TED: Technology, Entertainment, Design

This past week, the TED Conference decended upon Long Beach, California, just as it does every year since it began in 1984. Bringing together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, TED is like no other conference in the world.

Over four days, 50 speakers each take an 18-minute slot, to share insights in science, business, the arts and global issues facing our world. There are also several shorter pieces of content, including music, performance and comedy.

This year’s speakers lineup included authors, musicians, astronomers, biologists, maestros — each sharing a new revelation, a fresh perspective, a unique dream of a more perfect world.

To learn more, visit: conferences.ted.com

President O-blog-ma

Finally, a president who understands technology. Oh, and human rights. And climate change, foreign policy, and the Constitution.

Kristina Keyton,
Pharmacy Technician Instructor*

Being the web-guy at the office, I like to stay au courant with the things going on in the world wide web (almost as much as I like peppering in the phrase “au courant” into my blog posts).

It seem that not only has change come to the White House but also to whitehouse.gov. Brandishing a new easy-on-the-eyes website, Obama and company are poised to make the web an integral part of their “transparency” initiatives. The new site embraces current digital trends by implementing a blog and RSS feed! Mr. President, I salute your dedication to technology. Blog steady sir, blog steady.

*Kristina Keyton is not a real person but part of a mock man-on-the-street interview featured on the onion.com

Human/Nature at MCASD

Over the long weekend, I took a mini-road trip to sunny San Diego, home of the world famous Zoo, Sea World and…an art museum? Yup, not only do they have an abundance of beaches and imported wildlife, they host plenty of art exhibitions as well.

With two locations Downtown and another in La Jolla, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) is currently hosting four traveling exhibitions. The most notably inspiring of the four for me was Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet, which is organized by the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA), MCASD, in partnership with the international conservation organization Rare. 

The concept is rooted in the questions, “Can art inspire conservation?” and “Can conservation inspire art?” Eight artists were sent to eight UNESCO-designated World Heritage sites around the world for two mini-residencies, where they developed projects, often with the collaboration of the local communities and artisans. From Dario Robleto’s sculpture of feathers formed from the stretched tape of sound recordings from extinct birds, to Rigo 23′s arrangement of traditional wood carvings into weapons of mass destruction, the dynamic from one artist to the next is fascinating and inspiring. Sitting and feeling bad about the destruction of our planet is one thing, but this project takes it another step by making tangible the human reactions to these changes.

The exhibition runs through February 22. For more information, click here.

Between Barack and a Hard Place

Welcome the first of many presidential-puns to be used throughout the next 4 years. Today our great nation watched history unfold as America swore in her first African-American president.  Whether you voted for Barack Obama or the Old Angry Guy, you cannot help but marvel at the impact this election had on our nation’s history.

That being said, “Let the comedy begin…” With Bush out of the White House millions of comedians are now out of material. Talk about a recession! But enough beating around the Bush. With the biggest Comedic Depression looming over us since they canceled Perfect Strangers, leave it to the The Onion to stand in the gap! The Onion offers cleverly crafted mock news in the same spirit as The Today Show and The Colbert Report. Great for your lunch break or morning cup of coffee.

All joking aside, our nation stands at the threshold of a new era of government. At a time where skepticism in our democratic system is at an all time high, President Obama has been given the daunting task of fixing our nation’s shattered confidence. Just like an onion, he must peel back the layers of doubt and cynicism that have been making us cry for years. Although I admire his courage, I do not envy him. Only time will tell if America can smell what Barack is cooking.

How the Movies Made a President

Through the years, great actors have played the role of President in countless films. In 1998’s “Deep Impact”, it was Morgan Freeman who bravely led the nation while a comet was headed for collision with earth. Today, with America on its way to a “Deep Recession” Barack Obama has an ever more challenging and real scene to play. But could Obama’s real-life casting as the American President, be linked to actors such as Freeman, Cosby, Smith and Poitier; collectively preconditioning the nation, and the possibly the world, for the long-overdue reality of an African-American president?

This New York Times article maps out an interesting connection.

In the past 50 years — or, to be precise, in the 47 years since Mr. Obama was born — black men in the movies have traveled from the ghetto to the boardroom, from supporting roles in kitchens, liveries and social-problem movies to the rarefied summit of the Hollywood A-list. In those years the movies have helped images of black popular life emerge from behind what W. E. B. Du Bois called “a vast veil,” creating public spaces in which we could glimpse who we are and what we might become. Read the full article

You Pecha!

20 images, 20 seconds each.

That’s all you got in Pecha Kucha, the simple but effective presentation format developed four years ago in Japan that has spread across the world. PK forces one to focus on the message (no more bullets!).  Widely used as a means for showcasing creative, it is now being used in academia and business too. Meet us at the next one.

Fancy Wallpaper for Your Fancy Phone

Who doesn’t have an iPhone these days? *cough*me*cough*

These days, customization is key, and one of the many perks of having an iPhone is the endless options for doing so. For those of you who are blessed/cursed with the buttonless wonder have another reason to gloat to your non-iPhone wielding friends: Poolga. Here you can download some amazing wallpapers created by designers and illustrators from around the globe, which completely blow your standard nature scene or colored-wavy background-thing out of the water. You can even sign up for their RSS feed and follow them on Twitter to get updated on the latest additions to their collection.

Maybe someday they’ll be BlackBerry friendly! I can only hope.

Not Just Another Award Show

Watch out MTV, there’s another award show in town… on Nov. 22nd, YouTube debuted its YouTube L!VE show that streamed into the PCs of hundreds of thousands of YouTube fans.

More than a tribute show than an award show, it featured live performances from the likes of Katie Perry and Will i Am as well as YouTube-spawned “social celebs” like Chocolate Rain and the “will it blend?” guy.

Commercial free and with a surprisingly high production value, YouTube L!VE could be the first of many made-for-web broadcasts where celebs, users, and user-celebs live as one.

I will warn, the two-hour format feels a little much — it is YouTube after all. But seeing Fred and Tay Zonday with makeup, good lighting and jib cams makes it worth checking out, although it poses the question… does the appeal of these social celebs remain when you take away the webcam…? You be the judge.

The Online/Offline Publication

In case you haven’t noticed, media is changing. web 2.0 has sparked a revolution in the editorial process of any publication interested in staying relevant and/or afloat.

So while many publications go from their traditional offline existence to online versions, I was excited to see one mag doing it the other way around. JPGmag.com is a pro-sumer photography community where members submit their photos and people can vote for their faves. But it doesn’t stop there… then JPG editors go through and select their finalists, which go in a full-color, 100+ page glossy magazine! So while everyone wants to save the Brazilian rainforest, you gotta admit, there’s nothing like flipping through a magazine and looking at pretty pictures.

I believe there is creative talent everywhere, but as you may know, sometimes on flickr it’s hard to find… but JPG has some really talented members, and they set up themes which help in the navigation of the site as well as the visual storytelling of the print pub.

I’m off now to take some pics… did I mention that you can earn $100 if your photo get selected and runs in the glossy? …these are tough times… hope JPG can stick around for a while — in both its online and offine versions.

I Think a Trip to NY is in Order.

Artist José Parlá will be having his first solo show in New York at the Christina Grajales Gallery. His work combines fluid calligraphy with weathered materials, which come together to look not unlike art we pass in the street everyday — the annonymity of which is often so intriguing. The aged quality and subtle references to culture that Parlá so beautifully and naturally acheives in his own work contributes to a sense that these ”segmented realities” really are a piece of some mysterious history.

You can view his work at www.joseparla.com.