Sean Connery as you’ve never seen him before… May 28, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in film.add a comment
Shocking…..well and truly shocking. I’m glad that this particular vision of the future didn’t come true.
Sean Connery as you’ve never seen him before… May 28, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in film.add a comment
Shocking…..well and truly shocking. I’m glad that this particular vision of the future didn’t come true.
Sean Connery as you’ve never seen him before… May 28, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in film.add a comment
Shocking…..well and truly shocking. I’m glad that this particular vision of the future didn’t come true.
New Sigur Ros and Coldplay tracks May 27, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in Uncategorized.add a comment
Check out these red hot songs from two returning heavy weights.
Firstly, Coldplay: Coldplay – Lost?
And secondly, Sigur Ros: You can hear it here. Or download it for free from Sigur Ros’ site.
Sigur Ros have astonished in the past, and I’m pleased to say that this track is no disappointment. Roll on the new album – its out in a couple of weeks.
Blu and adaptive space May 24, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in Blu, William Kentridge, adaptive environments, animation, banksy, graffiti, tensegrity.add a comment
This is one of the craziest bits of animation I’ve ever seen. I love how the images morph in such a fluid way. It’s reminiscent of William Kentridge’s work, in terms of technique and creative ambition – there is no escaping the fact that such work takes a lot of dedication. But working on the physical fabric of buildings, and tying it in with existing elements, is surely Blu’s master stroke. As a result it looks more tangible and life-like than other forms of animation.
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
Wouldn’t it be great if graffiti really did this when you walked past? Architects talk a lot about interactive digital spaces (1), and its certainly possible with current technology. Check out this video by an Austrian collective, that do do ‘laser graffiti’ on the sides of buildings:
An extension of this theme is tensegrity structures. Its a way of creating a load bearing structure with the barest of means possible in terms of material and weight. These structures can be actuated so that they move in response to active or passive stimuli. For instance, a person could walk past a sensor, and the fabric of the surrounding buildings could alter shape, to provide more shade for instance. Heat transfer from a building is a strong function of shape, so a building which could change its envelope even slightly would be at a great advantage in terms of natural heating and cooling efficiency.
If all of this adaptive environment stuff sounds pie in the sky, there are clear indicators that we’re heading in that direction, particularly as advertising is increasingly becoming more targeted, and buildings are becoming more intelligent. I welcome it in some respects – as long as it doesn’t become too invasive.
As for Blu, I think there is an increasing level of tolerance concerning graffiti, and its artistic merits, especially in the UK after the success of Banksy. One thing’s for sure: Blu has upped the ante in a creative sphere which in my opinion is under exploited, and hopefully an increasing appetite for animation at the cinema will translate into an interest in art work which works with the moving image, in which ever form that may be.
(1) http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2008/01/faades-expressi.html
All of the best art/design videos seem to be on Vimeo. Its interesting how certain video sharing websites have a particular user base. You can see more of Blu’s work there.
10 Steps to Self Publishing Success May 23, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in LaTex, book, publishing, publishing on demand, scribd.add a comment
Here’s my most recent article. It was a royal pain to upload for some strange reason, but nevertheless here it is!
What is culture? May 20, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
In true microblogging style, I’ll try and answer the question in under 140 characters. It was posed by the BBC as a precursor to the new Culture Show series.
“Culture is making something in your bedroom, and putting it on Youtube”
“Culture is going to museums”
“Culture is the last great British export”
“Culture is having a wee, and not leaving the toilet seat up”
“Culture is saying please and thank you”
“Culture is encountering the unexpected”
“Culture is something understood amongst equals”
“Culture is elitism”
“Culture is what feeds the soul”
I tend to think about this kind of thing when I get back into my art work, and I always come to the conclusion that there is no single definition of what makes art or culture, and that’s what makes it so interesting. As long as it involves imagination, then that’s all that matters.
Doing this reminds me of an excellent short animated film that I saw at last years RCA summer show. It has only recently become available online (shock, horror!) and its called Procrastination. Check it out, its truly fabulous:
OLPC Round 2 May 20, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in OLPC, XO-2, design.add a comment
Sometimes Twitter’s requisite 140 character posts are ideal. But sadly it’s suffering from a few technical difficulties, so I’ll post them here instead.
A new OLPC laptop has been unveiled, albeit in conceptual form, and frankly I’m speechless. Its a strange hybrid of a number of recent commercial successes – namely the iPod Touch, Nintendo DS and to some extent, the Asus EEE. It consists of two screens, one of which can function as a keyboard when its in standard laptop mode. It can also be used like a book, partially owing to its lightweight design; or as a gaming device which lays flat on the floor. All this seems very cutting edge at the moment, but considering that the scheduled release date is in 2010, these features may seem basic, or even mundane, when the machine finally gets out of the factory door. And some of the features will undoubtedly be culled for one reason or another – its a reality of most technology projects, but considering the loss of the crank handle on the original OLPC laptop, it would come as even less of a surprise.
