The H Line

AIR!

I’m moving. In a week. It wasn’t planned at all, but I’m incredibly excited about it.

After the painful process of leaving my one-bedroom in Florida, I vowed to keep my life more mobile. This will be the payoff. Seven boxes and three suitcases should do the trick. Wouldn’t even need a van if it weren’t for my beloved desk.

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Because I’m paying rent on both places this month, I’m able to take my time setting things up and thinking about how I’ll design the space. I’ll have my own real room, and I want it to feel that way. MINE.

So I’m back to hitting up design blogs and scoping out palettes via sites like ColourLovers. And I have to say, I’m surprisingly uninspired.

Everything feels a little … tired. Birds and branches? Played. Victorian patterns? Eh (though I’ll prob always have weak spot for them). Even my favorite color feels old.

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Not long after the new year, Matthew and I had a similar discussion about music. Neither of us feels quite happy with what’s coming out. Very rarely does something feel genuinely fresh. His insightful conclusion was that we’re moving toward a new decade, and the music world is a little slow swinging that way. In short, shit needs to start feeling way more 2010.

Which is what?

I’d say: Characterized by carefully planned disorder. That is the state of our new reality. It needs to look and sound accordingly.

When I think of what might come close to that in my current world, the first two to come to mind are the IAC building and Black Dice.

MP3: “Kokomo” - Black Dice

They don’t seem terribly related, but they each have a quality of distortion coupled with a high level of organization. Inherent in both is a sense of pain.

I’m well aware that this is a contentious claim. Why a Gehry building and not, say, this brand of netart? Especially if you’re going to mention a band like Black Dice.

Because I’m thinking of things that could eventually appeal to the masses. And, I’m sorry, but there is not going to be a day when large groups of people feel that they identify with some animated gifs of a fucked-up-looking dog. Or I should more honestly say that, despite what you may have seen posted on this very blog, I’m fearful of a future in which they do.

There’s an anxiety that the IAC building arouses, especially when it appears from behind more traditional buildings. A feeling more intense than the fear that New Museum might topple onto you. It’s big and it’s real and it means something.

Black Dice doesn’t sound mainstream now, but we may be surprised to find more noise creeping into pop. The other night I was hanging out at a rather large coffee shop and a barista put on Load Blown. Played the entire album all the way through. I got the sense that it distressed some patrons, but still everyone carried on with their studying and chatting and computering as usual. I don’t think half of those people would have been able to stand it even a couple of years ago. That means something, too.

[via design crack + pitchfork]

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When considering what to live with, it’s a little different. Take this shelf:

It corresponds with my ideas about distortion and organization. But it blatantly ignores the need for economy of space. And, ultimately, it’s boring.

Of the things I’ve seen in my past few days of hunting, I like these chairs the most:

Only the pattern adheres to the aesthetic I’ve been talking about, but the rest coincides with my personal style, which favors the elegant and comfortable.

[both via design milk (thanks, New Gina)]

There’s still so much more that needs mentioning. Feel free to disagree and show me things. Especially those of you with design backgrounds.

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I’d also like to take a second to thank the people in my life who care about my happiness and believe in my ability to someday do something notable. As someone who is incredibly, incredibly impatient, I hate to hear words like “someday,” but it is so much better than “never.” I am grateful to you all for having the kind of confidence in my abilities that doesn’t always come easy to me. You’re amazing and produce great work. I’m honored to have friends and associates who are role models, too.

I don’t like to talk about politics. I don’t like to think about politics. And like every other apathetic asshole who says that, I have an explanation. I consider it to be a pretty good one, until I read sobering words like those of Rosecrans in his intro to the latest Layer Tennis:

“Edward Tufte can suck my ass. All you self-righteous open-standard 4.0 web gurus should twitter me a picture of your iPhone’s iPhone from Self by SelfObsessed, just so I’ll have more proof you’re morons.”
…
“People, jokes on pause, I woke up this morning so angry about Iraq and our current President my hands are still twitching, and it’s difficult to be serious about anything involving pixels.”

