Archival Impulse

12

Just putting this, very much under construction, project out there to hopefully get some more invitations to other archives. If you have lots of videos, or suggestions of collections, please let me know.

Synth Pop version coming soon…

Future of RCA

Article about the future of the Communication Art and Design course, with a nod to all the thinking and that we’re doing here at Glasgow.
From CR Blog here

When Ikea Self-Assembly Goes Wrong

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(image ©: Melanie Bonajo)

Some recent trips, rounded up:

Berlin, hosted by baxpax kreuzberg:

The moral of the story is don’t take pictures at 5 in the morning. The motto of the story is a very good bookshop, making an exhibition of itself, and Yale. Do you read me ?! You might now be too late to visit the kiosk, but we also visited Node, Berlin Haushoch and Carolin Kurz. Many thanks to them for their generous hospitality. The Bauhaus isn’t open on tuesdays it transpires, (but it is on wednesdays).

The thing linking Rotterdam and Berlin is that they’re both full of Kunst.

A compelling if slightly strange city, permanently grey and very modern/corporate/industrial. The biggest port in Europe by a long stretch, Portscapes was an exhibition at museum boijmans van beuningen, reflecting on this expansion, featuring Glasgow artist Ilana Halperin amongst others. Fucking Good Art. Another great exhibition and venue: Quickscan at the Dutch National Photographic Museum. Diverse and exhilarating. Included Melanie Bonajo (image above), Club Donny and many more. Track down the accompanying publication if you can (or lend it from me).

And Max, this is because I feel bad about putting that video up, even though you do rock the shop:

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Visual Communication, Class of ‘03, Rotterdam 2010 (biker names, left to right: Joomla, Dreamweaver, Firefox, Drupal, Flash)

Smarter Searching: Daguerreobase and beyond

Following the discussion last week in the ‘creative research’ review, about ways of using the web for smarter searches (beyond google and google images), I came across this Daguerreobase database of Daguerreotypes. Its a good example of some of the things we were talking about, such as searching out archives and collections. I imagine this type of digital archiving will only increase over time, and with the development of ideas around the Semantic web (”…an extension of the current one, in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.” Tim Berners-Lee), the depth and richness of resources we can locate online will expand.

Happy 90th Birthday Ronald Searle

Happy Birthday to Ronald Searle illustrator!

Long Lunch for Apple Store

A message from LongLunch…
April sees the first in a series of free events we’re running at the Apple Store in Glasgow (see you do get some things for nothing in a recession).

These free talks will follow a similar format to normal LongLunch events but will start a lot earlier (6-6:30pm), only last for about 45mins and feature only Scottish based design talent. Makes a change eh!

First up is the excellent:
GRAPHICAL HOUSE
http://www.graphicalhouse.co.uk/
Thursday 15th April 2010
Apple Store, Buchanan Street
Glasgow G1 2JX

PLEASE BOOK A SEAT BY EMAILING:
neely@longlunch.com

We’re asking you to email and let us know you’re coming to make sure we hire-in the right A/V equipment etc – we don’t want 100 folk all crowded round a MacBook!

More information will be available soon on our website and FaceBook page.

4646km of beard [b]logging

4646km beard blog

Talking Designers, Fri 5th March

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Talks from two great designers, Roy Mohan Shearer and Emlyn Firth, this Friday (5th March), 4pm 2nd year vis com studio. Come one, come all.

Emily Chappell

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Vis Com alumni and illustrator Emily Chappell has an exhibition entitled ‘he sleeps with the fishes’ opening at the Tron Glasgow on Monday 1st March.

image above: © emily chappell

Upcoming Events

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This post highlights a few events coming up. Of particular note are the Polyark II events at Strathclyde, continuing the work of Cedric Price, (work pictured), operating in his preferred conditions of ‘calculated uncertainty’. Which we like.

The Untamed Tiger

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The Untamed Tiger: the illustrator and the self initiated project

MA Illustration: Authorial Practice at University College Falmouth hosts its 8th annual illustration forum

Friday 12 March 2010, 9.30am – 4.30pm
Woodlane Lecture Theatre, Woodlane Campus, Falmouth
Tickets: £15 external visitors, £5 UCF staff and students

A day of presentations and debate on the theme of enterprising illustrators who generate their own projects, creating their own employment and work on their own terms. The Forum will explore the development of new autonomies and enterprising initiatives in illustration.

EasyJet over Snowy Germany

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The picture says it all really. A much more detailed link-laden post to follow based on recent travels. This post is just a mental note to do it. More on EasyJet here. A few more pictures here.

Rethink Scholarship

Rethink Scholarship at Langara 2010 Call for Entries from Rory O’Sullivan and Simon Bruyn on Vimeo.
If you are interested there is a scholarship competition to study for 2 years at Langara college in Vancouver. It also includes a placement at Rethink Studio in Vancouver as well.
If you like the pop up book format of the video you might like this video by shit disco produced a few years ago by illustration grad Jan Lun Lee.

Max, Max, Max…

Rock the Shop

Upload-a-PDF all about it! Good News!

Newspaper Club, if you want short-runs of newspapers printed. Still in Beta, so be kind.

Inspector Gadget

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I promise I’m not a Radio 4 spokeswoman, but an intreguing new manifesto was discussed on Material World yesterday (if you don’t want to listen to the whole thing it starts at 19mins). Techo-internet-computer-genius/theorist/inventor Jaron Lanier discusses his new writing on how we might have allowed the Internet to play too much of a role in our lives. He calls it ‘a Humanist manifesto, and hopes it will create a new form of humanism that puts computers in a subservient role.

He is quite critical of ‘open culture’ which he believes has not resulted in the collaborative dream once imagined. This could be quite controversial.

Also it seems he doesn’t want us just to read little bits of his manifesto, so all or nothing I guess!

Glasgow (short) Film Festival

Glasgow Film Festival is fast approaching. Great chance to see some amazing films, and also network with the people in Glasgow (and beyond) producing and making moving image work.

Berlin

So we’re off to Berlin in a week or so, (and then 3rd/4th graphics next month), and coincidentally, the current issue of eye magazine has several special features on the city.

As an aside, the last few editions of eye magazine (72 and 73) have been full of interesting and useful stuff about illustration, graphics, graphic designers as illustrators, the changing world of photography, and generally stuff that asks lots of useful and interesting questions about these ‘distinctions’, their validity, and their place in the shifting world of visual communications. Strongly recommended.

(image by HORT).

Futureshock

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I got this book recently and anyone is welcome to borrow it once I’m done. Futurist Alvin Toffler wrote it in the 70’s speculating on how society would cope with the acceleration of change as a result of technology and growth of population.

He defines Futureshock as like culture shock, where one is taken out of their comfort zone and they no longer understand customs/formalities/environment. With culture shock you can experience unknown territories then return to what you know. Futureshock is used by Toffler to express how we might not cope with the rapid changes in our culture. Basically imagine you went to a foreign country where everything was different, but the place you came from ceased to exist… wouldn’t that be A BIT SCARY.

Perhaps a clunky explanation but an intriguing concept I promise.

Seen it before, see it again

2pm Wed, 2nd year vis com studio, come one, come all.