SLIDES: Beauty of Digital, Sheffield (28/03/12)

I was invited to take part in the Sheffield leg of a series of events run by Creative Times called The Beauty of Digital.

I spoke briefly about digital not being a thing, and it being a tool. I made a bunch of slides that looked like this:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It was an enjoyable session with a pretty inquisitive audience. The rest of the speakers were James Wallbank (Access Space), Bea Marshall (Moogaloo) and James Boardwell (Folksy).

LINKS ETC:

1. X1172 by Max Capacity, via New Aesthetic
3. Chromaroma by Mudlark
4. Derby [2061] by Mudlark
5. Birmingham Civic Dashboard by Mudlark
8. One Minute Internet, Part 2: Fukushima (March 12, 2011) by Marcus Brown
10 & 11. MemCode, Issue 2 by Mudlark
14. Ugle by Voy
15. SXAESTHETIC by James Bridle
16. Foo Fighters, Live From Reading ’95 by The Uprising Collective
17. You Don’t Compare Wolf, via New Aesthetic
18. Parasol via Circumambient (oft NSFW)

Me to play.

On occasion, it is good to recall this tale told by Nagg in Beckett’s Endgame:

An Englishman, needing a pair of striped trousers in a hurry for the New Year festivities, goes to his tailor who takes his measurements.

“That’s the lot, come back in four days, I’ll have it ready.”

Good. Four days later.

“So sorry, come back in a week, I’ve made a mess of the seat.” 

Good, that’s all right, a neat seat can be very ticklish. A week later.

“Frightfully sorry, come back in ten days, I’ve made a hash of the crotch.”

Good, can’t be helped, a snug crotch is always a teaser. Ten days later.

“Dreadfully sorry, come back in a fortnight, I’ve made a balls of the fly.”

Good, at a pinch, a smart fly is a stiff proposition.

To make it short, the bluebells are blowing and he bollockses the buttonholes.

“God damn you to hell, Sir, no, it’s indecent, there are limits! In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. Yes Sir, no less Sir, the WORLD! And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!”

“But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look—

—at the world—

and look—

—at my TROUSERS!”

One more time, with feeling.

I downloaded the iPhone app Weddar yesterday.

It’s a cute application that seeks to crowdsource the weather in the area that you’re in. It’s not about meteorological fact (22°C, 6mph Westerly wind, 78% humidity etc), but about how the weather is perceived.

Weddar: how does it feel?

I’m struck by the simplicity of its question, and the basic idea behind it: reporting on how it ‘feels’ is quietly brilliant.

Post Future-O-Matic.

A year ago, Russell posted his sketch for the Future-o-Matic Theory Maker.

Future-o-Matic; Russell Davies.

I think at the moment, there is little need for any column except the second one. I have noticed quite a lot of Peak Slow and Post Long recently. These are mostly as attempts to mediate content overload, such as the trend towards #longreads in blog posts and Russell’s own reshaping of Interesting this year.

Of course, the Big Dark is never far away.

Crosspost: “Fatalism in Game Design”

It’s been a bit quiet here lately, my apologies. To make it up to you, I am going to republish a post I wrote for the Mudlark blog recently. It’s about an iPhone ‘game’ that’s a year old, but accidentally touches on some interesting ideas. Or it’s easy to extrapolate them from the game.

Read on if you like.