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Sharing references and research. From Communication Design, Glasgow School of Art.

thusly: “Critical Design Council – Content Aware Square is a new initiative of students at Royal College of Art (UK), Werkplaats Typografie (NL), ECAL (CH), Gerrit Rietveld Academie (NL), UdK Berlin (DE), Manystuff (FR), Central St. Martins (UK), ENSAD (FR), and Yale University School of Art (US) to approach the question of criticality within graphic design as a practice and industry. The project will include both talks and discussion panels, as well as an itinerant reading room featuring bespoke publications produced by students and invited practitioners. The inaugural public meeting of Critical Design Council – Content Aware Square will take place in London at Café Oto on Sunday 24 February at 15h00. Invited speakers include Robin Kinross (Hyphen Press), Zak Kyes (AA Print Studio), Deterritorial Support Group, Charlotte Cheetham (Manystuff) and Maki Suzuki (Åbäke). Admission is free.”

thusly:

“Critical Design Council – Content Aware Square is a new initiative of students at Royal College of Art (UK), Werkplaats Typografie (NL), ECAL (CH), Gerrit Rietveld Academie (NL), UdK Berlin (DE), Manystuff (FR), Central St. Martins (UK), ENSAD (FR), and Yale University School of Art (US) to approach the question of criticality within graphic design as a practice and industry. The project will include both talks and discussion panels, as well as an itinerant reading room featuring bespoke publications produced by students and invited practitioners.

The inaugural public meeting of Critical Design Council – Content Aware Square will take place in London at Café Oto on Sunday 24 February at 15h00. Invited speakers include Robin Kinross (Hyphen Press), Zak Kyes (AA Print Studio), Deterritorial Support Group, Charlotte Cheetham (Manystuff) and Maki Suzuki (Åbäke). Admission is free.”

♦ 1 month ago

centuryofthechild: Boys in a Glasgow back court show off their Christmas presents, which include astronaut suits and Space Hoppers. 1970 Outer space, a new frontier, was sufficiently vast and mysterious to allow designers and toy manufacturers near-complete freedom of imagination and creation. One rather enigmatic but popular product was Mettoy’s Space Hopper. These bright orange vinyl bouncing balls, two feet in diameter, with kangaroolike faces and handles that resembled horns, are said to have been inspired by children bouncing on fishing buoys in Norway. Learn more at MoMA.org/centuryofthechild

centuryofthechild:

Boys in a Glasgow back court show off their Christmas presents, which include astronaut suits and Space Hoppers. 1970

Outer space, a new frontier, was sufficiently vast and mysterious to allow designers and toy manufacturers near-complete freedom of imagination and creation. One rather enigmatic but popular product was Mettoy’s Space Hopper. These bright orange vinyl bouncing balls, two feet in diameter, with kangaroolike faces and handles that resembled horns, are said to have been inspired by children bouncing on fishing buoys in Norway.

Learn more at MoMA.org/centuryofthechild

(via wnycradiolab)

♦ 1 month ago

Freicoin is a peer-to-peer (P2P) currency based on the accounting concept of a proof-of-work block chain used by Satoshi Nakamoto in the creation of Bitcoin.

Unlike Bitcoin, Freicoin has a demurrage fee that ensures its circulation and bearers of the currency pay this fee automatically. This demurrage fee was proposed by Silvio Gesell to eliminate the privileged position held by money compared with capital goods, which is the underlying cause of the boom/bust business cycle and the entrenchment of the financial elite, and has been tested several times with positive results.

Freicoin - easy-to-use demurrage currency (via new-aesthetic)

(via new-aesthetic)

new-aesthetic: “Here’s a more likely scenario: Though he didn’t realize it at the time — as most casual users of Facebook certainly wouldn’t — Matt revealed something about himself to Facebook when he commented on that post. (Ad buyers can target ads according to all sorts of criteria: location, age, birthday, interests, etc. It’s impossible to say for sure why Matt was shown this particular ad, but it certainly could have been something like this.) It wasn’t the full story — the surprising timeliness and specificity of the ad was, in all likelihood, a coincidence — but enough that Facebook ad buyers could make an inference about his sexual orientation, and target ads to that effect.” Facebook Knew I Was Gay Before My Family Did

new-aesthetic:

“Here’s a more likely scenario: Though he didn’t realize it at the time — as most casual users of Facebook certainly wouldn’t — Matt revealed something about himself to Facebook when he commented on that post. (Ad buyers can target ads according to all sorts of criteria: location, age, birthday, interests, etc. It’s impossible to say for sure why Matt was shown this particular ad, but it certainly could have been something like this.) It wasn’t the full story — the surprising timeliness and specificity of the ad was, in all likelihood, a coincidence — but enough that Facebook ad buyers could make an inference about his sexual orientation, and target ads to that effect.”

Facebook Knew I Was Gay Before My Family Did

♦ 2 months ago

Scotland’s first BFI Mediatheque has opened in Glasgow’s Bridgeton library - a renovation of an old cinema, the Olympia. It is completely free to access the collection of over 2000 titles, which includes film, tv and documentary, and spans from 1901 to present day. where to find it  available titles

Scotland’s first BFI Mediatheque has opened in Glasgow’s Bridgeton library - a renovation of an old cinema, the Olympia.

It is completely free to access the collection of over 2000 titles, which includes film, tv and documentary, and spans from 1901 to present day.

where to find it 

available titles

♦ 2 months ago

Algorithms go bad

New aesthetic. when algorithms go bad? m.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/02/amazon-withdraws-rape-slogan-shirt

algopop:

Google have released a promo video of what it might be like to have a pair of google glasses, suggesting certain behaviours we may adopt to make the most of the technology. Search, record, share and maps are all shown to be seamlessly integrated into the glasses, however the focus of the video is clearly the user behaviour which suggests we would all have incredible outdoor experiences and hobbies such as ice sculpting with chainsaws. The algorithms are designed to compliment our activities such as showing reference images of tigers to the ice sculptor, activated by voice recognition and analysis. 

Another layer of interaction subtly indicated by the promo is that of external users that look through the glasses worn by a friend or relative, such as the absent children watching a relative deliver a cake to the grandmother. This suggests the possibility of Google glass tourism, maybe even Google glass porn, for users that want to remotely experience the experiences of others.