November 2011
5 posts
“We understand the trajectory of cities not as being instanciated through...”
– Amin, A. & Thrift, N. (2002) Cities: Reimagining the Urban.
October 2011
1 post
Anish Kapoor x Richie Hawtin →
Anish Kapoor x Richie Hawtin for the Creators Project. Would loved to have had the chance to see this. The spatial element to techno music, its intrinsic futurism and minimal nature go hand in hand with Kapoor’s work. Could imagine Booka Shade’s Body Language being amazing with this too. Sans the pilling hipsters would have been good though! (There video player isn’t compatible with Tumblr...
September 2011
1 post
WatchSuper interesting little interview on Creators Project website, with an inspiring young visionary. With a passion for music and art, and empowered by collaborators and the internet, she is forging ahead as a creative catalyst for a whole bunch of young, geographically disparate, but creatively proximate, people. Under the guise of her label she is bringing musicians, artists, editors, designers...
August 2011
1 post
July 2011
3 posts
WatchTony Alva - Pass the Bucket on Off the Wall TV by Vans.
I watched this video a while back on Vimeo and really wanted to post it up for a number of reasons. Primarily it is being a big fan of Alva and the skate culture to which he was so integral - more than most his attitude and outlook form some the core values of this now global subculture. From a marketing perspective, the other reason to...
June 2011
11 posts
“I see a curator as a catalyst, generator and motivator – a sparring partner,...”
– Hans Ulrich Obrist - I think a lot of brands, planners, cultural mediators, should really take the role of curator seriously, look at what the greats say versus assemble things of interest
6 Words for the modern internet - Kevin Kelly →
6 words on the modern internet but really 6 paradigm changes in the way humans interact with information in the world around them…
The Information - Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker
Just bought ‘The Digital Revolution’ - a collection of New Yorker articles which looks back at the ‘digital’ discourse on it’s pages of the last ten to 20 years (with one or two really old articles). Anyway, this little bit of the article from Adam Gopnik is very true of ‘digital’ commentary and made me laugh… Can anyone think of anyone who has...
'Be Happy my lovelies' - Love Kim
I like to think this is a member of staff at Caledonian Road tube station, someone who actually cares for the mental wellbeing of commuters. It’s rather nice to see in the morning anyway. They change every month or so and i think they’re great. Here’s the latest iteration from the amazing ‘Kim’ and her amazing whiteboard markers.
WatchBeats, Rhymes and Life (or strife)
Wow! Can’t wait for this… Obviously looking forward to great music, but will be interesting to get an insight into the personalities and why it couldn’t continue. Amaze!
Amnesty International: 50 Years of fighting for...
Thought I’d put up the opening paragraph of Peter Benenson’s 1960 article in The Observer which began the Amnesty movement. It still feels so relevant. In a media saturated world it’s important not lose the sickening sense of impotence in reading what goes on today. Also in the age of China, the Arab spring revolutions, and corporate super-injunctions Article 19 rings as true...
May 2011
8 posts
Watch2 Great Apps that act as great content filters, and turn you and the content you upload/share into a media channel.
The first one is wahwah.fm which I haven’t used yet but fully intend to explore. Watch the video above for the details, but I love the way it works. Firstly, I think the idea of accessing your friends or contacts playlists like a radio is amazing. Like Spotify social but...
Watch
WatchTwo great videos I watched yesterday. Love the desire of urban artists to make an imprint on their city. Whether it’s pirate radio or graffiti, it’s a hands on process, taking inspiration from and making your mark on the the urban fabric around you (literally scaling it most of the time). Two things in common here is the desire and the resourcefulness of street culture arts. The...
From now on I'm not blogging I'm 'Commonplacing'
Read this in Steven Johnson’s ‘Where Good Ideas Come From’, and although I’m in no way comparing what’s written here to the gents mentioned in this passage, it did make think blogging is both important and has its roots in the practices of the great thinkers of our time. Love the idea of hunches, thoughts and ramblings layering up into something potentially...
