In an artistic landscape where photography and imagery are becoming increasingly more digital and less human it is refreshing to see an artist flipping this in reverse and creating something unmistakably human.
This fantastic video below of Artist Miguel Endara shows the painstaking lengths it took to create a lifelike portrait of his father with 3.2 million tiny ink dots. He has titled the piece ‘Hero’.
Drawing with a Sakura Pigma Micron pen which has a nib of just 0.2mm Miguel spent over 11 months completing the artwork which is an impression from a real life image built up using a series of face scans.
Talking about the process Miguel explained: “‘I filmed myself in just about every section of my drawing and got an average of 4.25 dots per second, which translated into 3,213,000 dots if you multiply that by 210 hours, which is what I logged in for the drawing.”
The video has attracted over 6 million views so far on Vimeo perhaps showing that when it comes to the human form producing reflective art pieces in a uniquely human way will always be fascinating.
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As a planner, my job is about people and business. Cut through all the rubbish about what strategy people do, it really boils down to finding a link between what people are interested in and what the business needs to achieve. It’s really not that complicated.
It does mean that if you ever drift past my desk, you might find me not really looking like I’m ‘working; – you know, typing furiously with a furrowed brow – very often though, you’ll find me at my desk reading a book, paper or magazine.
Not really stuff about marketing, brands and business because reading the prescribed tomes on how to do marketing usually means creating marketing stuff that’s the same as everyone else’s (not to mention much of is based on false assmptions and little real evidence). Mostly stuff about people,since that’s what this business is really about, that lets me fish where others don’t, on sociology, psychology, culture, academia, not to mention general weirdness.
Every now and again, of course, there’s the odd book or article to dip into, especially more digitally focused things, since it’s all changing so fast there’s little chance to stop and think. Anyone who does anything to do with digital marketing and tells you they have all the answers is even more of a liar than anyone who deals in so called, ‘offline’ stuff. You can’t be a guru on something that changes every day.
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Kerala Chicken Korma – Serves 4 A lovely way to prepare a Korma which ensures a rich mix of flavours. Ingredients 4 chicken breasts 500ml coconut milk 100ml cream ground garam masala 2 cloves garlic, peeled 50g cashew nuts 2.5cm ginger, peeled 1 green chilli 1 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp ground cumin 1.5 tsp…
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A video on the BBC News website today gives an interesting look into the world of patent wars going on between large technology firms.
It appears that the likes of Apple, Samsung and Motorola are continually locked in patent battles through intellectual property lawyers to protect the parts of their smart phone and tablet devices which they believe make their products unique.
In the video Geoff McCormick, director of UK design firm The Alloy, which devises technology products, takes apart an iPhone to explain the thousands of pieces of intellectual property that are contained in a modern smartphone.
Apparently patent disputes are increasingly defining the way smartphones and tablets develop – both what they do, and how they look. It’s interesting to think that one of the key things that will dictate design and technological advancement is the human arguments going on in locked courtrooms to prove ownership of a particular idea or concept.
As humans we all have desire to be original or come up with something that will make us unique and maybe even define our existences (or make meaning of them at least).
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Considering silent movie the Artist is scooping up the film awards this year could an Indonesian romantic story that takes place through Twitter be a contender for next years ceremonies? Probably not, but imagine the hilarious best actress Oscar Speech if it had starred an American A Lister “I Hashtag Meryl Streep would like to dedicate this award to all my fans @merylstreepofficial and of course my Director” (Did I get that in 140 characters or less…)
Whether or not it wins any critical praise #republiktwitter is a novel new take on the romance genre taking a tale that reflects Indonesia’s love affair with Twitter.
As the BBC says: ” It’s a modern Indonesian romantic comedy about two young people who find love through social media. The film also helps explain why Indonesians are so obsessed with communicating with each other online.”
Indonesia is one of the most Twitter and Facebook-friendly nations on Earth. A higher proportion of Indonesian Internet users sign on to Twitter than in any other country. It also has the world’s third-largest number of Facebook users. Indonesian people have also used Twitter and Facebook to push for social justice online and highlighting misbehaving politicians.
