cityofsound

London Quiz

Chris Heathcote's London-based quiz, 58 London Things, is fiendishly difficult. I'm claiming about 14 so far, and I daren't even submit those to Chris for fear of learning that they're all wrong anyway. Even if you know London; even if you wander around with with your head tilted upward at the buildings, eating it with your eyes, camera permanently poised, it'll be tricky.

Anti-mega: 58 London Things

Santa's Symphony

Thanks to Secret Santa, I am now the proud owner of Stravinsky: Orchestral Works. Hurrah! Thanks, Secret Santa!

Addiction to information

This post at Michael Honey's blog struck a nerve:

"The grim calculus: I'm almost 35. Give me, optimistically, 50 more years. I can average a book a week. That's just twenty-six hundred more books, including the ones I want to re-read."

OK, I have a year or so on you, Michael (I can read 50 more books than you!) but there's no way I average a book a week (oh). So, is that it? Only 2500 more books to go? That is scary. As the reading list in the right-hand nav will begin to indicate, I am snowed under with unread books. I must have a backlog of at least 500+ around the flat as I write. Seriously. And I keep buying more?!

Part of the problem is that I know I'll go and get a coffee in a minute and - despite myself - sit there for an hour reading some ultimately worthless Sunday papers. Otherwise, my workload doesn't leave me much time for reading. I don't have to commute to work on public transport (it's a 15 minute walk) so there's no 'forced reading time' there. And yet I love to read, I need to read, I love books. I must have them. I keep buying magazines too - there are two leaning towers of unread magazines in my living room. The number of blogs I read increases steadily; the number of emails I receive likewise (approx 300 a day, across 3 accounts).

Related: For a while, I wanted to keep an 'information diary' for a week, akin to what dieters do in terms of counting calories - keep a track of just how much my eyes consume. Count the amount of information coming in (perhaps even in bits? In the 'information theory' sense of that word, not kb downloaded per webpage). That would be across books, newspapers, magazines, blogs and other sites, emails, printouts thrust in my hand, and so on - ideally also posters I read in the street, notices, directions, tv and radio consumed, PS2 loading screens, things I write etc. That latter list is probably beyond my possible, accurate comprehension, but the former could be done. Might be interesting. Reminds me, somewhat ironically, of a book I really must finish off - Tor Norretrander's 'The User Illusion' [Amazon UK|US], which deals with notions of consciousness and information theory, how much information we can process, consciously/subconsciously etc.

Of course, the exercise would leave me with even less time to read books.

The Memory of Stones

Quick, while you can, listen to Peter Ackroyd discuss his great book Hawksmoor [Amazon UK|US] over at BBC Radio 4's Book Club. Click the Real Audio file under the heading 'Book Club' in this list of Radio 4 Arts shows. I say 'while you can' because it won't be around forever. To make it real easy, here's a direct link to the .ram file.

Attention seeking media

Interesting conversations with various at work at the moment, around the notion of background media consumption, with reference to radio and television. Radio has always been a supreme background medium, now it appears television is the same (recent research indicates that as much as half of all viewing at prime time is now 'background' i.e not main focus.) I've asked about this aspect of information density before, around background noise and in terms of combining with internet.

So this quote forwarded to me by Jem Stone was very timely indeed. This is from the BBC Yearbook of 1946:

"Viewing television is a very different activity from listening to sound broadcasts. The radio set can remain on for hours at a time; you can enjoy it as background to reading, writing, homework, housework (some people can even enjoy it as background to conversation, darts, or bridge). Viewing television is a very different activity from listening to sound broadcasts. The radio set can remain on for hours at a time; you can enjoy it as background to reading, writing, homework, housework (some people can even enjoy it as background to conversation, darts, or bridge). The television set demands your attention; you cannot enjoy television from the next room. You must sit facing the set, with the lights down or shaded, and if you are a normal viewer you will find yourself very reluctant to be disturbed during a programme that you enjoy. This puts a limit on the hours that the ordinary viewer can give to his viewing. Broadcasting must go on from morning till midnight, but television is quite another matter, as most viewers will soon find."

