic models of art and community champion, but the simple messiness of embodied human experience."
aesthetics  exchange  everyday  experience  social  randallszott  messiness  human  life  living  art  socialpractice  observations  inquiry  humanexperience  127prince  from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco
LeisureArts: MacGyver - Bricoleur - LeisureArts
"…pushing for re-thinking the field, finding other ways to critically negotiate, & promote work of cultural MacGyvers. Robyn Stewart, in Text [Oct 2001], writes in…"Practice vs. Praxis: Constructing Models for Practitioner Based Research:"<br />
"It is not easy being a bricoleur. A bricoleur works w/in & btwn competing & overlapping perspectives & paradigms (& is familiar w/ these). To do so they must read widely, to become knowledgeable about variety of interpretive paradigms that can be brought to a problem, drawing on Feminism, Marxism, Cultural Studies, Constructivism, & including processes of phenomenography, grounded theory, visual analysis, narratology, ethnography, case & field study, structuralism & poststructuralism, triangulation, survey, etc."<br />
It's not easy to write about them either…requires challenging available orthodoxies, an equally at-ease disposition w/ regard to switching conceptual domains & categories, & flexibility to leave one's critical assumptions behind…"
bricolage  bricoleur  randallszott  leisurearts  generalists  arts  art  culture  reading  cv  marxism  feminism  constructivism  narratology  ethnography  casestudies  fieldstudies  aesthetics  poststructuralism  structuralism  survey  triangulation  phenomenography  groundedtheory  theory  praxis  robynstewart  macgyver  criticalthinking  interdisciplinary  multidisciplinary  crossdisciplinary  crosspollination  research  claudelevi-strauss  culturehacking  hacking  tinkering  lcproject  unschooling  deschooling  jacks-of-all-trades  making  doing  glvo  dilettante  bernardherman  2006  jacquesderrida  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
what’s wrong with “prosthetics porn”? (part I) | Abler.
"Which brings me to consider a question someone asked me after a lecture I gave last year: Is it preferable to design adaptive devices that are elegantly designed to be camouflaged (think hearing-aid jewelry), or beautiful & conspicuous, like the legs above? &, with Wallace in mind, should we ethically aim more design research toward near-future applications, rather than wildly speculative gear that may never see the light of day?<br />
<br />
Well—yes. To quote Maile Meloy: Both ways is the only way I want it.<br />
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I think our energy can go in all these directions, provided we’re reflective enough. I’ve already affirmed the inherent value in playful experimentation. But the bigger challenge is to make extensive machinery that is truly extensive, truly outward in its posture. I think design matters crucially to these questions, because design for disability has the opportunity to critique the weakness of all personal technologies: its tendency to hermetically seal its user from engaging…"
interdependence  design  prosthetics  prostheticsporn  sarahendren  abler  architecture  disabilities  aesthetics  bespokeinnovations  matthewbattles  aimeemullins  objects  mailemeloy  hearing-aids  jewelery  from delicious
march 2011 by robertogreco
Tate Papers - Josef Albers, Eva Hesse, and the Imperative of Teaching
"Albers believed that one learned as a result of a direct interaction with life & required that his students become familiar w/ the physical nature of the material world. This was due, in part, to the influence of John Dewey, who advocated for laboratory-based education & coined the phase ‘learning by doing.’ For Dewey, ‘the conditions of daily life’ determined the ‘nature of experience’ & thus, art (aesthetic experience) was to be actively engaged. Indeed, he often praised Dewey, whose ideas were fundamental to the founding of Black Mountain College, where Albers first taught in America from 1933 to 1949. & like Dewey, his pedagogic emphasis lay in practical, concrete exercises: in the artist-educator’s own words ‘learning through conscious practice.’ Similar notions, including the Montessori method as well as those of Froebel, Pestalozzi, & others key to discourse on early childhood development were fundamental to the educational programme of the Bauhaus…"
josephalbers  evahesse  teaching  johndewey  pedagogy  art  education  arteducation  bauhaus  learningbydoing  blackmountaincollege  materials  color  sollewitt  learning  progressive  johannesitten  lászlómoholy-nagy  experimentation  empathy  visualempathy  form  order  aesthetics  engagement  instruction  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
An Aesthetic of Everyday Life: Modernism and a Japanese popular aesthetic ideal, “Iki”
"Nineteenth century Japanese popular cultural phenomena, most notably the Japanese woodblock print and painting, ukiyo-e, have made significant contributions to modernist artistic movements, in particular the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, impressionism, post-impressionism, and fauvism. In addition, it is worth mentioning the influence of Japanese architecture on Frank Lloyd Wright, who also loved ukiyo-e.[1] These influences are primarily the result of applying Western values, specifically, aesthetic values to the interpretation of Japanese culture.<br />
<br />
However, this interpretation has had the tendency to be one-way, and there have been relatively few attempts to applying non-Western ideas to Western culture. Is this because it is futile to do so? Or because it is impossible?"