One of the key enablers of the dual touch screen technology is the widespread availability of affordable LCD screens. Portable DVD players have driven down the price considerably in recent years. The addition of a membrane to enable touch screen functionality is a simple process, and will add little in terms of cost. So the stage seems set for the next generation to step into the limelight. But the question remains, is this the way that the project should be heading? It seems to me that the new laptop lacks the ruggedness of the current model, and seems altogether detached from what kids need from an educational machine.
Upon announcing the new model, the “give one – get one” scheme was reintroduced, whereby consumers can buy a OLPC laptop. I think this is very telling. It seems as if the OLPC foundation is reorientating itself as a more general purpose provider of computers. By bundling their laptops with features which are attractive to consumers, they will inevitably increase sales in this area. And in some respects this is quite an important goal, because it helps to drive the volumes which’ll keep the unit price low. But this was never meant to be a consumer machine, and resources which would otherwise be used to improve core functionality could be diverted to the bells and whistles that make the machine a more compelling consumer proposition.
I don’t know about you, but is a touch screen keyboard really that attractive? My fingers feel worn after using my laptop’s touch pad for more than a few minutes. If there was one thing which I loved about the original OLPC laptop, it was the keyboard. It was resilient, comfortable, and suitable for little hands. In my experience, touch screens are for fat greasy fingers.
Character design and other stuff May 16, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in character design, creative economy, graphic.add a comment
I have an ongoing interest in the ‘Creative Economy’ in Britain, and I’ve found a well written article which gives a fair assessment of where British creative business currently stands, and where it could be going in the future:
And on an entirely different note, here is my latest character design. Its a bit wacky this one, admittedly. I’ll keep churning them out ’til I’m sick to death with Inkscape.
Twitter head May 15, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in graphic, social networking, twit, twitter, web 2.0.add a comment
I’ve heard a lot about Twitter recently, so I thought I’d give it a go. I’ll report back on my thoughts, which may seem strange to American readers, but Twitter is still very niche in the UK.
It’s certainly a big change from Facebook, which I’ve never been a huge fan of. Facebook seems quite walled and moated in some respects, whilst on Twitter you get inundated with scraps of information from all comers. Its a whole different experience – something akin to instant messaging on speed. The basic concept behind Twitter is that you post regular updates on what your up to, and by doing this you communicate with other fellows. But its not like having a conversation with one person, but rather a pushing and pulling of information amongst a whole community. The possibilities are mind bending when you consider that these communities can number in the hundreds or even thousands. When these people subsequently spread the information to their friends, the effect is like a nuclear information bomb going off.
This is me after starting on Twitter.
This has provided some unique challenges to the developers of the site, because every time a person posts something, that information is copied to their ‘followers’. The load on the servers is unbelievable when you consider the number of copy operations which need to be performed in a short period of time. Consider what will happens when Apple makes a new product announcement, or the US presidential elections are announced. Handling such vast volumes of data requires a robust software infrastructure. The site was originally coded using the Ruby on Rails framework, which is pretty much the de facto standard amongst Web 2.0 start ups, largely because of its efficiency in terms of coding time, and its sophisticated feature set. But word is abound that the whole thing may have to be coded again in PHP or Java to help the site scale more efficiently.
The most successful start ups usually don’t have to worry about this kind of thing for long, because the likes of Google and Yahoo come knocking, cheque book in hand. The problem is, the founder of Twitter also founded another web stalwart – Blogger, which was purchased by Google a few years back. After the acquisition, the founder left, as many web entrepreneurs are prone to do having experienced the stuffy confines of a corporation, even of Google’s nerd friendly ilk. So the likelihood of Google or Yahoo acquiring Twitter is unlikely, because a considerable part of their investment is in the talented people who create the sites.
Twitter will undoubtedly sort itself out, but its likely to take a little longer than if a larger parent company stepped in and switched the operation to their own servers, with all of the reliability improvements that would entail. But not since the early days of Youtube have I felt so expectant of a Web 2.0 start up. Undoubtedly it will grow larger, and I’m heartened that a new service like this has come along. The last thing that I want is a single pre eminent social networking site, and Facebook is arguably heading in that direction. Facebook is trying to integrate everything into one service, and I’d rather hand pick a particular service for a particular need. And as it stands now, Twitter enables people to do things, both socially and technologically, unthinkable even a year ago.
There’s currently a big race going on to see who can get the most followers. If you’re familiar with the tech podcasts TWIT and Diggnation, then you’ll know that most of the presenters have around 20,000 followers. One of them, Leo Laporte, has almost as many followers as Barack Obama. But what if more people cotton on to the power of Twitter? Leo Laporte is very well know amongst certain circles, but what if mega-stars like Tom Cruise or Britney Spears start ‘twittering’? It’d be bedlam. So lets keep this secret for now. Ok?
Follow me on Twitter
