Author: jkordy

Quote

Errors should be easy to detect, they should have minimal consequences, and, if possible, their effects should be reversible.

— Donald A. Norman

(speaking on how things should be designed)

The Legend of Leigh Bowery

This is a really great documentary about a fantastic artist whom few have heard of, even I was not very aware of the great, crazy, and even sometimes disgusting things he has done.  But I always admire anyone who lives their whole lives as a performance.  Leigh really understood what it means to perform.  Not some light, vanilla acting but real hardcore performance, the kind that transforms you inside and out.

The Legend of Leigh Bowery
Director: Charles Atlas
2001
more but really you should
just watch the film

The Design of Everyday Things

I am somewhat surprised that this book has so much traction in 2008. The design corners of the internet are always raving about this book. How can a book that was written more than 20 years ago, and refrences film and slide projectors as the high tech presentation tool of it’s day be so relevant and so often quoted in the age of the internet? Let’s not forget the interenet is the land of things that usually have negative half-lives, and are tired and over, before they even come to existance.

Well the sad fact is that we, our society, has learned very little about designing things in the past 20 years. Actually, it’s more apt to say, we’ve learned a great deal, but we still have a great long way to go to actually implement what we now know, and have know for some time (i.e. this book).

Everyday things are still being designed and manufactured very very badly. The biggest conundrum is why we as a society stand for it? Why are we taking it lying down? Why do we continually accept things that in their design are hindering us, wasting our time, and even in many cases endangering our lives? Norman touches on this in his book, partly it’s because we all understand the need to occasionally cut corners to save time or cost, but partly it’s our own psychology, when bad design happens to us and causes us to make mistakes we always seem to blame ourselves.

Well no more! I think the main reason the book is so revered is that it is a manifesto of sorts, it ends with a call to action. You! Consumers! Stop buying crap! Put your money into well designed, thought out objects that don’t suck! If we all did that our world would be that much better.

Alberto Tadiello

I love electronic/eletric pieces where all of the wiring that is needed to run the thing, and is usually painstakenly hidden (not part of the artwork), is actually incorporated aesthetically into the work itself. In this piece the wiring is just as much part of the aesthetic as the machine. fantastic. would love to see some of his work in person.

more

Quantum of Solace

Not bad, not as good as Casino Royale?  All of the quirky humor gone, perhaps because Q (Desmond Llewelyn) is no longer with us, the witty repartee also AWOL, and a touch too much of Bourne in this one. But overall a surprisingly arty, well shot, fine film featuring the best Bond so far, Daniel Craig. I did feel a lack of adrenaline and exhilaration at the film’s end, which is a tad disappointing for an action flick. Oh yes and how am I supposed to remember what the heck happened two years ago? This film seems to pick up, with no background, right where the last one left off. Remind me again, why is Bond so pissed? After two years even he would probably be a little over it by now.

The Blank Slate

A somewhat lengthy diatribe on a difficult and controversial subject.  At times I felt like this guy really had an axe to grind, but overall I think his argument makes sense.  In a few years this book will probably seem more like common sense than controversy, but at times the arguments Pinker makes were more like the kind of dehumanized “factual” statements a geek is likely to make that are disconnected from the meaty, love filled, human reality of the everyday world.

Pinker made great pains to overcome this diconnect and in fact a lot of his argument comes from and speaks for this human-ness, but it’s hard to overcome the coldness that a purely scientific argument has to make.

I think I agreed with what was presented overall, but I’m sure it would be no suprise to Pinker that I had the most beef with him about the arguments he makes surrounding art.  Generally I agree with him, art can at times be about a  search for status or sometimes just serve as an example of conspicous consumption but I think he is wrong on one point.  Minimalism is much more than just a formal exercise.  To some people, myself included, there is real beaty in it.  The kind of beauty that Pinker is calling for a return to in art, not just the hypothetical beauty of concept, but actual physical beauty.