aesthetics  japan  culture  art  theory  modernism  yamamotoyuji  iki  ukiyo-e  franklloydwright  from delicious
january 2011 by robertogreco
Alex Payne — A Thought on Communication
"Our text-based environment, w/ its countless abbreviations & emoticons & bits of slang, has come us to define us culturally. For those suffering RSI, the constant output & input streams of text have even come to define us physically.<br />
<br />
This is where we are today. In short, text rules, & if you can write effectively (as distinct from writing well), you rule too…<br />
<br />
Your children will know a very different way of relating to people who are not physically present. It will change the way they work, maintain friendships, relate to family members, fall in love, & experience the world. It will change their sense of self, & self-worth. It may be a boon, or it may be harmful. Most likely, it’ll be a bit of both, because after all, it’s still about people.<br />
My generation will be at something of a loss when this new world comes about… [Unable to] compete with the telepresence-native adults that the children of today will grow up to be."
communication  alexpayne  predictions  future  video  speakularity  text  writing  telepresence  beauty  aesthetics  human  people  society  digitalnatives  from delicious
january 2011 by robertogreco
russell davies: winky dink and you
"The price & delicacy of screens means we've learned to treat them w/ enormous reverence & care. We polish them. Keep them in cases. Don't draw on them.<br />
<br />
I wonder if this reverence was what led to…horrified reactions when I painted my macbook w/ blackboard paint.<br />
<br />
But that's going to have to change…We're going to be carrying them around, pawing & dabbing them w/ our fingers too much to keep treating them that delicately. I bet that means we'll get new aesthetics for screens & their boxes. More tolerant of damage & dirt. & if it doesn't happen w/ glowing rectangles it'll definitely happen when we get E Ink everywhere…Scuffed & patinaed screens.<br />
<br />
I remember wondering the same about cars - whether the industry would develop a less shiny aesthetic…it's starting to happen. There are a couple of cars round us with an aftermarket matte black finish. They look brilliant, sinister & subtle. It's a high-end, expensive thing…but I bet it migrates through modding scene & into mainstream."
russelldavies  modification  post-digital  apple  screens  stickers  interaction  design  carss  mattepaint  eink  e-ink  patina  beausage  aesthetics  delicate  glowingrectangles  from delicious
november 2010 by robertogreco
Infinite Manic Sadness: DFW's Universal Inner Child | Culture | The American Scene [Additional quote: "For some of us, reading is a highly complicated, vexatious game."] [via: http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2010/08/feeney-on-jest.html]
"Part of it sounds of false modesty, & part of it sounds of fear. But then you read the seemingly cornball quote above & you have to concede that at least some of it is sincere. He’s speaking in the first person plural– throwing down something like a moral injunction–but what “we” are enjoined from doing is the sort of thing that mainly only people like DFW need to be told not to do. You can hear him speaking as a seriously depressed person who, in his dark moments, succumbs to self-laceration & -recrimination, who inflicts terrible violence on his own spirit, who is not nice to himself at all. He has to know that not everyone is depressed like he is. But when he thinks of people in general, what he sees & worries about is their vulnerability to the kind of extreme pain he lives with."<br />
<br />
"That extremes of feeling can be made both more intelligible (psychologically & aesthetically) & more dramatic & beautiful through extremes of structure, syntax, & tone, &, maybe, vice versa."
davidfosterwallace  writing  depression  emotion  syntax  tone  structure  psychology  aesthetics  mattfeeney  jameswood  hystericalrealism  postmodernism  morality  ethics  empathy  vulnerability  infinitejest  from delicious
september 2010 by robertogreco
Wabi-sabi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Wabi-sabi is the most conspicuous & characteristic feature of traditional Japanese beauty & it "occupies roughly the same position in the Japanese pantheon of aesthetic values as do the Greek ideals of beauty & perfection in West." "if an object or expression can bring about, w/in us, a sense of serene melancholy & a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi." "[Wabi-sabi] nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging 3 simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, & nothing is perfect."

