These photos are dedicated to my political activist friend Gregory Lowe. He gave me an NRDC (National Resources Defense Council) bag that promotes saving whales. Anyway, I think he would really fit here in New York. Supposedly there's a protest at Union Square every weekend.

This is a pretty cool conference, and worth every penny. Unfortunately, I was barred from taking any photos, but check out their site, if you're interested in design. The conference encompassed Print, Fashion, Computational, Architectural, Illustration, Graffiti art/design and more. It was held at the Lincoln Center.

Here's there link:
http://www.semipermanent.com/newyork

Twin Towers Light Memorial

I was on my way to Fellissimo for the 3-D Authorship show. They were closed so instead I went to a parade on Fifth. Beautiful costumes.

I went to this Adidas exhibit, which was to give me the "ultimate" experience of making me feel like I'm one with the "in" crowd. When I first arrived to the address 267 Canal Street, I walked into 2 stores, and asked about the Adidas exhibit. This Chinese man, who couldn't speak English told me to follow him, so I did. He walked through the store to the back, and crossed the street and into another entrance to a basement. I started to feel that this wasn't legit, and was wondering if this was a place where they sold fake Adidas. But then, at the end of the hallway, I saw this colorful videotracking projection and a ultra-contemporary sculpture that had Adidas stamped all over it. The experience was pretty effective in making me feel pretty "cool" that I knew about this event, and "special" that I was part of this covert operation. The tennis shoe line emulate printmaking business model, where some shoes are limited edition, and the same went for the athletic jackets. There were some commercial to underground grafitti artists tagging shoes, and popular artists like "Fafi, a French grafitti lady artist. "Fever 1," a dancer, hired for this 2-week event, pitched a great story/sale.

I stand corrected with the Alexander Hamilton fact. My friend, Ben Wilkes, emailed me the corrected information: "Hamilton was never President. Delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Secretary of the Treasury (I knew those). Wikipedia remind us he was lead author of the Federalist Papers, too.

Thanks, Ben.

so go out and vote.

Also, Clay Shirky recommended this article re "Social Capital," which talks about the differenced between bonded versus bridged capital and what happens when civic responsibility declines.

What dictates our political involvement?

In August, Dell Computers hit the cover of Businessweek with the title "Dark Days at Dell," and judging by the comments below the article, most of them expressed Dell's incompetence.

This past Wednesday, President George W. Bush made a reference to Dell Computers in his press conference (click here to see this video). I don't know if you see a pattern or formula here, Dell + Bush = Incompetence.

I felt bad for my co-worker when he was on the phone for a very long time with Dell's Customer Support after just recently purchasing a Dell monitor, and judging by his conversation, this was not his first time calling Dell regarding this same matter.

This is what really bothered me about X-Men: The Last Stand. The movie had a great story, but I was extremely disappointed that the producers and directors of this movie chose Dell computers to represent "high-tech progression" and "competence." The idea of Professor Charles Xavier using Dell computers to revive Jean Grey/Phoenix, is not credible. I don't think I was actively looking a product placement, but it stuck out like a sore thumb. In this scene, Jean-Grey was in a sterile white room, and had tiny electrodes stuck to her forehead that measured her neural behavior, which was displayed on a Dell monitor.

Anyway, this is a pattern that I keep seeing in both movies and television. Although, in movies, I believe it's more effective in brainwashing, since the product placement is more subversive. Recently, I was watching Google's interactive cable channel, which is suppose to be "VCC" (Viewer Created Content), and I was really disappointed in their direction of using product placement in their banner ad (or is it called "anchor?"). Last May, I was able to watch an engaging story about poetry. Last month, I saw a "Pop Secret popcorn ad" endorsing The Grudge 2 movie. It was really obvious and cheesy (animated popcorn coming out of movie bucket). I guess that's what really bothers me about Google's purchase of YouTube (sorry, the pres. video above was the only one I could find).

Anyway, if you're really tired of product placement, get up, and walk to your local park, meditate, try a new restaurant (not a chain one), or read a book. Free your mind.

"Now, finally, a lot of people are beginning to see how machines might in fact learn to fit into their lives as well as humans do. People are increasingly choosing their books and music by the algorithmic recommendations of Amazon instead of those of their friends, planning dates with mates they find in textfields instead of local bars or social clubs."

—Christian Croft

This machine will fill out scantron bubbles for you if you drop a coin in any of its slots. Christian Croft designed the gears and kinetic system from scratch (i.e. using the laser cutter to cut Plexiglas). I know he's going to be insulted, but I have to say that the design of this machine is beautiful.

His commentary of moving forward to a world of automation is humorous. I always appreciate Christian Croft's and Andrew Schneider's conceptual art projects. I'm not sure if it's because they have a background in theater, but their work is never too abstract for me to understand.

This machine is going to be attached to a desk.

This code means something, translated from binary to English.

For more information about this project, click here to visit his site.

PART o1:

Ambient Lighting Design

Are we in a time warp? Typewriter outputs digital? Typewriter crosses computer.

