Found some amazing youtube videos by Dub FX. At a first glance it's an interesting, experimental way of using your voice and electronics as a mobile studio to produce great music. But after this first impression wears off and you don't just concentrate on the technical aspect of how he is producing the sounds, you also realize that it's actually well composed music by a talented artist.
Related Links:
'Love someone'
'Step on my trip'
'Flow' (with sax)
'Soothe Your Pain'
'Society Gates'
Two co-workers of mine just have been interviewed on the FWA. Definitely worth a read.
Related Links:
Dave Snyder (ACD)
Zeh Fernando (Senior Dev)
OTTO is a simple and inspiring tangible sound sampling interface. Check it out.
Related Links:
vimeo video of OTTO in action
creator's homepage
Now that's an extremely cool competition. The task is to write a controller (agent) for Super Mario that controls the game by itself, winning as many levels of increasing difficulty as possible. The main purpose of this competition is to be able to compare different controller development methodologies against each other, both those based on learning techniques such as artificial evolution and those that are completely hand-coded...
Related Links:
http://julian.togelius.com/mariocompetition2009/ (official site)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlkMs4ZHHr8 (screen recording of one entry)
Tribal DDB and director Adam Berg (Stink Digital) produced a nice little short film to promote Philip's latest 21:9 aspect ratio TV. The execution is damn awesome and I definitely prefer the approach to show the aspects of the 21:9 aspect ratio by an actual video instead of just talking about it. The spot has a "Dark Knight" feel which is a plus, just like the little details like the duration of 2:19 minutes. I just wish that there were more comments of the director or the post production, because that is what brings this thing to the next level (and could even more). Aside from the fact that regular ratios (which only is like 99% of the content you'll usually watch on a TV) will probably look crappy on this TV and that once again it's a website that's just a video in the end with user interaction only playing a minor side role, it's still a really well executed campaign microsite. Check it out.
Related Link:
http://www.cinema.philips.com/
Directors Cut
Find me a church like this and I will attend religiously. This video made by "airloaf" is hilarious, but why is it featured in my "Good Design" category? Simple. It's the perfect example for the favorite topic of my former design professor Paul Lottermann a.k.a. "Bruno Paulot": A picture can tell more than a thousand words. In one of his many experiments he took a simple photo of a woman, standing next to a river, looking at the other riverside where you can see a power plant. He then mailed this photo to different people, including celebrities and politicians. He asked them to write a little caption to the picture, anything they like, and then send it back to him. The collected captions were then published in a book. It's simply amazing how different the human mind and its perception is. Everyone saw the same picture, but everyone saw a different story... So yeah: A picture tells more than a thousand words, which is photography's and video's strength. But a picture can also leave too much room for interpretation, which is where text and audio come in. They help to put the picture into the right context. The art of design is to say the right things with text or audio, while not simply boring the viewer and repeating what's already been said visually. It's a basic rule of good design: A user who has to think for himself will be interested and spend time with your product. If it's too abstract and too hard to figure out though, it gets frustrating and you lose your audience. Good photo/video - text/audio relation is a fine line, but if it's done right a simple video of people rocking out in church can make your day.
Related Links:
http://www.youtube.com/user/airloaf
Amazon: Ein Bild sagt mehr als tausend Worte
Grooveshark is awesome !!! As with all wonderful things these days, it's either going to cost a fortune soon, will be plastered with advertisement or will simply be sued by the music industry and have to go out of business. So... Enjoy the music while it lasts.
Related Links:
http://listen.grooveshark.com/
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Einstein_Rosen_Bridge/3100310 (hot shit.)
I saw this on the "Adaptive Reuse" blog and have to say it's pretty amazing what an abandoned 1947 auto electrical repair shop can be turned in to. Would work and live there in a heartbeat.
Related Link:
http://adaptivereuse.net/2008/03/15/auto-repair-to-studio-residence/