Kelly Dobson

As an ITP student, it was nice to hear the perspective of a female technologist represented on stage — however quietly it may have been conveyed. For you see, Kelly Dobson is a very meek, but very endearing, person. Giggles and downright whispers were ubiquitous throughout her presentation, which, let’s admit it, is pretty cute.

But this bothered me. And let’s just get straight to why…

When you are the only female participating in a public event, you, in some ways, become a stand-in for all women. Kelly was qualified to be there and was likely not as shy as she appeared. (After all, you can’t talk about communicating with machines without cojones.) But because her mode of expression was, shall we say, “delicate,” I am sure there was at least one male brain in the room thinking, “Oh those women. They’re so adorable when they try to communicate!” And that’s just… sad.

So it would have been nice if the token female chosen for this event (or maybe even a second woman) was a stronger public speaker. Maybe then we could get closer to a place where the men in the room just think, “That was a very interesting presentation,” without recognition of gender-based levels of attraction or intelligence.

But on to the content of her presentation…

Of all of the speakers, her work was the least-intentionally funny. In fact, according to Kelly, her pieces didn’t start off as purposefully funny at all, and it’s only recently that she’s begun to recognize and play up their comedic value.

This was maybe the most sincere statement of the evening.

Her presence there was valuable because she recognized and brought up the fact that reaction often doesn’t follow intention. And also that, as she put it, humor is often an invitation to something serious.

In the case of her work, the humor that exists is largely the humor that we, the viewers, superimpose on it. And it’s not just any humor, but a nervous, defensive kind of humor, because we aren’t quite sure what to make of it. If it looks kind of funny and acts kind of funny, well… it must be funny! Just like if it says it’s Tobias Wong and acts like it’s Tobias Wong, it must be Tobias Wong!

Paul Budnitz

Moderator excluded, Paul was my favorite of the bunch. He shared his art-making process with us in the distanced tone of a veteran and recognized the the money-making aspect of his work. In fact, he stated outright that he’s more like a curator at this point than an artist.

As I mentioned in my first post, there was one kind of frustrating aspect to his presentation. And that is that Paul’s approach to answering the subject of humor in his work was to plea ignorance. “I make objects that I delight in” was the default answer to most questions about how his work becomes imbued with humor both dark and light.

OK, but what informs your sense of joy? What life experiences and artistic influences came together to form your aesthetic? If he had answered those questions, we might have been able to get to the bigger question, “Where does wit come from and why?” Unfortunately, Ze was never quite able to pull it out of him.

But, again, he was a great asset to the panel on the whole. Most of all, I enjoyed getting a peek into his creative process, and will try to employ some of this “rules” for collaborative art-making in my group projects at ITP. Choice quotes:

• “The generative part of the creative process needs to be as distinct as possible from the process of deciding what’s good and what’s bad”
• “Bringing the conscious mind into the creative process kills it”

To deal with these issues, he and his collaborators perform rapid prototyping without any critique at all. Ideas are thrown out, and then they’re executed. If you say something negative about what’s going on, you have to leave the room. So great.

It’s been confirmed. The tall blond was a stand-in for the real Tobias Wong at Design, Wit and the Creative Act, hosted by Core77.

Quote from an e-mail…

Yes, you are correct. The guy who said he was Tobias Wong at the conference was not. [X] and I got the info from a woman who was helping at the conference when we were walking out. Apparently, they really organized it and practiced the questions ahead of time so that he would answer them to sound like Tobias Wong.

So, dear design community, you’ve been duped (and so have I).

As I wrote in my as-yet-unanswered e-mail to Ze Frank earlier today, seeking confirmation about the hoax…

“Though I am not personally a fan of being played for a fool, I get the joke. It’s a commentary on the nature of popularity through art and not through your own person. A commentary on how trust operates, a la Clay Shirky’s notion of social capital. And a commentary on how people in the art world are suckers.

I’m very surprised that those who are actually involved in the industry and claimed to be familiar with his work prior to the conference didn’t say a word. Only one other person who I talked to during cocktail hour mentioned being surprised at his uber-American appearance, but that’s where the conversation stopped. Oh the poor boy who had ‘Tobias’ sign his poster… he’ll feel like such a dope. Not to mention the others who gathered around him with praise and questions.”

