I was recently lent a great documentary film about Lancashire based film duo Mitchell and Kenyon. The pair were active in the early 1900s and shot Edwardian life to use as entertainment in the traveling shows. For example they would set up their camera to take footage of factory workers coming out of the gates at the end of the day- they would encourage people to get in shot and people smiled and waved and stuff and then the film would be shown the following evening as part of a nights entertainment and people would come and watch themselves on the screen.
It’s fascinating to historians as it provides a valuable insight into life then and specifically in and around the North West of the country. But I think it’s more interesting when you start to consider spectacle and documentary and home video. It’s also really interesting as when you see footage of these people from a hundred years ago (which normally you see as static photographs) you quickly understand what a short time ago it was and, we always consider people back then to be juddery (thanks to different frame rates on many cameras and stuff ) or stiff (as in the smart photographs) but when you see people moving around freely and normally (and I know it sounds stupid, but as you or I would) the anachronistic clothing and cars and stuff is forgotten a human connection emerges which I hadn’t expected. You do get a real sense for the people in the images- smiling and being excited about this new technology. I wish I could have that novelty of being filmed and watching myself on screen in such an innocent way as they did. Sadly it will never be- I’ve grown up with cameras and video and the spectacle of cinema and the unreal on screen, not to mention the fact that any city dweller has to give into the fact that they are probably filmed 50 times a day (or whatever the scaremongers tell us).
Don’t normally gratuitously post graphics (there’s too much pretty stuff in the world). But here are a couple of particularly amazing bits of work- one from Artist and Illustrator Anne Harild who made these collages about the modernist housing estate Bryant Court in Hackney from photos of the area. I think it’s the jeuxtposition of modernist building against the irregular shed-like quality of the ‘dwellings’ that gets me. So much lovely texture.
And this piece buy graphics legend Marian Bantjes speaks for itself- pointless and beautiful decoration of a laser dinghy, referencing another graphic design classic- dazzle ships.
Moving house double bike- I think there is a real place for proper cargo bikes like this in ‘The New World’ (which I’m working on creating) I love the idea that the modern family still has a garage where the car is replaced by one of these.
I think it’s interesting how Puma are advertising their product now. And as I had this queued up to blog I came across these other trainer adverts, trying to push their products in a similar ‘not-so-sporty’ way.
These trainers have built in foursquare- geotagging trainers- orwellian or brilliant?
but heres some things i did today. My camera worked long enough to delete every other photo - which is why i havent taken any photos for so long.Maybe i will try to start documenting again.
This is a machine which as far as I can tell- has a story loaded on it and then takes keywords and compares those to keywords in patents in the US patents office- it finds the images associated with the words and then draws them- a drawing for every word. So you end up with a story told in amazing diagrams and drawings. Read the website, watch the video…….. link: http://storyteller.allesblinkt.com/
Little bit late but here it is. Went to the RCA in short- was surprisingly disappointed with the Interactions work- I think now that most people can use an arduino a bit and appreciate that electronics and stuff isn’t as hard as it used to be, the magic has left a bit. I’m not impressed now by a sensor or a projector with a something on it- I’ve seen it before- quite a bit. It all needs to be coupled with an intelligent and good idea which didn’t seem as apparent as in previous years. I was surprisingly pleased with the Product stuff though- don’t know why- perhaps because a fair bit of the interactions electronicy stuff has osmosised over- as I said- all that stuff is a lot more accessible than it used to be- the best piece of electronic interaction that was there was in the Design Products space.
Pressed Chair by Harry Thaler. Not often I like chairs- but this one seems to actually live up to it’s eco concepts- I like that if you left it outside it might begin to look like a watering can. I think the raw metal one would look better with age- tricky to do.
Disappearing by Andrew Friend. Read the website and see the pictures. I like this one for a few reasons- the objects look like they are older than they are- the one for the sea looks like a 20 year old buoy. Also the project only comes alive in the photographs- the objects are almost by the by- the photos are the heroes here- contextualising the objects in wall sized photographs at the show was a winner- I’ve got a real thing at the moment for how far do you need to take a project before it’s a project.
