Came across this interesting speech, Idea of a University for the XXIst Century, by Professor Mark Eyskens, former Prime Minister of Belgium, during the conference of the International Association of University Presidents on July 12th 1999. It's a lengthy essay that veers in many different directions throughout but offers some thought-provoking discussion about the numerous conditions effecting universities and the role they should take to adapt. Here is an excerpt:
The present evolution of the cognitive processes and their application in the knowledge and network society force the universities to review the relationship between specialisation and general training, between analysis and synthesis and, even more fundamentally, between a scientific enquiry which focuses only on the how, and an intellectual approach which also asks why and which does not reject a value assessment of thought and action.
Specialism and generalism
The only statement in my doctoral thesis on economics, which I wrote many years ago, which proved to be really important was not one of my own sentences but one written by John Stuart Mill. This British economist, who lived from 1806 to 1873, using a premeditated lofty idiom, stated that, ‘A man is not likely to be a good economist if he is nothing else’.
This declaration of principle has followed me, surrounded me and besieged me for the last 36 years. Because either you try to look out over the parapets which surround the ‘vegetable garden’ of your knowledge, in which case you are derisorily termed a ‘generalist’, a dabbling dilettante, someone who knows less and less about more and more. Or you dig ever more deeply into the soil of your own vegetable garden, and then you are referred to sarcastically as a narrow-minded specialist, someone who knows more and more about less and less.
Creative originality or ‘conventional wisdom’?
The young researcher, driven by the ambition of pushing back boundaries and breaking new ground, faces a terrible dilemma. Either he formulates something new and arrives at an original result or innovative insight; in that case there is the maximum risk that the result of his research is completely wrong and false. Or he builds a scientific argument the conclusion of which convinces through pertinence and hypothetical-deductive and mathematical-logical correctness, and then there arises a maximum probability that his research is not original, and that he is parading old ideas as new ones. As a consequence, the young researcher faces a forked road that, whichever choice he makes, will plunge him into a bottomless fatum: either his thesis is correct but sadly banal, or it is original but hopelessly false.
One could call it the anti-copyright. Just recently launched, the Creative Commons is an organization dedicated to responsibly deseminating creative works for the purpose of sharing and collaboration. This, of course, opposes the legal restrictions of intellectual property. By re-emphasizing the value of the public domain, they attest, intellectual endeavour is richer and ideas are stronger by the simple fact that older, existing ideas can be revisited, reused and transformed. Creative Commons proposes to make this possible through technology that it is developing. It's interesting to note that this initiative is closely tied to a law school - Stanford.
Several days ago I posted a list of some of last year's best-received independent films. One of those was Waking Life, a filmic adventure into philosophy using a trippy animation technique called rotoscoping. Rotoscoping at its most basic is the tracing of a photographic image, projected onto animation paper or an animation cel, in order to create a series of animated frames. Director Richard Linklater uses this to great effect to exagerate parts of the dialogue that deal with dreams and the philosophy of dreams. Sometimes it is obviously caricaturized and at others it appears vividly real, and this has sparked some discussion in animation circles. (Article from Animation World Magazine).
"While rotoscoping's initial use was met with praise -- critics found rotoscoped animation amazingly fluid and "realistic" -- it has since then been generally looked down upon. The most obvious reason for this is that it appears less "artistic;" the hand isn't creating something out of thin air, rather it's following the lead of a mechanical apparatus."
"But there are artistic possibilities hidden in the act of tracing and rotoscoping has never been a purely mechanical process; it produces its own peculiar artifacts. Waking Life is the first animated feature to embrace those artifacts and actually compound them until they make up a coherent artistic vision."
"Like dream and like memory, the characters and the world they inhabit in Waking Life are constantly in flux. There is a jittery wobble that seems to arise from the rotoscope process: the accumulated imperfections between the eye, the hand and the rendering surface. It's a sense of inconstancy that worked well for Koko the clown, but which was ordinarily the bane of the rotoscoper's existence during the photochemical era of the technique. In Waking Life it's wholly embraced, and almost set on a pedestal of aesthetic principle. The caricature becomes a liquid caricature, with the physiognomic exaggerations erupting and then subsiding, almost as though these physical particularities were merely adjuncts to a deeper animating force."
