NASA Workspaces

From the 'GRIN' (Great Images in NASA) image collection.

The Workspace

A new exhibition in the Photofusion gallery, Brixton features work by Richard Nicholsen. In the transition to digital photography, the professional darkroom is a dying and disappearing space. These beautifully captured mechanics of the darkroom initially drew me in, but then also the ordered sense of continued use and metallic, analogue sheen of production.

The current issue of Cabinet, themed 'Dust' features Perry Ogden's by now famous images of Francis Bacon's catatrophic looking studio in 7 Reece Mews. It is particularly iconic, as no-one can understand how he managed to do anything in here at all. I love images of workspaces, and recent years have seen a fascination with voyeuristic images of 'other people's desks'. Like this, this, and well, you know the kind.... Chaos, on one hand suggests that crazy lateral madness of original thinking, but on the other, it reveals frenzied dis-organisation and a lack of meta-aesthetic skills. I just made up that term, but think 'systems', think 'strategic thinking'. Naturally, when we work in the digital realm, out contact with the tools is mediated by the technology. So it's is not possible to compare lush, tactile work spaces to what we now take as quotidien like the ever evolving mac interface.

What is considered normal and utilitarian, becomes fetishised when obsolete. Nostalgia is a cosy hot water bottle. But to what extent is tactility as an index of work patterns and human processes part of this nostalgia to creative times past? Will we look back on mac/pc interfaces with the same cosy perspectives?

On blogging

There are blogs and there are blogs. How many blogs are there? Of course we can't really know because there is no way of counting accurately. When asking Google to respond, it linked me to this article in the blogherald from last year which gave an out-dated number of 112.8million not including the 72.82million at least in China. I can only surmise that the vast majority of these blogs have readership levels approximate to my own. (I'm speaking to myself here!) On the other hand, there is popularity: in the range of 500,000+ readers, e.g Zen Habits. That's more than the 327,937 daily sold circulation of the Guardian. I've done a quick search to find the established list of 'Most Read Blogs in the World 2009' but there is no list I can find so far. (Anyone know?). It's a fascinating idea of course, that something so personal and immediate can, by dint of simple 'word-of-links' and consistent quality entries build to what is equivalent to a national paper.

For the rest of us however, we can be happy to use our blogettes for purposes more humble and utilitarian. The students I work with in LCC have started their own and some of them have already built up a series of great entries which has set me thinking about my own. How can I make the most use of this space? What does it do for me? What do I say? For me, it's about finding a voice by building a series of tagged and articulated 'thoughts' (entries). It's a way of remembering out loud... of not just liking or bookmarking something, but committing it to one's own space. I'm guessing here, but maybe blogs are the contemporary version of songs, jokes, doodles, photo albums and letter-writing. We don't have that direct contact with family/friends/colleagues and community as before, but we are of course the same creatures. We can get to know ourselves and each other in different ways now, and maybe blogs are one of them?

Karen O'Leary – Handcut Maps

Completely and meticulously cut by hand, she has also done a Paris and London versions.
via infosthetics

Johnathan Harris – World Building Manifesto

Life/work can be lonely, a struggle, and very confusing at times. But then someone comes along and in their own way they speak a truth that inspires and resonates. You realise that many others battle with similar issues but some have verbalised it eloquently. Take a read of this presentation given last week. Thanks Mr. Harris.

Charles Bukowski – The Aliens

you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction or
distress.
they dress well, eat
well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they have moments of
grief
but all in all
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy
death, usually in their
sleep.
you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.
but I am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one
of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them
but they are
there
and I am
here.

Roxane Borujerdi

Website featuring work from current exhibition in covent garden, via lecool

What do we do?

via damnintellectuals

Sleeeep!

Christoph Niemann's NY Times Blog

Tom Messenger

http://www.tommessenger.com/
via grainedit

500 Pencils

Felissimo has designed this range of pencils for social designer. Each one is named individually. You can't buy the whole 500 in one go: but over 20 months. Like my old Quest magazines, or your favourite subscription magazines.... well, kind of.

via designboom

David Bowen - Drawing growth

This guy is the best one in the life-drawing class! He's made a machine that consists of a plant, a scanning device and an inkjet printer, all mounted onto a long paper sheet on a wall. Every day, the machine 'sees' the plant and prints out the silhoette, then moves four inches along, awaiting the next day's growth. Can I adopt a little kitten and attach it to the device??? Watch the movie here. via infothestics.

Ten Thousand Cent

A collaboration between Aaron Koblin and Takashi Kawashima

Ten Thousand Cents from Ten Thousand Cents on Vimeo.

Rainbows and Moonbows

This illuminating capture is from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day. Just as rainbows are lit by the sun, moonbows are lit by the moon...

David Klein Travel Posters

David Klein's TWA travel posters are classics. The New York one can be found in MOMA. Check out the full site of his work >

Via Grain Edit

Vincent Fournier

"The work of Vincent Fournier is offering a journey in some 20th century utopianism. Fro the global village (Tour Operator), to the space oddyssey (Space Project) and more recently to the underworld project, his photos are allegories and criticism for our dream of a science fiction utopia". I find these images exciting; the space and breadth, quality of composure, light nad hyper real-fantasy seem to spark something off... and reading the rationale, I come to see that the vision of perfection of tourism and space exploration is strangely closely entwined. Other worlds and dreams of new territories mash themselves up between future and past, retro fictions of space. website>

Campaign for local food

It's a common trend to campaign for local food produce. Eat British is pretty ubiquitous. The recent Blood, Sweat and Takeaways on BBC shed a different light, one where the value of our imports to low-cost producers in countries like Thailand and Indonesia is all too real. It's a topic far more complex than jingoistic slogans may appear to present. This video from Crush is such an example, but done convincingly. For me, the endorsement by Unilever and Hellmann's packs a sharp needly punch right at the end.

Hellmann’s - It’s Time for Real from CRUSH on Vimeo.

Cargo Collective

Cargo is a web publishing (CMS) and community-building platform currently in development. It powers a variety of creative communities in the fields of Education, Design, Research, and Conceptual Art.

Snappy little typeface

iQ font - When driving becomes writing / Full making of from wireless on Vimeo.

Ben Fry – All Streets

Fry has mapped all of the streets in the lower 48 United States: an image of 26 million individual road segments. No other features (such as outlines or geographic features) have been added to this image, however they emerge as roads avoid mountains, and sparse areas convey low population.