Art / Blog / Creativity / Entrepreneurship / Freedom

Occupy Disney

Back when Occupy Wall Street was making more news and I was writing about it and leadership and on it and responsibility, I had an idea about corporate control of our lives I thought would be interesting. As an entrepreneur and inventor, I felt the control closer to those areas of my life. I've written about how the patent and copyright systems have created monopolies and oligopolies that distorted their effects from promoting invention to stifling it and small business. There's more to things than just one sentence, so I hope you'll forgive my oversimplicity for the sake of brevity. The Occupy Wall Street movement seems to have lost steam, but recent stories about patent fights between Apple and Samsung are turning the stomachs of…

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September 14, 2012
Union Square in Motion named Adobe Design Achievement Award Semifinalist!
Art / Blog / Creativity / Education

Union Square in Motion named Adobe Design Achievement Award Semifinalist!

Union Square in Motion made the prestigious 2012 Adobe Design Achievement Award semifinals! The Adobe Design Achievement Awards celebrate student and faculty achievement reflecting the powerful convergence of technology and the creative arts. The competition - which showcases individual and group projects created with industry-leading Adobe creative software - honors the most talented and promising student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, developers and computer artists from the world's top institutions of higher education. Adobe sent us the certificate below, somehow not getting around to naming the artists -- Jaqi Vigil, Hilal Koyuncu, Rose Maison, Josefina Santos, Umut Ozover, and me; and co-producer with me, Anezka Sebek -- or the name of the project: Union Square in Motion. Anyway, I couldn't be prouder of…

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September 1, 2012
The Leaders in Software and Art Conference, October 16
Art / Blog / Leadership

The Leaders in Software and Art Conference, October 16

Savvy readers will notice the conference mentioned in the title covers two big topics of this blog -- leadership and art. I've twice spoken at Leaders in Software and Art events, helped host another, and attended many others (a video of my work is currently on the LISA site's front page). The organizer, Isabel Draves, has been building the events, consistently assembling artists and technologists to speak, network, and share about art and technology. (Her husband, Scott, creates just about the most amazing computer-based art I've ever seen.) After many successful monthly salons, she's finally making the first big LISA conference, assembling a great set of speakers. I expect this event will be as Isabel plans -- a TED conference for the overlap of technology…

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August 21, 2012
I love the West Village
Art / Blog / Favorites / Stories

I love the West Village

Greenwich Village, my home, is the best place on Earth. You may love a place more. I love the beauty of raw nature, untouched by human hands, that New York City no longer offers. But I love people and the art, music, culture, and community we create too and I've never seen the equal of the West Village. After living abroad and visiting amazing growth, ancient cultures, new cultures, and new ways of seeing, I wondered how coming home would feel. Coming out of the subway to my home, seeing my neighbors, the neighborhood, the buildings, the restaurants, the people of the Village, and whatever visitors are here overwhelmed me with its diversity and vibrancy. I write prose on life and leadership, not creative writing.…

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August 17, 2012
More on rules
Blog / Creativity / Humor

More on rules

Following up yesterday's post on rules, here are some views on them, and lack thereof, from Calvin and Hobbes. Click the images to see them full size. I'll let you figure out for yourself how deep and meaningful you find their take on life, how valuable their freedom from constraints other people can't get around, and how much they enable you to behave as freely. Anyway, I consider them great works and relevant to yesterday's topic.          

