Thoughts, ramblings and experiments in making sense of a complex Future

Share on Facebook

Some golden nuggets from ‘I’m Here’, a short story about love in an Absolut World by Spike Jonze.

Man: “What do you mean? We (robots) cant dream!”

Woman: “Of course you can, you just make it up!”

—–

Man: “…This dream was easily the best dream in the history of all dreams”.

A library assistant plods through an ordinary life in LA until a chance meeting opens his eyes to a the power of creativity and ultimately, love. When this new life and love begin to fall apart, he discovers he has a lot to give. This short film proves that ordinary is no place to be. (via IMDB)

View the trailer here…

I was reading some essays on Design Fiction by Julian Bleecker recently and was especially struck by this film after reading it. ‘I’m Here’ is such a perfectly imagined and made work of design-fiction in the sense that it makes you completely believe in the World which is created here. Not only are the ‘props’ and costumes entirely authentic, the fact that its set in the Almost Present makes the impact breathtakingly moving and simple. It focuses on human/robotic emotion while keeping the work of design very secondary.

This scene in the movie was such a brilliant piece of architectural fiction. It almost made me believe that such hospitals exist.

My moral from this story – A truly moving piece of design fiction is infinitesimally more valuable than a billion half-resolved design truths.

Share on Facebook

Credit: http://www.ibraheemyoussef.com/ibraheemshop/

From Buzzfeed via Dehah’s Deviant Art page. Click to see larger version.

Via Cinemablend.

Share on Facebook

Credit: Prologue VFX

via Infothestics

Share on Facebook

The Story of Stuff Project was created by Annie Leonard to leverage and extend the film’s impact. We amplify public discourse on a series of environmental, social and economic concerns and facilitate the growing Story of Stuff community’s involvement in strategic efforts to build a more sustainable and just world. Our on-line community includes over 150,000 activists and we partner with hundreds of environmental and social justice organizations worldwide to create and distribute our films, curricula and other content.

Probably old news to most design colleagues, but I thought I’d post it on the blog for keepsakes.

Link here.

Share on Facebook

This was a project done by my dear friend Sara Tunheden at the Interactive Institute in Stockholm.

BoEL is an experimental social ambient interface and web service that presents daily consumption figures to home owners and neighbours to promote joint savings and foster competitive energy saving behaviours. The service includes an ambient lamp that provides feedback on the energy consumption in the household and these interfaces are installed so that the neighbours can observe each others energy status.

This is one of the many projects the II is working on to spread awareness about energy consumption through design provocations and probes that affect behavior positively.

Oh, and I happened to play a cameo in her amazing video too! This is an edited version. Hopefully I’ll get my hands on the full version soon!

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook

Sources: Cisco estimates based on CAIDA publications, Andrew Odlyzko.

Read the full article here.

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook

What online identities are we using across the Web?

via Gigya

Share on Facebook