The lineup for Design, Wit and the Creative Act, Core 77’s latest offsite event, promised to make for a fun and informative evening.

Ze Frank
Digital Age Satirist
zefrank.com

Tobias Wong
Artist
brokenoff.com

Paul Budnitz
Founder, Kidrobot
kidrobot.com

Kelly Dobson
Technologist
kellydobson.com

Steven Heller
Writer/Editor
hellerbooks.com

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First Impressions

As I walked into the Art Directors Club*, it seemed as though all of my ideas about what a design conference should look like had finally been realized.

Songs from an indie rock playlist filled the gallery-like space. A pair of young guys dressed in black fiddled with a video camera set up on a track that traced the back corner of the room. Attractive men and women with black-rimmed glasses sat in black folding chairs, paging through free copies of ID and Craft, or chatting near the coffee and Pepperidge Farm cookies.

It was, in short, the sexiest conference I’ve attended to date.

* (an appropriate and well-equipped venue, which I greatly appreciated after reading accounts of the horrible venue chosen for The Future of Webdesign)

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Ze Frank

The star of the evening was Ze Frank, who acted as moderator.

His ability to crack wise during awkward moments and play the jerky gentlemen helped smooth over bumps both technical and interpersonal.

Best of all, his bullshit barometer is well calibrated. On more than one occasion, Ze called out a speaker when he or she circled around or completely avoided questions. For instance, Paul Budnitz kept insisting that his morally-offensive aesthetic comes from nothing other than his personal sense of joy. Ze’s reply? “I guess I don’t buy [it].”

And did I mention he can name-drop DuChamp, Barthes and Sontag in a single sentence and not sound pretentious? Yeah. Great stuff.

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Steven Heller

There’s no question that Steven Heller is extremely well-qualified to speak at an event that deals with issues of design and “the creative act.” In fact, Ze pointed this out during his introduction and suggested that maybe Heller should have been the moderator. But the “wit” part tripped him up.

The crowd was unresponsive to his bogglingly brief slideshow, which seemed to focus on blunt humor more than wit — an important distinction. So he reverted to the role of “the unhip old guy,” inserting loudly lame jokes into his responses during the panel. As another attendee put it (too harshly, I think): “He just ended up looking creepy.”

But when he wasn’t trying to be funny, his insight into the history of the medium was refreshing in the midst of the others’ unintentional self-promotion. If he would have recognized the value in his ability to play the straight man instead of trying to mix it up with the younger crowd, he could have avoided the discomfort that he both obviously felt and sometimes evoked.

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Tobias Wong — or Not

It’s entirely possible that the man that was saw speak and present himself as Tobias Wong was, in fact, someone else entirely.

Before the event, I had seen only one small photo of Wong, which seemed to picture a dark-haired Asian man. So I was surprised when a very American-looking blond took the stage. But not being entirely familiar with him or his work, I took only a mental note of this, and listened on. Later that evening, another attendee mentioned his surprise at his appearance and I agreed. The conversation ended there.

But today I couldn’t get over the feeling that something about him wasn’t quite right. So I Googled his image and found that all of the results were of a short, thinnish Asian man with dark hair, kind of large eyebrows, and a mark on his chin. The man that we saw lacked any of these traits.

Observe…

(guy in the middle is Tobias Wong in 2006, via Inhabitat)

(guy on the right is “Tobias Wong” in 2007, via my Flickr photos)

I think it would take more than a dye job and some weight gain to make these two bodies belong to the same person in a little more than a year.

After hearing him speak about his work — and considering the topic — I have the sneaking suspicion that we were all listening intently and paying homage to someone who was, in fact, an actor.

I’ve been in a very conspiracy-theory kind of mindset since the latest Facebook fiasco, but I think I might actually be right here. If anyone has any comments on this, I would very much like to hear them, either here or via e-mail [heather (dot) rasley (at) gmail].

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Thoughts on Kelly Dobson and Paul Budnitz to follow.