Processing Mk.2

Not so good today. Managed to get this box to move across a screen (with random colours for prettyness), but that was about it. I managed to remake what I did yesterday but with objects instead of whatever normal code is which I guess is an achievement and I'm starting to recognise what I don't know- Arrays are doing my head. So is the for(i++) type of function so those guys are next on the list.

Processing

I've committed myself to learning processing this week and, after a 9–5 day at home, I've got the hang of the basics again. Drawing shapes, points, lines, colouring them with transparencies, random positioning and colour, mouse pressed commands, exporting, print lining, mouse following and general setup and syntax. Not bad but it really taxes my brain- I think it's going to be a bit of an effort for me- it doesn't come naturally but hopefully a week will see me a bit better at least- I'm going to push myself to produce at least a screenshot every day.

Requiem for Detroit

A fantastic BBC documentary about the post industrial shell that Detroit became it's past and future. It shows how, through the automotive industry and it's pioneering mass manufacturing processes, the city grew wildly and then fell in on itself creating desolate neighbourhoods and unsustainable social conditions. In showing Detroit as this micro world with it's creation of cars and the manufacturing of the 'American Dream' the creation of suburbs and societies split along economic and racial lines which then crumbles it acts as a metaphor for America and the world at large. It also shows how Detroit is coping with this post industrial world it created: as a return to farming and small scale community and cottage industries. As one lady put it- "you could see it as a portrait of a world gone wrong, or as a vision of the future." Really cool. Watch it here. Requiem_for_detroit

'The Michigan theatre to me is like the classic story of it all- I mean that's where Henry Ford built his first car, his wealth creates this building with this magnificent theatre, and then the theatre dies. Why? No parking. And then the building's gonna die so what do they do? They gut the theatre and make a parking lot out of it.'

Design Awards 2010

Took a trip to the Design Museum and here's my round up of favourites from the Design Awards. The stuff shown is what I reckon is most awesome- there was of course some stuff that I didn't dig- but the following was so good I left feeling good about the Design industry which I hadn't expected. This is Sugru- a material which can be moulded by hand and cures at room temperature to become a washable, heatproof silicone. Sold as coloured lumps in various sizes it's designed for hacking your objects- fixing, making better and is generally just awesome.

The Really Interesting Group (RIG) have created the Newspaper Club- utilising down time at printers they have created a service which allows individuals to upload artwork for their own newspapers of between 5 and 5000 copies- they've made printing incredibly affordable. Perhaps the most interesting (excuse the pun) thing which started it off  is 'Things Our Friends Have Written On The Internet', a publication aggregating images and text from blogs, and websites into a printed publication. Heavy web 3.0 shit.

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In a similar vain It's Nice That get my respect for producing a consistently quality package of blog, features, jobs board, exhibitions, artwork and most importantly for me an extremely affordable printed output: again, using the advantages of the internet to create content. Printing it turns it into something better- sort of brings it full circle.

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The Incidental has so many people involved that i'm not going to try and name check them all but it's pretty fucking encouraging to see some familiar names in there. Basically it's an almost immediate magazine based in and featuring both Milan 2009 and The London Design Festival 2009. Content was sourced from the people going around the events- tweeted, blogged, reported directly and then sifted, filtered and created into a new publication each day. Simple- brave- dramatically scaleable- pretty and above all useful.

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Real Time by Maarten Baas is a clock which is changed manually- he's done a few- some with brushes, some as installations but this one is done with some red glass- black paint (I think I read it was latex) and a squigee. Watch the video. Not in the show but found on his website: I really really like his clay furniture series- I mean I really like it and I'm not into chairs.

dm_maarten_baas Also worth a mention were BBC iPlayer, Amazon's Kindle (Both of these were of going to happen, but are still well designed and pretty revolutionary), Why Not Associates Literary Forest, and The Trillion Dollar Project (to raise awareness for The Zimbabwean newspaper.