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August 11, 2012
North Korean children’s nearly unbelievable performances
Art / Creativity / Education / NorthKorea

North Korean children’s nearly unbelievable performances

The pictures below don't even approach showing the almost unbelievable performance ability of North Korean children. Joseph's pictures showcase their talent better. But no images can show the professionalism, dedication, and raw talent these kids have. The pictures below are from the Children's Palace, which trains children to perform and create art and puts on incredible performances. After their performance last time, my travel groupmate who was starting a school to train opera singers, reacted with disgust at the performance. As I understood, he saw their type of performance -- technical perfection that could only result from repeated drilling and repetition devoid of personal expression -- as destroying everything he valued about art -- personal expression and emotional exploration. He saw children whose artistic world…

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August 4, 2012
Art / Blog / Creativity

Great Bruce Springsteen article in this week’s New Yorker

I just finished reading and enjoying an article on Bruce Springsteen in this week's New Yorker. I recommend it, especially if you like the long New Yorker articles. This one is over 15,000 words. I've mentioned Bruce before. Growing up in the 70s and 80s in Philadelphia you couldn't miss him. I remember a radio promotion on one of the stations I listened to quoting a fan yelling, I guess outside a Springsteen concert "He's the best. He's Bruce. He's the Boss!" Greetings from Asbury Park was one of the first cds I bought when the medium came out. And the older brother of the first love of my life -- my high school girlfriend -- was a huge fan, with cases of concert bootleg…

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July 30, 2012
My first tilt-shift: North Korea
Art / NorthKorea

My first tilt-shift: North Korea

Okay, this post has almost nothing to do with North Korea, but I learned how to do the trick to make images look like miniatures, called tilt-shifting or miniature faking. I did it with an image of Pyongyang from the Juche Tower. The top, though low resolution, shows the original. The bottom shows the retouched version. Click for larger versions. Anyway, it's just for fun and practice. I think the trick has been played out on the web, but I wanted to try. You can see more of Pyongyang too -- unoccupied and unmaintained buildings, Soviet style, public spaces that could be beautiful. Many buildings had pastel colors that reminded me of Miami Beach, but I don't think so many had such pretty colors in…

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July 20, 2012
Art / Blog / Education / Leadership

A leadership dream

Since posting on lessons leaders can learn from method acting, I've been thinking about parallels between acting and leadership -- in particular how acting changed when Constantine Stanislovski led changing the art to expressive and internal from impressive and external. "Impressive and external" means the actor tried to impress the audience with outward showiness. "Expressive and internal" means the actor tries to find emotions inside and express them. You know what acting before looked like. Jon Lovitz and John Lithgow mocked that style on Saturday Night Live in its Master Thespian sketches in the late 80s (this transcript of a sketch made me laugh after all these years). I haven't studied the history of acting, but I think the comedy sketch gets some of the…

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July 8, 2012
Art / Awareness / Blog

You don’t have to accept anyone else’s hierarchy of taste

I posted on another board in a discussion on taste Is classical music better than punk? Museum art better than street art? Haute cuisine better than burritos? Is the op-ed page better than stand-up comedy? Is classical philosophy better than folk wisdom? My life improved when I learned I didn't have to accept anyone else's hierarchy of taste. Most people may consider one better than another, but I've learned to see them as meeting the values of a community better, not being absolutely better. Classical music meets the values of some communities better than punk. But punk meets other communities' values better than classical. I prefer evaluating things by the values of the communities that practice it. Then I appreciate more things and judge less.…

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July 5, 2012
Xian!
Art / Blog / Creativity

Xian!

Business brought me to the lovely city of Xian, not that far from Shanghai. My hosts brought me to a central area they covered with LEDs, I guess for tourists. I couldn't help take pictures to post here. It was borderline garish, but just this side of too much. I don't know if the pictures capture it. It almost felt like daytime at night. The city lit up a whole area with statues, pillars (wrapped in LEDs I couldn't help by overexpose in the pictures), municipal and art buildings, etc. Lots of people were enjoying themselves. Anyway, if you are near Xian, visit. Tomorrow I'll post on the famous terra-cotta army, also not far away. A couple friends who visited here told me to visit…

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June 21, 2012
Art / Blog / Leadership

