Individuals from various fields including art, design, film, and academia came together Saturday at the ‘you, me and everyone we know is a curator‘ symposium, organized by the Graphic Design Museum and concepted by Sophie Krier and Mieke Gerritzen. The symposium brought into question how the ever-growing amount and influence of online content redefines what curation and criticism means today.
The starting point was the space and stage created online. Curators today bear witness to the shift of influence: From yesterday, where traditional institutions and experts filter the imagery, essays, videos, and other content, bringing the crème de la crème to life and resigning the rest to oblivion. To today, where the democratization of production and distribution has resulted in a deluge of online content and raised the question of quality control. How can one determine quality in an online environment when distribution is open to the masses? How does this influence the traditional perception of art, writing, and content in general? What new relationships are forged? How do old relationships change, adapt, and evolve? What are the results? Here, I highlight two speakers to give an impression of the discussion that took place:
Design critic Rick Poynor took a look at the blogosphere to determine the current state of design criticism in this unique environment. His focus was on the power and presence of the individual writer, who develops a coherent and consistent viewpoint over time. He began by retracing the changing yet extant influence of print media, design magazines, and journals, and their eventual migration to blogs, whether exclusively or additionally. He then looked at the emergence of new platforms for design writing: institutions with journals published online, museums creating online content, and academic programs.
When it came to the question of whether the online curator was a critic, Poynor argued against the belief that selection alone can be an act of criticism. He described the common presentation of a blog ‘astonishingly bare’ compared to where we came from. He used Space Collective as an example of how a blog can create a visual criticism, a ‘new semantics of argument based on the image’. When it comes to writers though, he found most promise in the dedication to quality writing and the interaction between print media and online content.
Julia Noordegraaf discussed ‘performing archival material online’ through the case study Celluloid Remix, a contest sponsored by the Dutch Filmmuseum. Noordegraaf spotlighted the results and effects that come about when audio-visual material is taken from its original context and reframed, which can happen ad infinitum in an online environment. Noordegraaf concluded that the role of the archivist or curator today will look more like an editor, who maintains information streams, check sources, edits input, and designs interfaces to facilitate interaction between the content and the user.
Biographies and information about all speakers can be found here.
Judge: And what is your profession, in general?
Brodsky: I am a poet and a literary translator.
Judge: Who recognizes you as a poet? Who enrolled you in the ranks of poets?
Brodsky: No one. Who enrolled me in the ranks of humankind?
Judge: Did you study this?
Brodsky: This?
Judge: How to become a poet. You did not even try to finish high school where they prepare, where they teach?
Brodsky: I didn’t think you could get this from school.
Judge: How then?
Brodsky: I think that it … comes from God
An exchange between a judge and Joseph Brodsky as recorded in a court transcript in 1964. Brodsky was on trial in the Soviet Union for writing what was considered apolitical poetry.
On Saturday at Paradiso, the symposium ‘me you and everyone we know is a curator‘ will explore the issue of quality in a time of visual abundance, in a search “for new quality criteria, new frames of references, and alternative methods for enabling connections between the virtual and the physical space of today’s culture.” I’ll be in attendance to write about some of the lectures. More to come…
Seven days, seven classic French films shown for free in the online film festival Recyclage de la Luxe, sponsored by Stella Artois. Access the films via The Auteurs with a UK IP address. The festival kicked off yesterday with Lola (Jacques Demy, 1961) and continues with The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959), Jules et Jim (François Truffaut, 1962), Masculin Féminin (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966), Vivre Sa Vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962), La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962), and Hiroshima, Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959).
“If you said you were going off for the weekend and you were doing nothing except re-reading Emma or taking Mansfield Park to bed, that image for me would be one of pure happiness. I mean, you could bring maybe a person to bed, and that might be nicer in some way, but it wouldn’t be as fully satisfying.”
— Colm Toíbín
One image from a series of photographs by David Bacher taken of Sami villagers herding reindeer in Kiruna, Sweden. Bacher describes the photos:
“Several times a year, reindeer are brought together in corrals for various reasons. During the winter, Sami villagers separate their reindeer families from the large herd. The work is intense, often lasting several days in sub-zero temperatures. These photos reflect the dream-like atmosphere that appears around two pm under a mixture of ambient and artificial light. I work with a wide angle lens in order to bring the viewer into the coral and close to the animals. The images are partially blurred intentionally, using a slow shutter speed, to show the frantic movements of the reindeer. The colors are natural, untouched by digital manipulation, presenting the viewer with images that may be seen as paintings.”
