I was always interested in field recordings involving shifting. Not just recording a single place, but being in constant transition of surroundings. For example taking a train ride from A to B and recording my immidiate environment.

For playing back such a recording, there should be ways much more interesting than traditional linear timelines as known from regular audio players. As an experiment, I mapped the recording of a segment of my way to work on a Google Maps screenshot of that very area in Hamburg. I have drawn a black line along the rails from start to destination, and a red dot is moving along that path as the audio plays back. To make the connection between the audio material and the map really clear, I used a discrete train trip from “Dammtor”, with one stop at “Sternschanze”, going to “Holstenstrasse”. The stop is obvious, but there are also announcements in the train giving an additional hint.

This is just a simple and rough example, but I think it opens up a lot of creative possibilities to work with field recordings, or sound representation in general. I’m definitely going to incorporate such ideas into my future music releases. There’s already geotagged sound, but technology and platforms should be soon ready to let us create and (re)use even more advanced and sophisticated data somewhere between audio, time and location.

Als Protest gegen die soeben in Kraft getretenen Internetsperren, befindet sich Spreeblick heute, am Mittwoch den 22. April 2009, im Streik. Wir haben Spreeblick über Nacht bei der Umsetzung dieser Aktion unterstützt.

Yesterday morning I was taking the ICE train back home. Since it was pretty packed, I decided to sit down in the train bistro and read a book. Which is quite a challence, since there’s a lot of people passing by all the time. But there’s something even more distractive than the people themselves: the automatic sliding door, or the door that’s supposed to slide open automatically.

Apparently, the proximity sensor only works for people taller than around 1,80 m (or 5,9 ft, if you’re in the US). For everybody else, the glass door just remains closed – leading to all kinds of reactions: people bitching and cursing, pushing all kinds of things they think could be a button, jumping, waving their arms, asking the bistro service person for help etc.

Of course, I was sitting right next to the scene, so I could have been a helping hand. But my book was too interesting, and I’m talking about a 4,5 hour train ride and approximately 75 people in need for assistance. These are bad excuses, but also the main reason I did not interfere was that older guy sitting vis-à-vis and the way he brilliantly managed the situation. Over and over again, so happy he could help (he was bored).

Apart from providing every irritated person in need for help with the same joke (pointing his empty cup of coffee as if he’d ask for money), he asked them to press the red button above the door. The interesting thing is that nobody really pressed that button, far too high to reach for the majority, but the door opened nevertheless. His idea probably was: if people are moving their hand towards the red button, their arm crosses the radius of the sensor and the door opens.

Maybe he actually thought they should press the button and was irritated himself. But anyway, how much more abstract and complicated would it be to say “move your waving hand towards that black area up there which has a proximity sensor built in to detect if somebody’s close to the door”. Explaining to trigger a motion sensor that doesn’t intuitively work as it should is probably more abstract than asking to press a red button.

I would say I’m a big fan of street art generally. I always loved urban visual culture “hacking” the often uniform appearance and identiy of a city – from the early days of Graffiti, to the classics, to the more unusual or advanced approaches.

This morning I came by a brand new piece, drawn on the pavement with chalk. It was totally attracting my interest, but I was also struggling to actually pay attention. It wasn’t about the piece itself – it’s nothing special I’d say, apart from the fact it is trying to be interactive (when I was first passing by, the chalk crayon was perfectly placed in its circle, when I came back 3 minutes later to take the photo, I already found it a meter away, knocked over and in crumbs and I had to carefully move it back for the shot).

I think my hesitation comes from being afraid of getting pulled into some more or less clever corporate street advertising campaign. The scepticism to look at it more deeply, but mainly to take a photo or write something about street art pieces in general. Same with apparently “misused” billboards where there is “art”, or pieces that look like art instead of the common ad bills – is it a street artist, using the opportunity of empty billboards, or just another outlet for an advertising campaign, officially and legally booked by some media agency?

I do for sure not categorically reject advertisment in the urban environment, apart from 98% of it being rubbish it totally belongs to urban visual culture. But in the realms of street art in the truest sense of the word, it really leaves mixed feelings when purely commercial corporations are trying to make such an originally independent creative movement their brand ambassador.

Update: Just found the following video by Antiadvertisingageny that fits in here a bit:

I’m totally into the graphic approach for the video timeline on the Water Incorporated website, but I like even more how playing back the video creates tension: what’s going to happen when the water reaches the tap?

The message of his presentation is: Design can improve your product, it can drive sales, it’s a business strategy. Well, of course I agree with that. It’s old news (just look at Apple as the poster child), but it’s certainly good to have another example that clearly proves the correlation between design and business success.

Utko recommends to give more power to designers. To involve designers early on in the strategic development, rather than being the last link in the chain. Again, I agree.

But the presentation fails to impress me, because it only shows nicely designed newspaper covers and spreads. You know, on paper.

