See the video from the New York Times or see the full 2D version. The creators mention the inspiration of a mushrooms experience. Of course, they can\’t explain the full weight of the experience because it doesn\’t translate into language.\r\n\r\n
The Modernista web site is an overlay, a menu that guides you to pages on the web related to the Modernista advertising agency. To learn about Modernista, you are guided to its wikipedia page. To see example’s of Modernista’s work, you guided to flickr. The overlay follows you. If you want to find out Modernista’s contact info, the information is presented in the overlay on top of whatever web site you are on.
I like the Modernista web site because it lets the Web’s strongest web sites do their job. I think there is an irrational compulsion to centralize information on single web pages, even if the information exists else where. Modernista presents a new paradigm.
One problem with the Modernista web site is that the overlay sometimes obscures information on the underlying web page. Fully executing Modernista’s concept of web browsing would require a UI change to the browser.
Update: The wikipedia community didn’t take very kindly to Mondernista’s incorporation of the Modernista wikipedia page. They posted this alert at the top of the wikiepdia page:
The website for this company obscures our logo with their own, and may lead the viewer to believe that Wikipedia serves as their homepage provider. This is not correct. Wikipedia has no affiliation with Modernista and has requested that Modernista cease this use of our website.
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia written from a neutral point of view and does not endorse nor condemn Modernista, but is opposed to being used as a promotional mechanism in this manner for any third party.
I recommend reading the wiki page’s background discussion. Wikipedia is setting some interesting precedents here — not sure how I feel about it.
Old books, records, tapes, maps, and other media frequently fall into a realm that too much of today’s art occupies. Their intended role has decreased or deceased and they often exist simply as symbols of the ideas they represent rather than true conveyers of content. … When an object’s intended function is fleeting, the necessity for a new approach to its form and content arises.
You can see a lot more of Brian Dettmer’s work here.
These maps overlay Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s walk on the moon over sporting fields.
I carry expensive stuff on me. It’s stupid, especially considering I don’t live in the best neighborhood. I often have my iPod on me, and an iPhone (I haven’t adopted the iPhone as a music player yet). I often take a walk down Divisadero street to get a burrito at El Burrito Express. When I’m coming back, burrito in hand, I often play out scenarios in my head in which I get mugged. I find myself thinking, I’d rather they Jack my iPhone than have my burrito knocked to the ground and destroyed. The sentiment is especially strong when I have a wet burrito. There is something deeply tragic in a wet burrito splattered on the sidewalk.
As MTV’s Making the Band paints, today’s manufactured pop stars are locked in a cage. They live within a formula, and they are given collaborators and songs. They are told to poor their emotions into their songs, and the best manufactured pop stars do so successfully. I’ve come to appreciate these captives (e.g., the Pussy Cat Dolls) as finely tuned machines. However, I love being reminded that hearing music that is born organically is an experience on an entirely different level. You can hear when the singer is the one who created the words that describe the song’s emotion. When the writer is the singer, of course, nothing is lost in translation. It’s very difficult, I imagine, for a pop start to reinterpret a writer’s words successfully within the cage of the formula. I imagine that the designers of these music machines are working on solutions to these problems.
I wrote previously about SF Gate’s idiot collection. Here is another perfect example. It is a short article with very little information about two bodies that were found in a home at a country club near Pleasanton.
It inspired this comment by sonof_jf:
Hopefully they are republicans and other republicans like them will follow their lead.
Which inspired this comment by kingnicky:
Hopefully they are Obama supporters and just wanted some Change.
Which inspired this criticism by cringer:
sonof_jf wrote: Hopefully they are republicans and other republicans like them will follow their lead………What sort of a freakin caveman comes up with a statement like that? What a tiny little pathetic nothing of a person you must be.
And jax75420 jumped to sonof_jf’s defense:
cringer wrote: sonof_jf wrote: Hopefully they are republicans and other republicans like them will follow their lead………What sort of a freakin caveman comes up with a statement like that?” The kind of person fed up with years of right-wing hegemony. It doesn’t make the comment right, any more than the slightly clever one about Obama supporters. But it reflects the frustration turned to hate many feel after watching America the Beutiful transformed into ‘Murka the Horrible. Some may be happy about Bush and our country’s policies. Many others have been dry heaving the past 8 years. We are allowed to be frustrated, and since this is still America (nominally) we are allowed to make snarky comments about Republicans or Obama supporters being offed. Deal with it.
A truly bizarre exchange that has nothing to do with the article on which the comments hang. I wonder what SF Gate thinks about presence of these comments within a couple clicks of their front door.
In the World/Road Rules Challenge, MTV invents strange games for their incestuous alumni of reality television shows to play. The structure of the competition is often poorly thought out. One can sense that many of the games are drastically lopsided in the favor of one team. However, MTV covers the game play in manner such that it’s difficult to see an accurate picture of what’s going on. In almost every case, through a combination of embedded interviews and out of context shots, the losing team is presented as having a realistic chance at victory. This is, of course, intentional — the focal point of the show is the interpersonal drama, not the content of the competition.
MTV’s coverage of the Real World/Road Rules competition mirrors how the mainstream media is covering the democratic primary election. It seems that Clinton only has a marginal chance of winning, but the media covers her mini victories as if she was on even footing with Obama. Again, the focal point of the show is the drama, not the content of the debate.
MTV’s Making the Band is an advertisement. Clearly reality TV has spun far away from the genre of documentary. In Making the Band, MTV strives to fabricate star quality by flashing sparkling lights during certain moments. Do the lights flash because the person did something special, or is the person becoming a star because MTV surrounds their head with light? Almost a boring question to ask.
In the below image, MTV tries to fabricate eccentricity by filling the studio with purple smoke.
I’ve written previously about VH1’s model of creating fabricated social worlds. The character of New York was created via the Flavor of Love show, and then New York was given her own show, I love New York. I believe I love New York is more compelling than Flavor of Love because it isn’t grounded in any reality outside of the insular world of reality television. Flavor of Love, on the one hand, features Flavor Flav, a rap star who evokes a variety of associations beyond his appearance in the show. New York, on the other hand, has no pop culture existence beyond her reality television embodiment. The purity is compelling, and clearly Viacom understands this since they are repeating the same model on MTV. They created A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, a dating show featuring the internet star Tila Tequila (using the jumping off point of an internet celebrity is an interesting concept by itself). And now, MTV has created a new show based on Domenico Nessi, one of the contestants from A Shot at Love. Apparently, the more the referential meaning of reality television worlds folds on top of itself, the better the television it gets.
But at what point do you have to jump into the world for it to be interesting? I think what VH1 and MTV do is brilliant, but I feel strange that I like it since it is so empty at its core. I guess this is a very basic part of post modernism.
