DIAGRAM, an electronic publication for (to pick some words from their submission guidelines) ‘representations, naming, indicating, schematics, the labelling and taxonomy of things… vivisection, urgency, risk, flamboyance… writing that demonstrates / interaction; the processes / of things, both inner and outer’; An Atlas of Radical Cartography, maps and essays ‘about social issues from globalization to garbage; surveillance to extraordinary rendition; statelessness to visibility; deportation to migration’; A Shoal of Mackerel, an aritsts’ book publishing house based in Glasgow and Göteborg.
26 October 2009, 1:04am • art everything else paper things northerly language Comments (View)
I have a unique name, and MIT’s ‘Personas’ toy draws an intriguing characterisation from the handful of places it appears across cyberspace.
(‘online’ - ‘books’ - ‘education’ - ‘domestic’ - ‘politics’ - ‘art’)
26 September 2009, 9:57pm • everything else Comments (View)
The games industry is poised on the brink of a profound transformation. Games have the potential to be the most powerful artform ever invented, an unparalleled medium for the exploration of dynamic interactive systems and the expression of complex emotional, social, and political ideas.
But the creative power of games is being held hostage by the conservative forces of the marketplace. For years, the mainstream games industry has fed us a steady stream of lowest-common-denominator drivel: brightly colored mascots scampering around childish fantasy lands; hyper-violent, testosterone-soaked war simulators; vacuous, marketing-driven movie spin-offs; and the endless grind of mindless, massively-multiplayer treadmills.
Chain Factor offers an alternative: an independent game designed outside the traditional channels of development and distribution and driven by a singular vision: put the power back into the hands of the players and let them create the game they want to play.
Turns out, what enlightened visionaries want to play with is little gravity-powered blobs.
4 April 2009, 10:11pm • everything else Comments (View)
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
… can I just say, have a bit of flair and - courage about everything you do. Life is not about being dealt good cards, but playing those you’ve been dealt very well. [… ?] and arrivederci to you. ♪♫ Oh lordy… ♪♫
Just before one this afternoon, Radio 4 had a strange and delightful pirate invasion.
15 March 2009, 10:29pm • everything else jukeboxing Comments (View)
F.lux: software to make your life better »
No more bright white computer-lit nights. My screen adjusts its colour temperature at sunset, to a warmer, more gentle lightbulb-colour, and brightens back up at sunrise — gently, over the space of an hour. For graphic work, you can easily turn it off.
F.lux’s makers suggest that softening light may help ease screen-workers’ sleep. I don’t mind the minimal research; the idea is lovely. (As is the fact there’s nothing to sell.)
15 March 2009, 6:44pm • everything else design habitat Comments (View)
The northernmost tree is at Ary-Mas, Khatanga River valley, Taymyr Peninsula, Siberia (here); it is a larch. List of northernmost items. (pinch of salt may be required)
The tree line.
There is an art gallery at Longyearbyen on Svalbard, although I haven’t spotted it in the beautiful satellite coverage. And, just wonderfully, a campsite:
(photo by knilaus)
26 February 2009, 3:45am • everything else natural history things northerly Comments (View)
Missed this festival in January. Perhaps next year? But I can’t stop staring at the page: it’s barely even typography, and imperfectly kerned, but beautiful.
15 February 2009, 9:28pm • typography everything else Comments (View)
16
- Hello.
I know the stylised self-portrait is typical of internet self-presentation. I’ve a warm affection for the whole field, though; especially little self-determining networks of home-made websites, sharing ideas and conventions. I’m not sure whether ready-made social networking has diminished this.
- Breakfast: cereal (currently honey nut cornflakes, preferably Tesco’s), or buttered brown toast and tea, or a plain or seeded or cinnamon and raisin or mouthwateringly amazing fruit & oats toasted-and-buttered bagel, or beans on toast, or a full egg/bacon/beans/tomato/mushroom cooked do. Very occasionally porridge, or Weetabix with hot milk and a good sprinkling of brown sugar.
- I love light. I collect light. It infects my preferences and practice of photography with a definite predictability, but is nevertheless a simple route to joy, and that’s worth something.
- Beneficiary of free or very cheap adult education: French A-level; beginners’ Finnish; about to start a Journalism course.
- I can make things, and mend things. I finished last week an appliqué piece using back-basting and needle-turning. I learnt in 2007 to knit and crochet, though my liking for knitwear is not great, so I don’t do a great deal of it.
- I used to have awful new-age tendencies: believing in anything and everything. I then after a while began to properly consider atheism, and slipped firmly into that camp a few years ago. (NB: it was a while later that I stopped being an angry atheist.) For consistency, I forced myself to stop believing in luck or fate, or reading horoscopes. Life is freer without all this; Occam’s razor cutting off the beard of superstition!
- The above notwithstanding, I learnt to meditate, and I recommend it. It’s a tool, and a remarkable and subtle one. (A scientific view)
- While I’m interested in a number of different sides of the whole pursuit of science, and while I believe you can’t validly question it without the appropriate commitment to some kind of rigour, I’m wary not to view it as a god. Inquiry into the scientific method such as Thomas Kuhn has done is particularly fascinating - and humbling.
- I embrace feminism and anti-racism: properly, from the roots. Not activism, just yet.
- I’ve worked as a life model.
- My mental arithmetic is shoddy, and I’m a little ashamed of this.
- My understanding of the cryptic crossword is limited.
- I haven’t yet learnt how to change a bicycle tyre. I intend to rectify all three of these points.
- Most of the music on my hard drive, or on CDs in boxes in my room, is made up of a combination of these qualities: slow guitars / string sections / mournful brass sections / electronics / ELECTRONICS / soft singing / blips and bleeps / clicks and clatters / singing in harmony. Things like Jaga Jazzist and big melodic funking beats also make me very happy.
- I value fine handwriting.
- I can keep rhythm with no metronome (no metronome, no metronome). But I can’t ride my bike with no handlebars.
3 February 2009, 10:12pm • everything else Comments (View)