Leadership lessons from method acting

Leadership and acting have a lot in common. Both crafts require practitioners to be aware of and to manage their emotions and those of people around them. They evoke different emotions -- leaders generally don't try to get people to cry and actors generally don't get people to work weekends -- but their crafts overlap nonetheless. I've linked to Inside the Actors Studio before and I'll keep linking to them. I'm in the middle of watching the host, James Lipton, interviewed by the great comedian (and apparently friend), David Chappelle for the 200th episode of the show. I'm only half through the episode and I'm already seeing the parallels and learning from them. They show some deeply personal clips of the emotions and techniques to…

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June 11, 2012
Art / Blog

Seeing movies in theaters reminds my why I don’t like watching movies in theaters

Since I remembered liking the Dukes of Hazzard as a kid and like Johnny Knoxville, when I got free tickets to see the movie Dukes of Hazzard New York City premiere, I was excited to see a movie I had a reasonable chance of enjoying. It ended up being the first movie that, at zero cost, I paid too much to see. I decided to avoid watching movies in theaters. I don't oppose theaters, but three things -- conscious decisions by the theaters they could change -- ruin theater-going for me. The sound is too loud -- wearing ear plugs makes the sound level about right for me. Otherwise they're painfully loud. Theaters are too cold -- I have to bring a coat to see…

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June 7, 2012
Human history, on a flash drive
Blog / Entrepreneurship

Human history, on a flash drive

A couple friends created the eVr1 Codex -- part accessory, part memory drive -- that stores a huge canon of literature so you can keep it with you at all times. I know both friends from business school classes. You can also see the California outdoor love of nature they share. Here's one of their products. Our Vision eVr1’s vision is to connect modern man with the long, global human story.  We achieve market leadership in sustainable goods that connect humankind to the web of life, while inspiring wonder & purpose in our employees & customers. Their outdoors-y love of nature is different than my physicist love of nature, but I'm pleased to say I'm on their Academic Board, so I'm helping choose the science…

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May 28, 2012
Art / Blog / Creativity

Joshua Spodek mentioned in Tate Modern lecture

I came across the online notes of a symposium mentioning me at the Tate Modern on "Pervasive Animation" by George Griffin, who lives around the corner from me and whom I met in person a couple years ago. Okay, he mentioned me only briefly, but it's the Tate Modern and he's important. So there!

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May 21, 2012
Xu Bing’s gallery show at the Shanghai Gallery of Art
Art / Blog / Creativity

Xu Bing’s gallery show at the Shanghai Gallery of Art

I enjoyed a show by an artist named Xu Bing at the Shanghai Gallery of Art. He created a book using only symbols so that anyone could understand it, no matter what language they spoke. The show showed the book and the four-year process he took to create it. The simple, blocky images telling a story suggested to me that taking simple, direct pictures of them would tell the story of the show. I hope I achieved my goal. I hope you'll forgive my making the images a bit too big for the blog design, but I wanted to show more of the art. Hovering over the image pauses the slide show, which I recommend doing when you see individual pages of his work (clicking…

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May 20, 2012
The Forbidden City
Art / Blog

The Forbidden City

You can’t visit the Forbidden City in Beijing without posting pictures! It wasn't as crowded as the Great Wall, but plenty of people were there. Here are a few pictures.

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April 24, 2012
Awareness / Blog

More on the subjectivity of “truth”

Another perspective on truth and its subjectivity came from my musician friend. He described to me the concept of truth in music, which at first didn't make sense to me. Since music doesn't make verifiable or falsifiable statements it wasn't obvious to me how it could be "true"? He described music being true by how it made you feel. He's a composer and he described how when you write a piece, if you do it right, it becomes true. Listen to any great work and it feels right, or true. When you do it wrong it doesn't sound true. Composers struggle to find that truth and express it. His description sounds like what I hear from other artists, especially actors and performers, who tell me…

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April 14, 2012
My interview by Leaders in Software and Art
Art / Blog / Creativity / Favorites

My interview by Leaders in Software and Art

Leaders in Software and Art posted their interview of me at my solo show at Crossing Art Gallery last June. I thought Isabel did great camera work with a medium that's hard to capture on video (EDIT: see comment below, where Isabel pointed out Jeff Becker did the camera work). http://vimeo.com/39370221 I'm in Beijing, where the government blocks video-sharing sites, so I can't see how the above video renders. Here's the direct link to the site if it doesn't come out -- http://vimeo.com/39370221.