Wabi now connotes rustic simplicity, freshness or quietness, & can be applied to both natural & human-made objects, or understated elegance. It can also refer to quirks & anomalies arising from the process of construction, which add uniqueness & elegance to the object. Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age, when the life of the object & its impermanence are evidenced in its patina & wear, or in any visible repairs."
patina  beausage  imperfection  unfinished  aesthetics  architecture  art  beauty  buddhism  design  culture  japan  japanese  simplicity  perfection  poetry  philosophy  zen  wabi-sabi  marceltheroux  johnconnell  jesserichards  coding  software  refinement  via:lukeneff  melancholy  tcsnmy  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
marxism  technology  photography  walterbenjamin  reproduction  newmedia  criticism  media  history  politics  aesthetics  art  copyright  culture  design  essays  film  philosophy  writing  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
41Latitude - Bing Maps's Redesign: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
"As you can see from my examples, this was not some incremental improvement that Microsoft gave to Bing Maps—no, this was a vast overhaul. In truth, it seems as though Microsoft has left nothing unchanged in the “new” Bing Maps. And yet even though the “new” maps are unusually light on detail (especially in how few cities they seem to show), they’re now among the most aesthetically pleasing maps on the web.<br />
<br />
On an unrelated note, I find the similarities between Windows Phone 7’s UI and the “new” Bing Maps to be quite curious: both use Segoe fonts, both are unflinchingly minimalistic, and both are dramatic breaks from their predecessors. Maybe this really is a new direction for Microsoft."
via:migurski  maps  mapping  microsoft  cartography  design  aesthetics  bing  labels  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
interactions magazine | Adaptive Reuse: Things, Containers, and Streets in the Architecture of the Social Web
"There is an aesthetic here, but it’s less a visual aesthetic than an enacted, functional one, an aesthetic of use and organization. The container is understood through its activation: To know it, it must be occupied. The street is understood through navigation: To know it, it must be traversed. This is the space that Manuel Castells refers to as “the space of flows”—”the technological and organizational possibility of practicing simultaneity without contiguity. It also refers to the possibility of asynchronous interaction in chosen time, at a distance” [9]. When the discussion moves from form to relationships, distinctions between different architectures—whether built, information, or experience architectures—give way, and common modes emerge from these different disciplines."
fredscharmen  aesthetics  information  urbanism  ux  mobility  postindustrial  development  design  data  culture  art  architecture  application  networks  web 
july 2010 by robertogreco
Plugimi » A few thoughts on Avatar
"We’re very finely tuned to human features, so that might explain why humans will definitely be the last to seem real but It may be time to put accept that the uncanny valley was not very uncanny and is as good as crossed. In Avatar, there almost was an inverse effect when after two hours or so of predominantly artificial creatures the first humans are being composited into the images and they do look flat and artificial in direct comparison. ... Maybe it’s just the aesthetics, but never before has a movie given me such a similar feeling to playing a game. The film obviously heavily borrows from games like World of Warcraft (especially in terms of riding flying creatures), but I’m wondering whether it might be the added feeling of immersion through 3D that in games comes from the interaction?"
saschapohflepp  avatar  film  3d  uncannyvalley  animation  videogames  aesthetics 
december 2009 by robertogreco
Name This Aesthetic | Ask Metafilter
"Is there a name or term for the aesthetic these blogs contain?...there is a definite theme & aesthetic quality in a lot of the blogs I read. But when trying to relate this to a friend yesterday, I realized I can't seem to figure out what it is or even quite how to describe it. It bothers me even more because this aesthetic is very similar to things I('d like to) wear, things I collect, how I decorate areas in my room, etc, which is likely why I read them in the first place. It's not just the vintage stuff, but that is a large part. There's a lot of overlap between them in modern things as well, & I think this combination of the two is rather important. So what's the name for this aesthetic & how can I describe/define it? And as a side question, are there blogs/resources where I can find more of the same? The blogs are: A Continuous Lean, The Material Review (a tumblr blog by the same guy who does A Continuous Lean), A Time to Get, Cold Splinters, Secret Forts"
terminology  americana  vintage  retro  beausage  amekaji  aesthetics  blogs  hauteamericana  newantiquarian  lightbluecollar  wabi-sabi 
october 2009 by robertogreco
Immaterials: the ghost in the field
"we hope that this work goes some way towards building better spatial and gestural models of RFID, as material for designers to build better products and to take full advantage of the various ways in which spatial proximity can be used. And with this better understanding we hope to be able to discuss and design for privacy and the ‘leakage’ of data in a more rigorous way."
