More Freedombox logo ideas, in collaboration with John Emerson. Click on them for larger versions. If you don't know about Freedombox, I recommend learning about (and supporting) it, unless you like third parties like corporations and governments having access to your personal life.
Ladies and gentlemen, my first solo gallery show in over five years will have its opening event Saturday, June 18. You're invited! I will be showing new works I've been working on and have been excited to show. Publicly showing your work is what an artist lives for. That said, until people see the new stuff, you never know how it will go over, so there's the usual anxiety and excitement. The logistics: Joshua Spodek at the Crossing Art Gallery June 18 - July 17, 2011 Artist talk: Saturday, June 18, 3-4pm Opening reception: Saturday, June 18, 4-6pm Press preview: Thursday, June 16, 2pm Address: 136 - 17 39th Avenue, Ground Floor, Flushing, New York 11354 Directions: 7 Train to Flushing Main Street, walk one…
Here are videos of the final non-digital linear zoetropes made by the students in Parsons Submedia collaboration studio in the spring of 2011. The students are superstars. The students' next step will be the display in Union Square, so stay tuned. I took all the videos with my low quality camera phone. More videos are at the course blog. First the grand tour of all the zoetropes in the Arts, Media, and Technology department -- i.e., the tenth floor. https://joshuaspodek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/grand_tour_tenth_floor_zoetropes.avi The linear zoetropes downstairs facing Fifth Avenue and 13th Street at night. https://joshuaspodek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/5th_and_13th_night.avi The linear zoetropes downstairs facing Fifth Avenue and 13th Street during the daytime. https://joshuaspodek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/5th_and_13th_day.avi linear zoetropes that were downstairs back upstairs. Group 1's linear zoetrope -- the Unicorn. Group 2's…
Here are some pictures of the Parsons students working on the linear zoetropes and their results. Now that I can make slide shows, I have to split the images by dimensions, so there are two slide shows.
Following yesterday's primer on flow, here are two simple ideas to bring more flow. If you've read only Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book, they may be new. The Wikipedia page on flow but not Csikszentmihalyi's book covers the first. The second is new, as far as I know, though small. Recall the ten conditions of the flow state (from Wikipedia, citing Csikszentmihalyi articles): Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high. Concentrating, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it). A loss of…
Do you remember the last time you felt like this musician? You are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you feel as if you almost don't exist. I have experienced this time and again. My hand seems devoid of myself, and I have nothing to do with what is happening. I just sit there watching it in a state of awe and wonderment. And [the music] just flows out of itself. We all know the feeling. We love it. It's one of the great states of being. It comes through many ways -- sports, hobbies, work, conversation, etc. A psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, studied that state and called it flow, now established as a something to be studied and understood. I figure most…
Alex Kudera's first novel won an Independent Publishers Book Awards award -- the IPPY Gold Medal for Best Fiction. I wrote about him and his book, Fight For Your Long Day, a couple months ago. He's planning to give a reading in New York this summer. Who knows how fast his star will rise? Congratulations Alex!
A reader emailed me about mindfulness and self-awareness. I mentioned to him a meditation retreat I did a few years ago and found an old post I wrote about the experience, answering another reader's questions about the course. I did a ten day Vipassana course a few years ago. What it's about: It teaches you a meditation technique and gives you the time and space to practice it. It's based on buddhist beliefs. We meditated for 8-10 hours per day for ten days. That's basically it. You aren't supposed to read, write, gesture, etc, except to ask the instructor questions. They provide food and instruction on what to focus on. Was it hard: Yes, it was hard. The first couple days were painful while getting…
I updated my art resume, having finished teaching the Collaboration Studio at Parsons. In the process I also found a post on my talk to the February Leaders in Software and Art salon.
Here are some videos and images of the displays the Parsons students put up in the corner of 5th Avenue and 13th Street. As usual, my camera is not great and my recording ability is worse. Cameras don't capture the medium. The final product also doesn't capture the challenge and work that went into creating the displays. Also, please see the course blog for lots of other images and videos of projects they did along the way.
