From the MAKE: Flickr pool

Peter displays his Arduinocrat pride via this excellent T-shirt design made with handcut stencils - Arduino shirt

... His original text messages to a colleague eventually made headlines in northern Europe.

One message read obtained by MENASSAT read: “We are swimming in death, blood, and amputated victims. Many children. Pregnant women. I've never experienced anything so awful.”

In the SMS, Gilbert also claimed that Gaza's main vegetable market had been bombed on Monday morning, killing 20 people and injured 80.

[via Menasset. Image from the BBC]

"I take photos of the homeless around the tenderloin neighborhood and then do graphite drawings of them, these are then wheat pasted onto walls all over the place from Bogota to Tel Aviv and Palestine to London this one is in San Francisco, i took this guys photo a couple of months before this piece and put it in the alley i often see him in. I did this piece during the day and coinceadently he saw me putting up the piece "ah man thats cool as shit". about 15 minutes later im finishing the piece and 5 cops came upon me I spent the next 45 minutes explaining as to why not to arrest me.Piece stayed up in spite of the police , they went and asked the manager of the building if he wanted to press charges, " nah man i like that just clean up my sidewalk" so i did. The subjects name is " Bones " he plays the harmonica."

(Architecture of Density)

(Transparent City)

The Asian- and European-based photographer Michael Wolf is known for his fine-art and editorial photographs depicting rapid growth in Asian cities.

“THE EXPERIENCE OF PHOTOGRAPHING in America was not much different from photographing in Asia, really. The challenge was more conceptual: After working so long in Hong Kong and China, I wasn’t sure I was capable of working somewhere else. I feel in tune with what is happening in the East, and am so inspired by the architecture, food, people, and flux of life there, that I was afraid I’d feel disconnected from an urban landscape in another part of the world. Luckily, when I came to Chicago in 2006 to install some photographs, I rode an elevated train into downtown from the airport. It was a wonderful visual experience, looking out and seeing everyone through the office windows. I remember arriving at the museum and meeting the curator, and by my third or fourth sentence they asked whether they could arrange an artist residency for me. A year later, the deal was done.

I had thought about working in New York, in part because I’ve worked so long with what I call “architecture of density” in Hong Kong. But there are logistic problems in New York that don’t arise in Chicago. In Chicago, the buildings are spread out, they’re more loosely structured, and ten- or twelve-story parking garages are interspersed between them. From the garages, you can look into buildings. I would go up onto the twelfth floor of a parking structure and get a nice view into the neighboring building. To prepare, I went onto Flickr and printed out every photo of the city’s downtown Loop, then drew red arrows pointing to all of the roofs to which I wanted access. In Hong Kong, every building has guards and you must apply for permission to get onto the roof, but researchers at US Equities, who supported my residency, were able to get me access to 99 percent of the rooftops from which I wanted to photograph.

I began my series “Architecture of Density” by photographing close-ups of vernacular subjects in the back alleys of Hong Kong’s downtown high-rises. I enjoyed the photographs but thought the series of seventy or so images was conceptually one-dimensional. I felt the series would be enriched if I could bring in another layer of meaning, so I began to take photographs of the buildings from a distance. In Chicago, I worked in the opposite direction, beginning with the architecture. I felt, however, that I was bumping up against the same problem. Then one evening I was looking at a photograph I had shot and I saw in it a man giving me the middle finger. In the exact moment he made that gesture I pressed the shutter, even though I had probably been standing there for twenty minutes.

It set off a chain reaction in me, and I began to look through every file at 200 percent magnification to see what else was going on in those windows. I saw hands on computer mice and family photographs on the desks of CEOs; I saw people watching flat-screen TVs in the evening. It was a bit lonely, particularly when I was photographing corporate office towers during the first banking crisis in November–December 2007—I could see through my telephoto lens the tension and stress those bankers were feeling. By zooming in on details, I manage to introduce a certain vernacular visual language as well as balance the faraway with the up close.

I don’t consider these works portraits; I’m not doing a portrait of Chicago. In fact, the city’s characteristics don’t really figure into my discussions of the series. It could be any large urban city. I simply proceeded by answering the question, Which vantage point gives me the ability to look into a building? One building that fascinated me was the very big courthouse downtown. The judge’s rooms are in the corners of the building, and I wanted to catch a moment when lawyers were standing in the hallways of seven or eight consecutive floors so that the image would depict them locked into little cells, like a Robert Wilson stage design. Despite the unpredictability of my process, I have very specific images in mind as I work. Edward Hopper was a particular inspiration for this series, and I was looking for the types of images he specialized in. I was trying to translate an idea—or, rather, to find it in reality.”