Twister Game networked? There are hundreds of solutions to win this game. A new approach to Twister, but you need to find the right combination. To do so, it requires you to touch other players.

These fingerless gloves warm your hands ups when you hold your partner's hand.

Powder and Ferrofluid Interesting texture when it pulses. Pretty mesmerizing.

Hat Mutterer

This project is called "Hair" by Carolina Pino

Kyungmi's "Kenny" digital paint brush

Networked Shoes as a performance tool. This was indeed a treat to watch.

Lara and Myra worked on a chair that functions as a musical interest for assistive tech.

PART o2

Chris and Juri's Mega Phone Game. This is fun and immersive. I can see it at a movie theater. You call a number and play these short games that are projected on a screen. The games are short and satisfying. One example is blowing into your cellphone to digitally blow a balloon fastest. Maybe the theater can give you a free tub of popcorn if you win. "Don't forget to turn off your cellphones for the movie!"

Andy, Kate and Che worked on this demo. You can turn off appliances and make your home smart using your cellphone. So if you forgot to turn off your light or forgot to turn on your air conditioner for your cat, this would be a great tool.

Christin Roman's Telebunny calls your child and comforts it when you're away.

Chris Parretti's car race allow you to control the speed of the car by yelling into your mobile phone. New game consoles a mobile device? Watch out Sony and Nintendo!

Preston Noon's Puzzle Poetry

Mike Bukhin and Michael DelGaudio's mobile phone is video tracking every second and minute of the wearer's day and meta tagging activities.

Ilteris Kaplan's Mood Box allows you to anonymously input your emotions in one space, which is processed and displayed in a different space. I see a lot of potential. It is beautiful as well.

Fun cell phone game with archaic cell/cordless phone controller>

Judson's video tracking flea simulation. What a hoot!

Jeff LeBlanc's art works.

Che's tree personality test translated to music using Max/MSP and Jitter.

Jenny Chowdhury's email art.

Animalia Chordata. Gabe's humorous exploration of personal space. He puts people in bottles. Okay, this project was in one of those blogs I listed above.

Tales of Grim. While you read this book, the rooms in the play house interact.

Low tech art by Heather, Charles and Tristan. It's pretty satisfying swaying these blocks

I didn't get to interact with this project, but it looks engaging.

Tikva's Sonic Body Pong. This was on the Make blog too.

Steve Jackson's project allows you to channel surf YouTube according to subject matter. If you type in "basketball," it mine all videos related to this sport for the day and play it for you. I'm not even a big YouTube fan, but I found this project pretty cool.

It's stunning at night.

At the Rockefeller Center...

This is my first contribution to the Wikipedia. I was curious about this Danish licorice brand, which had a controversial name. I was also unfamiliar with the term. The term also has references to anarchy and revolutionary. Anyway, there's a hyperlink to the word "logo" to the image I submitted.

At the Good Morning America set in Time Square Studios, they are exhibiting all the Oscar award trophies. I am such a tourist.

Here's the info:
February 12-24
11am to 7pm

The actual award ceremony is on the 25th and starts at 5pm. I skipped it last year, but just watched Good Night and Good Luck, which was about a journalist, Edward Morrow, covering McCarthyism, and Capote, which was pretty heavy and well-acted. This year I want to watch Babel, Volver, and Notes on a Scandal, Little Miss Sunshine, The Departed, and An Inconvenient Truth. In Los Angeles, people would have Oscar parties and hold pools on the nominees.

Last year, my friend Jay Moorthy told me about TED, and I've heard about it here and there. Lisa Strausfeld also mentioned TED when she lectured about Richard Saul Wurman (known for his book Understanding USA, where famous designers created information graphics about statistical data in the U.S.). For those of you who don't know about it, TED is the acronym for Technology, Entertainment, Design. Some notable speakers and performers have been Al Gore, Malcolm Gladwell, Cameron Sinclair, Nicholas Negroponte, Jeff Han, Tracy Chapman, Sirena Huang, an 11-year-old concert violinist, and even our own ZeFrank (who taught Creative Acts at ITP). It costs about 5g's to go, and you have to be invited, but all of the money goes to charitable organizations. Anyway, they have free podcasts of past speakers, under TED TALKS, which I try to listen to.

This year, I was really interested in Theo Jansen's works (I first heard about him in Living Art). He does these amazing kinetic sculptures, and he's one of the speakers at TED this year. Also, Hod Lipson, who is doing some work in robotics. His robot like of looks like a starfish, which can be seen in the BusinessWeek slide show about TED. I think he's also created a DIY Desktop fabricator for less than 2g's. And also, Nick Sears, from ITP, will be talking about his thesis, the newer 3D orb, and presenting the initial iteration (shown at the 2006 ITP Winter Show).

Bill Clinton, Lawrence Lessig, Paola Antonelli, Zaha Hadid, Richard Branson, and They Might Be Giants will also speak and perform this year.

Here are some recommended links, some are repeated from above:

Podcasts of TEDTalks

TEDBlogs

BusinessWeek's Slide Show on some speakers [which include Theo Jansen, Hod Lipson, and Nick Sears]

BusinessWeek's story about TED