fauxstor.net
sporadic web manipulationMay 31, 2003
truly worthless art
Last night I ran into a guy who I had met before at another Art/Fashion/Music ménage à trois (the order of the day in San Francisco) who was (gasp) an artist. Typically this has the same effect on me as being told that someone is a DJ, or an actor in L.A.
However, the selling point here was the level to which un-pretentiousness had been executed. Perhaps "selling point" is a bad choice of words.
This self-described non-artist takes up the position that his art is worthless, and the only quid pro quo for acquiring one of his pieces is to write an essay on why you should have it.
It is called The Worthless Project, and you can take a crack at getting your own piece of art - sans value, of course.
Michelle was there to claim her prize. She was about as excited about taking posession of her new painting as a contestant on The Price is Right gets about having a crack at Plinko. I mean, she was downright ecstatic. People don't get that worked up when they buy art. At an auction. After winning a multi-million dollar bidding war.
The artist pointed out to me that probably most of the people in that room could afford to buy original art, though it is likely that most of that group had not. It all has to do with the moment: the intersection of time, place and viewer reaction.
For me, the artistic moment occurred early in the evening when she brought her friend over to see her prize painting and essay. The artist and I stood as disinterested voyeurs, eavesdropping on the conversation. He then engaged her as if he were a regular exhibit-goer, and asked what the whole thing was about. Her words describing his project supplied all the value he needed.
You can insert whatever pomo-deconstructo analysis you wish, but the exchange was a refreshing view of the interaction between art, viewer, owner, and artist.
Posted by justin at 2:46 PM
May 30, 2003
much funnier than crank yankers
But then, what isn't. Ninety percent of that show is like the last 20 minutes of Saturday Night Live: flat, cue-card acted skits. On the other hand, IM conversations gone awry such as this one are much more hilarious.
It reminded me of this other one I read a while back from a b3ta.com newsletter which revolved around mistaken identity.
Posted by justin at 4:52 PM
A long week...
Wasn't there a holiday at the beginning of this week? It doesn't really seem like it. Maybe because I was up till 3 or 4 in the morning every night of the week updating sites and the like. I gave Airdrop.org a makeover. Now we will be adding a bunch of tools and services in the next few weeks. Airblogging.com is coming along. We just need more random carrier/phone/publishing combinations to test on. I may go to Los Angeles on Sunday or Monday. Hard to leave S.F. when the weather is really nice. I'll have to check the SoCal forecast first.
Oh ya, there was a fiber cut between Worldcom and SBC on Wednesday. That took me down for about 8 hours. How 1998 of them.
Posted by justin at 4:29 PM
May 23, 2003
spot the spec
Here is a spec spot that our friend Todd did. A pretty funny take on a familiar campaign. He recently did an update on his site, and just finished shooting a short called "...you owe us" which is looking for completion funds (hint, hint, aspiring film benefactors).Posted by justin at 2:20 AM | Comments (1)
May 16, 2003
airblogging.com - the "al dente" launch
As you may noticed, or perhaps not, there has been a dearth of posts in the last 2 weeks. The bulk of my time has been consumed with various contract gigs, and in the midst of all that, I have been spending all my spare moments working on a wireless blogging platform called airblogging.com.
It is now officially in public beta. The post immediately before this one was successfully sent from my mobile phone with a gif attachment of the airblogging logo. It is a suite designed to allows users to update their blogs or journals from their mobile phones via SMS or email. You can push text or photos from your phone. I plan to be posting many random pics while on location with the Ericsson camera for my T68i.
This project is an outgrowth of airdrop.org, which is an idea that was baked up by me and David Maizenberg while slightly faded on a rooftop party in the East Village. The functional aspects of both projects were the work of myself and Chris Bichler, whose expertise was indispensible to the realization of both prototypes.
While the site is not yet fully realized, we plan to support every available remote procedure call for all available blogging / journaling software.
For now, I can say this: airblogging works for my T68i on AT&T Wireless via GPRS email for Movable Type, Live Journal, and Blogger. It also works for T-Mobile and Verizon users via SMS using Movable Type.
Unfortunately, that exhausts the sample pool available to us. Our goal is to support all users on all carriers using any blogging/journaling software. To meet that goal, we need folks to come beat the system up.
To that end, I invite you to come test out our platform, in the hopes that we can build a robust suite that will allow users to employ current and emerging technologies for the purpose of keeping their audience in touch with their state of being regardless of heretofore spatial contraints.
We look forward to your feedback.
Posted by justin at 4:43 AM
May 15, 2003
Chubby Recluse has another bad idea
According to this Yahoo release:
"Following the path of Pixar Animation Studios, Dreamworks and other filmmakers, 'Stars Wars' creator George Lucas is forming a new group to make computer-animated films, a spokeswoman said on Monday."
Well, if he really wanted to follow the path of Pixar, we would immediately sell this division to Steve Jobs, so a success could be made of it. Having Pixar get out of madman-Lucas' control was the best thing that ever happened to it. At least Dreamworks can take solace in being second place in a field of three, instead of its prior position of dead last in a field of two. Shrek good, yes. But Antz, Small Soldiers -- cheap knockoffs of far superior Pixar products. (Don't let the release dates fool you.)
Look forward to even more technological resources being squandered on insipid characters and one-act plot lines. Lucas is too late, and far too lacking in any real creativity, to compete in the animated film market. In fact, his lack of creativity rubs off on the rest of the company. The mighty Lucasfilm/ILM is about as fresh as a Rolling Stones concert.