— Wolf, As told to Brian Sholis

Chelsea

Gelah Penn

Mark Dagley, Gilbert Hsiao, Maureen McQuillan, Gelah Penn, Gary Peterson, Mary Temple

Inspiration by Chris Spooner

Logos are everywhere. Because of this, only a few can rise among the noise — and often it’s the more unique logos that are most memorable. Sometimes to be unique, you’ve also got to be weird. In this post, we showcase twenty lovably strange logos that work.

Society 27

The Society 27 logo by Pavel Pavlov makes use of the fantastic ambigram effect, which ensures the logo display exactly the same when viewed in an upside down position. The abstract use of the quotation marks and number seven cleverly make up the complete 27.

London Symphony Orchestra

The LSO logo uses a single flowing line to create the three initials of the London Symphony Orchestra. The semi-representational shapes are recognisable enough to be seen as letters, but also allows the logo on a whole to be seen as an elegant graphic.

I love NY

The simple yet highly recognisable mark of the I Love New York has been used to promote tourism in New York for years. Known as a Rebus logo, it displays a large red heart graphic to symbolise the word love, while representing the word New York with the two initials N and Y.

Museum of London

The new Museum of London logo first appears to be a collation of current logo design trends, but with deeper inspection and research the underlying meaning of the logo is discovered. The organic shapes that make up the logo represent the history of London, showing its growth over time expanding geographically.

Metroplex

The Metroplex logo by BrandBerry creates an excellent sense of depth with the use of three dimensional shapes. The array of cuboid shapes represent skyscraper buildings which make up the overall metropolis graphic, linking well to the meaning behind the name.

Cattleyard

Another logo that links well to its name and subject is that of Cattleyard Promotions. Being a music related business the logo uses various graphics of instruments but combines them to form the overall shape of a cow, bringing together these two inspirations into a unique mark.

CafeClick

The CafeClick logo uses an accepted icon of the internet, the mouse cursor and brings it together with a mug of coffee by replacing the steam. This cleverly links these two elements making a brilliant logo for an internet café.

Logo Motives

The Logo Motives brand that represents designer Jeff Fisher is an admirable collation of imagery and letterforms. The manipulation of the letters O and G allow them to fit seamlessly into the overall train graphic with perfect geometrics all round.

Rehabilitation Hospital Corporation of America

The highly symbolic logo of the Rehabilitation Hospital Corporation of America logo communicates a complex message with just a simple design. Using the globally renown cross symbol to represent help and medical attention and the steps to reflect on the steps taken back to normal life.

Schizophrenic

Another logo that plays in representational symbols while relating heavily to the brand name is the Schizonphrenic logo. Being a medical disorder that often depicts split personalities the logo characterises this with simple shapes that depict a happy and sad face.

Curious

The word curious often goes hand in hand with questions, this is smartly represented in the Curious logo by Action Designer. Using the question mark symbol depicts this while being manipulated to fit into the logo by replacing the letter C.

Modern Nerd

The Modern Nerd logo makes fine use of negative space to fool the eye into seeing the overall image of a figure, using just the symbolic shapes of hair, glasses and tie it links in well to the stereotypical geek/nerd image.

Time Watch

The Time Watch logo brings in elements from daily life to enhance the meaning of the logo. The colon is commonly used on digital clocks and watches, in the logo it is cunningly used to replace the letter I giving a great looking and representative mark.

Full Time

Taking on a more lateral depiction of the brand is the Full Time logo, this mark takes a clock as the symbol of time and uses it as a container of water to represent time being full.

Upside Down

The clever execution of the Upside Down logo maintains legibility by manipulating select letters to represent the brand name. By using alternate letters or flipping the orientation of a letter gives an unusual appearance despite being easily reabable.

Candy

The combination of two images into one is what makes the Candy logo so great. Using both a stereotypical sweet product and an illustration of a girl’s head link in well to the nature of the product. Even the wording blends in to become part of the artwork.

Seven and Six

The geometric layout of the Seven and Six logo creates a groovy looking mark that also acts as the graphical alternative of the brand name. Using the numeric figures and the ampersand reinforce the complete worded variations.