The Happiness Project is a musical creation inspired by the front-porch musings on the subject of happiness between Charles Spearin and his neighbors. The words of his neighbors become the backbone of an exploration into the sounds and melodies made while speaking, which are then interpreted by instruments. The Happiness Project on MySpace. (via The Post Family)
Update:
And a German description that I prepared for class tonight.
Das Glücklichkeitprojekt (The Happiness Project) ist ein musikalisches Projekt von Charles Spearin. Charles Spearin ist ein Musiker und er hat in viele Bänder gespielt, zum Beispiel ‘Do Make Say Think’ ‘KC Accidental’ und ‘Broken Social Scene’. Das Glücklichkeit Projekt hat auf der Veranda von Charles Spearin angefangen. Er hat mit seiner Familie und Nachbarn über das Thema ‘Glücklichkeit’ gesprochen. Sie haben ‘Was ist Glücklichkeit’ diskutiert. Sie haben geredet, Geschichte erzählt, und über Meinungen und Ansichten gesprochen. Spearin hat die Unterhaltungen aufgenommen.
Damals, haben Spearin und seinen Musiker Freunde die Wörter und Stimmen von Nachbarn gehört. Jede Stimme hat ihren eigenen Rhythmus und Klang/Ton. Wenn mann spricht ist die Stimme manchmal fast wie ein Lied. Die Wörter über ‘Glücklichkeit’ waren den Grund/die Basis für die Melodie. Die Musiker haben Musikinstrumente mit den Stimmen gespielt. Und haben die Stimmen und Ihre Melodie interpretiert. Spearin hat gesagt: ‘Die Musik ist zwischen sprechen und singen, zwischen dem Leben und der Kunst. Eine Unfallmelodie’.
The work of artist Charley Harper, his animal prints and illustrated books, are one of my favorite gifts to give. His depictions of birds (with knees!) especially reflect his minimal realist style, full of color and geometric patterns. My recommendations are the illustrated book Birds and Words, An Illustrated Life, or a 2010 Calendar.
Last night, a substitute teacher asked her temporary (primary level, beginner, amateur, basic “Trinkst du Tee mit Milch?” skillz) students why it was they had chosen German to learn.
After almost six months of classes, this was the first time we had been asked this as a group.
The question bounced across the rows of desks and I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear that most students’ reasons were to do with love: an Austrian husband; a long-distance boyfriend in Bavaria; tangled family roots; a soon-to-be-son-in-law; newly-weds about to embark on a European adventure.
A group of people in Darlington, United Kingdom, decided to approach the problem of getting women on bikes by getting girls on bikes. The result is Beauty and the Bike, a book, a documentary, and perhaps most excitingly, a bike-share program…. It’s so wonderful to see how the girls move from skepticism about cycling to exhilaration about how “liberating” it is.
I’ve always said the moment when a woman can ride her bike comfortably around a city while wearing heels and feeling beautiful is the moment when that city has a real bike culture. Of course, another important aspect is feeling safe and the role of bike lanes in facilitating a sense of safety. The girls from Darlington visit Bremen, Germany to see how a strong infrastructure can cultivate a culture of bikes. (via SomethingChanged: WorldChanging)
Tomorrow the month of December begins, along with one of my favorite holiday traditions: the advent calendar. Although the advent calendar of my childhood will always remain my ideal, there are many inventive and creative designs that makes the advent calendar more than just another decoration. The calendar above, by David Fussenegger, is one example.
In Monrovia, Liberia, Alfred Sirleaf runs the Daily Talk, a news and information service that uses a blackboard display to show the daily headlines. Volunteers across Liberia send updates to Sirleaf, which he then presents to the public. The chalkboard news feed brings information to people like refugees who want to participate in their local and national community, but don’t have the means to stay informed. For those who cannot read, he uses symbols and pictures to get the message across. His long-term goal is to decentralize the Daily Talk and make the information available in other cities across Liberia.
