| Jan 09 |
Archive for the 'Culture' CategoryStuff I Liked 2009 – Music2009 was about getting back into music in a pretty big way. Not only in listening to a whole lot more, but actually buying and even making some. I’ve pretty much dumped the idea of buying CDs from old skool shop type places and moved to buying it online or simply downloading it. I suspect this is because my music playing system(s) are all now digital. I haven’t had a CD player that works (aside from the laptop) for well over a year and my 30 year-old amp is fast becoming an anacronistic desktop weight rather than a well-used piece of music equipment. So I’ve started downloading stuff, which goes straight to the iTunes library and there to the numerous iPods/Phones that I have. And while purists might diss the quality of the mp3s and even the lossless compression versions, I really can’t tell the difference. I even went back and saw some live events! And not just bullshit cello/turntable catastrophies. Seasick Steve in Manchester was great, the most superbly refrained standup audience I’ve ever been in with the exception of the devastatingly drunk lurching Chav Family, who found the experience so horrifying they had to stumble to freedom halfway through. But Daedelus at the ICA in July was awesome. Superb ninja shape cutting dancing and excellent music. My own music is still in a very basic shape, but it’s slowly coming along.
So what was I listening to and what did I like in 2009. One useful side effect of digitising my entire music listening experience is that it can all be measured. Unfortunately, none of the various measuring elements link to all my devices, which is a pain. Anyway, of all of them, the iTunes list is probably the most comprehensive. According to this, my top tracks for 2009 are:
All of which gives a somewhat skewed view of 2009. However, if you look at just the music that was released in 2009 (or was new to me in 2009), a slightly different picture emerges.
|
| Jan 05 |
Archive for the 'Culture' CategoryDieter Rams DesignsJust spent some time at the Dieter Rams exhibition at the Design Museum and I can now see not only why there were so many ‘Apple is the new Braun’ articles around the time they decided to get all perforated aluminium with their machines, but where the thinking behind the design comes from. Rams led the Braun design team for 40 years and developed a powerful philosophical approach to design which is summed up in his ten principles of design. ![]() Early portable tape machine (requires several strong people to carry)
The range of items the Braun team applied these principles to was enormous, from toasters and cigarette lighters to tape machines, home film cameras, music systems and shavers. And the exhibition shows off many of them and you can see the realisation of the principles in the spartan design as well as the design vocabulary of the buttons and shapes that have become utterly iconic. It’s impressive how few of today’s products even begin to meet Rams’ principles. And you can also see the effect Rams’ principles have had on modern industrial designers, not least Apple’s Johnathan Ive, whose commentaries on his designs echo Rams’ early experiences as a carpenter and artisan. In particular, how the design for the iPod epitomises much of what Rams was doing and thinking, much more so than the perforated aluminium Mac towers. It’s just a shame that, while they’ve got a new MacBook and iPod, they haven’t actually got any kind of quote from Ive himself. ![]() Once we all dreamt of having hi-fi systems like this (with a record player and tape machine) Overall, it’s a nice exhibition and the exposure to Rams’ principles is inspiring, but I would have liked to have more commentary on the development of the principles and when and how Rams came up with them. I’d also like to have had more of a direct link to current products that echo these principles, the one case of stuff they have is hardly enough to suggest a long-term legacy. Otherwise you’re left with a bit of a feeling that this is an exhibition about the past (and the past of Braun in particular), rather than one about a powerful design philosophy that is as relevant today as it ever was. |
| Dec 31 |
Archive for the 'Culture' CategoryStuff I Liked 2009 – Movies and TVOK – after what seems like an age, it’s time to recall some of the best things I found over the last year. Movies and TV Last year’s best movie was French (the awesome OSS117), so there was no chance of that happening again. Instead we went off on a sci-fi vibe, I guess some kind of instinctive reaction to the economic implosion and the apparent death of vision and dreaming made flesh in the doom and gloom of the real world. It seems to me that sci-fi is doing what it always did best, providing clear visions of the future based on the prevailing philosophies and moods of the present. As a result we’re seeing futures that, if not echoing the total dystopia seen in the 1970s, at least mirror some of the concerns of today. And at a time when no one, politicians, broadcasters, entertainers, media etc seem capable of presenting us with an even palatable vision of life in the next decade, it’s no surprise that sci-fi is coming back in a big way. What is surprising is that it’s coming at us from so many different angles – not just movies, but books, TV series, comics etc – and that this is the most comprehensive channel for discussion or thought about where we’re heading. So … Best movies and TV
Meanwhile in the shit pit …
|
| Dec 24 |
Archive for the 'Culture' CategorySome Cool Things I Did This Year – Videos |
| Sep 03 |
Archive for the 'Culture' CategoryLong Time ComingSo yeah, I had the birthday, which was very enjoyable thanks for asking. We went off to see the David Byrne ‘Playing The Building’ installation at the Roundhouse during one of its ‘bring your own tambourine’ evenings, which had the potential for both awesome spectacle and truly painful knitted raffia music. The reality was a bit half and half. I felt a little let down by the installation. While it’s a great idea – a kind of artistic Einsteurzende Neubauten (go google them) without the full on destruction – I thought it veered too far in the direction of installation rather than an actual functional experience. You can see that the single piano-cadavered instrument sitting in the middle of the Roundhouse makes a fantastic image, stark, empty and a fusion of ancient and modern, but it would have been far more interesting to have more instruments controlling the sounds made by the building. Certainly more people would have been able to interact with it than were allowed for by the single piano and you’d have had a much more exciting, cacophonic experience. It was, however, a genius idea to allow people to come in on certain evenings with their own instruments. Again, this could have been a recipe for disaster. Instead it was somehow incredibly touching and polite as bunches of people with guitars, tubas, those mouthy blow organ things that the guy in Gang of Four had, toy instruments and a variety of other wind and percussive things strolled around the space playing their own things, while trying not to overwhelm anyone else. And while it could have gone all Glastonbury porridge field, it somehow didn’t. Not my usual thing, but really good. Meanwhile in my search for the perfect iPhone app, I’ve discovered two really sweet ones. The first is the carefully hidden tilt-shift filter in Photo FX (find it in Lens fx /depth of field). Tilt-shift being the effect that makes everything look like it’s a teeny weeny little model as exemplified by my favourite Monster Truck videos (see this post). While hardly perfect, it’s pretty good as you can see from these images. I would like to be able to alter the blur areas but that’s just being picky. The other great app is iDrum Underworld. A bunch of Underworld tunes, including Cowgirl, Born Slippy and King of Snake, which you can mix up and use to create your own stuff. Really compelling and pretty addictive. As one review said, ‘This steals your life’. I’ve also started to get back into running using my favourite social media site (or at least the one I’ve been most active on), Nike+. I’m using their now-working-pretty-well Coach facility, which has me doing very simple daily runs, although that will ramp up as the weeks progress. You can follow my attempts to get one leg in front of the other on Twitter. |









Stumble it!