Obsessions : Day 040

Britney, the walking mass of contradiction that she is, would be a fine emblem of unattainable sexuality, placed onto record site posters and bus benches in lieu of musicality or, really experienced sexuality. Teens and 65 year old men lust after her, and scoff at her claims of "image control" and being a role model. The claim that she is a virgin is meant to be clever; it rings hollow since no one believes it, except for a couple people whose chastity-belt pounding evangelism is served by such feeble pleas.

So in the end, everyone wants to get into her jeans, and no one actually believes that she might be telling the truth about her aims to represent sexual ambiguity, and no one can really connect it to music. It's just a poor execution of The Spectacle, even by pop culture mythology standards.

Posted by Eric Scott at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I remember raising this question, in a meeting with new clients – "How will we factor in the natural tendency of visitors to this new website, to not read what we’ve written for them?”

Stunned, uncomfortable silence, for about five seconds.

Given that there are tendencies for people to treat screen-based reading differently, this was naturally, a question to be asked. I mean, instead of chewing and digesting the pages of books, we know that readers get antsy sitting in front of a monitor, and don’t want the added inconvenience of blurry or small type. So, mine was not a popular move to make, but it had to be said anyway.

Now, in my defense, I should probably also mention that the audience in that room were not the typical corporate audience; they were a organization dedicated to the funding of educational programs in public schools. So there’s always a chance that they misheard the intention behind my comment as either uninformed, or perhaps even, deeply cynical.

I can assess that view, now, especially, after I saw they went with a different firm. Still, I have no regrets for having voiced this. I am not cynical. I truly want you to read what I have to share. And I wouldn’t expect you to do the same thing in front of your computer screen that you would do, curled up in bed with a book. You don’t have to like me. You can always click away to something else. It’s my objective, to keep you here, reading.

So how do we deal with the objections presented back to us, from the end-users of our creations? Do we cast them aside all but the views which are popular with us? Is it nobody’s fault that a perfectly good essay on visual literacy examination test scores, might get left ignored and unread, when the browser window turned into a very long scroll on that page?

We’ve been looking more closely at the likelihood that something will get attention, when there’s something on elsewhere, always a bit shorter, and a bit louder. The question is...

Posted by Eric Scott at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

OK. Let's just start with that, let's not get ahead of ourselves yet. How is whelm useful to us. Is it effective for anything, or is it just an obstruction?

I believe it to be a bit of both.

Posted by Eric Scott at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I wake up, and now suddenly, this is what's on my mind. Why? Who knows.

First of all, it feels important that we not get preoccupied with, or confused over, which medium (or even multi-medium) that we create or use. It's too easy to blame the messenger, and in this case, you can't blame television or the internet for creating a seductive alternative to reality. Instead, you need to recognize the potential it has, and you need to deliberately create and live an alternative to that, one that supports a higher goal of the self, and best off that it be one that supports a benevolent environmental, or communal view.

So why wonder about, or even discuss it? Is it a potential threat to anyone? Somehow, it feels like it might be at the root of something. For example, people are fascinated by technology when it is new. (And then again, when it is old, too.) It is a distraction to think about the medium. The best analogy I can think of is when you're telling somebody a story that is really iimpotnt to you -- it just feels so significant to you that you're bursting to get it out of you, and the words can't seem to come out fast enough, and y ou're just riding on that energy -- and then you discover that the person you've been talking to is wandering, they're no longer exercising that option to give you their full attention. They've instead divided their focus between you, and something minute -- like the pattern of your speech, or they've interrupted you to discuss a technical aspect of what you've been saying, instead of staying locked onto the main point with you.

They're replacing the experience of being in the same place with you, with a fear of committing to the listening process.

Why? Are we, culturally speaking, fearful of newness, or new thoughts, ideas, that we must latch onto distraction? Do we really love to obsess over technology, or is it just a distraction that works as a barrier to intimacy the way eye contact (or avoiding it) does for so many people?