Studio Eight

The flowing lines of the Studio 8 logo create an illusion that allows both the initial S and number 8 to be visible in the logo graphic. Splitting the lines at the appropriate places stops the eye from following the curves in order for each symbol to appear.

Zip

The three letters of the Zip logo are blended together to form an almost solid shape. The centre graphic which represents the real life object also holds together the logo by breaking up the block allowing the letter I to be seen as well as allowing the Z and P to become legible.

Bison

The Bison logo by Seamus Leonard is an excellent example of how letters of a word can be distorted to create a completely different shape to reinforce its meaning while maintaining readability.

Justin Kemp, PsuedoEvent, 2008

The Best of the Web 2008 Contributor’s Choice continues today. The series features the year’s best links as defined by contributors, Part One posted yesterday and Part Two earlier today. Two invitees are included in each post (unless listed otherwise), and the feature includes the following people:

Liam McEneaney - comedian, citizen

Camille Paloque-Bergès, PHD candidate and Teaching Assistant in Information Science and Communication at the Laboratoire Paragraphe

Kevin Bewersdorf, artist

John Michael Boling, internet user / artist / jmb

Magda Sawon, Owner of Postmasters Gallery New York

Kari Altmann, artist

Ceci Moss, Rhizome Senior Editor and Blogger

Tom Moody, artist

Javier Morales, artist

Marcin Ramocki, Artist/filmmaker

Jon Williams, Free software developer

Barbara London, Associate Curator, Department of Film and Video, MoMA
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
=================================================

Meet Kari Altmann and Magda Sawon!

KARI ALTMANN, artist

• http://myspace.com/jjhhmm - Salem’s myspace Salem is not the only project of this interdisciplinary group of friends and their surrounding network, but it is the flagship. These songs have been anthems all year long, including their sweetest “Redlights” and “Asia”  Their myspace will lead you to all their related links, which exist together cohesively. 2008 saw an album release, a video, online updates and new songs. See also: John Holland, Young Cream

• http://lastbreathinalaska.com Pascual Sisto’s “Last Breath in Alaska”

• http://netmaresnetdreams.net Netmares Netdreams. I hope it’s okay to list something that I had a hand in creating because it’s completely sincere. Credit goes to the list of participating artists, surfers, and performers which should be its own link in this list. http://netmaresnetdreams.net/credits.html I’m really glad Club Internet came out this year too, I think both projects are testing out and creating new possibilities for art and I look forward to watching them develop with all their similarities and differences.  I hope new platforms continue to be created in this post surf club environment and that the artists and audience continue to benefit from the exchange between them all.

• http://whyandwherefore.com/11/ Why and Wherefore’s “up to 11″
  Some favorites, some new discoveries, overall worth keeping bookmarked. Credit to the curators for getting a lot of these artists to put their videos on Vimeo and listing them all on one page.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSv9WZeK0Rs Kuo I-Chen’s “Lose Contact (Night)” Discovered in the “Contact (1997)” Edition of Club Internet

• http://www.martijnhendriks.com/?page_id=457 Martijn Hendriks’ “Give Us Today Our Daily Terror“

• http://myspace.com/cclubvortexx Club Vortex - Discovering Kingdom online and doing video at his monthly this summer introduced me to this gifcrunk dance scene. See also: Kingdom, Leif, House of Ladosha

• http://aids-3d.com/ AIDS-3D - Daniel & Nik had a fun year.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5vpyix0ueI - Juiceboxxx Thunder Jam 5 Video - Discovered mostly through myspace, seen live twice this year, his 2008 evolution (shaved head, plainclothes, rawer performance) lead to a newly relevant but still funny and thrashable live show.  He’s my pick of the tranceswamp crowd for “most improved” and “most cathartic”, which this video displays better than his myspace.  Dre Skull, who produced a lot of Juiceboxx’s most fun songs, deserves half of the credit.  Tranceswamp: see also: Pictureplane, Shams, Sewn Leather

Magda Sawon, Owner of Postmasters Gallery New York

• http://www.ubuweb.com/
  because it is the best video site EVER

• http://trackingtransience.net/
  because FBI (and me) always want to know where Hasan Elahi is.

