secret language of the trees

I mades this image with the help of  Type is Art  an interactive art project:  http://www.typeisart.com/

corporate safety blanket

Douglas Copeland designed some blankets made from cotton and silk. Comfort they may provide, but not much of  security. And they are actually quite beautiful.

type pantry

from samiare   click to see large here

blogging and education

image by stylespion 

Here is a list of interesting quotes about blogging, which I compiled a few years ago and I re-discovered on a dead class blog, which I am going to delete now. While, of course these bit of information are not exactly hot news to most  of my discerning readers, they may be still useful for somebody who is new to blogging, or using blogs in an educational context. So I am posting them here.  Sorry, I have not got the time to directly link to surces right now, but the references are given at the end.

What is a weblog?
„Weblogs, or blogs as they are affectionately termed, are frequently updated websites, usually personal, with commentary and links. Link lists are as old as home pages, but a blog is far from a static link list or home page. A blog consists of many relatively short posts, usually time-stamped, and organised in reverse chronology so that a reader will always see the most recent post first. The first weblogs were seen as filters to the Internet; interesting links to sites the reader might not have seen, often with commentary from the blogger.“ (Mortensen/Walker 2002)

„A weblogger filters a mass of information, choosing the items that interest her or that are relevant to her chosen topic, commenting upon them, demonstrating connections between them and analysing them.“
(Mortensen/Walker 2002)

“Weblogs combine two oppositional principles: monologue and dialogue. A reaction to a statement is not only directed to the sender but also to unknown readers. Very often the weblogger gets feedback from unexpected sources: new relations and contexts emerge. This (assumed) undirected communication develops to an open and involving activity.” “Weblogs not only enable interaction with other webloggers, they offer a way to engage in a discursive exchange with the author’s self (intrapersonal conversation). A weblog becomes an active partner in communication, because it demands consistent criteria for what will be posted to a weblog (and how). This “indirect monologic dialog” of weblogs allows us to conduct communicative acts that otherwise would only be possible in very particular circumstances.” (Marcus O’Donnell 2005)

Reading
“Blogging is about, first, reading. But more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you: your culture, your community, your ideas. And it is about engaging with the content and with the authors of what you have read—reflecting, criticizing, questioning, reacting. If a student has nothing to blog about, it is not because he or she has nothing to write about or has a boring life. It is because the student has not yet stretched out to the larger world, has not yet learned to meaningfully engage in a community. For blogging in education to be a success, this first must be embraced and encouraged.” (Stephen Downes 2004)

charlie don’t surf

I am an avid reader of David Buckingham’s work, which has been helpul for my own research, and I am proud to say that he supervised my MA dissertation. Unexpectedly I found another David Buckingham, who produces this great artwork, sculptures cut and welded out of found metal. I love the kind of energy it has, very constrained in some way, but powerful and strong. And these fantastic colours! Below is a great photograph of him working, from the flash page of his website. I guess this is the thing with sculptures of metal, the sheer physical strenght and power that goes into it. 

I really wished I had the cash to buy the  Charlie don’t surf piece for my beloved hubby, and he knows why. 

art and maps (5) douglas wilson

A blog that I keep visiting is onpaperwings by Dougas Wilson, who also prints these posters with letterpress  on maps. They can be bought here on keeppcalmgallery.com

analog social networking

paperbeatsinternet is an ‘analog’ take on social networking, developed by folks at the New Directions in Pictorial Design Class at the Otario College of Art and Design. Most messages are a combination of drawings and hand written text. I like these combinations of old fashioned chalk board and photography. That could be a fun school project.

via drawn!

jeanne

Young Femme With Stickbild Jeanne (AK Junge Frau mit Stickbild Jeanne)

Is this not a lovely picture? This is a vintage postcard currently available on eBay. A combination of some things I like – photography, embroidery, vernacular creativity, womans’ crafts, (subversive) cross stitch. See some earlier postings: petit point and women reading, cross stitch text message and more digital petit point.

alphabet of dialogue

This image struck me as really nice – advertising the Bologna Children’s book fair. I read it as imaginary script, a playful take on literacy, drawing inspiration from scripts from all over the world. A fantasy of what writing could look like in a parallel world. Only by accident I saw that this is an actual text, (tilt your head to the left and you can read it too). How blind  we are sometimes to the obvious. So actually it is a riddle to solve. Sweet.

Update: I just found more info on this here:

AbcBFont_09 is the first of a series of possible alphabets, imagined and designed by Chialab to build the visual identity of Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Year after year these typographical calligraphies will try to underline the fair’s uniqueness and describe its multitude of languages and subjects. AbcBFont_09 is the first typeface designed for the 2009 edition. Many ways of writing from around the world find themselves together sharing the fair’s international character. We like to think of it as the alphabet of dialogue. An alphabet not only black as ink – but a mix of all colours, as we would like the future to be pleasant and colourful.

fairy tale

I made this a while ago. POV of a heavy hero. It’s all in the imagination.

alphabet

A set of delightful alphabet illustrations by Paul Thurlby can be found on Flickr. It is still a work in progress – I am looking forward to see it completed.

books sculpture

Alicia Martin: Biografias – Cascade of books uploaded on Flickr by library_mistress

I keep discovering sculptures made out of books; this seems to be a current trend. Linz in Upper Austria is currently European Capital of Culture and this cascade of books is pouring out of a window onto a main street.

the art of lost words

Filipendulous by Thomas Manss & Co  manass.com

Text/gallery is a new gallery  “a new experimental showcase for  art and design projects inspired by the printed  and written word.” Most of the current exhibition THE ART OF LOST WORDS fails to grab my imagination, but then again I have seen it only online. I like the mobile above though!

via creativereview.com

fluxus poetry

by Litsa Spathi. Her work can be also found on Flickr.