I was reminded of Sirleaf during the final weeks of the World PulseVoices of Our Future program, which trains women to use social media for citizen journalism. His motivation to inform society about the news that affects them resonates with the ideas presented in the article ‘The Power of Information‘ by Gertrude, a correspondent from Zimbabwe that I had the opportunity to work with during the program. Gertrude wrote about the need for information across her country, interviewing the elder Gogo Moyo from the remote village of Binga.
‘Despite all the colourful speeches that we hear from politicians during election campaigns, we are in actual fact cut off from the rest of the world. There are no schools nearby, the roads are poor and we have no clinics. We have no access to local radio and television. We do not know why we have to vote and the effect of that vote,’ adds Gogo Moyo.
The people of Binga do not want to be only recipients of news. The little exposure they have had with the media has made them appreciate the power of information and the positive change that it can bring. There is therefore an urgent need to build local capacities and abilities of marginalised and vulnerable groups in the strategic and creative use of communication to express their needs, to make their voices heard, to manage their own communication, and to participate fully in their own development and bring about long-term social change.
IDFA (The International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam) begins tomorrow! One of my favorite events of the year, IDFA showcases an array of documentaries across a diverse range of topics from filmmakers around the globe. The festival runs from 19-29 November and already a few films have caught my interest:
Constatin and Elena (Andrei Dascalescu, Romania/Spain, 2008)
A chronicle of the love of a Romanian couple, married for 55 years, as they fill their days and accept their mortality.
Countryside 35×45 (Evgeny Solomin, Russia, 2009)
This documentary follows the man that has to photograph the inhabitants of the remote villages in Siberia, profiling the people he meets along the way, in the process to replace all Soviet passports with Russian identity papers.
Pianomania (Lilian Franck and Robert Cibis, Germany/Austria, 2009)
These filmmakers document the work of concert technician and piano tuner Stefan Knüpfer. ‘Armed with humor, patience, and a generous dose of creativity, he fiddles with the grand pianos as long as it takes for their sound to seduce the pianists.’
The Red Chapel (Mads Brügger, Denmark, 2009)
Comics Jacob and Simon, North Korean by birth and adopted by Danish parents as children, head to Pyeongyang after they receive permission to perform a vaudeville act.
Tapped (Stephanie Soechtig, Canada/USA, 2009)
This documentary is a critique of the growing bottled water industry, outlining the environmental problems and the rising power of corporations.
Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam (Omar Majeed, Canada, 2009)
Taqwa is an Arabic word that means ‘piety’ or ‘god-fearing’. This film documents the journey of Islamic punks in the United States whose music blends punk and hip hop inspirations with ancient Arabic culture and instruments.
“Creativity is something you constantly work on. Some say you are lucky to be so creative, but it’s something you work on every day.”
— Ndeur (Mathieu Missiaen)
Specializing in paper designs, the conceptual agency Le Creativ Sweatshop (The Creative Sweatshop) works across a spectrum of media that cater to their quest for creativity. (via Yatzer)
Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, the creators of We Feel Fine, have announced the completion of the book We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion heading to stores on December 1. The book chronicles the mission of the project: to aggregate the range of emotions expressed in blogs online and collectively present them for exploration.
The 288-page book contains photographs from over 1,000 individual bloggers, statistics from over 13 million individual feelings, hundreds of infographics, dozens of back stories and in-depth profiles, and countless insights into the ups and downs of everyday life.
Last weekend, I was able to catch the final festivities of Oregon Manifest, a celebration of the bike culture and innovation in Portland, Oregon. Part of the month-long celebration was a design challenge and an exhibition of the winning frame designs. The first place prize went to Pereira Cycles for this design, now on sale.
A gallery in the Pearl District was featuring the exhibition Dreams on Wheels: Danish Cycling Culture for Urban Sustainability, which will make its way to cities around the world including London, Barcelona, and Brussels in 2010. The exhibition looks at Danish efforts to cultivate a culture of cycling through sociological research, urban design and planning, public policy, and educational programs.
A few Danish words for ‘bicycle’:
Stålhest (steel horse)
Skærveknuser (bone crusher)
Havelåge (garden gate)
“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammelled womanhood.”
Last weekend, I was able to catch the final festivities of 
