…: May 2008

The owner of a high-end East Hampton gallery went from hosting a famed photographer's opening to being dragged from it kicking and screaming during a surprise crackdown on liquor-laced art shows on the East End. "The police out here have nothing to do, so they come bother our galleries," Ruth Kalb, 67, fumed yesterday, a day after cops busted her soiree and dragged her out in front of 300 stunned guests, saying she didn't have permits to serve alcohol or hold a gathering. "They came in here with all their muscles. They needed someone to fight," said the eccentric art purveyor, known by her gallery's name, Vered. Kalb said she told the cops: "I've been serving liquor at my openings before you were born. So don't tell me to stop now." Kalb was slapped with the summons at around 9 p.m. Saturday after chasing away the first two cops on the scene.

from Edward Winkleman's blog.

unusual business cards

These probably cost more than $20 for 500. Re-encoded has a whole slew of unusual "outside-the-box" concepts.

buttons!

Who can resist? Not even Smashing Magazine:

NY Photo Festival: the Future of Contemporary Photography

powerHouse Books and VII Photo Agency have joined forces to launch the new, annual New York Photo Festival, the first international-level festival of photography to be based in the U.S. The inaugural New York Photo Festival (May 14–May 18, 2008) promises to deliver a dynamic, high-quality event in what is arguably the photographic capital of the world. The festival will celebrate both contemporary photography and the creative, inspirational talents of the people who produce this work. Curators include Magnum photographer Martin Parr, The New York Times Magazine picture editor Kathy Ryan, Lesley A. Martin of the Aperture Foundation, and Tim Barber of tinyvices.com.

May 14—18 37 Main Street Brooklyn, New York New York Photo Festival

Spencer is in Thailand.

Fonil [collective] member, Spencer Hickson, is in Thailand. Check out his photos here http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd309/desyfer831/

I was reading in the Asian Pacific Post (Designer Profiling) that downtown nightclubs are banning entry to guest wearing Affliction and Ed Hardy clothing as they are labels associated with Asian gangs. Typically they are t-shirts with the fairly standard imagery that appeals to young men and older men that are trying to be young men or otherwise unable to dress their age. (That is to say they are not aware of having reached an age where they simply look like they are wearing clothing a generation below them. The same kind of men that wear baseball hats backwards. You know.) The paper polled 7 men between the ages of 20 and 25, some knew of the labels and owned some, some knew of the labels but didn't own any and some had never heard of the labels. All of them thought that it wasn't right for bars to ban people for wearing them. Personally, based on bouncers experiences that they have had trouble with a lot of people wearing these labels, I don't see a problem with it. Dress codes have always, more or less, been in effect and although the justification and explanation of them might sometimes be vague they are at the bars discretion. In these instances it is clearly not a matter of discriminating against slobs, cowboys, goths or other aesthetic fringe elements but concerns for safety in the bar. In fact bars likely stand to lose patrons and could potentially incur backlash for rejecting certain people. Clearly I don't really care one way or the other. I don't go to these bars. I avoid downtown as much as possible and especially on weekend nights. I think the 'Granville Entertainment District' was a huge blunder and is a disgrace. As for Asian gangs –or any other– let them have at each other. It's easier and less expensive than having the police try to crack down on them all the time. As for the labels: they are derivative and uninspired. The sort of thing that should only appeal to teenagers and only until they get laid for the first time. Bars are doing these young men a favour. Besides, what's wrong with Fred Perry? Yuri.

Stefan Sagmeister.