Sometimes life seems like our attention is there, when in fact, it's not; and it's not technology that's taking that away from us; it's us, not acting or living deliberately enough to create focus.

We shall discuss this at length. But we shall begin to do so, by expressing very short ideas: namely that we are becoming a culture of overwhelm.

Posted by Eric Scott at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"You should probably read more," says the fictional Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People in haughty response to the ignorant pursuit of the spectacle.

Of course, there's always the fear that if we throw things out that only make our bodies fat and slow, we will crumble and become physically debilitated as a society, like cavities in a mouth full of once-healthy choppers.

Posted by Eric Scott at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Can any one please tell me – what on earth is a good website supposed to look like...?

Is it the Java applet sitting beneath an animated billboard? …A remote electronic marketplace? …A stack of paper that hovers (miraculously) in ether? …A virtual gallery?

…Is a website like a textbook, rich with information but stylistically neutral?…or is it more like a train station? Is it in three (or more) dimensions, or maybe just two?

…Perhaps it has a row of hi-tech, chromium-style buttons with bevels, embossed text and drop shadows running down a sidebar? Or maybe it is more of an immersive experience – allowing the user to explore a deserted street, clicking upon travel posters – inspecting detritus and debris, scavenging in search of a history?

I do have a point in voicing my concern. Interactive culture is now an agent of that staid icon of multiple-choice: the tired old Chinese-American menu. Imagine any combination of dishes you'd like to sample, and in under three button clicks they can be served, on-demand...We are simply becoming less deliberate in the choices we make as an electronic culture, while the new media developers are presenting us, increasingly with more options. And we have been reinforcing this demand for the delivery of options by our silent approval – after all, this is a trend which resonates best where it serves the egos of designers and content-developers worldwide.

Of course, there's always the odd voice proposing technology as a means of simplification -- often drowned out by the sheer volume of options burying the speaker. For the search we might conduct by employing web technology to better explain our lives – in a pursuit of better choices, even when that means fewer of them – may present a return of more, effectively, for less.

What am I suggesting? Only that we have reached critical mass in an age of an on-demand dim sum for the mind. As netizens, we are really still exploring the first page in the big book of potential in new media. So perhaps it isn't too early to make a break with information-superhighway-hypnosis, and begin to live, as Thoreau suggested when he set off into the woods, a little more “deliberately.” The experience this man was seeking, according to Walden, was a greater appreciation of his own humanity.

So, with everyone's permission, I'd like to offer a suggestion here:

• That we should proceed in our ongoing search of a common language – transcending genres and demographics, where vocabulary can be less constraining than that of preceding generations – but that we make smaller, steady advances in developing a graphic language that exposes more of ourselves and our humanity.
• Also, that we should offer richer content, and embrace all of what a web site is and what it should be: a total relationship the consumer has with the product. For a web client, this translates to the best of worlds: a more compelling discussion of Brand – within a fully immersive experience.

If Day For Night has a graphic mission (and it does), it may well be to ring in a new era for increased conscience and reflection – a matter, we feel, begins with a discussion of personal history, an underground architecture and something we like to call Internet Theatre...

Posted by Eric Scott at 09:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Like Fluxus, Situationism was really about something alternative to art, but which somehow replaced some need for it. It was based upon its own manifesto, and was meant to take place in, generally-speaking, the public space -- in the streets, and in people's homes, instead of in museums and galleries.

In this way, it seems fitting to bring up a discussion of function in art; both subjects deal with something that is more relevant than the aesthetics of form; they also precede design with intention; something we're going to look at a lot.

Posted by Eric Scott at 09:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The degree of intensity in one's life is determined by the creations one resists, or is becoming identified with.

Some work-throughs:
Recognizing a need for attention,
vs. a want for attention.

Also, the ignorant are usually charged with a Stupidity Tax, especially when there is a surfeit of apathy.

Today, be present and real.

Posted by Eric Scott at 09:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)