First Step in Chromebook - Get Angry Birds! →
See post below for more thoughts about all this! But if you’re gonna make a statement, make it with Angry Birds
April 2011
4 posts
WatchI love this! Simply beautiful. Definitely purchase this!
3 Things Read This Week...
3 things I have read this week that I really like and that have got me thinking about how you can attempt to create spaces/environments and practices for innovation…
Steven Johnson on patterns of creativity and innovation in Where Good Ideas Come From. Loving this read…
“In the language of complexity theory, these patterns of innovation and creativity are fractal: they...
Figures & Fictions - Contemporary South African...
I visited this fantastic exhibition on the weekend - a really engaging exhibition of contemporary South African photography. There is a lot of focus on South African photography at the moment, with a number of exhibitions and programs over the last year. This one, although short, really doesn’t let you down. Packing about 15 different photographers in they all tell a different and nuanced...
Gratuitous Visualisations?
The Guardian’s usually very impressive @Datablog released this visualisation and blog yesterday asking how much do UK Journalists on twitter follow other journalists on Twitter. Guess what? They do quite a lot. I’m just not convinced that this tells us anything at all - or at least nothing beyond what we could of guessed. At which point you have to raise the question - why bother...
March 2011
2 posts
Reflecting on 'Reflecting on Days Gone By' →
I recently visited the opening of an interesting exhibition of personal / private photos while working in Shanghai. I put a little write up on the Flamingo Shanghai blog. Click on title to have a read
WatchAlthough not the best video of his actual work - which I do rather like (check out my BIG day in CPH http://greginscandinavia.tumblr.com/page/4) - I thought I’d put this up because I really like the idea of presenting of a website with touchscreen. Looks amazing. The modular design allows quite a free and flexible presentation. In working for a research consultancy, this is the kind of...
February 2011
3 posts
Music Broadcasts for 21st Century?
Another Big Like. For the launch of “We’re New Here” - the recently released Jamie XX remix album of Gil Scott Heron’s “I’m New Here” - they undertook a location based pre-launch broadcast of the record. The idea being that you can bring your laptop, smart phone, or tablet along to to a certain locale, connect to a site, and listen to an online radio...
WatchI just re-watched this Tim Brown video on designers ‘thinking big’. I really like the idea of ‘design thinking’, and one of the things that Tim does, is lay out in quite clear terms what good research is. Not some claim to a fundamental truth, but a key part of the ‘thought’ process necessary in making things that have the potential to do a better job than what already exists....
Nadav Kander: Yangtze – The Long River @ m97...
Last month, just as it was closing, I managed to catch Nadav Kander’s epic Yangtze – The Long River exhibition at the excellent photography gallery m97, in Moganshan art district (I had previously visited prior to christmas in Shoreditch, London). Like any great photographic journey, this open and honest documentation of the physical and socio-cultural changes occurring along the world’s greatest...
November 2010
2 posts
My Flavors.me →
I connected Tumblr to my http://flavors.me page - http://flavors.me/gregoryjwells
October 2010
2 posts
Random Unstructured Thoughts - PREZI
After a period or rumour, circumspect, and curiosity, presentation writing application ‘Prezi’ seems to have found traction within my company. Having used it a bit myself, and got a few ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’, it really seems to be coming into its own across the company with colleagues chomping at the bit.
Somewhat fortuitously, about 6 months ago I tweeted about...
July 2010
2 posts
The Data-City - Building Futures Talk
I recently attended a debate on the ‘Data City: Doom or Boom’ put on by RIBA and Wired at the Apple Store in Regent street. The question posed by the moustachioed chair of the debate, Ben Hammersley, was ‘Are pervasive digital devices and open data changing the way we interact with the city?’. The panel assembled was split down the middle between Usman Haque and Dr...
June 2010
1 post
May 2010
1 post
April 2010
2 posts
March 2010
2 posts
WatchThis is a film from the British Council Archives at the BFI, hosted on the counterpoint blog. A really amusing video on what Britain was felt to be. The video was made to illustrate the country to those living outside. Well worth a watch.