Well, after almost deciding not to I went down to the Roundhouse to the Salazar Awards to listen to the keynote talk by Stefan Sagmeister. I'd assumed that I could just as easily get from YouTube or TED what I'd paid to see in public. Fortunately I was wrong. After arriving a little early and having to wait in line listening to a lot of other designers – especially students – chat I finally got in and was presented a decent spread of finger food. A fortunate things as I hadn't had dinner. Then I had to wait again for about an hour before any of the presentations started. The awards part of the evening passed rather quickly and uneventfully. None of the students receiving awards were given an opportunity to talk. For better or worse. It just seemed strange as there was an emphasis that this was the Salazar Awards and not Stefan Sagmeister night. Of course people were mostly there to see Sagmeister. Finally Stefan Sagmeister took the 'stage' in his typical low key way and talked about things anyone familiar with Stefan Sagmeister would already know; how his company restricts itself to 4 types of jobs: music industry, socially responsible, coporate and self authored projects. (or something like that) He then gave an example for each of the first three the highlight being the Rem Koolhaas designed Casa da Musica (music house in Portugal) identity. Then he moved on to what he considered the main subject: self authored work and his list title "Things I have learned in my life so far" (also the title of his new book and a website where you can upload your own phrase and design) which was created during his year without clients (apparently he plans to take a year off every 7 years) and which ended up being used in a number of commercial and personal projects. Overall even the things I'd heard before seemed fresh and inspiring. He was very funny, especially with his opening story about jelly fish and sea elephant erections. Then there was the moment a group of people were making a bunch of noise on the other side of some dividers and loudly said shut the fuck up into the microphone. I laughed quite a bit and left feeling more inspired by his work than ever. Yuri.

Legible business cards

Yes, finally someone who understands the function of the card: it's meant to be read! Link here