berg  berglondon  timoarnall  jackschulze  visualization  rfid  sensors  visualisation  touch  nfc  nearfield  video  aesthetics  design  data  blindness 
october 2009 by robertogreco
Gallery - Prosthetics with aesthetics - Image 1 - New Scientist
"Prosthetics are usually designed to blend in with the human body without attracting attention. But they can also be fashion objects: tools to expand a person's abilities and distinctive additions to a person's identity."
prosthetics  science  medicine  fashion  aesthetics  design 
october 2009 by robertogreco
Games, Corporations, Distant Constellations « Continental Drift
"Art’s potential to catalyze social and political change lies in the variable forms and successive displacements of an invitation to play. Far from having been invented by the Situationists, the conception of art as the quintessential object of free subjective play is a constitutive element of democratic theories of education, with origins stretching back to the Enlightenment."
education  art  architecture  situationist  iwb  philosophy  theory  cognition  games  play  activism  universities  modeling  aesthetics  fabrica  guydebord 
july 2009 by robertogreco
Beauty and Desecration by Roger Scruton, City Journal Spring 2009
"Art increasingly aimed to disturb, subvert, or transgress moral certainties, and it was not beauty but originality—however achieved and at whatever moral cost—that won the prizes."
art  beauty  aesthetics  modernism  modern  philosophy  originality  culture 
june 2009 by robertogreco
Data as seductive material « Magical Nihilism
"It was their first (and hopefully not the last) Spring Summit at the Umeå Institute of Design, entitled “Sensing and sensuality”. I tried to come up with something on that theme, mainly of half-formed thoughts that I hope I can explore some more here and elsewhere in the coming months. It’s called “Data as seductive material”" slides here: http://www.slideshare.net/blackbeltjones/data-as-seductive-material-spring-summit-ume-march09?type=document
mattjones  data  visualization  everyware  ubicomp  aesthetics  dataesthetics  dopplr  stamendesign 
april 2009 by robertogreco
V. S. Ramachandran - Synesthesia and the Universal Principles of Art
via:blackbeltjones  synesthesia  science  neuroscience  metaphor  creativity  language  psychology  research  aesthetics  srg 
march 2009 by robertogreco
Network Culture | varnelis.net - "In this book I will argue that many of the key tenets of culture since the Enlightenment: the subject, the novel, the public sphere, are being radically reshaped."
From the introduction: "What unites these machines is their mobility and their interconnectivity, necessary to make them more ubiquitous companions in our lives and key interfaces to global telecommunications networks. In a prosaic sense, the Turing machine is already a reality, but it doesn’t take the form of one machine, it takes the form of many. With minor exceptions, the laptop, smart phone, cable TV set top box, game console, wireless router, iPod, iPhone, and Mars rover are the same device, but they become specific in their interfaces, their mechanisms for input and output, for sensing and acting upon the world. Instead of a universal machine, network culture seeks a universal, converged network, capable of distributing audio, video, Internet, voice, text chat, and any other conceivable networking task efficiently."
everyware  kazysvarnelis  ubicomp  network  networks  mobile  interconnectivity  uibiquitous  books  networkculture  change  society  information  ideology  economics  aesthetics 
february 2009 by robertogreco
The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism, By Jonathan Lethem (Harper's Magazine)
"Today, when we can eat Tex-Mex with chopsticks while listening to reggae and watching a YouTube rebroadcast of the Berlin Wall's fall—i.e., when damn near everything presents itself as familiar—it's not a surprise that some of today's most ambitious art is going about trying to make the familiar strange. In so doing, in reimagining what human life might truly be like over there across the chasms of illusion, mediation, demographics, marketing, imago, and appearance, artists are paradoxically trying to restore what's taken for “real” to three whole dimensions, to reconstruct a univocally round world out of disparate streams of flat sights."
art  culture  plagiarism  aesthetics  remix  harpers  jonathanlethem  creativity  writing  glvo  music  books  law  journalism  copyright  property  creativecommons  opensource  politics  literature  familiarity  strange  makingthefamiliarstrange  observation  commons  influence 
january 2009 by robertogreco
Star Wars: A New Heap - Triple Canopy: Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Death Star.
