MP/10

the last couple of days have got me thinking about public service design. This is one ive always wanted to do!

MP/09

Busking Info sheet progress. Just about to start vectoring up the map for the reverse side.

Tragic Spam

Today I received this spam comment. Classic.

The tiger is gone from my husband and he is not interested in my body to make romantic intimate love and will not touch me. His testosterone levels are normal. He can get ready ok to perform and make intimate love and he says he is not cheating. He says he is just tired for love making but, finds energy to do all his hobbies.

What is wrong with me? I am not ugly, I get hit on all the time by men of all ages, even 20 year olds, I am 35. I am very clean about my body. I am not inhibited sexually and have told him that I would try anything he wants.

MP/08 The Conversation Never Ends

Found this great sign in an alley in town. It’s a lovely site of conversation, even if it’s just simple tagging. It wasn’t what Dave Clark had in mind - which makes it great.

I reckon designers like the idea of the final, completed work, the ‘finished product’. Even the sites of this apparent finality/wholism are not safe from discourse and discussion. Should our job simply be as curators and facilitators in the user revolution?

MP/07

This little experiment was about creating places for music performance down town. It’s pretty simple but the idea is that it gives people a platform to express themselves in a public landscape dominated by commercial messages.

MP/06

Been doing a little thinking about the way music is in the current climate. What struck me is that it’s essentially a global busking culture. Anyone can hear a song, anywhere, as they traverse the blogosphere or myspace world, and decide whether or not they’re going to pay for it, support it, get involved etc…

To be honest i’ve payed for most of the music i’ve got. If there’s an artist i really dig i’ll buy their stuff out of respect. If someone burns me a copy of the current top 40 i don’t care so much about it. Radio/tv royalties surely earn those artists and labels enough. But that’s the point. we make these calls. we justify what was in the old world called stealing.

What’s the distinction between the high quality version i can listen to on Youtube and the equivalent file on my hard-disk? As far at the computers are concerned, they’re the same 1’s and 0’s. We attach the value, it’s an arbitary construction and subject to challenge.

Anyway busking… I think busking works better online than in the real world at the moment. I’d like to bring some design sensibility and organisation to busking. Can we map the hot spots? Empower the performers so they get the most out of their 15 minutes of fame? Could we make them hugely famous? That could be funny…

I have to start somewhere. I’m going to start by creating a document that explains the rules and regulations of busking in Wellington to budding performers. The council documentation is confusing and contradictory and i’m buggered if i can make sense of it after a couple of hours.

I’m thinking A3 that folds up. the cover so far:

MP/05

A roundup of a few things that are inspiring me at the moment:

http://www.rense.com/general7/whyy.htm

Every single piece in Candy Chang’s portfolio.

What’s been changing?

• The local cd store closed. It’s actually harder for me to go buy a real CD than it is to download the bits i like.

• The death of the album. Rise of the compolation/remix

• Role of a brand is now to facilitate communication/sharing knowledge between peoples rather than to deliver a brand experience.

• The stage is really big. Even bedroom music is public art.

• Avant garde-ist user control of the public arena dominated by commercial messages

• Subversion of commercial messages… Complication of  commercial messages..

• Designers should facilitate user activity that creates community.

> EG Candy Chang’s Project Moustache.

• Music is especially good at articulating what a general audience is really thinking/feeling.It says the unspoken, or the un-say-able….

  > Free from the bound of personal judgement, it’s externalised to The Thing - the work, the song, etc.

  > Using design, say what we really think about some things. Be constructive. Facilitate the discussion and the debate.

MP/04

A couple of continuing experiments with this project. In the second one I was really taking to heart the idea of remixing existing work and making new things out of it that differ from the intention of the parts.

Van Graphics

Working on some graphics this week with Mr Kirk Beyer for the fleet of FITE vans.

BeST Awards Entry

Akzidenz, baby! is going in the NZ Best awards! I’m really interested to see what the judges make of it - it’s a strange piece, but probably my favourite project from design school. We took some better photos at work (thanks Ying), have a look.