Web 3.0

Freebase. Freebase, created by Metaweb Technologies, is an open database of the world's information. It's built by the community and for the community – free for anyone to query, contribute to, build applications on top of, or integrate into their websites. Already, Freebase covers millions of topics in hundreds of categories. Drawing from large open data sets like Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, and the SEC archives, it contains structured information on many popular topics, including movies, music, people and locations – all reconciled and freely available via an open API. This information is supplemented by the efforts of a passionate global community of users who are working together to add structured information on everything from philosophy to European railway stations to the chemical properties of common food ingredients. By structuring the world's data in this manner, the Freebase community is creating a global resource that will one day allow people and machines everywhere to access information far more easily and quickly than they can today. Twine. Twine is a new service that helps you organize, share and discover information about your interests, with networks of like-minded people. You can use Twine alone, with friends, groups and communities, or even in your company. Powered by semantic understanding, Twine automatically organizes information, learns about your interests and makes connections and recommendations. The more you use Twine, the better it understands your interests and the more useful it becomes. Organize. As you add information to Twine, it is automatically tagged so that you and others can find it more easily. Share. Connect with individuals and groups, gather and share content, and engage in discussions around your interests. Discover. Twine connects you with new people, content and products that match your interests, and also helps other people discover you and your contributions. AdaptiveBlue. Since the Browser is the hub of all our interactions with the web, we believe that Smart Browsing should be something that your regular browser helps you do. In answer to that, we developed extension technology called BlueOrganizer that adds semantics and personalization support to Firefox. Three main ingredients of Smart Browsing are: Structured Content: When content is structured, it means that your browser focuses on the things in the Web pages instead of the pages themselves. Books, music, movies, wine, travel destinations, video games and other everyday things should come into the spotlight. Shortcuts: Because the browser "understands" the semantics of everyday things, it will help you get to the information faster. When looking at a book, you can find more books by the same author. When looking at a movie on Amazon you can instantly rent it from Netflix and when looking at music album on AOL you can create a radio station on Pandora. This is the power of shortcuts. Personalization: A Smarter Web is Personalized Web. Personalization is what helps you navigate through the myriad of choices. For example, if you rent movies from Netflix and your friend from Blockbuster, your shortcuts should be different. If you choose Last.fm and your friend likes Pandora, the browser should know this. And if you like buying from Amazon the Browser should help you do that instantly from any page on the web. This is the power of personalization. ClearForest. ClearForest, a Reuters company, provides text-driven business intelligence solutions that supply the analytical bridge between two previously disconnected worlds of information--unstructured text and enterprise data. Our award-winning solutions offer manufacturers, publishers, federal, chemical & financial service organizations critical links to situational context buried in text for use in Business Intelligence [BI] systems. Adding this situational context to enterprise data systems empowers organizations to: uncover hidden relationships, evaluate events, discover unforeseen patterns and facilitate problem identification for rapid resolution. Applying this intelligence enables organizations to avoid loss of profit margins due to preventable write-offs, customer churn, legal settlements, warranty claims or inefficient product development cycles. In short, we enable Global 5000 companies to make better business decisions by turning large volumes of contextually-based information into proactive business intelligence. Powerset. Powerset is a Silicon Valley company building a transformative consumer search engine based on natural language processing. Our unique innovations in search are rooted in breakthrough technologies that take advantage of the structure and nuances of natural language. Using these advanced techniques, Powerset is building a large-scale search engine that breaks the confines of keyword search. By making search more natural and intuitive, Powerset is fundamentally changing how we search the web, and delivering higher quality results. Powerset's search engine is currently under development. Please check back in the near future for more information about our technology and for signing up for our alpha. True Knowledge. True Knowledge is an internet search company based in Cambridge, England. Our technology addresses one of the fundamental problems in internet search: namely that computers (unlike humans) cannot understand the content of web pages. As a result, finding information in the early 21st century still involves a process of guessing keywords that may appear in an appropriate web page and hoping that a search engine retrieves a document with the desired information sufficiently near the top of the list as to be found reasonably quickly. Simply asking a search engine for the desired information in the most natural way possible doesn't produce a direct response. Our technology sidesteps this fundamental problem by providing a way for the world's knowledge to be represented in a form that computers can understand and process, and for ordinary internet users to be able to add to this knowledge base without having to understand how the knowledge is represented. Because knowledge stored within our technology can be processed and understood by computers, direct and perfect answers to questions on any topic are now possible. Furthermore, our technology provides a place on the internet where computers and other automated systems can query the widest possible domain of knowledge and receive a response in a form they can process. Our initial products are: * a search engine-like consumer site which can answer questions, be used to add knowledge and also be used just like a conventional search engine. * an API product for computer-generated queries. Hakia. Hakia is a general purpose "semantic" search engine, dedicated to quality search experience. Hakia is focused on bringing quality results via its semantic search technology. Today's search engines bring popular results via statistical ranking methods. Popular results are not always quality results, and the searchers suffer in many ways ranging from wasted search time to using misleading information. Quality result satisfies three criteria simultaneously: It (1) comes from credible sources (verticals) recommended by librarians, (2) is the most recent information available, and (3) is absolutely relevant to the query. Semantic search technology enables accurate retrieval of information via concept/meaning match. It is very effective, and perhaps the only method, in application to credible and dynamic content. Because most of the credible and dynamic content are statistically flat (infertile) for popularity algorithms to work effectively beyond common queries.

FontStruct | FontShop

FontStruct is a free font-building tool brought to you by the world’s leading retailer of digital type, FontShop.

FontStruct lets you quickly and easily create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks.

You create ‘FontStructions’ using the ‘FontStructor’ font editor.

Once you're done building, FontStruct generates high-quality TrueType fonts, ready to use in any Mac or Windows application.

You can keep your creations to yourself, but we encourage users to share their "FontStructions". Explore the Gallery of fonts made by other FontStruct users and download them or even copy them and make your own variations.

You can also use the FontStruct widget to show your FontStructions on your own website or blog.

Pescha Kucha Night.

Pecha Kucha Night, devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham architecture), was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.

