Software as the key artform of the 21st Century

Isn’t it time we stopped talking about media and returned to the term artform? A medium is ultimately physical in our understanding of it, no matter how enhanced or extended it may be. For me, one of the main achievements of the digital revolution is to have separated creative content from media. Now, no longer [...]

Ira Glass on storytelling

[youtube n7KQ4vkiNUk ] This American Life is one of my favourite podcasts. A recent episode, The Giant Pool of Money, outlining the background story to the sub-prime mortgage crisis was a standout. It was almost Wire-like in how it interwove high end financial shenanigans, the systems people have to work within, and the trials of [...]

Whatever happened to Computer Art?

I was asked a while back to give a talk on creative applications on the Mac and it set me off thinking about the early days when I first got into this. I have to say, it was much to the bafflement of loved ones and friends at the time, about 20 years ago. It’s [...]

Something new…

I’ve been reading John C. Dvorak’s tech writing for as long as I’ve been interested in this stuff. He was the first general columnist I became aware of after Jerry Pournelle’s writing in Byte Magazine. My first computer was an Amstrad PC1512 and I was an early subscriber to PC Magazine where I came across [...]

The Problem with Punk

Peter Carlton of Film Four in the UK has said that they make films your mother wouldn’t like. If you’re a filmmaker it’s a constant mantra from financiers… “hip and edgy”. A few years back, I went to the local supermarket and was loading up the aisles when I noticed the music over the tannoys. [...]

Podcasts worth listening to

I’ve moved away from live radio almost completely now. A surprising thing for me, given that the spoken word has long been my favourite medium for news and politics by far. My earliest personal relationship with media was listening to Radio Caroline and later John Peel chronicling the arrival of punk in the mid seventies. [...]

Is that Google on the Mac?

I was actually asked this question when I launched Safari in a traiining session. It was a little insight into what the Net is for most people. Related Tags: document.getElementById(“post-106-blankimage”).onload();

The Digital difference…

Whooo…. my first lecture on the internet compressed by Michael Wesch into about 3 minutes and way more entertaining. I love the sense of joy and wonder, empowerment and personal responsibility he clearly feels now, in this moment. Related Tags: document.getElementById(“post-85-blankimage”).onload();

Honouring The Dalai Lama…

A great interview from Charlie Rose with this eminently reasonable and intelligent man, his Holiness The Dalai Lama. China today still takes no real heat from the rest of the world over it’s treatment of Tibet and Tibetan life and culture. As the Dalai Lama was honoured in Washington, China redirected any online searches towards [...]

Four Eyed Monsters on YouTube

I blogged about these two before. They have now put their feature, all of it, on YouTube for free and legal viewing for one week only…. They have a promotion whereby for each viewers who sign up with Spout, a film review site, Spout will give them 1 dollar. Sign up and help these guys [...]