Had dinner with Annalisa and Daniel tonight.
That's a pretty odd way to start a post, as I think you two are the only ones who actually read this thing.
Everything you said tonight gave me a lot to think about. After I got home, I talked to my brother as well, and his suggestion was just taking some time off. Maybe a month. Something like that. Just... not doing anything for a while.
I'm feeling a bit rudderless at the moment. I'm not really sure what I want to do, or maybe I've been doing it all so long I don't really know what I actually care about. Maybe I just need to take an extended trip or something and not think about all this for a while.
I feel like trying to go back to class this year is rushing it. I don't know that I want to be tied down to weekly classes and lessons for the next nine months right now.
I want to go sit in the MFA and think. I want to get out of the country and think. I want to take a road trip and think.
My brother repeated for me something that a friend of his told him a few years ago, which is that you should worry about what to do with all your free time once you have the free time to worry about it. Don't try figuring out what to do with your time before you actually have it - use the time itself to figure it out.
When my head is all full of programming and things-I-want-to-do, how am I supposed to know what it is I really ought to be doing? I feel sorta apathetic about everything.
I dunno. Not working is feeling like a decent option at the moment, at least until I know what I want to go back to.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Beautiful, short run.
It's beautiful out - just barely 70 degrees, and feels cooler. Somewhat windy. I went out at around 11:00 AM or so and ran down to Harvard through the back streets, out to the river, and back towards the Elliot St. bridge. Once there, I was kinda worn out (late night?), and started walking. That's about a 2.7 mile run.
I then walked myself back home, for a total distance of about 4.4 miles. Here's the map:
ICA and Half of Central Square
Went out to the ICA yesterday afternoon, and was joined by Eric O. and Helena. Eric and I walked over from South Station, which was delightful, and Helena met us there maybe twenty minutes later.
Charles LeDray's work was quite nice. In Eric's words, much of it evoked some sort of dirty, Sears department store in the '80s. He had viewers moving around a lot - a row of hats on the wall, well above your head, to miniature racks of clothing on the floor with a drop ceiling hanging over them that prevents you from properly seeing it at all unless you kneel beside it. There were shelves covered in hundreds (thousands?) of tiny clay and porcelain pots, vases, cups and bowls, each one unique.
Dr. Lakra was, in my opinion, a trifle disappointing. His work was primarily concerned with augmenting existing prints/photos/old magazines of people by covering their bodies with what appear to be Central American-style tattoos. My current problem with it is that they appeared applied in a slapdash sort of way. It was as if he was using the figure's skin as a flat canvas to draw on, which made the tattoos feel inconsistent and out of context even more than they already were (which, I imagine, is part of the point).
After leaving the ICA, the three of us took the T back to Central Square (around 5:30 PM or so), where we got a drink at Central Kitchen whilst waiting for Shannon to appear. There was a goat cheese plate with berries. There was also a Left Hand Milk Stout, and a... Final Ward? Chartreuse, rye, lemon juice, and some other sorta fruit flavor I can't quite remember. Nice.
Shannon appeared around 6:30 - 7:00 PM or so, and we went over to the Middle East for dinner. Delightful, as always. I had Tofu Cous Cous and a hummus plate. The former was some cous cous on the side, several large, grilled slabs of tofu on a bed of various veggies, and a bunch of chick peas on the side.
After dinner, we went back across the street to the Enormous Room for an hour or so. There was gin and tonic. This was an interlude, designed to delay whilst we waited for Zuzu to become club-like around 10:00 PM.
It eventually did so. It was, apparently, soul night. Yes.
We stayed until closing. Great night!
Charles LeDray's work was quite nice. In Eric's words, much of it evoked some sort of dirty, Sears department store in the '80s. He had viewers moving around a lot - a row of hats on the wall, well above your head, to miniature racks of clothing on the floor with a drop ceiling hanging over them that prevents you from properly seeing it at all unless you kneel beside it. There were shelves covered in hundreds (thousands?) of tiny clay and porcelain pots, vases, cups and bowls, each one unique.
Dr. Lakra was, in my opinion, a trifle disappointing. His work was primarily concerned with augmenting existing prints/photos/old magazines of people by covering their bodies with what appear to be Central American-style tattoos. My current problem with it is that they appeared applied in a slapdash sort of way. It was as if he was using the figure's skin as a flat canvas to draw on, which made the tattoos feel inconsistent and out of context even more than they already were (which, I imagine, is part of the point).
After leaving the ICA, the three of us took the T back to Central Square (around 5:30 PM or so), where we got a drink at Central Kitchen whilst waiting for Shannon to appear. There was a goat cheese plate with berries. There was also a Left Hand Milk Stout, and a... Final Ward? Chartreuse, rye, lemon juice, and some other sorta fruit flavor I can't quite remember. Nice.
Shannon appeared around 6:30 - 7:00 PM or so, and we went over to the Middle East for dinner. Delightful, as always. I had Tofu Cous Cous and a hummus plate. The former was some cous cous on the side, several large, grilled slabs of tofu on a bed of various veggies, and a bunch of chick peas on the side.
After dinner, we went back across the street to the Enormous Room for an hour or so. There was gin and tonic. This was an interlude, designed to delay whilst we waited for Zuzu to become club-like around 10:00 PM.
It eventually did so. It was, apparently, soul night. Yes.
We stayed until closing. Great night!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Quite the ride.
Did a lot of biking yesterday, riding all over Cambridge/Watertown from home to work, to Harvard Square, to Jason and Kat's, back to Harvard Square, and finally back home. It came out to about 14 miles. I wouldn't mention it, except that I can feel it today, so clearly it was worthwhile. It was 90+ degrees outside, and I was mostly a hot mess each time I got where I was going.