But as we all know, give a mike to a designer (especially an architect) and you'll be trapped for hours. The key to Pecha Kucha Night is its patented system for avoiding this fate. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

Pecha Kucha (which is Japanese for the sound of conversation) has tapped into a demand for a forum in which creative work can be easily and informally shown, without having to rent a gallery or chat up a magazine editor. This is a† demand that seems to be global – as Pecha Kucha Night, without any pushing, has spread virally to over 100 cities across the world. Find a location and join the conversation.

pecha-kucha.org/cities/vancouver

Graphex 2008.

I went to see Graphex 2008 at the Roundhouse yesterday. This was, I realised, the second time as I think I saw most of it in the Pendulum Gallery (855 West Georgia Street, Vancouver) a few weeks ago. The primary difference this time it was a lot darker as it wasn't all lit. Aside from that my criticism is that the printing of the display pieces was very poor. However, there is some great work presented – including some by locals such as Marion Bantjes and previous ECIAD grads who worked on issue 3 of Woo, the school paper – and, one of the big winners, and the one that stood out most for me was Paprika. Their site is a little maddening, though. Yuri. Until May 10th at the Roundhouse Exhibition Hall

Kwantlen GDM Graduate Show.

After Movers & Shapers I knew without a doubt (really) that things could not get any worse. Believe me, I'm not setting you up here. I am not being predictable. Things literally could not get any worse. So I decided to head down to the Roundhouse to see Kwantlen's Graphic Design for Marketing graduation show. And you know what? It was fabulous. No admission. A free catalogue. Free finger food from Urban Fare. And cold $4.00 beer (a selection of 4 instead of 2 from Granville Island Brewery). And I got to see the work which was really well presented and some of which I was quite fond of. Some of the names that really stood out for me were: David Arias, Sarah Klassen, Sarah Lucow, Camille Raschpichler & Brandon Johnson. A couple of bonuses. While there I learned Stefan Sagmeister is doing a talk in Vancouver on May 9. Talk about design rock and roll. I also bumped into Chrystal Thompson of Ecstatic Designs and Jeremy Van Nieuwkerk of Vann Creative. We got to catch up which was pleasant. gdma.ca Yuri.

Movers & Shapers.

On Wednesday April 23 my girlfriend and I went to the gala opening of Movers & Shapers. On the walk to it I made a joke about going into the video store and renting a movie instead. In hindsight … I knew there was going to be an admission but I wasn't expecting $11.00 each, no student discount and a line up. But I persevered. Once inside the 'holding area' I wasn't expecting $5.00 semi cold bottles of Granville Island Brewery beer, Diva executive chef – Dino Renaerts – prepared slivers of food including foie gras. And I certainly wasn't expecting to have a pensioner tell me how good it was, try to foist some on me and then say 'I know' and 'Who cares' with a salacious smile after I expressed that I thought foie gras was cruel. I said 'obviously not you' and walked away. It could have got ugly quickly. Clearly this was The Vancouver Museum's eternal membership roster who come to every gala opening regardless of the actual event. I should have know when I heard a couple of them outside talking about coming to see the 'craft show'. After half and hour into the the 'event' the main exhibition still wasn't open and I was getting more anxious as it got more and more crowded. Shaw TV showed up and interviewed the Diva's executive chef. People were stuffing their faces. Finally the main exhibition opened and you weren't allowed to bring your drink in. How did they expect us to cope? I was less than half way into my second $5.00 bottle of beer and there was no way I was setting it down. There was no way I was going any further into this without the comfort that last half bottle of beer would bring. I wanted my beer and I wanted to see the show. Simultaneously. As the entrance was well guarded and I didn't feel like doing the often used cloaking method I went up to the woman at the entrance and simply stated that this seemed absurd. She seemed agreeable. I said I'd like to leave and come back without having to pay another $11.00 each. She gave me her card. I have since received two free tickets. Yuri.

TAXI.

