atlas(t)

mapping stereotypes

via Woffy, this hilarious collection of maps showing how Europe looks to various Europeens. Not a new idea, but still a funny one. Fortunately, this all doesn't really require commentary, but you might be interested to know that this is all the work of one UK-based designer.

Below is the map of how Europe looks to the U.S. Enjoy!

hyperart: thomasson

i'm so proud of our new book trailer!

I've been working with Kaya Press for about a year now, and we've produced two book trailers, each one for a book that it's really difficult to describe in words. The one above is for our new title -- available next week -- HYPERART: THOMASSON by Genpei Akasegawa. Akasegawa is a Japanese conceptual artist -- a contemporary and colleague of Yoko Ono -- who came up with the concept of "Thomassons" in the late seventies, early eighties.

When an urban structure loses its usage, but remains standing, attached to the property it used to serve, and still being aesthetically maintained, then it is a "Thomasson." We're talking about staircases that lead to nowhere, bricked up ticket windows, outside doors in the third story of a building, etc. Akasegawa contends that these things are not stairs, windows, and doors, but rather art shaped like stairs, windows, and doors: unintentional art created by the city; hyperart.

He and his colleagues refined the name to "Thomasson" because at that time, 1982, American baseball player Gary Thomasson was playing for the Japanese team the Yomiuri Giants ... or rather, NOT playing, because he couldn't seem to manage to hit a ball. Yet they still paid him to be there. Akasegawa thought him the perfect, living hyperart, and named the whole phenomenon after him.

In the mid-eighties, Akasegawa had a column in a Japanese photo magazine about Thomassons, where he accepted submissions of thomassons: photographs, and descriptions. He published these and discussed whether or not they were thomassons, why, and what kind. These columns were eventually collected into a book in the 80's which quickly became a cult classic among Japan's youth.

This publication is the first time that Hyperart: Thomasson has been translated. To mark the occasion, translator Matt Fargo created a Thomassons website where people can submit their own thomassons, as well as vote on whether or not submissions are thomassons, and discuss these.

And I'm working with Kearny Street Workshop to develop a guided performance tour of local San Francisco thomassons. The project is called "SF Thomassons" and there's a special page on Matt's Thomassons website for local exemplars from our stable of photographers.

And finally, Kaya and KSW are having a book launch partay on December 18 in San Francisco, where you can get a free preview of the tour. Yay!

drawing cities in perspective

a lousy tutorial, but a fun visual. (A clue to why it's a bad tutorial: he was a big Frank Miller fan. Plus, this is his first tutorial.) Anyhoo, don't watch the whole ten minutes, just skip through it.

This one has no soundtrack, which is also a mistake. And it's hard to see what's going on. Also, not as cartoony, so not as fun.

Whoa. That is trippy. It's a 180 degree image, as if taken with a fish-eye lens. This guy says he can go up to six-point perspective. That's drawing on a sphere. Wait, he's got one:

Isn't that crazy? Dude has insane spatial relations in his head. That's something I might could learn to DO (with pain and suffering and a lot of help), but could never learn to SEE.

This just makes me remember that all these drawing tricks are just tricks, to make us think we're seeing what we see when we look around us. 2D drawing is an illusion. Adding points to perspective doesn't bring you closer to how you actually see the world, it just allows you to draw more from the same vantage point. More from your 360 degrees from the same vantage point. Which is ridiculous, since you can't SEE 360 degrees from one vantage point.

So, how many points could you add, just to be ridiculous? And how would you do it? Where would you add the seventh point? Where would it take you, anyway? Would you be drawing 360 degress in all directions from the same vantage point, rather than just 360 degrees around the horizon line? And at that point, does it lose all visual coherence and become illegible?

taxonomy of pasta

i know I don't do taxonomy stuff anymore, but Wikipedia is such a treasure trove of hierarchically categorized random shit.

Check out this taxonomy of pasta.

Hungry yet?

map animation v

huh? Wha-? This one is literally two seconds long and is mysterious and interesting. Maybe because it's random and only two seconds long and has no soundtrack. Why would someone put something like this up on YouTube? Huh?

map animation ii

yeah, I have no idea, either. It starts out like the opening animation for a news broadcast, and then turns into ... nothing?

dave matthews gps

somehow, this just works for me. Except the part at the end where Dave Matthews actually shows up.

after sesshu foster

sad America, who will hold your Entropy Hand?

I will hold your Entropy Hand with Old World Simulacrum nestling your Adolescent Limbs.

I will hold your Entropy Hand with Airport Plaque sacred on your Haunted Asphalt.

I will hold your Entropy Hand with Jeepney Triumph remaking your Guilty Garbage.

I will hold your Entropy Hand with Crisp Canal Map logging your Lovely Bleeds.

 

I will hold your Entropy Hand with New World Simulacrum, spice for your Sand Foundation.

I will hold your Entropy Hand with Dried Tears Windshield for your Mourning Horizons.

shoe map

via a tip from my new best friend, Rob Duncan, comes this map from online shoe seller Zappos.

The picture doesn't look like much. That's because the map isn't static.

You're watching orders placed on the Zappos website, from all over the United States, coming in and being mapped to the location the order is being shipped to, in real time.

That's right, it's a hack that shows you where someone has just ordered an item from Zappos. It's weird, and weirdly cool, and as my new BFF puts it "weirdly compelling."

Go to it (during the day, when people are actually buying) and let it sit there for a while and watch the commerce happen right before your eyes. I can't exactly articulate what it tells you -- certainly nothing you can say in words. But it gives you a perspective I haven't seen anywhere else ... something about the velocity of internet commerce ... or the quiet incidence of consumption ... or how people nearly pass like ships in the night, on an ocean of pixels and electrical impulses, their bodies far away from each other and all unaware of what they, in that instant, have in common.

"considering an alternate san francisco"

how do we protect San Francisco's Presidio so that, in the future, Starfleet can build its headquarters there?

Life Without Buildings has an awesome post about that topic, addressing Star Trek's "Starfleet" architecture, the failure of sustainability, and bad proposals for modern art museums. Check it out.

Via.