"30 years ago, American film audiences pressed low in their seats as a massive white wedge of machine parts passed overhead. With release of Star Wars, smooth, silvery flying saucers that had dominated postwar sci-fi became embarrassing reminders of obsolete vision of future...film’s visual program was departure from saucers & occasional capsules writ large that sci-fi audiences had grown accustomed to, but its colorless symmetrical ships should have been recognizable to at least a small portion of its audience—those familiar with contemporary art."... "30 years after...strange chimpanzee crossed another threshold. For first time in 5500 years of building cities, more of humanity now lives in them than in rural settlements. In the coming years there will be countless master plans for new mega-cities in Africa, Asia & South America. We can only hope that these plans will be drawn by disciples of Jane Jacobs, students of Robert Morris, admirers of Robert Smithson & fans of Star Wars."

[via: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/12/the_used_future.php AND http://www.kottke.org/08/12/star-wars-a-new-heap ]
design  art  culture  architecture  history  writing  film  reading  minimalism  criticism  starwars  aesthetics  sciencefiction  scifi  robertsmithson  georgelucas  robertmorris  janejacobs  modernism  future  cities  urbanism  critique 
december 2008 by robertogreco
Archinect : Features : Archinect Op-Ed: Let's Get Small
"The current scarcities in credit, energy and imagination are, in another sense, opportunities to realign the priorities of the profession: away from object aesthetics and towards system aesthetics. Think Small: small scale objects, expanding incrementally and opportunistically over large scale timeframes. Generate beauty and surplus through adaptation, flexibility, elegance and economy of means."
scarcity  systems  scale  small  architecture  design  aesthetics  2008  crisis  economics 
october 2008 by robertogreco
BLDGBLOG: The mathematics of preservation and the future of urban ruins
"So the question becomes: at what point do we preserve something not for its historical value but for its topological interest? If a bridge, or a highway overpass, becomes functionally obsolete, is it still subject to the rules of architectural preservati
aesthetics  archaeology  architecture  art  decay  highways  history  topology  math  urban  design 
april 2008 by robertogreco
The History of Visual Communication
"attempts to walk you through the long and diverse history of a particular aspect of human endeavour: The translation of ideas, stories and concepts that are largely textual and/or word based into a visual format, i.e. visual communication."
aesthetics  anthropology  architecture  art  books  communication  caves  craft  creative  culture  design  drawing  graphics  history  icons  illustration  infodesign  infographics  information  visual  visualization  via:kottke  typography  type  toread  painting  memory  photography  print  printing  literature  technology  words  writing  process  reference 
february 2008 by robertogreco
PopMatters | Columns | Rob Horning | Marginal Utility | The Design Imperative
"We are consigned to communicating through design, but it’s an impoverished language that can only say one thing: “That’s cool.” Design ceases to serve our needs, and the superficial qualities of useful things end up cannibalizing their functional
design  critique  criticism  function  form  utility  popular  aesthetics  retail  target  consumerism  consumer  society  competition  popularity  symbolism  industrial  products  customization  hipsters  marketing  image  personality  handmade  books  possessions  materialism  objects  fashion  style  commerce  variety 
january 2008 by robertogreco
In Praise of Melancholy - ChronicleReview.com
"Most hide behind a smile because they are afraid of facing the world's complexity, its vagueness, its terrible beauties. If we stay safely ensconced behind our painted grins, then we won't have to encounter the insecurities attendant upon dwelling in pos
us  society  culture  depression  complexity  creativity  arts  aesthetics  psychology  emotion  happiness  life  literature  poetry  politics  melancholy  death 
january 2008 by robertogreco
BBC NEWS | Americas | Argentina: Ugly people strike back
Buenos Aires is a city of beautiful people where appearances are important.
argentina  buenosaires  beauty  gender  health  society  sociology  aesthetics 
january 2008 by robertogreco
Digital Veil
"Born from a curiosity about new types of emotional design, his Digital Veil project engages with the increasing fascination and banalization of plastic surgery not only in Korea but also in many countries around the world."
art  aesthetics  society  plasticsurgery  technology  digital  beauty  design  wearable 
december 2007 by robertogreco

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