Here's a lovely, enormous map of the route:
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday morning run
Ran around 3.7 miles in New Haven this morning. It was a wet, humid sorta day, but with a nice, cool breeze. I started out from my brother's place on Canner St., ran downtown on Orange St., and then came back up on Whitney Ave. It's been a while; the run was more difficult than expected - or rather, I felt like I had run farther than actually had. I thought it was about 5 miles.
Here's the map:
Here's the map:
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Thursday evening run/walk
Went for my first run in a while on Thursday. This post is backdated from Sunday morning. Made it from Richdale down to JFK Park, approximiately 1.7 miles, booking a bit more than I should have, and ended up moseying my way back home after stopping in the park. It was a fairly warm day.
Here's the map. The running bit stopped a smidge before that 2 mile marker, at the corner there in the park:
Here's the map. The running bit stopped a smidge before that 2 mile marker, at the corner there in the park:
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Interactive and Visual Design is like Music.
Music has a fundamental concept of tension and release. This is the phenomenon where, as a song progresses, the composer takes you on both macro and micro journeys of increased tension, culminating in some sort of resolution back to the tonic of a key. On a micro scale, this happens repeatedly every time a bass player returns to C from G, for instance, or every time they fall through the circle of fourths on some sort of 4-7-3-6-2-5-1. On a macro level, a soloist may refuse to resolve a phrase for some number of bars, repeatedly increasing tension until it's finally released.
Both visual and interactive design have similar concepts, but it usually takes place over the course of months or years.
In interactive design, there is a tendency for products and interfaces to accumulate features over the course of multiple versions as companies compete with each other to win customers. These features, if not attended to carefully, tend to increase the complexity and decrease the usability of the interface or device in question. The process of increasing complexity and decreasing usability, in this case, I'll refer to as tension. Eventually, tension reaches a critical mass where it can't be maintained anymore, and designers go on a crusade (supported by consumer desires) to release the tension and return to a tonic, comfortable, usable design. This may mean shedding features. It may also mean reevaluating organically created interfaces that evolved over multiple iterations, but in general, it means releasing multiple years of built up tension in favor of something that feels more centered and solid.
I think a similar phenomenon exists in visual design as it relates to branding, though perhaps to a lesser, and more carefully controlled extent. An entity with a well established brand will iterate on that brand to keep it fresh. In the course of these iterations, the brand will evolve more visually interesting, differentiating, or eye catching idiosyncrasies. These idiosyncrasies and visual tensions will build up until the visual designer feels they're starting to overwhelm the original, tonic, centered concept for the brand, in which case they will simplify the design and resolve it back to something simple and clean.
I say that this phenomenon exists to a lesser or more carefully controlled extent in visual design because I think visual design culture has put a greater emphasis on simplicity and clarity of message than interaction design. Interaction design contends with features which forcibly increase complexity and reduce clarity; visual design has lower barriers to re-evaluation and iteration, and is thus more flexible.
In all of these cases, the composer or designer is utilizing complexity, tension, and/or differentiation in order to engage their audience and maintain attention and interest. All of these tools have the side effect of increasing the audience's perceived need for relaxation and simplicity (a pleasant phrase I just borrowed from Wikipedia's definition of musical tension), which must be satisfied, eventually, lest the audience become frustrated and turn their attentions elsewhere. Talent in these disciplines often equates to the ability to extend this tension for protracted periods of time without the audience consciously perceiving the effort, except, perhaps, on reflection or meta-attentiveness.
It seems likely that this argument could be extended to fiction and fine art in one way or another.
Both visual and interactive design have similar concepts, but it usually takes place over the course of months or years.
In interactive design, there is a tendency for products and interfaces to accumulate features over the course of multiple versions as companies compete with each other to win customers. These features, if not attended to carefully, tend to increase the complexity and decrease the usability of the interface or device in question. The process of increasing complexity and decreasing usability, in this case, I'll refer to as tension. Eventually, tension reaches a critical mass where it can't be maintained anymore, and designers go on a crusade (supported by consumer desires) to release the tension and return to a tonic, comfortable, usable design. This may mean shedding features. It may also mean reevaluating organically created interfaces that evolved over multiple iterations, but in general, it means releasing multiple years of built up tension in favor of something that feels more centered and solid.
I think a similar phenomenon exists in visual design as it relates to branding, though perhaps to a lesser, and more carefully controlled extent. An entity with a well established brand will iterate on that brand to keep it fresh. In the course of these iterations, the brand will evolve more visually interesting, differentiating, or eye catching idiosyncrasies. These idiosyncrasies and visual tensions will build up until the visual designer feels they're starting to overwhelm the original, tonic, centered concept for the brand, in which case they will simplify the design and resolve it back to something simple and clean.
I say that this phenomenon exists to a lesser or more carefully controlled extent in visual design because I think visual design culture has put a greater emphasis on simplicity and clarity of message than interaction design. Interaction design contends with features which forcibly increase complexity and reduce clarity; visual design has lower barriers to re-evaluation and iteration, and is thus more flexible.
In all of these cases, the composer or designer is utilizing complexity, tension, and/or differentiation in order to engage their audience and maintain attention and interest. All of these tools have the side effect of increasing the audience's perceived need for relaxation and simplicity (a pleasant phrase I just borrowed from Wikipedia's definition of musical tension), which must be satisfied, eventually, lest the audience become frustrated and turn their attentions elsewhere. Talent in these disciplines often equates to the ability to extend this tension for protracted periods of time without the audience consciously perceiving the effort, except, perhaps, on reflection or meta-attentiveness.
It seems likely that this argument could be extended to fiction and fine art in one way or another.
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