While on one of my weekly sojourns downtown I was walking down Richard's from Dunsmuir when I noticed a small sandwich board sign that said something along the lines of Taxi Cafe. It reminded me of the Taxi website as I passed it by on my way to Harbour Centre to check out a student – for the life of me I can't remember school, sorry – illustration & design grad show. Afterwards I decided I'd check out the cafe and, sure enough, it is also the offices of Taxi Vancouver. It's a little more like an office lobby / reception area with a coffee bar and I felt a little out of place but apparently it was okay to order a coffee and enjoy it there. Although my matcha latte was good the seating area left a lot to be desired – a long designer bench with a couple small low tables – but I settled in and read an issue of Colours. Aside from one other person I was the only person there having a drink and it was a bit confusing because they were obviously waiting to see someone from Taxi. When the person from Taxi came out to great them they weren't sure which one of us they were meant to see but I just ignored them and they sorted it out. People from Taxi came came and went with coffees, so I assume that was a perk for them. The two barristas, I assume, must also double as receptionists but I'm really not sure. You might want to get a coffee to go – though I couldn't confirm the quality – but I wouldn't recommend staying in unless you want to absorb that Taxi vibe. I didn't even know they had Vancouver offices. Yuri.

Komakino.

I visited the current version of Komakino, (downstairs from Back Gallery Project) a concept store that offers unique designer clothes and which changes physical location every 6 months to a year. I think this is version 6. The last time I was in a Komakino was back in version 1 when it was next door to the Homer Cafe. Some of the labels they carry include Damir Doma, Julius, Number (N)ine, Raf Simons, Rick Owens, Simeon Farrar and Undercover. These are not inexpensive labels but at least you wont see too many people wearing the same outfit as you every time you go out. Go there to check out the styles. Go there to check out the atmosphere. Go online to shop, too. Yuri.

The Aristocratic.

The Chapters at Granville & Broadway have a sign from the Aristocratic in their window. I can remember The Aristocrat from, I think, the early 90's. What a great spot that used to be. Turns out my girlfriend's grandmother worked there as a waitress and that is where she met my girlfriend's grandfather. Apparently he used to have soup there and eventually asked her out. That would have been around the time the second photo was taken (circa 1951). I couldn't find much information online about The Aristocrat although one site seemed to indicate it was still operating, employing about three staff and earning up to $500,000.00 a year. I wish. And I was trying to avoid nostalgia today. If you want more information there is a little plaque with some details under the sign in Chapters' window. If you have any additional information please share via a comment. Archive photo: The Aristocratic Restaurant, circa 1951, Vancouver Public Library. Yuri.

Humans as industrial palace

Start / Zaum Projects

zaumprojects.com

Being True

Being True, was produced by Nike to celebrate the 22 diverse years since the Dunk went public. It will also take the form of gallery exhibitions around the world as well as a limited edition publication. For this project, 22 contemporary photographers were asked to dig through their archives and search for images that in their minds show what it means to “be true”. The resulting body of work spans more than two decades, articulating the realism of young America through personality, emotion and self-expression.

Tim Barber, Angela Boatwright, Kenneth Cappello, Poppy De Villeneuve, Cheryl Dunn, Naomi Harris, Alex Hoerner, Drew Jarrett, Alain Levitt, Jeaneen Lund, Ari Marcopoulos, Dan Murphy, Jason Nocito, Patrick O’Dell, Mike Piscitelli, David Ransom,Terry Richardson, Jamel Shabazz, David Perez (Shadi), Brent Stewart, Ray Potes, Tobin Yelland.

from PHOTO EPICENTER.

Pangea Day May 10

Vancouver Celebrates Pangea Day With The World on May 10 Vancouver joins cities around the world on May 10 for Pangea Day, the live global event which aims to bring people together through the power of film. Two free public events being organized in Vancouver, downtown at Vancouver’s largest theatre Empire Granville 7 Cinemas and in East Vancouver at the Rio Cinema, will enable more than a thousand people to participate in the live event together.