• http://www.blublu.org
  because blu is way way better than William Kentridge

• http://www.shanehope.info/?page_id=12
  because this is an exemplary artist bio

• http://letsturnthisfuckingwebsiteyellow.com/
  because Charles Broskoski’s version is my favorite in web monochromes

• http://www.edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/
  because Ed is the most generous, even-tempered dealer EVER

• http://wonkette.com/
  because you need to read all the smartass comments

• http://0100101110101101.org/
  because the 2.0 folks should know what they did in 1.0

RIP SECTION

• http://cdn1.ustream.tv/swf/4/viewer.45.swf?cid=317016
  because you can never out-cute squeaking puppies

Boom! Forget the fact it looks awesome and works like a dream, the above JS-909 is entirely built in javascript which means it's iPhone friendly and therefore good for some mobile beats at your next house party. Sweet.

Starting the new year on a good note. I've been tracking Objectified for a while as it comes from Swiss Dots, who are the same people who made the design porn feature that is Helvetica.

They have just released a trailer to whet your appetite and it's looking promising. The voices you hear belong to Jonathan Ive, Andrew Blauvelt, Marc Newson, and Karim Rashid and the song is “I Like Van Halen Because My Sister Says They Are Cool” by El Ten Eleven. The of people featured in the final cut reads like a Protein Top 10 and include:

Paola Antonelli (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Chris Bangle (BMW Group, Munich)
Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (Paris)
Andrew Blauvelt (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis)
Anthony Dunne (London)
Naoto Fukasawa (Tokyo)
IDEO (Palo Alto)
Jonathan Ive (Apple, California)
Hella Jongerius (Rotterdam)
Marc Newson (London/Paris)
Fiona Raby (London)
Dieter Rams (Kronberg, Germany)
Karim Rashid (New York)
Alice Rawsthorn (International Herald Tribune)
Smart Design (New York)
Rob Walker (New York Times Magazine)

I'm trying to get Protein involved with the UK/European release of this, so will will post more news soon.

Updates soon.

This handbook teaches you how to learn any language on your own, in the language's home turf, by teaching a native speaker to be your teacher.

The trick is to instruct your local agent to teach you something he/she is hardly aware of -- the structure of their language. You will supply the plan and so are teaching yourself through them. Comprende? It's done slowly, naturally, and playfully - the way you learned English. Your assistant doesn't even have to speak your language.

You begin using a few easy words, trying to make as many mistakes as you possibly can, entertaining the folks in the marketplace or anywhere else they'll put up with your blabberings. Then you systematically add additional words in steady daily use, guiding your guide in what you want to learn next. This well-tested method was devised by missionaries trying to learn languages lacking scripts, courses, or guidebooks, and works great for dialects, or indeed any language you want to learn.

The text of this workbook shows you how to construct your own exercises that fit the language you are after and later how to discover its grammar by yourself. The goal is multiculturalism, inseparable from multilingualism. Like realizing that you don't need a degree in anything to build your own house, learning that you can become fluent in another language without a course or classroom is deliciously radical.

If you like this approach check out other online texts by missionary linguists which take the same approach of enabling an intermediate to become your language teacher.

This DIY process works best on location, rather than before you arrive.

-- KK

Language Acquisition Made Practical
E. Thomas Brewster and Elizabeth Brewster
1976 (1998 printing); 384 pp.

Available from Amazon

or $15 from Lingua House

Author's website:
Lingua House
135 North Oakland
Pasadena, CA 91182
818/584-5276

There's more of the same approach (different book) here at SIL, also a language site for missionaries.

As Gloucester noted in King Lear, "We have seen the best of our time: machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our graves." Accordingly, the best of the films I've viewed in 2008 often dealt with the vilest aspects of humanity and how a few brave souls strived to comprehend and possibly survive these man-made obstacles to a happy existence.

1. Ballast
Lance Hammer's feature debut is a brilliant trek into the Mississippi Delta, where three impoverished souls -- both financially and spiritually -- are able to rebuild their lives when reluctantly thrown together by a suicide.

read more

A Washington Post report today describes the preparations underway by the cellphone industry to meet the anticipated need of users, and do some new things. The article titled Inauguration Spotlights Cellphone Opportunities recaps the expected crush of calls and related challenges, and then adds:

AppTek of McLean is hoping many inauguration attendees will use its product that translates text messages into different languages. The company has licensed its technology to other online firms including TransClick.com, isec7.com and OnsetTechnology.com, and consumers can download the software to their BlackBerrys, PDAs and other smartphones.

“Everyone is going to want to speak to everyone else, regardless of the language,” said Mike Veronis, head of business development for AppTek.

AppTek is also working with DARPA, the U.S. Defense Department’s research lab, to develop handheld devices that can translate two-way conversations in real time. The device is intended for use by military and intelligence workers.