We made the minimum on the Parsons Union Square kickstarter project! The project raised $5,017, just over the minimum of $5,000 we set (which is still below the what we'll need, but we'll figure out how to make it). Here's the latest updated we sent out. Update #3: We made it! Thank you! We made it! Just barely! Making it this close ($5,017 out of $5,000) means every contribution counted. Thank you to every one of you from all of us. We appreciate each of your contributions all the more for each one counting so much. We are that much more dedicated to making a beautiful display. Whether you contributed to help make New York more beautiful, to help students, to contribute to art, for…
Here is an update to the Parsons Union Square kickstarter project. Update #2: Video of the Fifth Avenue display Here is a video (just from my camera phone, sorry not great quality) of one of the displays in Parsons' window facing Fifth Avenue and 13th Street. As mentioned in the last update, this display is a big, genuine art piece, although still in preparation for the Union Square piece, which will be bigger and digital. Still, this one is pretty cool. The animation is a whimsical one of one of the students in the course, although everyone contributed to designing, building, and installing the display, as well as creating the animation in it. Many people walking by stop and look at it. Please check it…
Here is an update to the Parsons Union Square kickstarter project. Update #1: Prototype displays go up in Parsons windows, 5th Avenue and 13th Street The class has been preparing prototype linear zoetropes to be placed in the windows of Parsons' building at 5th Avenue and 13th Street, facing the street. We shouldn't call them prototypes because they are full art pieces everyone in the class participated in creating, hosted by a great institution, on display for the public to see. But they are preparation for the Union Square display, which will be bigger and digital. Below are some pictures of the students completing and installing these linear zoetropes. If you are near Manhattan, please come see them. By this point, most of the difficult…
Here's the mindmap for tonight's Fred talk. Slightly evolved from my last one. Not everything made it into the presentation. Drag it around and click around. To navigate use arrow keys or click white space and drag to move the map click the '+' or '-' icon at the top to resize the map click the "fit" icon at the top (to the right of the '-') to fit the visible part of the mindmap in the space available click nodes in the mindmap to show or hide nodes beneath them -- dragging, resizing, or re-fitting as necessary afterward [freemind height='500px' width='600px']/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/creativity_map_110423.mm[/freemind]
When you feel like a superhero it's hard not to indulge in sharing why you feel so great. Solving technical problems makes you feel like a genius when you get it. I've had two days straight of amazing progress. One thing after another fell into place. It all took a lot of research, trial and error, moving step-by-step, not biting off too much at a time. Most of that was software and deliveries coming in. For those who know, the software I'm working on was getting the Western Digital media players for the Union Square digital linear zoetrope display to work remotely, which requires getting into the hacker community for the product. For anyone who doesn't know, working with hacker communities means searching all over…
See my Fred talk this Saturday, April 23, 7:30pm at 136 Lawrence Street, Brooklyn. From my previous post about the talk (before it was rescheduled to this Saturday): Fred talks are do-it-yourself Ted talks with the slogan "Your friends' ideas worth spreading." Who says you need some huge conference for thousands of people that costs lots of money? You probably learned more from your grandmother than most of your teachers, let alone famous people you don't know. Let's do it ourselves! Sharing locally can do things pristine, beautifully-produced things can't. Who isn't a fan of do-it-yourself community building? A big part of why I'm doing it is that the people behind it give me the feeling they may make Fred talks huge. Maybe huger than…
Do you have weaknesses you just can't seem to lose? Maybe you interrupt too much? Or solve problems when you should be building relationships? This perspective may help. When clients tell me about their weaknesses, I generally ask them for examples of how the skills in question worked or didn't work. A common pattern emerges, though it's not universal. One example is my student/client with great listening skills who interrupted a lot. Anyone conversing with him could tell his comprehension and recall were excellent, so he wasn't weak in that area. Yet he got poor reviews. Why? Because he interrupted. But he didn't interrupt to annoy, though he achieved that outcome. He interrupted to be efficient and save time. Efficiency and saving time are hardly…
A friend and I were playing around with logo ideas for the Freedombox project based on this email solicitation from the Freedombox Foundation for T-shirt designs: T-Shirt Designs --------------- One of the things we offered Kickstarter donors was a T-shirt. We are thus soliciting T-shirt designs. The theme of the shirt is Community Angels. It would be good to involve our current logo http://freedomboxfoundation.org/images/freedombox_large.png. Sorry, we don't have a bigger version of that. The chosen design will be printed on t-shirts that we will give to donors. Of course, if your design is chosen, we will cover you in thanks and make sure you get a shirt too. I will also buy you a beer next time we meet. Send designs in a free file…
I like memorable opening lines to books. Good ones can be poetry, or a whole book into themselves. Sometimes they set the tone for the book. Others are simply memorable for their simplicity. Some of my favorite (some from memory so please correct errors): "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant day when his father took him to discover ice." - One Hundred Years of Solitude "It was inevitable. The scent of bitter almonds always reminded Dr. Juvenal Urbino of the fate of unrequited love." - Love in the Time of Cholera "Call me Ishmael." - Moby Dick "Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin. My soul. The tip of the tongue…
How do you handle feedback? Do you take it well? Do you know how to use it? If not, you may be throwing away great opportunities to improve yourself and your life. Many people don't know how to take a compliment or having their weaknesses pointed out so they avoid feedback. As a coach in Columbia Business School's Program on Social Intelligence, I coach a lot of upcoming leaders who just received their first 360 feedback report. A few things I point out to many of them applies to all feedback, not just formal reports. Some things may sound obvious in the abstract, but in the moment, when you're reading people's opinions about you, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture and take…
Here's another lesson from my stylist friend besides how fast even significant personal change can be, possibly obvious to people more stylish than me. He told me a major goal of how you dress is to polarize. At first polarizing sounded counterproductive. Polarizing in a discussion breaks down communication. Why would I want to polarize? Why would I want to repel people? He explained further. Many people dress to fit in, meaning they don't polarize. If you have a job where you have to fit in, dress to fit in when you're there. But if you dress to fit in you don't say anything about yourself. Dressing to polarize repels some people but attracts others. If you dress to express yourself authentically and genuinely the…
As I write, the Union Square Parsons art project is gaining momentum -- at $614, we're over 12% of the way there. Supporting art is rewarding! So is supporting students and making New York City a better place for everyone. Your donation counts. Please check out the page to support it! Spread the link to friends. Enjoy me looking dorky on camera! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/492851406/big-beautiful-public-art-by-parsons-class-in-union
Myth: great personal change or development takes time. You have to understand where you are, your goals, and how to get from one place to the other. Myth: great personal change is hard. You have to overcome hurdles that take time, energy, and other resources. I believed those myths for a long time. I hear people counseling others with them all the time. Now it pains me to hear those myths because someone telling you it has to take time or be hard can be all it takes for them to be self-fulfilling prophecies. All the more so when the person saying it is a coach. Great personal change can be fast and anything but hard. It can be easy and fun. My great epiphany…
Another supporter donated! Please think about donating and supporting the arts, students, and New York City! Actually, don't just think about it. Do it ;) Here's the post about the project and the kickstarter page.
Already $178 donated for the biggest best most beautiful public art piece New York will see this year! Student-built! You can be next! Please contribute to this awesome project! See this morning's post.