Shouldn’t the holistic design strategy, which Utko advocates, look beyond paper and ink? News printed on paper will be a niche in a couple of years. No matter how well-designed those papers are, it’s only a question of time till they disappear. Increasing their circulation now by a redesign may delay their death, but it won’t save them. It just buys them time to make the changes they really need in order to survive.

I’m not saying that redesigns of newspapers are pointless. Companies should always think about how they can improve their product. But before trying to improve their product, they must ask what their product is.

The newspaper is not the product, it’s just the distribution method for the content. It’s of course still part of the whole customer experience and therefore important, but the core product is the content.

So if we are really talking about design as a business strategy, if we consider design as more than just choosing the right colors, fonts and images, if we really had the chance to sit in a meeting with the board of directors of a news publishing company, would we just suggest to redesign the newspaper?

Recently Christophe showed me this article (in German). It explains why certain products, especially in the wholefood business, either have a thin line crossing out the bars or a infinity symbol (a rotated 8) printed underneath the barcode. It all has to do with the myth that the barcode contains the evil number 666 and thus the food could be contaminated by the negative vibes… or something.

That reminded me off a bunch of fun, clever, non-standard barcode designs I’ve collected in the last years. Here’s a best-of (may take a while to load):

Hey, what’s that is a very interesting web-based visualization tool, telling you the names of mountains you see in the distance. I particularly like the aesthetic of the panoramic sketch and how it’s connected to the map below. An idea for a music video comes to mind, related to the House of Cards project by Aaron Koblin and Radiohead in that it is using data visualization techniques for a visual setting and storytelling.

Ever since the rise of twitter I had mixed feelings about it. One day I’m using it with euphoria, the other day I’m questioning its purpose, its effects, its fun – or I simply don’t know what to tweet. But I also believe there are several examples where people prove how twitter –and similar new forms of communication– can be very enjoyable and useful.

It may sound odd, but most of these in my opinion interesting examples are celebrities. I really enjoyed the twittering by the band Sonic Youth while their recording sessions in the studio, turning their twitter stream into some kind of real time liner notes medium, reporting some anecdotes from right behind the mixing desk. Or the actor Greg Grunberg aka Matt Parkman and other members of the Heroes cast and crew, providing a quite synchronized and insightful coverage from the production set. In both examples, well established scenarios like linernotes written on record sleeves or bonus “behind the scenes” material known from DVD extras are being transformed into something new, and in combination with their promptness and the sense of closeness to the people you admire creating an addictive new notion of communication and interaction.

Another great example are Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. They’re not only communicating towards their hundreds of thousands of followers, but also in between the two of them – in front of the same audience. What I find fascinating about them is how many updates they’re publishing (on twitter, but also via qik, a service to share real-time video streams from your cellphone) and how accessible they are. If you ask a question, its is very likely they’re going to get back with their thoughts and opinion. Direct access to hollywood stars, a strong sense of proximity and the possibility to directly interact –and identify– with them. The feeling of getting to know remote identities personally, to virtually go through thick and thin with them.

Creating suspense.

But also the other way around: Hollywood actors, surrounded by paparazzi (or “citizen paparazzi“, the youngest form) and security people protecting them from paparazzi must feel really disconnected from all these normal people on the other side of the big screen. These new services are giving them an immediate, seemingly intimate backchannel, yet publicly available to the masses (= enough room for self-expression and -promotion). Safe and without obligation, but for sure connective. Distance bridged with personal vocabulary, thoughts and anecdotes.

Relieving tension.

I think my fascination does not literally come from twitter or qik itself (will twitter, as a brand, as a medium, or even a protocol, how many people even call it, be still around in 5 years?), but from the playful and naive (in a good way) approach to something new. Things are changing more rapidly, and it’s a chance for everybody to find their own strategy to create something new. It will take a long time until new things are going to be established, and also, it won’t be about a few big things being replaced by another handful new things. When it comes to media, or the internet in particular, the future is much more versatile. If you’re now experimenting with all these unstable and manifold additions to your current reality, chances are good you’re going to benefit from the discussion and take a major next step.

Yesterday we were talking about a possible next step for celebrities. The first phase was creating proximity and interaction with fans and therefore smartly bypassing the mainstream tabloid coverage consisting of paparazzi and yellow press editors. The next step will be fighting fire with fire. The two images in this posting are taken from Demi Moore’s twitpic account, a platform to upload and post pictures for twitter via the web or your cellphone. She was obviously annoyed by these paparazzi guys, took photos and immediately uploaded them and showed them to her followers (which at this very moment means 224,174 236,134 people).

Wouldn’t it be intriguing if hundreds of celebrities worldwide, all bothered by paparazzi wherever they move, would connect themselves and arrange a date for a flashmob where they all suddenly pull out their own cameras and take photos and videos of the paparazzi, then upload their footage to the same website and share it with millions of people?

Original picture taken by Demi Moore, posted on twitpic

Colors, inspired by a photo of Tilda.