The Olympics are theater on a massive scale. The opening ceremony was full of stunning effects (I loved, for example, the use of the stadium scrim as a screen high up in the sky). It turns out that one part of the fireworks broadcast around the world was actually an animation, not the real thing. The Chinese apparently feared for the safety of helicopters which would have to film the live pyrotechnics, so instead they created a computer animation for broadcast. Even though NBC made reference to the “cinematic” techniques being used in real time, many viewers may have missed the fact that they were not watching the “real thing.”
But then, what is real? The whole event was delayed here in the states, but broadcast as though live. Mary does an exercise where she asks students to identify which media clips feel more authentic than others. When does Pixar get more real than real? What difference does it make if consumers of media can’t distinguish fact from fiction?
I once made a version of this painting out of little bits of my roommate’s “Sports Illustrated”. Denis has that one. Here is a new version of my favorite painting set to a favorite song in a new world. Vincent’s Starry Night in Second Life.
I was creating a simple mosaic at my mother’s house on Kelley’s Island this past week. I have not worked with tile in over a year. I miss it and was really happy to be getting my hands dirty again.
Tile is fairly unforgiving. Hard to shape. Easy to break. While learning to make curves with the wet saw I got to thinking:
The perfect is not the enemy of the good, it is the enemy of the beautiful! Embrace the happy accident.
We spend a lot of time trying to perfect things, especially in libraries. We are fond of order and authority. We insist that systems perform flawlessly. We are perfectionists. Technology for libraries is hard, at least as hard as cutting tile. Developing services for faculty and students is an ever-evolving challenge. We don’t have time to perfect, in fact, when we try we miss the boat.
But we all want to be proud of our work, to feel we have done our best. Beauty is often born of the “happy accidents” of brush stroke, blade, or muse. If we are awake to those accidents, open to them, ready to flow with them rather than against them, to find out where they lead. Accidents often lead to interesting resolutions we might not have thought of. They can point the way to simpler solutions, exciting opportunities. They can provide a natural spontaneity that elicits wonder from the viewer or users. They can be delightful.
Insisting on perfection makes little room for this sort of beauty. I think we should work on being open to the happy accident, embracing its beauty in our work, bringing some wonder to the eyes of our community.
Noelle told me about this, but I just found it today. It looks like a few people have found out where (the hell) Matt is, and they are dancing along with him.
I’ve enjoyed Matt’s earlier videos, if you have not seen them, they are worth a look. I defy to to hold back the smile!
Firefox 3 has some nice web typography features. Unfortunately, it seems to get as much wrong as right. Still, a new prominence of type on the web is approaching.
Jonnie Hallman has created a site that is interesting on a number of levels. First, I love the domain name and the reveling in “seize the day”. Second, his lab is full of beautiful work. Third, he’s build a great Adobe AIR app called DestroyFlickr that really makes Flickr sing. Take a look.
