entertainment

Tidying Up Art, Ursus Wehrli

Ursus Wehrli presented at the TED conference recently and I have to admit, his book on “Tidying up Art” is a virus. The basic principle is to take great masterpieces in art and destructure them to the simple elements that they are mad up of. A signiture becomes 30 broken branches, a painting of a person becomes 15 fruit shaped objects, etc. After seeing him lecture and glancing through his book, I’ve been infected and try to tidy up everything I see now.

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SandScapesSandscapes is addictive simulated tangible interface designed to help users understand landscapes through a projected surface of sand. Simulations range from height, slopes, contours, shadows, drainage, and also has the ability to interact with physical models such as buildings cars or whatever else you program into it.

I’ve played around with Sandscapes and its pure joy. Swing by the MIT MediaLab when you have the chance to check out their other great projects!

MIT MediaLab(Tangible Media Group)
SandScapes

Mario Bro Coin BoxesA few bored girls in Ohio took the opportunity to make physical replicas of those “coin boxes” from the classic game “super mario brothers” and place them in random parts of their city, trees primarily. Personally, I think they rock!!! Nothin like jazzin up a city scape with a bit of mario action. Then again, they are being arrested for this prank for reasonable terms.

It’s great to see over time how the digital 2D world has influenced our 3D society. There’s the pixelated tv screen, pixel art, pixel shirts, these boxes, wallpaper, pixel watch, and tons more out there.

via opposable thumbs

TED2006

TED TED TED. What more can I say. It is by FAR THE BEST brain charging, mind-boggling confernece I have ever been to. It’s a life changing experience that is hard to explain. I’ve been fortunate to attend the last 4 TEDs (Technology, Entertainment, Design) and just returned from TED2006. Instead of writing about every single amazzzzing event, I’ll link to some other blogs articles on the conference. Otherwise, some of my highlights were:

1. AL GORE (he is seriously funny)
2. Tony Robbins (what an energizer)
3. Ken Robinson (Man with wonderful words)
4. Playing in a Drum circle at midnight with a bunch of CEOs, Directors, managers, all from fortune 500 companies.
5. Drinking, eating, chillin, with those same people at a private monterey aquarium party.(FABULOUS!)
6. Drinking, chatting, brainstorming with the same peeps at the bar across the street.
7. Watching, listening, laughing, at Charles Fleisher. (Probably one of the most talented, smartests, and funny people on earth)
8. Listening to an 11 yr old violinist zip through some tough classical pieces.
9. TOM RIELLY (As always, a man that sees it all)
10. Beach Party. Great converesations, great weather, great people!
11. Being amazzed at Dynamo.
12. Sitting next to Sergey Brin, Charles Fleischer, Danny Hillis, Peter Gabriel, and Chee Pearlman, all at the same time, watching a session.
13. Watching the Children of Uganda dance!!!!! Unbelievable!!!
14. Listening to Larry Brilliant. Watch the webcast with the other 2 winners.
15. Realizing I was at TED again…TED’s a knowledge heaven that really exisits.

Too many highlights to talk about, but here are some other blogs to check out.

TED blog
Ethan Zuckerman
Bruno Giussani
Tom Guarriello
Lone Ronin
Kate Trgovac
Loic le Meur
Renee Blodgett

Multi-Touch Screen

This video has surfed the web for the past few weeks, but I had the wonderful opportunity to meet and hear from the creator, Jeff Han, about his multi-touch screen interface at the TED conference. Check out the video and be prepared to be awed.YouTube video

update:  a nice article on Jef’s developement with the multi-touch screen from FastCompany which includes an exclusive video on the newer larger version here.

Name Voyager

Have you ever wondered how popular your name was as a baby? Name voyager creates a visual diagram of baby name populations in the past 100+ years. Its interesting to see how some names just boom certain years..perhaps due to a rock star, movie, song, movement, etc.
Also reminds me of this discussion I had with a friend questioning the social implications of a persons life based on their childhood names. If any of you have info on this, please comment.
Anyhow, give it a try, type in your name, and watch the dynamic diagram flow.Name Voyager