databeautiful

Visualizing Cultural Patterns

manovich — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:35:59 +0000

We will also bring together the visualization techniques normally used in science with the techniques developed in digital design and new media art. The practical outcome of our research will be Cultural Analytics Research Environment: an open platform which supports an analysis of different types of visual and media data and a variety of visualization and mapping techniques.... We believe that such visualization environments will be used by a range of people – social scientists and cultural theorists who professionally study culture, students in art history, media studies, and communication studies classes, museum visitors, and cultural creators who want to better understand how their work fits within a larger context.

3 lectures in London, April 22-24, 2008

manovich — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:08:20 +0000

22 April, 2008 3.00 - 5.00 pm location: London School of Economics, Studio Ciborra 22 April, 2008 7:15pm - 8:45pm location: Royal College of Art, Lecture Theatre One 24 April, 2008 5:00 - 7:00 pm location: Goldsmiths College, Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre all 3 lectures explore the same topic: Scale Effects, or How to Track Global Digital Culture The exponential growth of a number of both [...]

Crystall Island in Moscow - tallest bld in the world

manovich — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:13:37 +0000

Moscow’s rapidly growing skyline will soon feature an eye-popping new addition: Crystal Island, which will be the world’s biggest building when completed. Sir Norman Foster’s mountainous 27 million square feet spiraling ‘city within a building’ will cost $4 billion and it is scheduled to be built within next 5 years. (Via inhabitat.com.)

Gazprom Tower in St. Petersburg - tallest bld in Europe

manovich — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:55:15 +0000

“The historic city of St. Petersburg in Russia will soon be home to the tallest and supposedly ‘greenest’ tower in Europe. The UK-based architectural firm RMJM was given a go by the Russian gas giant to build the new Gazprom Neft headquarters in the former Russian capital.” (Via archinect.com.) “The main tower ‘is to rise [...]

top 10 selling artists in 2007 actions are all from the 20th c.

manovich — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 06:09:25 +0000

Contemporary Art Tops the Auction Charts, Business Week online, April 8, 2008. Some quotes: “New Indonesian and other Southeast Asian artists are commanding five- and six-figure sums for their work, which is being snapped up by collectors, galleries, and auction houses around the world.” “Contemporary art is now the driving force of an auction house,” says François Curiel, [...]

play with BlogPulse

admin — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 05:50:02 +0000

If you have not done this yet, spend some time playing with blogpulse (from Nielson BuzzMetrics). Whlle other web and social media measurement companies - such as m:metrics and Big Champaign - give you only little samples, saving their tools for paying customers, BlogPulse (at least for now) actually allows you to do some pretty [...]

use of eyetracking for web site redesign

admin — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 05:35:50 +0000

Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design. USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review. Posted: 2007-03-13. ( Via social architectures, a class taught by UCSD graduate student Derek Lomas. )

N brings designs to games (finally!)

admin — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 07:38:39 +0000

N, a free game from Metanet.(From Business Week, Gaming Trends: 2008.)

Skolkovo, a new Russian business school: Machiavelli + nanotechology

admin — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 07:06:13 +0000

The site outside Moscow which used to house a Collective Farm during Soviet times is now a brand new international business school which emphasizes doing business in emerging markets: “The curriculum will provide for analysis of business activities in the countries with rapidly growing economies such as Russia, India, Brazil, and China (the so called BRIC [...]

prison-cell upgrades

admin — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:12:10 +0000

“California jails are increasingly offering pay-to-stay upgrades, costing from USD $75 a day for premium cells. These are more private, allow access to personal possessions, and are at a greater distance from violent offenders.” (From Sarah Rabia, Five-start Cells, The, issue 01, 17.09.2007, p. 5.)

Bollywood is ahead of Hollywood

admin — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:12:44 +0000

“Bollywood’s global audience is estimated at 3BN, while Hollywood’s is about 2.6BN.” Source: Times, as quoted in “Index,”The, issue 01, 17.09.2007, p. 17.