If you haven't already, check out the website for the Experience Music Project in Seattle. It's a well-designed site with all sorts of interesting information about music. You can learn about songwriting, tour preparations, audio technology, artist history and so on through stories, links and video or audio clips. It provides a bit of insight into what is happening inside that big blob at the base of the Space Needle.
"EMP is a one-of-a-kind music museum combining interactive and interpretive exhibits to tell the story of the creative, innovative and rebellious expression that defines American popular music. Featuring a world-class collection of artifacts, unique architecture by [Canadian] Frank O. Gehry, state-of-the-art technology, exciting interactive presentations, and a dynamic ride-like attraction, EMP will encourage visitors of all ages and backgrounds to experience the power and joy of music in its many forms."
From the archives comes this New Architect Daily article "Left Brain, Right Brain". It discusses the significant skill changes that graphic designers have had to undergo to take their designs online. Graphic layout and coding were once very distant but are now integral to each other.
"Contributing to the ambiguity is the fact that Web design is a relatively new industry, especially when compared with the evolution of print design. Less than six years ago, when Netscape and Mosaic were changing our perspectives of the Web, a company's technical staff—if a company had a site at all—was the sole group responsible for creating, and therefore designing, all of its Web pages. There wasn't as much emphasis on the front end versus the back end, nor on content versus presentation. People were just beginning to balance form and function issues on their pages and many didn't yet have the experience to know that well-built sites require collaboration not only among skilled developers, but also among talented designers."
A short article from One Magazine about the design of Cannondale mountain bikes: Off-road Rage. "In 1984, when Cannondale introduced its first mountain bike, the SM-500, made of outlandishly oversized (yet lightweight) aluminum tubing, cyclists were dumbfounded. Until, of course, they tried it. And liked it."
From Nature Magazine, "TV on a T-shirt: New fabric displays glowing, changing images"
"Researchers at France Telecom have developed a fabric woven from plastic optical fibres that glow with a series of different images, like a TV screen1. It could mean never again being stuck wearing the same outfit as someone else at a party - you could use a mobile phone to download a whole new look into the fabric from a computerized database. The battery-powered optical-fibre fabric should "open new horizons for fashion designers," say its developers Emmanuel Deflin and co-workers of France Telecom in Meylan."
For the past couple of years, MuchMusic's chief Moses Znaimer has been experimenting with a new and unusual conference concept called IdeaCity. It's beauty lies in its unscripted and ecclectic nature by bringing together thinkers from all areas of commerce, non-profit, media and academia and having them converse with one another. An ideal generalist atmosphere for new ideas.
"As one of our past speakers, the undersea explorer/physician/author Joseph MacInnis, said: "ideaCity is a three day cerebral symphony. It's 36 hours of the astounding, the brilliant, and, of course, the unexpected. It is a grand tour of the human brain."
ideaCity02 will be held June 19th, 20th and 21st, 2002, at the Isabel Bader Theatre, in Toronto.
Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, Andy Law of St. Luke's and Anita Roddick of The Body Shop. A few of the big names participating in championing a network for artists to somehow shake the nasty confines of modern commerce with a venture that is aptly called Artist Network. Described as a "big messy idea" on Roddick's weblog, its vision is to put genuine artists at the forefront of a new social movement which changes and challenges current mass produced and meaningless product by changing and challenging the DNA of the entertainment business. To bring the ideals of fair trade to the entertainment industry:
"[A]n ever-shorter list of media corporations controls an ever-broader swath of the music, film, and television industries. These corporations have institutionalized culture so pervasively that we're left with movies based on television shows, television shows based on mass-marketed toys, and prefabricated music acts assembled by record labels. Any good, successful idea is cloned and mass-produced until all we have left is a mind-numbing monoculture."
" But by their very nature, artists are outsiders. They don't hew to the status quo; they experience the world and the human condition in ways no one else ever has, and communicate that experience just as uniquely. That's why great art can't be mass-produced: uniqueness and individuality are what make art, well, art."
The summer blockbuster movies are arriving once again to entertain. And while they get the big-time publicity and ticket sales, it is a handful of little independent films that have surprised by not only getting critical acclaim but decent box office numbers as well. This past year or so has yielded some excellent small studio films worthy of checking out if you haven't already. (Also some great website design behind some of these films).