“Whatever starts to get funded by these government labs has the ultimate goal to become a mass-market product,” Veronis said. “That shows the government is moving that way.”

Both firms hope the mass text messages that helped fuel Obama’s campaign success will continue long after the inauguration.

“For the first time ever, more people are texting than making voice calls,” Titus said. “And the texting generation is the one Obama has been targeting.”

Some interesting internet icons and idioms (”hot hot spot”) from Guadeloupe, France. The first one above has been taken on Marie-Galante, a small island south of Guadeloupe. The internet café seems rather old and abandoned.

The “@” is highly common if you already followed past episodes. The “W.W.W.” is here followed by dots and doesn’t seem to refer to any specific url: it’s rather employed as a brand. The fact that the “@” is really bigger may indicate that this sign is a more important metaphor of the information super-highways. And why using both the “@” and “www”? Does that mean that @ is something different, perhaps referring to email?

The “hot hot spot” below is highly intriguing, perhaps referring to the fact that locals have “le sang chaud” (literally “hot blood”), meaning that they can get emotional easily. Maybe it shows how emotions/sens of relationships can be conveyed through the wires. Or how email/web communication could serve “hot” purposes.

Fax seems to be still important as attested by the big signage one can see on picture 2 and 3. Sending faxs is as important as dealing with “Photo” and perhaps a bit less than the Web (if I follow the hierarchy of picture 2). On picture 3, you can as well note the arrows on the fax tag which indicates how the device can send and receive information: this part is tremendously interesting since it shows the underlying features of this tool.

Also, the “Gwadaweb” subtitle under the “cyber-espace” (”cyberspace”) logo is interesting too. “Gwada” is short for “guadeloupe” in creole, meaning that there seems to be some part of the cyberspace that are explicity from this culture:

Why do I blog this? fascination towards the representation of “the digital” (i.e. access to the internet, virtual worlds, etc.) and how they are made manifest in the physical environment. Cultures which favor paintings on shops always have curious ways to depict this matter and I try to document it when travelling. There is a lot to draw from this, especially in terms of people’s representation of telecommunication devices.

by Laura Neilson

I know I'm not alone in my love for grocery shopping in foreign countries. It's a great way to get a sense of a country's consumer culture—not just by seeing what the people of that country buy, but also the particular ways that all the product are packaged and displayed. But what exactly does an Austrian MPREIS grocery store, self-dubbed "The Seriously Sexy Supermarket" sell? The same things as any other local supermarket, only in a seriously cool and modern setting.

It's rare to come across a supermarket that's as revealing on the outside as it is for what's inside, but that's exactly what these stores achieve. For the last fifteen years, the Austrian chain has commissioned a steady stream of up and coming architects to design buildings that make the most of their mountainous settings in the Tyrolean Alps. With the exception of its bright red logo, each MPREIS location differs from the next, making any of its 150-plus stores a worthwhile destination—even if you're just picking up a box of muesli.

Architect Hans Peter Machne's design in Osttirol is a an awesome, space-age sloping structure that looks just as cool at night as it does in bright daylight. A market in Telfs, designed by Peter Lorenz, bears a similar aesthetic while the chain's Giner & Wucherer-designed Achenkirch store exemplifies a completely different style of design. Wooden and curved, the building stands up beautifully against its alpine surroundings.

The construction of the buildings themselves consist of natural and ecological materials such as wood and stone. In addition to the increased use of geothermal heating technologies and the presence of secondary rooms with built-in motion sensors to control the lighting and other conditions, designers also capitalize on the presence of sunlight to reduce electricity usage (as seen in Niederndorf, where the store's outer walls are primarily see-through). Some might consider grocery shopping a mundane task, but clearly MPREIS customers might argue otherwise.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has teamed up with engineers from the private sector to develop a next-generation space toilet, which they hope to complete within the next five years.

Clean and easy to use, the envisioned space toilet is designed to be worn like a diaper around the astronaut’s waist at all times. Sensors detect when the user relieves him or herself, automatically activating a rear-mounted suction unit that draws the waste away from the body through tubes into a separate container. In addition to washing and drying the wearer after each use, the next-generation space toilet will incorporate features that eliminate unwanted sound and odor.

Established last month, JAXA’s space toilet research group includes engineers from the private sector. Participants reportedly come from an assortment of toilet and chemical manufacturers, as well as from the architectural an