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April 9, 2012
Telling my awesome story on stage about inspiring my mom’s first marathon
Art / Blog / Fitness / Humor

Telling my awesome story on stage about inspiring my mom’s first marathon

Monday night I told my second story at the Moth, to about two hundred people. A bit scary, though not as scary as last time, but awesome! Improving public speaking improves your abilities in almost any field. Few structures match the story structure in engaging people to listen. That's why I stuck my neck out to practice storytelling in public -- to exercise useful skills. And to have fun, of course. Here's my second on-stage story, based on inspiring my mom to run her first marathon. I'm happy with how the story came out, despite my nerves and inexperience. I see ways to improve, though welcome feedback. I owe thanks to my friend Mick who recorded it, though he missed the opening line, which says…

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February 29, 2012
Improve your public speaking through storytelling, part 2
Art / Blog / Creativity / Tips

Improve your public speaking through storytelling, part 2

Yesterday I suggested ways to improve your storytelling skills through practice. Performing in public can be daunting, so today I'll tell about my first experience telling a story in front of hundreds of people, being judged. First, despite my anxiety before going up, I loved the experience, learned a lot, and without a doubt will do it again. I recommend it to anyone, especially if you're scared, like I was. Here I am, telling my story: The storytelling began with my friend David, with whom I swam across the Hudson River, originally told me about the Moth years ago, suggesting telling our Hudson River swim story when he heard the theme for Monday's event was sports. We planned to do something perhaps for the first…

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February 10, 2012
Art / Blog / Creativity / Tips

Improve your public speaking through storytelling, part 1

Want to improve one of the most important skills for any field, almost free? Want to hook and engage anyone you communicate with? Tell a story. Everyone knows it, but it bears repeating. All communication can benefit from having it tell a story. Whether you're pitching a product, pitching your company, answering a question in a job interview, talking to a friend, flirting on a date, or anything, humans love stories. I posted earlier on how to structure stories effectively (I only need to remember "CCSG"). Besides structure, you need to tell the story. Your voice, body language, pacing, and so on matter. How do you tell better stories? The same way you do anything better. Practice! How do you practice? One simple, free way…

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February 9, 2012
Art / Creativity / Freedom / Leadership / Nature / NorthKorea

This land was made for you and me

Like most American kids of my generation, I learned This Land Is Your Land as a children's song, never thinking much of its meaning. A decade or two later, I heard Bruce Springsteen's version of it on his Live 75-85 set. His introduction first got me thinking about its meaning, especially in contrast to God Bless America. I didn't know Woodie Guthrie wrote This Land Is Your Land as an angry song. Springsteen's version on the album sounds mournful but then rousing and inclusive. On the Live 75-85 album I have, he introduced it as follows. There's a book out right now. It's called Woodie Guthrie, A Life. It's by this fellow called Joe Klein. And it's really a great book. This song was originally…

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January 13, 2012
Art / Blog / Creativity / Freedom

This photograph is free!

I find this picture of the Eiffel Tower beautiful. A guy named Tristan Nitot took the picture and posted it for people to share and enjoy in a post called "This photograph is free." He posted it in response to some other guy whose name I don't know who posted a picture he took entitled "This photograph is not free." I won't link to him because I'm afraid he might attack me and if he doesn't like sharing I won't share. Because I like beautiful photographs and people sharing, I'm sharing his beautiful photograph. I commented on his site I find your picture beautiful and your act to share it adds to its beauty. You made the other guy's picture (the not free one) and motivations…

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January 11, 2012

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