Television Is Coming Back

Urban Tapestries woven

Took part in the Urban Tapestries trial this morning. It was frustrating, bitterly cold, but ultimately hugely rewarding, due to finally being able to take part in a trial of something we've been thinking about for ages - collaborative authoring of information pinned to space via wireless networks (in terms of music, sharing, or history, say.) The Proboscis solution thus far has huge technical challenges within it, in terms of interaction design and information architecture, but their open, iterative approach feels entirely right. Watch that space.

As part of the trial, we were asked to complete blog entries straightafterwards. Which is what I did. Excuse the off the top of the head ramblings, interpreted by frozen fingers. My entry is third down, but read the rest for further context.

Urban Tapestries blog: Trial Feedback - Day 3

Pleix

A year ago I posted about a couple of infographic-inspired music promo videos - Royksopp and Plaid, and then Legowelt. All stunning.

The darkly funny and sumptuously constructed Plaid video was by Pleix:

"Pleix is a virtual community of digital artists based in Paris. Some of us are 3D artists, some others are musicians or graphic designers. This website is the perfect place to share our latest creations."

So it is. They have an archive of Quicktimes with their completely brilliant short films and promo vids for electronica, many of which seem inspired by information design (although the Kid606 one isn't but is quite beautiful.) Fabulous stuff. Regard!.

Pleix films
[via Jamie Tetlow - thanks!]

Envisioning memorials, buildings, cities

James Sanders pointed me at his new article at New York Times - and it's fascinating stuff. Viewing the presentation techniques of the WTC Memorial finalists, Sanders articulates a brief history of architectural imaging, from the École des Beaux-Arts' projets rendu to Hugh Ferriss' charcoal creations, through Gordon Cullen's 'storyboards' to today's CGI-rendered flythroughs.

"They also call attention to one of the oldest paradoxes of architectural practice: the techniques by which architects render their buildings, which you might imagine to be an afterthought to the actual process of design, have in fact had a powerful effect on the buildings themselves. Presentation doesn't just reveal the prevailing urban and architectural values of an era — surprisingly often, it helps to shape them."

As with most other professional design trades, architecture involves a lot of selling. I seem to remember a declaration - possibly in deliberately provocative Everyone Is A Designer 'manifest' [Amazon UK|US] - about the designer "being a performer" these days - that working with the client is all about your sales technique. Which is somewhat sad. And yet in a positive light, this is also the chance to engage the client, and the prospective users, in the project. With a project like the WTC Memorial, it's about consultation with a city of memories. So communicating the vision over and above the technical documentation is fundamentally important ... and here Sanders focuses on the models, the presentation techniques, the renderings, and now the flythroughs. All intended to portray the prospective building in the best possible light, and somehow evoke the surrounding city context. Thanks to the increasing sophistication of architectural thinking, this latter aspect is ever more important - yet even with a civic design project like no other, Sanders notes a reluctance to use modern systems which enable prospective users to view the building as they are likely to experience it.

"For all their high-tech gloss, the memorial sequences still hew to the traditional goal of all architectural rendering, which is to show a proposed design in the best possible light, not to simulate the actual experience of the completed project. Indeed, the presentations that most resemble films — a highly controlled sequence of images, laid out to a director's vision — are those that least mirror the common experience of making one's own way around an actual urban setting. The next step is to use three-dimensional computer modeling to create "random access" tours, allowing people to embark on their own virtual tour of a site, turning left or right as they choose, stopping to look around, doubling back or sitting down — in short, navigating the plans as they navigate the city itself. And that technology is already available ... Why can't evolving urban designs for the Trade Center site itself be shared with the public, not through pre-engineered animations but dynamic computer models allowing freedom of movement that would allow informed debate from those who will ultimately inhabit the area? Such a coordinated effort could mark the start of a thrilling era in architecture and planning, in which the newest, most advanced technology breaks through the barriers that have long separated the designer's dream from the citizen's vision."

New York Times: Taking the Memorial Designs for a Test Drive [reg. reqd. - free]

[grid::brand]

Futurist Campari Pavillion, Fortunato Depero, 1933.

With reference to Grid blogging [protocol notes] [live updates]