Pangea Day, organized by T.E.D. Conferences, (www.pangeaday.org) arrives at 11 am in Vancouver on May 10, 2008, with a live 4 hour broadcast from Los Angeles, Rio, London, Cairo, Kigali, and Mumbai. Twenty-four award winning films drawn from 2500 submissions from 100 countries will be shown, along with music performances, and inspirational messages from people like CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Jordan’s Queen Noor, and Bob Geldof. Millions will participate in Pangea Day by watching the event broadcast live by satellite, on the Internet, television, and on cell-phones. Creating a type of ‘global campfire’ experience, the Pangea Day broadcast will also be shown in 1000 other global locations in private and public showings, twelve in Vancouver, entirely organized by volunteers.

Jill Binder, slam poet and entrepreneur, and Kajin Goh, artist and designer, launched the popular www.pangeadayvancouver.com website to create a buzz in Vancouver and promote the Friends of Pangea Day activities locally. They will also co-host the East Vancouver event. Paul Schellenberg, international event marketer, heard about Pangea Day and decided to bring it to Downtown Vancouver. Empire Granville 7 Cinemas offered Vancouver’s largest cinema for the venue. Both events are being promoted jointly to reach as many people as possible.

Downtown Vancouver- The free event will be held at Empire Granville 7 Cinemas (855 Granville). Doors will open at 9.45 with a scheduled Opening Ceremony starting at 10:30, the Live Broadcast from 11-3, and a short Wrap-Up Discussion afterwards. The concession stand will be open, people can bring a bag lunch, and some food/drink may be provided (see website for updates). People will be free to leave early and have limited in/out privileges. Free Tickets may be picked up at Tickets Tonight (200 Burrard), Empire Granville 7 Cinemas, and Book Warehouse (Yaletown- 1068 Homer, Davie- 1051 Davie, Seymour- 552 Seymour, Broadway- 632 W Broadway, Fourth- 2025 W 4^th, Kitsilano- 3066 W. Broadway, West Tenth- 4444 W 10^th).

East Vancouver- The free public event will be held at Rio Cinema (1660 Broadway East). Doors Open at 10:30 with the Live Broadcast from 11-3, and a short Wrap-Up Discussion afterwards. The concession stand will be open, people can bring a bag lunch, and some food/drink may be provided (see website for updates). People will be free to leave early and have limited in/out privileges. Free tickets may be picked up at Rio Cinema (1660 Broadway East), WorkLess Party office (2250 Commercial) and at People's Coop Bookstore (1391 Commercial).

Both events are also giving the audience an opportunity to help others around the world by suggesting a voluntary donation at the cinema on May 10 of $5-10 per person which will go to the World Food Programme for hunger relief. According to the WFP, $9 is enough for 12 school lunches for hungry kids. Companies supporting the Vancouver Friends of Pangea Day events include Empire Theatres, Rio Theatre, Book Warehouse, Tickets Tonight, Clubcard, Vostokone.com (Yuri Doric), Ultra X-press Printing, and People’s Coop Warehouse.

For more information and the latest details, visit www.pangeadayvancouver.com. Press inquiries about Pangea Day should be directed to www.pangeaday.org. Press inquiries on Friends of Pangea Day Vancouver events can be directed to Kajin Goh (East Vancouver, 778-995-6207) or Paul Schellenberg (Downtown Vancouver, 604-338-2754).

Steven Shearer at the New Museum

"The New Museum has another great exhibition on display right now called Double Album: Daniel Guzmán and Steven Shearer. …Shearer collected hundreds of images of people sleeping and constructed a large digital collage of all these photographs together. Repose has an inherent amateur aesthetic built in (as do all the collages) due to the low quality images Shearer uses as material and yet the finished piece holds a strange hypnotic power as if one was staring into a sea of dead people." from Horses Think.

New Museum 235 Bowery New York, NY 10002 212.219.1222

the New Museum.

…

Phone Sex Workers: Phillip Toledano photos

Drinking at openings

Meir Gal