Amelie by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Waking Life by Richard Linklater
Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner by Zacharias Kunuk
Memento by Christopher Nolan
The Princess and the Warrior by Tom Tykwer
A classic piece of writing, popularized by the internet: Hugh Gallagher's admissions essay to get into NYU. This person would probably be the quintessential generalist. My favorite line: "I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru."
Incidentally, Hugh's essay was published in Harper's, leading to writing assignments for Rolling Stone and other magazines. He published a book titled "Teeth" in 1998.
The Rise of the Creative Class: Why cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race. It's an excellent article about "the creative class" of new knowledge workers and where they live (in the U.S.) and why. It even has rankings of American cities by such variables as creativity, innovation and diversity. Some excerpts:
"More and more businesses understand that ethos and are making the adaptations necessary to attract and retain creative class employees---everything from relaxed dress codes, flexible schedules, and new work rules in the office to hiring recruiters who throw Frisbees. Most civic leaders, however, have failed to understand that what is true for corporations is also true for cities and regions: Places that succeed in attracting and retaining creative class people prosper; those that fail don't."
"Stuck in old paradigms of economic development, cities like Buffalo, New Orleans, and Louisville struggled in the 1980s and 1990s to become the next "Silicon Somewhere" by building generic high-tech office parks or subsidizing professional sports teams. Yet they lost members of the creative class, and their economic dynamism, to places like Austin, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Seattle---places more tolerant, diverse, and open to creativity. Because of this migration of the creative class, a new social and economic geography is emerging in America..."
"Creative centers also tend to be places with thick labor markets that can fulfill the employment needs of members of the creative class, who, by and large, are not looking just for "a job" but for places that offer many employment opportunities."
"Cities and regions that attract lots of creative talent are also those with greater diversity and higher levels of quality of place. That's because location choices of the creative class are based to a large degree on their lifestyle interests, and these go well beyond the standard "quality-of-life" amenities that most experts think are important."
"The creative class people I study use the word "diversity" a lot, but not to press any political hot buttons. Diversity is simply something they value in all its manifestations. This is spoken of so often, and so matter-of-factly, that I take it to be a fundamental marker of creative class values. Creative-minded people enjoy a mix of influences. They want to hear different kinds of music and try different kinds of food. They want to meet and socialize with people unlike themselves, trade views and spar over issues."
"As with employers, visible diversity serves as a signal that a community embraces the open meritocratic values of the creative age. The people I talked to also desired nightlife with a wide mix of options. The most highly valued options were experiential ones---interesting music venues, neighborhood art galleries, performance spaces, and theaters. A vibrant, varied nightlife was viewed by many as another signal that a city "gets it," even by those who infrequently partake in nightlife. More than anything, the creative class craves real experiences in the real world."
The article's authour, Richard Florida, is a professor of regional economic development at Carnegie Mellon University and has just published a book this month titled "The Rise of the Creative Class: and How Its Transforming Work".
OK, so this one can hardly be considered useful information, but it's funny - and Friday. Headline is "Man Claims Copyright of his Name".
Pricing creative projects. Tough job. There are usually so many nuances and variables within the scope of a project that it is extremely difficult to standardize the price tag. Add to that the huge talent gap between superstars and hacks, and their respective asking amounts. And add to that the huge knowledge gap that clients have when requesting and evaluating creative work. And and add to that all of the twists and turns - foreseen or not - a project will almost certainly take. It all makes for a very blurred picture of how much a creative project is worth (and what is asked for) and how much a client will (and should) pay for it. ... This is demonstrated in technicolour in an informal survey recently done by How design magazine. It takes a graphic design project for a new board game and its packaging, noting that there will probably be a couple rounds of revisions, and polls freelancers, small shops and large firms to hypothetically quote on it. The range was $1000 up to $500,000 - wow! Bottomfeeders and vultures alike.
From time to time to time I will post mini-essays (or parts of essays) that I have written on the topic of creative generalism. Ramblings, really. Today is the first one...
#1 - Ideas at Intersections
Where to start? What is the big picture? This is the beginning point for all business scenarios. And to see the big picture one has to understand a lot of different variables – most of which we are not well versed in and may very well not be aware of at all. Generalists are important at observing everything and seeking out something that is most relevant for specialists to pursue. A generalist is a divergent thinker who is in touch with a large realm of possibilities.
