1920s Japan

I'm trying to figure out what it was like to grow up in 1920/30s Japan. I think I'm going to interview my grandmother at some point in this, but I'm doing a more cursory look at references in the meantime.

Soft Robotics & Explosive Chambers

Harvard's silicone based "soft robotics" research has produced some fascinating results; here's a soft-body robot designed with elastic chambers containing a methane / oxygen mix which combusts provided an electric charge. The combustion within the body of the robot causes a violent but reasonably controlled spasm, launching the robot into the air. Sweet.

日本の昔々

Japan, the 1800s; lifestyle and photographic presentation.

Our Relationship with the Written Word

Written word is one of the earliest forms of phenomenological design, a means to affect the presence of another person within the mind of the reader. It's a powerful and emotional phenomenon when executed by a skilled author, weaving engaging narratives and endearing, rich characters all from the simple context of a common written language.

Techniques in written word have been evolving since the advent of written language and technologies for the distribution of written word have matured over the ages to reach the mass market, but written word has always maintained a single fundamental feature: that the reader's copy of the material is static, non-interactive despite its faculty for delivering emotional depth. Even a written letter has a static nature, despite its purpose in demanding a response.

Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements

The most momentous and glorious discovery I have ever made on the internet.

Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements is an online compendium of technical diagrams (even animations!) for five hundred and seven mechanical movements used in simple machines.

Fascinating and hypnotizing, it's a testament to the quintessential human faculty for engineering.

One look is enough to make you want to drop everything and make like Michel Gondry. Anyone else ridiculously excited about Mood Indigo (L'écume des Jours) by the way?

Blue (1993)

Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.
Writer / Director Derek Jarman
Blue (1993) on IMDb

The Pokeymans Project: a Transmedia Experiment

Here's an excerpt from The Pokeymans Project, a prolific little tumblr where the author and illustrator, Noelle Stevenson, (whose webcomic NIMONA other tumblr are also awesome) takes a submitted description of a real, licensed Pokemon character and attempts to render the character with no other input.

Sundance Winner IRISH FOLK FURNITURE

Have you seen the Sundance winner IRISH FOLK FURNITURE? It's a wonderful little meditation on design and tradition. It delivers nostalgia, aesthetics, humor, and a documentarian style without pretension. Awesome!

Color - Method of Action

Cool little color game to test your color acuity. Check it out!

What is Phenomenology?

Today we're going to talk about a concept you might already be fairly familiar with, even if you haven't had time for much critical thought on the subject before now. Phenomenology literally "the study of that which is apparent", is the study of experience established by Edmond Husserl in the early 20th century. Phenomena (that which appears or is apparent) was defined by Immanuel Kant in his 1781 "Critique of Pure Reason" by its contrast with noumena, a "thing-in-itself".

Via r/Design: Simple, Easy Mockups

Ikea picture frame, printout of your template, dry (or even better, wet!) erase marker.

As efficient as it is to just sketch on your iPad or whatever I still feel there's still too much latency in the task: there's still a more direct mind-to-execution link drawing freehand, on paper or glass. The distribution convenience of the digital interface isn't a problem; it only takes a second to digitize the sketch with a camera phone.

The post is here. Cool.

Phenomenology of the Beat: Neuroscience of Music

Fascinating article by Virginia Hughes at NGO's Phenomena details the research gathered by Dartmouth student Beau Sievers for his Master's thesis in Electroacoustic Music regarding the curious fact that the same regions of the brain activate while perceiving motion and perceiving music.

Sievers' thesis, which is available on his portfolio website, sourced its fundamental data from a program Sievers coded which would procedurally generate 16 seconds of musical tones or video of bouncing, shivering egg given certain adjustable parameters: tempo of tones or the egg's motion (beats per minute), variance from the set tempo (jitter), dissonance of scale or shivery wrinkling of the egg's skin (consonance), the harmonic distance from the current tone to the next tone or height of the egg's bounces (big/small interval probability), and the probability that the next tone will be higher or lower than the current, expressed by the egg as a lean forward or backward (up/down probability).

Les Miserables: Group f/64 & Pictorialism

If you haven't seen Les Miserables yet, go see it. You may have some trouble adjusting to a head-to-toe, front-to-back musical. You certainly may cry. You also, if you're like me, may notice how seldom the gorgeous sets and blocking are delivered to us in wide shots.

豊前の家 in Fukuoka - Suppose Design Office

SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE built my mind-stretch of the day: a home in Fukuoka, Japan, that implies a tiny village of separate purpose-made structures in place of a unified shelter with separated rooms.

Oh Land: White Nights

It's been around for a bit but the music video for Oh Land's "White Nights" is a really well put together example of some of the new trends in art direction in the indie scene. Companies are getting comfortable sinking more of their money into outlandish projects and production costs are dropping: we're bound to see a lot more of this kind of richly art directed content.

Scenes No. 001: La Nina del Desierto

I'm starting a series of posts, "Scenes," about scenes that I feel like I end up talking about a lot, exchanging stories with work buddies and debating ways to approach certain problems. Big shoots, small shoots, whatever's an interesting enough situation to talk about.


For my first Scenes post I wanted to talk about what we did back in 2009 for the climax of La Nina del Desierto, with director Malachi Rempen. This is old news to a lot of people but it's come up a couple times this week and it's old so I thought it'd make a good start.