Nissan electric Cube brings design to car interface (finally!)

manovich — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:08:52 +0000

Photos: Nissan electric Cube at the NY auto show | CNET News.com

Design and the Elastic Mind

manovich — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:37:38 +0000

Paola Antonelli, the curator of MOMA’s “Design and the Elastic Mind,” speaks in detail about several of the exhibits, including “The Afterlife,” a system for turning corpses into batteries, robots that act as personal climatizers and DNA origami:watch videoDesign and the Elastic MindThrough 12 May 2008MoMA11 West 53 StreetNew York, NY 10019 map

Sobees brings design to widgets (finally!)

admin — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:05:27 +0000

Sobees, a widget application from Switzerland.Logo: Screenshot 1: Screenshot 2: Screenshot 3:

Nokia’s augmented reality

manovich — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:53:49 +0000

Augmenting reality Nokia-style

plastic surgery fashions in Beirut

admin — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 06:13:43 +0000

“Nose surgery is so popular among girls turning 18 and 21 that some are even wearing plasters across their noses as a fashion statement.” Source: Nadim Dimenchkie, The City Reports: Beirut, The, issue 01, 17.09.2007, p. 11.

Nokia’s system for measuring traffic

manovich — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:51:50 +0000

Nokia’s system measures traffic by getting locations and speed from drivers’ phones: Avoiding traffic with your mobile

Mexico city - a megacity from above

admin — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 03:25:42 +0000

“A characteristic issue of megacities is the difficulty in defining their outer limits and accurately estimating the population.”Wikipedia: Megacity, accessed March 28, 2008.

From a flat world to an inverted world - part 1

admin — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:55:02 +0000

world map from SAS in-flight magazine, Fall 2007 If you were to ask in 2000, in what cities did I get most intelligent and challenging questions after a lecture, my answer would be London and Berlin. This was to be expected. But then things started to change - rather quickly. The intellectual pyramid of the world [...]

meetings at Condesa DF hotel, Mexico City: Boris Groys and Michael Nyman

admin — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:42:47 +0000

As they say, the world is getting smaller. Of course, it is also getting bigger. It is also getting more dense, more networked, more mapped (technologically), more shared. At the same time, it is getting less understood, less mappable (cognitively), and less shared. This week I am in Mexico City staying in Condesa DF hotel which [...]

Dubai Metro Naming Rights

admin — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:34:06 +0000

Reading on the plane from San Diego to Mexico City - full-page magazine ad: close up:

“community,” “city,” and other problematic concepts

admin — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:32:45 +0000

Last week I was showing some visitors around downtown San Diego. In part, it was like walking through a Excel spreadsheet created by developers. Everything was programmed according to some formulas, and the transparency of this programming was so clear that you felt embarassed. But at the same time, once you felt the downtown core, [...]

“intelligent design” hotel - Condesa SF @mexico city

admin — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 18:12:45 +0000

Checked in famous Condesa SF hotel in Mexico City. It turned out to be one of the best places I ever stayed - anywhere. I would call it a “intelligent design” hotel. While many hotels simply stock up designer chairs, through name brand items in the bathroom and stop there, Condesa SF has depth, complexity, [...]

graphic design - book series

admin — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:47:01 +0000

Captured at Museum of Contemporary Art’s bookstore (NYC), January 1, 2008.

Google Visualization API

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:33:31 +0000

Another step towards making information visualization a standard part of web culture: Google Visualization API (thanks to infosthetics.com) image source

“please make the nail polish cheaper”: social media @Whole Foods

admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:22:49 +0000

I was hacked (net art ghost)

admin — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:56:25 +0000

I discovered that manovich.net was hacked.I was thinking of leaving it as is, because this page inserted by some script reminded meof a certain well-known work of early net art from about 10 years ago…however, as my site contains links to my class syllabi used by students,I had to go and restore it to its [...]

U.S. health insurers signing deals with foreign hospitals

admin — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:16:01 +0000

In November 206 I visited Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok to get a full physical exam. (Even though I have a top-end medical insurance through University of California, the annual physical exam it pays for is very basic. So I took advantage of my stay in Bangkok to go to this hospital. The experience was [...]

ANIME fashion

admin — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:11:04 +0000

944 Magazine, Los Angeles issue, March 2008:

the ecstasy of communication

admin — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:13:59 +0000