At the heart of this, the creative process in inextricably linked to a fairly soft notion called inspiration. Inspiration is highly personal, extremely contextual and completely vague in any rational sense. And yet it is the pillar for any true innovation. It is the seed from which ideas grow.
So perhaps it is fitting to say then that inspiration comes from everything. We have no exact way of pinpointing what part of everything it derives from, and so open, freethinking is essential for its emergence. It could even come from the interplay of everything with everything else, in which case inspiration is most at home in highly communicative, collaborative and social environments.
This is a fairly straightforward point. Ideas follow inspiration, which comes freely at a friendly intersection of diverse multidisciplinary thinking. --S.H.
Music: Live and Radio - Same vs. Different
"Of the other multi-act events that Lollapalooza inspired, as many have gone under (H.O.R.D.E., Lilith Fair, Enit) as have survived (OzzFest, Warped, Family Values). The rule of thumb seems to be that the more eclectic the tour's roster, the poorer its prospects - a red flag for the diverse Area festivals." -- From Wired's story about recording-artist Moby.
"Lots of people in marketing and entertainment listen to the show "Morning Becomes Eclectic" on KRCW every day to get ideas for soundtracks, music beds, jingles and theme songs. They also listen, presumably, simply because they like the wide-ranging -- eclectic -- format. Indeed, some 14 million people in Southern California tune in each day -- not including those who listen on the Web." -- From Reveries.
Wired has a cool article, Idea in the Clouds, on an invention called a "lifter." Its an odd triangular device that, when charged with a small amount of electrical power, levitates, apparently able to resist Earth's gravitational forces. "Currently, the devices can only levitate themselves. But developer Tim Ventura and others are working to convert electrical current into a force that can lift and move planes, trains and rocket ships. If that proves possible, the technology that powers lifters could extend the ability to explore space and drastically cut the use of fossil fuels on Earth."
""All major scientific breakthroughs were scoffed at when they first debuted," Marc Millis, a researcher at the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project, said. "To move forward, a scientist has to explore the seemingly impossible." Lifter technology hasn't yet been proved "possible" for anything more than hobbyist use. But developers said they are getting closer every day."
I guess the European Union had commissioned a brainstorming session/panel/committee and one of the suggestions in the report was a change to the EU flag, as put forward by noted Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus. It is basically a barcode with all of the colours of European Union members' flags. I don't know. The first time I saw it I didn't like it. Thought it was a bit tacky and rather unpractical should other countries join the union. And it made me wonder if architects can actually tackle graphic design (afterall, many architects would question graphic artists' ability to design buildings). But then I read some follow-up comments from others on the design, and I liked those even less. "Ugly", "Waste of money", "Lacks artistry", etc. After learning that this flag was only a suggestion from within the context of a brainstorming session, I warmed up to it. It is provacative, and in this sense perhaps an architect was the best person to develop it. Brainstorming is simply exploration. If all it does is reinforce the strength of the existing blue/stars flag (which it did), then the exercise will have been useful.
Semi-eclectic and gradually diversifying, try Creative Generalist Radio for an audio buffet. Non-genre radio.
"[There is] no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech. The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures."
So says U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr. in his decision that games weren't speech at all, and thus deserve no First Amendment protection. And apparently his decision was based on the cursory review of only four games - some up to six years old (eons in computer animation terms). "First of all," says Henry Jenkins, director of MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program, "the decision is remarkably ill-informed. ... Imagine if I took a look at four books, all within the same genre, to determine whether literature was worthy of First Amendment protection.
Wagner James Au breaks down the implications of this decision in an article posted to Salon earlier in the week. He states that this "could be a disaster for anyone who wants to see games evolve into a medium every bit as culturally relevant as movies or books. It is, of course, indisputable that the world of gaming is replete with titles that have little redeeming value, just as it is true for every other artistic medium. But as Medal of Honor and other games demonstrate, computer gaming has created a new means of conveying complex, relevant ideas. One more uninformed ruling, and the potential of this medium could be curtailed even further, by legislators with elections to win, and ideologues who've pincered it from both sides of the political spectrum."
