Capitol Theatre, Singapore.
Possibly the greatest cinema in Singapore in its heyday is now being redeveloped and redesigned by Richard Meier. Meanwhile, my friends at Poskod.sg feature some amazing photographs of the ruins of Capitol, taken by Philipp Aldrup before re-building works commenced.
Bertrand Russel on teaching
- Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
- Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
- Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
- Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
- Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
Humanizing storytelling on the web
Jonathan Harris of projects such as “We feel fine” shares the thought process behind Cowbird, a storytelling platform that attempts to add a layer of human emotions to the web.
From Cowbird’s site:
Cowbird is a small community of storytellers, focused on a deeper, longer-lasting, more personal kind of storytelling than you’re likely to find anywhere else on the Web.
Cowbird allows you to keep a beautiful audio-visual diary of your life, and to collaborate with others in documenting the overarching “sagas” that shape our world today. Sagas are themes and events that touch millions of lives and shape the human story.
Our short-term goal is to pioneer a new form of participatory journalism, grounded in the simple human stories behind major news events. Our long-term goal is to build a public library of human experience, so the knowledge and wisdom we accumulate as individuals may live on as part of the commons, available for this and future generations to look to for guidance.
Access to cowbird is via invite only. Also, check out their tips to tell great stories.
“ Let’s prototype more in cities, lets pilot more. Let’s not think everything has to be huge—but things could be more agile.”
Living Labs Global
A marketplace platform to matchmake cities with service providers who might already have solutions to their urban needs. Think many Asian cities could find some help on this platform.
About curation
I’ve been discovering a lot of materials (and debate) about ‘curatorship’ in recent times with some circles arguing that the term ‘curator’ has been bastardized by many. Here, I see a parallel with the debate of who gets to call themselves ‘artists’ or ‘designers’ and as the famous argument now goes, knowledge of Photoshop or Illustrator does not make you a ‘designer’.
Today, the barrier to entering the curatorial game is so low that anyone with a Tumblr or a Pinterest account can start their own collection and predictably, some curators feel challenged by this changing context. I say don’t be because in the long run, the laws of natural selection will come into play and the truly good curators will rise high above the mediocre ones.
And that other huge debate whether ‘curation’ is valid authorship? I say “Yes, it is”.
Further reading:
- Buzzfeed: “Why we need curators” - Buzzfeed
- Brain pickings: What We Talk About When We Talk About “Curation”
- Fast Company: Content curators are superheroes
Domus: Critique of Facebook's Timeline by Dan Hill
Dan Hill (city of sound) dives into Facebook’s Timeline and gives an in-depth critique of the design decisions and conceptual thinking behind Timeline. The article explores the ideas about timelines, information design, social graphs, identity, representation and also dives into the debate of remembering vs forgetting.
While Facebook Timeline is a quite brilliant example of a contemporary interaction design retrofit, it appears unsure of the value in forgetting. Through Felton et al’s careful layering and aggregating, older memories are not immediately obvious, but Mayer-Schönberger would point out that they are still all there, and for him at least, that may be building a problem.
Also, check out the interview with Nicholas Felton, now of Facebook, about social media noise, design and sneak peeks into some early mockups of Timeline without annoying ads at the right sidebar.
“ Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”
(via youngfolksociety)
Information overload, it is really up to us
In this piece, Danah Boyd of Guardian asks the question “What role does social media play in generating or spreading societal fear?”.
Follow her argument through the post and see how the culture of fear drives a lot of our actions on the Internet. She then closes it with a take-away message that resonates deeply with me.
One thing’s clear: it’s high time we examined the values that are propagated through our tools. We all need to think critically about the information we create, consume and share. We all need to take responsibility for helping shape the world around us.
