Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
The social web as a physical product: Olinda is a prototype radio that notifies you when your friends are listening and what they are listening too. It also features a type of auto-complete in that an alternate dial will only cycle between your favorite stations. More concepts for keyboards from Yamaha can be seen here.
Going the opposite way, Times attempts to render syndicated feeds in a more familiar layout: that of a newspaper front page. Seek, part of the SIMILE Project for faceted email searching for Thunderbird.
Or: A different type Thunderbird.
Clean type on the covers of Faber’s 20th century classics. Make your own large type shirts courtesy of Print Liberation.
Nigeria Special, in three flavors: Rock Special — Psychedelic Afro-Rock and Fuzz Funk in 1970s Nigeria, Disco Funk Special — The Sound of the Underground Lagos Dancefloor, 1974-1979, and the regular Special — Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds and Nigerian Blues, 1970-76. Tracked down the vinyl here.
Friday, May 2nd, 2008
Kurt Vile sings faraway ramshackle hymns, wrapped in tape fuzz and styrofoam. Dusted and dusty finger picked weirdness, with an demon pop sensibility. Rewind 200 years and revisit the tribute band to the singing bull of the 1800s whom they called Caroliner. Still celebrating archaic anachronistic melodies more than 25 years later.
Pouring pixels, viscous installation by Kelly Goeller. Matchbook collections from a mother.
Talea is a software system for generating a realtime musical pattern, both aurally and visually. Built upon the Tactu5 library for processing, it looks like a cross between a star map and cell division rendered by a primitive computer. More color coming to a web browser near you, Firefox 3 and color profile support.
The novel Fuji Kindergarten in Tachikawa, featuring rope ladders to skylights and a play area on the roof. Over sea under steel, photos of sea forts. A brief history as well. Briefer and to the point: SixWordSciFi.
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
Nina Katchadourian’s series of uninvited collaborations with nature contains a project wherein she attempted to mend broken spider webs using starched red sewing thread, sometimes adding new dimensions to the web. All of her repairs were rejected. Another of her works captures her attempt to patch mushroom caps.
Also crawling out of the forest, the eerie and organic folk of Big Blood’s Grove at Grown So Ugly. Digital facsimiles of the rituals will suffice for now, as the disc is only available at performances. Wild in the city and long hair in many stages, the coiffal history of Black Flag.
Anne Hardy’s world of interiors, scenes with no need for human characters. Scan galleries: 1968 Fender catalog, 1950’s - 1970’s advertising, and most striking of all Chutes Libre covers.
Ben Fry traces the roads of the America using US Census data’s TIGER/Line files, changing our understanding of our byways and identifying stark contrasting regions. Andy_house, a house that speaks through Twitter.
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
It would be impossible not to mention the treasure tar file Andy Baio unleashed. Weaving together a story based on 20+ year old bits of data from various parties, he traces the history of an unreleased interactive fiction sequel and manages to reunite most of the participants in the comments. A fascinating read. Related: Unearthing unreleased Atari cartridges in an Oakland flea market.
The Visual Rhetorics of the Supreme Being can be viewed while wearing the headlines across your chest. Raising awareness with AIDS statistics as page numbers. Beyond the Birds and Bees, an exhibit on the history of sex education. For a more personalized view, see the visualization of the relationships of Gregory Dizzia.
Walls of Eyes and No Coffin for the Corpse, found in the gallery of 1940’s pulp covers. Take a voyage to exotica and be sure to enjoy the cream of barley.
Monday, April 14th, 2008
The experience of listening to a favorite album resequenced: The story of Neil Young’s original Tonight’s the Night acetate. Different tracklist, containing material that would surface on On the Beach and Decade, along with the unreleased “Bad Fog of Loneliness”. Have your audio memories rewired here. Rolling back brand identity to return to a better time- the Starbucks mermaid.
Reordering and unravelling by disease, Frontotemporal Dementia. View more in the gallery of Anne Adams, who passed away last year after a battle with FTD.
Some personal favorites of their kind: Big Questions, a dashboard widget from IDEO. Design notes on Monocle, a magazine and website.
The fascinating real/imagined visual language of black budgets. Mixing fiction with fact with parody based on speculation, eventually arriving at something so unique that an internal affairs investigation and coffee table book must be just around the corner. More beautiful layered insignias here.