It’s not the first film to document how technology can spark a romance. Who can forget the dismal ‘You’ve Got Mail’ a 1998 rom com with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. The most interesting thing that happened in that was a close up shot of ‘click send’.
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Sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. Aristotle is the first person credited with the traditional classification of the five sense organs in circa 322 BC. I wonder what he would make of McCain Foods recently launched smell based campaign for Ready Made Jacket potatoes and i wonder if they even ate spuds before Jesus was a boy?
Whatever the answers to those cryptic questions one thing is for sure. In the quest for keeping a brand human nothing beats good old ‘smellovision’ to create a talking point around a food based product.
McC ains bus shelter adverts which emit the smell of fresh baked commuters from a tactile larger than life tatty is certainly a clever idea. As humans we all have the need to eat and smell creates a desire for that need.
You can’t help wondering with smell based marketing tactics what they use to recreate a realistic odour? Did they bottle the genuine smell of one of the jackets cooking or was it cooked up in a lab with bottled perfumes to give a synthesised experience.
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As humans many of us have the desire to explore and discover new things. Going on exotic overseas adventures and seeing something for the first time appeals to the human need for new experiences. Not all of us however relish the thought of eighteen hour stop over flights and malaria medication.
But hope has arrived for the sofa slug standard of explorer in the form of Google Street View which has decided to go off the beaten track and offer new places to discover including ancient Japanese Caves.
Click here to see the Okubo-mabu mine, a series of vast underground passges passageways or here to explore the Akiyoshi-do limestone cavern. The video below from Mashable also gives a nice overview.
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Pinterest has recently made it into the top 7 social networking sites which reflects the hotly tipped trend of 2012, ‘Social Content Curation’.
Social networking is quickly moving away from being text centric and becoming increasingly visual, revolving around the idea of collecting content. Users want to be able to create compelling, easy to consume, easy to create content, therefore 2012 is likely to see a rise in structured, push button, social curation.
Pinterest allows you to create visual collections of things that you like and find on the web. It allows people to connect through the ‘things’ they find interesting, a common interest creating a link between two people. Such as a favourite sports team, fashion designer, book etc.
This could see yet another example of basic human behaviour being transferred to the web. Instead of cutting out photos and pictures from ads & mags to make a collage, or scrap book you can now ‘push the button’ and store them online for everyone to see.
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Did you fail any GCSE’s? I did – getting D’s in Maths and Science. I remember not particularly caring because I never wanted to be a Scientist or a Mathematician and got A grades in the subjects I enjoyed. So why did getting a double DD really matter anyway?
According to my teachers at the time it mattered quite a lot. I was forced to retake both subjects to be able to stay in school to do A Levels there (two years which I despised) and a doom laden Head of RE informed me that “No University will take you without pass marks in Maths and Science” which I found out later was a blatant lie.
Anyway after two of the most depressing years of my existence I escaped to a world of magazines, newspapers, creative writing, photography and on the job experience. University in some ways did end up being the best time of my educational life.
The only maths I have ever had to use as an adult in the working world is percentages, which someone cleverer can always help you out with if you get stuck and apart from mismanaging my finances a lot which as nothing to do with algebra or trigonometry then numbers and me plod on in relative harmony.
Getting to the whole reason for this post though (and apologies if I have bored you already) is the point I want to make about the ‘BT Ology’ Advert below which I think is one of the best ever examples of humanity in advertising.
The truth is that as humans we can’t be good at everything, it’s simply not possible. For me this conversation between Maureen Lipman and her Grandson Anthony epitomises human relationship’s and the fact that sometimes in life we can all fail at something so have to learn a lesson from that and go on to discover what we are good at and what the unique skills are that we have to offer.
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This is a lovely warming soup full of moroccan flavours. Harira – Moroccan Lamb Soup – Serves 4 Ingredients 400g tin of chopped tomatoes 250g diced lamb 1/2 small jar harissa paste 1/2 tsp tumeric 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp coriander seeds 1/2 tsp fennel seeds 2 tbsp butter 4 tbsp chopped coriander 2…
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