day 3: design is stinky – we dont work for them – future yuppies – phlunk studio
and yes: i am so not constructive in my criticism…
is offf totally off? no, but its def not on either. the thing is listening to people bragging about their work is just just not that interesting. if i want to see their work i can do so online, i dont need them to click me thru it. questions that would interest me are: where do they get their inspirations? how do they work? what rocks their boats? how do they feel about working for corporations? what about politics or ethical guidelines they follow? would there be jobs they refuse? wheres the line?
the closest to making such a statement were design is kinky. they said they dont work for corporations, but when asked why, they remained totally vague about it. they said: its fine to do so, we just dont. then they totally spoiled things by throwing merchandise from the stage. like feeding the groupies…
the job of the organisers would have been to narrow things down a bit, to present a focus. if you give these people an hour to talk without a thematic focus it will just turn into a bragfest. and especially the americans will be excellent at this particular type of activity. and everybody else will strive to imitate them..
boring.
so all i have seen so far at offf is a sad self-celebration of the internet generation. anything goes taken to its patehtic extreme. but is it really all so fucking blah?
the following are quotes from jackson tan of phunk studio/singapore:
“we like to incorporate our faces into our work because we like to get invited to partes” (i actually heard him say: “… because we like to get laid” but monkeypunk insists he said this. comes down to the same thing in the end, no?)
“for some reason mtv really liked us, eventho we did not know what we were doing. we always worked for them because it was good money”
“then we started to get bored so we drew ourselves some more”
“next we did a fashionshow, because we wanted to get all the models to come so we could check them out and see which one would work, so that was really cool”
“for us everything is about fun”
“this is an image of heaven, you know, theres always a starbucks in heaven”
now these statements are pretty transparent and almost too honest. it was funny because in the room you could feel this tension building, only we laughed out loud, everybody else seemed shocked, almost like they wanted to shush them up.
all you need is code, one speaker said.
all you need is to get laid, and being a stardesigner really helps..
edit: today finally an interesting talk. mushon zer-aviv talked about his project isaliving.org, and he said among other things, “since i moved away from home google probably knows more about me than my mother does”.
and then we also learned that in the phillipines they eat immature ducklings inside their eggshells, heat up the eggs and slurp them out… outch inksurge. “the philippines may look ugly from the outside but the people there are really nice. if you come visit you will see many things you will never forget”. like ducklings slurped and such…
some quickñrough linkage:
the tree situation is quite lovely..
pixelegg
vienna vegetable orchestra
curious to see offf the day: hi-res