Corporate Connection (2003) is now part of my blog, and not only on Flickr. You are welcome to visit it, interact with it, and leave some comments too.
With the help of MapLib, I was able to mash my image with the technology of Google Maps. But this is only semi-interactive.
Lately I’ve started to think about the next version of this creation. I believe (and hope) its going to be very interesting and not so far from now.
Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot
The Onion are getting better any day…
[Via Tal Galili's Hitchhikers Guide to Statistics (Hebrew)]
Yesterday I noticed that I had 9 more favourites by visitors to my Corporate Connection artwork on Flickr. This is quite unusual, even for this highly visited piece if work. I checked the statistics and I was shocked: instead of the normal 10, 15, 20 people visiting the page every day, I had 1,774 views only for yesterday.
70% of those arrived from Jason Kottke‘s post about Corporate Connection. Only problem is that the post is dated to 15th February, 2006, less than 2 years ago.
I wonder what triggered the arrival of all these people?
PS. Since then I had 7 more favourites added…
I’m thinking on many things lately. Mainly, on what I’ll grow up to be. Am I going to be a graphic designer? a web designer? a filmmaker? Or is it going to be some kind of interface designer… or a game designer.
Sometimes I’d like it to be a mix of all the things I do. Could it be?
I’m confused.
I’m growing up, I can feel it. And in some ways I feel that I might miss the train. I have some great ideas, and I find it hard to bring them to life. I think I’m waiting for something and I don’t know what. I’d just like to move on.
I’ve been sending some applications for internships. For all three subjects that are intersting to me: design for print, design for web and film production. I tried also for the game industry, but it seems there aren’t a lot of them, at least not in the design section.
I feel that I’d like an answer. Should I go this way? Should I go that way? or should I turn to a total different direction?
Some say the world is my oyster. I sure hope it is.
Since iTunes 7 went to the public, mashed up with Cover Flow, I’ve been obsessed with finding the covers to most of my albums. It actually started to annoy me when I didn’t have the covers.
The biggest problems is the collection of mashup tracks that I’ve got. I don’t know how I got them but some of them are really good (Radiohead with Sneaker Pimps for example). And for the most of them, I don’t know who created them.
So I decided to group them all together and create a logo and album cover to clarify that these are mashups.
The logo was inspired by iTunes symbols for Shuffle and Repeat.
During the design process, I had the vain idea that it will become the international recognised symbol for mashups. Yes, Recognised all over the world for what it is.
So in order to help me achieve it, and organize your library – you can download, use and share it if you like. Oh, and mash as well.
[Download files: album, gif or eps]
‘Abstractions‘, ‘Photoelectric’, and ‘Fast Life and Dematerialized‘, were born from a feeling of sudden realization of the beauty embedded in everyday life.Going around with a camera, be it a film, digital or mobile phone camera, whilst having the ability to photograph everything and everywhere, made me more attentive to the world around me, especially to small and everyday objects.
When I was paying a close attention, everyday objects suddenly appeared to me new, unusual and even in an abstract form. The beauty I felt to revealed absorbed my attention, carried me away and evoked the desire to share this special experience.
Implementation of the long exposure technique on objects and people in movement produced a result which coordinated with my perception of reality – the city in a constant movement, the people who are in a constant hurry to achieve ‘the next thing’. In the theatre of fast city life, the settings and the surroundings stay in the same place, preserved throughout the historic periods, while the people always move, never stop in the same place and vanish into oblivion. I wanted to stop in the midst of this never-ending process and freeze that special moment, to capture the everlasting movement in a single moment in time.
Most of these pictures were taken without arrangement or plan, but were born out of a sudden urge to capture a different view of the everyday life and objects.
(From my portfolio)
Anagram map of London Underground
Mirror of the original at Geofftech.co.uk
About a week ago Boing Boing posted on a map of the London Underground where the station names were anagramed.
Then came the sad post that Transport for London censored the map, as it breaches copyright. Instead of the original map the page now reads: “Content removed at the request of Healeys Solicitors acting on behalf of Transport for London and Transport Trading Ltd.”
And then came the solidarity movement…
It started with Robot Johnny who produced an inspired version that remixes the Toronto Transit Commission’s subway map with anagrammed station-names”.
Update: Since then the TTC cencored this map as well…
Then came remixed versions of the Amsterdam Metro and the Metra Map of Chicago.
The other day Boing Boing added a list of maps from around the world that influenced by the original censored version.
Oslo Anagram Map
Courtsey of The Martin
The Precision Blogger decided to make a really unorthodox version of the Subway map of New York, and maps of Atlanta, Boston, and Oslo.
Then came the anagramed U-Bahn of Vienna, the “DC Metro map anagram mix“, Stockholm, Los-Angeles, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Baltimore.
Then the first and the second booms arrived and the remixes of Calgary, Vancouver, Philadelphia, buffalo, Hong Kong, Seattle, Minneapolis and Detroit, together with Miami, Dublin, Ontario, Dallas, Galsgow, Portland, OR, Ottawa amd Houston appeared online.
Sidney Anagram Map
Courtsey of Leslie Nassar
The never ending story also brought the maps of Montreal, Helsinky, Monterrey and San Diego.
Last, but I’m sure that not for long time, joined the NY/NJ Path and Sidney.
Thus the story ends with 2 outlawed anagrams and over 30 different anagram-maps from different cities of the world. I reckon this is a marvellous demonstration of the power of solidarity on the web. I believe the ideals of copyright should change, especially when they concern art. No money making scheme was in any of these maps and the whole concept is made with humour. I think that the executives of TFL should learn something about humour as well as about creativity.
And now, the first manifestation of the change in the minds of executives. This is what Adam Livingstone, a producer of BBC’s Newsnight wrote yesterday:
First though, an apology. File sharing is not theft. It has never been theft. Anyone who says it is theft is wrong and has unthinkingly absorbed too many Recording Industry Association of America press releases. We know that script line was wrong. It was a mistake. We’re very, very sorry.
If copyright infringement was theft then I’d be in jail every time I accidentally used football pix on Newsnight without putting “Pictures from Sky Sport” in the top left corner of the screen. And I’m not. So it isn’t. So you can stop telling us if you like. We hear you.
Please stop with the ‘cease and desist’ orders and accusations of copyright infringement for they will not stop creativity but will harm the corporations more then they think.
Let us do our art in peace.
Update: The final cities have joined the party: Brisbane, Syracuse and Chicago.
Thank you guys for doing this and thank you BoingBoing for the networked platform to tell the world about it.
My next web installment is now online, and again – thanks to Flickr.
The new research I have started is an implementation of an idea that I had for quite some time.
Since I started doing Corporate Connection in 2003 I had this idea in my head: How can I search for certain logos and symbols based on thier shapes or colours? How can I know which are the logos that have an orange circle and a blue line? Or a wing?
I wanted to find these possible connections between
similar symbols, and now, with flickr, I can do it. By using their tagging option I can add all the information I want to a certain logo and make it searchable through their engine. Its easy and I couldn’t do it better myself, so I am doing it with them…
I’m collecting the logos and uploading them to a new Flickr account, which I opened especially for this purpose. In addition, I attached to the logos the information that Wikipedia has to offer when available.
I’m still uploading the logos of the most common brands, which will take some time. This is going to be an ongoing research and constantly expanding database. I plan to include the logos of the obscure and unknow brands as well.
I’m sure the results are going to be interesting. I hope you’ll enjoy them as well.