While many game storylines lack originality and depth, they are improving and they are increasingly being matched to impressive life-like graphics. Many of these games are gradually becoming interactive movies and will certainly require the same arts rights as today's motion pictures, including films based on game plots such as Mario Brothers, Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider.
A crab nebula has got to be one of nature's most photogenic objects! For those that love incredible photography, and have an interest in astronomy, the site for the (now in focus) Hubble Space Telescope is not to be missed.
Last Saturday evening I caught a small showing of short films by college students. One of the more entertaining shorts was titled "Elevator Down" and its story revolved around the demolition of old grain elevators on the prairies. It was depressing commentary on this change interspersed with out-of-nowhere comic gems. The systematic replacement of the elevators caused particular grief for one elevator manager. He found the job uncertainty quite stressful and became a miserable curmudgeon because of it. Well, at one point in the film his wife's patience ran out and she demanded that he visit the town's priest. He reluctantly goes, and there is a great scene showing him trudging up a long hill to the steeple in the distance muttering to himself about how even this church will soon be torn down to make way for a new "super church". A funny moment. Afterall, that would never happen. Churches operate differently.
Maybe not, according to a blurb, I came across today: "MEGACHURCHES. They operate 24/7 and often resemble shopping malls -- with a sanctuary as the anchor tenant, reports Patricia Leigh Brown in The New York Times. "No longer simply places to worship" megachurches are becoming "destination centers" where congregants can eat, shop, bank, study and play, offering "many of the conveniences and trappings of secular life wrapped around a spiritual core." These emerging centers of worship are showing up primarily in America's South and Midwest, and are said to "reflect a broad cultural desire for rootedness and convenience for overextended families.""
Ever wonder what you really look like when trying on new clothes? You know, when a mirror just won't do the trick. Well, check out My Virtual Model. MVM is a Montreal-based company that has developed software to duplicate the shapes and sizes of the human body for the purposes of trying on clothes - particularly helpful, I suppose, when shopping online. It seems that many retailers have adopted this tool into their websites. Although the measurements displayed by your twin model are somewhat vague, just imagine how much detail might go into something like this five years from now. Scary!
From The German Film School, here is a great animated short film called Danse de Cable. "It's the story of a squirrel which sees the advertising for a softdrink. As a result it tries to get to the Café on the opposite side of the street where the vending-machine is located. Consequently the squirrel sets off to get the softdrink. During the journey several obstacles challenge the squirrel..."
It always amazes me how corporate America's top brass can only see ahead for one or two *quarters* max. That's not visionary, it's short-sighted. Take for example the executives at large TV networks and movie studios. Would they not have witnessed the ongoing "Napster" issues in audio and thought to themselves that the technology to do the same in video would likely soon come around. Apparently not. Turner's CEO Jamie Kellner is recently quoted as saying TiVo use equals TV theft because it allows the filtering of commercials. Sure, it's a threat to his revenues but his argument is about as juvenile as that of the RIAA and major record labels.
Turner Broadcasting chief Jamie Kellner claims that personal digital recorders such as Tivo and the recording systems employed in new satellite settop boxes pose a threat to commercial cable companies and broadcasters. In an interview with Cableworld, Kellner said that what troubles him is "the ad skips" -- the ease with which viewers can eliminate commercials by hitting a button on their remotes when watching programs recorded on the devices. "It's theft," said Kellner. "Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial ... you're actually stealing the programming." Asked about viewers who go to the bathroom during commercial breaks, Kellner responded, "I guess there's a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom. But if you formalize it and you create a device that skips certain second increments, you've got that only for one reason ... to make it easy for someone to skip a commercial."
Been away for the last week, but I'm back... with perhaps the best article ever written about technology with regard to the environment. Chris Turner penned "Why Technology is Failing Us" for Shift Magazine a couple of years ago but it still holds as an outstanding essay about misplaced priorities. "It was impossible even to conceive of using a cellular phone to look at web pages in 1990, the year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its first report on global warming. Even in 1995, the year that the IPCC asserted that global warming was a reality, there was essentially no demand for web-enabled cellphones. Why, then, is there such a rush -- and such vast reserves of cash, talent, time and wherewithal -- to bring web-enabled cellphones to market? Why, that is, have we put such an enormous amount of our resources into developing new technologies to solve problems that were only called into being by slightly older technologies?"