This Is Ground Control

Most of my communication is of the reactionary sort. I like to gather information on a subject before I respond to it. Like most, I can communicate in many ways. I am typety-type-typing as we speak (so to speak), and that’s certainly one way I can communicate. I can type an email, I can type up a letter to be mailed or handed out as a memo, I can type messages into a phone, or on MSN messenger. Typing is one way I can communicate. 

I can also write or print those same messages.

I can communicate directly with someone through facial expressions and speech . Hello. Can you here me? I do this by understanding a language, and through the sounds and expressions I can make and understand. I can be disinterested with a grunt, angered or pained with a yell, satisfied with a purr, and happy with a smile. 

I can also communicate by recording myself onto video. I can film myself doing any manner of thing on video, and communicate to a viewer through playback. I can put this video onto videotape, I can put it on DVD, CD, Blue Ray, I can send it through my phone, etc. etc. 

I can also record my voice and have that played back to communicate with an audience. This can be listened to on tape, vinyl, CD, DVD, and forth, and forth, and forth. 

Wow! I have so many ways to communicate and I haven’t even listed holograms, crystal balls, mind control, or the subversive ways that humans beings communicate and don’t even realize. 

PC You Make Me Laugh

It’s amazing how entertained I am by the “Sad Song” commercial for Mac computers. I’ve now seen the ad around five times, and still can’t help but chuckle to myself at the PC character and his blues delivery. Really though, I’ve quite enjoyed every ad in the Mac/PC series of advertisements, they make me smile. Yes, Mac has got me right where they want me. 

In some way, Mac has told me, I am superior. If it is only because of the operating system I use on my computer, so be it, superior I am. It’s interesting that Mac was able to tap into such an interesting part of human nature - the need to be a superior, better than something else - and use it to drive their campaign. While, the ads talk about the benefits of one operating system over another, the personification of the operating systems in the Mac and PC characters is what really delivers the message that I, the Mac user, am the superior person. I am younger, happier, more attractive, more relaxed, more stylish, quicker, smarter, etc. etc. Yes, I want to be all those things. 

Could I see myself purchasing a PC?

Oh! the embarrassment. 

Finnish Furniture

I’m moving into a new residence sometime in the coming months and because of that I’ve become increasingly interested in furniture. I can’t seem to pass a furniture store without having a prolonged window shop, and must ogle at all the fascinating shapes, colours, and textures on display. 

Of course, some advertising guru picked up on my current weakness for furniture and I received a flyer in the mail notifying me of the grand opening of The King East, a new condo development going up in Toronto’s furniture district with a marketing scheme notably directed at designers (slogan: “Where Design Lives”). I had visions of grandeur. 

After perusing the King East website and looking at some of the designers featured in the 30@330 section, I came across a name I hadn't heard before but certainly enjoyed - Eero Aarnio. 

Aarnio is a Finnish born designer whose breakthrough design came in 1963 with the introduction of the Ball Chair. Aarnio was a pioneer in the use of plastic for furniture design, and his use of fiberglass is especially significant in that it enabled furniture design to encompass every shape possible, making furniture design a freer form of sculpture. You'll recognize many of Aarnio’s designs as standards of 60’s and 70’s pop culture.

2010 Freestyle Moguls Olympic Gold Medalist

Media moguls have lots and lots of monies. They have so much monies that they actually have some say in what kind of mass messages are reaching the general population of viewers and listeners; but, while they undeniably shape the way we think, they can’t take away our ability to think for ourselves. 

We should be able to receive a message, interpret it, and decide whether that information is relevant to us, or even truthful. We should be asking, Why I am being told this? and What does this message say about the world I live and my place in it? From there we can ask personal questions such as: Is this the world I want to live in? and decide if we want to change the way things are, or keep on in similar fashion, but the choice must certainly be ours. 

It is a passive mind that will not succeed in our field of design. Design is about challenging, and moving forwards, and onwards. That cannot be done without critical thought. We are all filters for the final message. 

Top ten lists are so hard, especially when you’re asked to list your ten favourite things (in the grand scheme of the world)! (see previous post)

10. Collecting 

9.   Art

8.   Running

7.   Swimming

6.   The past

5.   The future

4.   Other people

3.   Food

2.   Water

1.   Air

Top five lists are so hard, especially when you’re asked to list your five favourite items! (I'm hearing a gameshow introduction Price is Right styles)

5. I have a bamboo plant which I try to nurture that has been around for a long time. 

4. Guitar

3. Art, magazines, random visuals

2. Cottage w/contents

1.  Old collections (photos, sportscards, etc.)

note: if you checked out the Price is Right link is it not so weird to not see Bob Barker?

It's almost wrong.

Ms. Zych

I’ve been called upon to describe my friend Lisa by examining her visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory representations. I’ll also be looking at what represents her in terms of natural, artifactual, and mechanical media. 

Visual: Lisa is a slightly figure who looks as though she plays flute (and she does). You might catch her reading a book, or busying her hands with a bit of knitting (although I’ve never seen her knit). 

Tactile: Soft wool

Auditory: Lisa is sometimes loud, and sometimes quiet. She listens well, and absorbs sounds from all about her. There is sometimes restraint in her voice, and sometimes it is mixed with quiet confidence. If she were a bird she would sing at dawn.

Olfactory: A story you were told and liked.

Gustatory: I have known Lisa to survive on two celery sticks a day. She has a stomach the size of large radish, and has been mistaken for a jackrabbit. 

Natural: Lisa communicates mostly with her eyes, but if you don’t look twice you might miss her. Not a hand talker.

Artifactual: A comic book you like. A test from grade two with an A+ on it. A foreign stamp with nice colours. 

Mechanical: Lisa is a Grandfather clock that runs counter-clockwise when everything lines up.

Note: I do know what olfactory means.