I wondered what those little silly map paintings would look like if they were really big. I bet it would take a really long time. That would fill a day. So I painted one big. And then it took about four months. And I liked it. So then I painted another one big. And then I became obsessed by it. And it happened completely accidentally just because I was trying to keep $1000.
Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood. To photograph is to appropriate the thing being photographed.
A new tool makes the connection between architectural drawings of a space and the aural experience of its soon-to-be users:
A powerful tool, called auralization, is available to help make this connection. Using computer modeling and signal processing techniques, acoustical consultants can transform architectural drawings into realistic, surround-sound aural renderings of a space (an “auralization”) that allows you to “hear” your space before it’s built.
Bach is distilled Something Else. He composed against the currents of his day; he swam upstream; he was a reactionary (for example: composing elaborate difficult counterpoint when the musical world was simplifying into homophony). His genius, according to the usual view, is not that of inventor or destroyer, but belongs to that colder virtue of perfection. Separation from Time is part of the Bach myth; against his island of perfection the vicissitudes of music history uselessly and cyclically break their waves. He ushers in no new Style, no Movement, no Ism; he opens the door to no Revolution; and therefore he is “pointless,” historically speaking. He would not “Stick it to the Man;” he is The Man.
On the contrast in Bach’s D major Partitas:
The minor keys in the major movements of the D major Partitas do not seem to oppose the prevailing mood but to fill it out; these momentary sadnesses seem to make the overall joy believable. …. The turn to major arises from the confirmation of minor; sadness is a cause for celebration and vice versa; the happier and sadder moments do not rebut each other, they are no dialectic; even the terms “happy” and “sad” may not be applicable; they each draw on the other, and blur the other, in a chain of logic, inspiration and cause.
Each of the tracks brings you across mountain meadows covered in wild flowers that make one realise that designers and artists will always have something to aim for.
It was around 1880 when Johanna, the current owner, decided that instead of jewelry, for the birth of her children, she would like each of them to have a piece of mountain. She had 15 children, 14 of whom where females. She built a house with a piece of surrounding ground for each family. However, she imposed three rules which had to be respected: no fences, only to sell to family members, and to maintain everything in respect to nature. Nowadays, Briol still follows the fundamental principles of this choice.
People are giving the work of Jane Jacobs — urbanist, writer, and activist — a second look, but not for her urban pioneering and development work — for her economic vision.
Most know Jane Jacobs as the ultimate champion of cities, who stood up against neighborhood demolition and saw a vibrant ballet where others saw urban squalor. But three years since her death — and a year into a downturn marked by bailouts, foreclosures and sky-high unemployment — her economic vision has come into the spotlight.“ …. [The Death and Life of Great American] Cities and the Wealth of Nations came out 25 years ago. But the dynamics described are eerily familiar.
Last week, I started The Economy of Cities, and while it doesn’t seem to measure up to the wisdom in The Nature of Economies, it could no doubt provide insight (if not a roadmap) for revitalization in urban areas.
My talk at DxF2009 in Utrecht last week was an hour’s wander around the idea of Time, particularly historical and cultural ideas of time.
My focus was time as a material for interaction design that we should deconstruct and reconstruct in order to create products and services that take advantage of new real-time web technologies.
I think we need to really start playing with time as a material. …. I belive we need to engage with cultural constructs of Time and bring them into the reconstruction and design of our products and services.
I remember turning 10 years old. The birthday was not significant because I was closer to being a card-carrying, official teenager; or because I received tickets to a show in New York (where I did not yet live); or because I was numerically older than my then-closest friend, who is still 371 days younger than me. It was significant because I was moving from single to double digits.
Ever since, the passage of recognizable chunks of time has not gone unnoticed. I value anniversaries of everything, the firsts of everything, the seasons of everything, with a rather rigorous spin on the data. Most of the interest around these numbers is a repositioning of context (“Five years ago, I was …”), and then consider what has changed. But part of it is about pulling apart the numbers to see what they tell me. Either way, each milestone gets a pretty rigorous evaluation.
Each year, on the anniversary of the day I moved to New York City, I visit a landmark I haven’t seen yet (but “should have”). This has been a tradition for a decade. Perhaps better described here.
Keeping track of time, doing this kind of personal accounting, gives things context; it marks the passing of time not unlike the demarcation school enforced, where time was punctuated by semesters and summer breaks. When you mark time in chunks, you can name it — “it’s fall,” “I’m in my 40s,” we’re in the “aughts.” Shared vocabulary has value because then there can be conversation. Being aware of time allows for both an objectivity and a shared experience that weren’t there before.
What you actively spend time on, and (far more difficult) what you choose not to do, who you choose not to spend time with, and who and what you decide to say no to — what you choose, then — is how you mark time. And that is all there is.
When multi-tasking, speed, and efficiency are valued over leaving the office at 5:30PM, recognizing how time passes is paramount. It’s up to you how you want to punctuate the matter.
Ada Louise Huxtable, March 22, 1974, photographed by Alfred Eisenstaedt. “The critic has to stand between the art and the user, between the artist and the user, and that’s where you have to be objective and fair,” from conversation on latest book On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change covered in a bit of a flirtatious interview.
Paul Graham on what’s so different and mysterious about starting a startup:
The key to that mystery is to ask, how different from what? Once you phrase it that way, the answer is obvious: from a job. Everyone’s model of work is a job.
Unconsciously, everyone expects a startup to be like a job, and that explains most of the surprises. It explains why people are surprised how carefully you have to choose cofounders and how hard you have to work to maintain your relationship. You don’t have to do that with coworkers. It explains why the ups and downs are surprisingly extreme. In a job there is much more damping. But it also explains why the good times are surprisingly good: most people can’t imagine such freedom. As you go down the list, almost all the surprises are surprising in how much a startup differs from a job.
More and more Tokyo residents are switching from tea to coffee. And in some cases, it’s thanks to Motoko Ito who runs a small fleet of yellow vans which sell lovingly brewed lattes (he roasts the beans himself) at key points around the city. The little company offers not just coffee but a moment of human contact amid the hurly burly of the city. It’s staff know their customers on first name basis. That’s the secret, he says, of his success.
According to Ito, the vans allow for small changes. If the place is not right, they simply relocate at no expense to the business.
