PLEASE NOTE: the following bit contains information about the iphone, including (but not limited to) my opinion about the iphone, thus rendering it of little consequence to basically anyone on Earth.

So I had an iphone, for about 24 hours. The virtual keyboard was a total dealbreaker. Maybe my fingers are too fat, maybe they have been spoiled by the tactile feedback afforded to me by my blackberry… regardless, the iphones’ input method was a dog. I mean yeah, you go to the apple store, you play around with one, and perhaps you think (as I did), “wow, that iphone is quite a sexy litte number”. But the thing did not stand up to actual standard use.

Then also, the whole lack of text-selection and copy-paste, and the interface quirkiness (it’s all very well thought out, as anyone will tell you, but that is exactly the problem: it is well thought out, but that hardly guarantees intuitiveness to anyone who is less than 100% cerebral in the manner in which they use their fingers) and the rather strained ichat metaphor for txting… and, and, and. It’s cute, but it fails. Plus, what is with the email options? It will check for new messages either a) never; b) once every 15 minutes, or c) once every half-hour??? What the fuck am I, twelve years old???? My ugly-ass blackberry (to which I have reverted) gets my email as soon as you fling it at me.

Plus, you know, six hundred dollars is class money.

Yeah so yeah. I didn’t drink no Kool-aid. Just so you know. You wouldn’t think that, necessarily, given that you can’t swing a dead cat in my personal living space without knocking over at least 8 or so apple products, but anyway no. Not this time.

Anyway. It’s been a pretty good summer, despite the fact that I spent most of it completely freaking out and acting generally antisocial. For a while there, I didn’t really want to do anything except draw letters and write code. I was fortunate enough to live near Christian (and indeed I still am, for a few more weeks), cuz he would drag me out and make me drink beers, even when I was maximally clammed up. He would then altruistically permit me to effusively babble on about whatever it was that I was thinking about at the time (usually type design) while graciously and generously not smacking me in the face. Really, I couldn’t ask for much more.

So yeah yeah. A few more projects to wrap up, and then it will be fall. I suppose this was my last “summer break”, but really I had such a blast doing actual work, such that the very idea of a “summer break” is complete moot. I am ready for the REAL WORLD, again; bring it on I say. I do have to get through this nastay thesis thing, and then ok yeah. Yeah! I’ll see you back here next year… you can buy me a beer at Enid’s, and I’ll draw a typeface for you. Yes.

Whooooo. Yeah so I just put up my review of the Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Triennial up on Writing Design Criticism. I’m of the opinion, as are others, that the Triennial was rather wack. I mean, did anyone like it? All my designer friends have had rather unkind words for it thus far. Maybe those of you who are not all-encompassing design nerds? Do let me know, because I am curious.

I wanted to get into all sorts of other shit in the article, like about how it’s kind of odd that COMA did the book and the identity for the show AND were featured in it. That’s odd, amirite?? I mean, COMA is fantastic, really… they came up here for a visiting designers’ workshop last spring, and they were the guest critics for the thesis reviews, and they’re excellent critics and designers and all that, BUT… WTF?? I would like to know WTF. And also the heavily preemptively defensive tone the curators seem to be taking is also quite something. HRMMMM, INDEEEED!!

But I do recall hearing some guy on the radio, circa the year 2000, defending the Millenium Dome. This dome was the temporary home for a monstrous, all-singing, all-dancing show about humans and how generally awesome they are and will be in the future, which ran through the year 2000. People generally hated it, even when on drugs, and it’s pretty much been written off as a failure since. But so the guy on the radio was talking about how gigantic expos such as that are typically received poorly in their time, but remembered fondly, and that such would be the case with the dome.

After reading that Guardian precis, I dunno about the dome, but the radio guy’s thesis sounds rather believable… it’s easy to be like, “last triennial was SOO much better.” I myself can’t weigh in on that, as it’s the first I’ve been to, but hey yeah. Do let me know what you think, indeed.

But so yeah. Trying to finish all open writing projects, now. Got a few more. Some are typical grad-school pre-thesis nonsense, some are for my own shits and giggles, and some are bits I hope to actually get into print sometime in the possible future. That, I think, would be very nice. Even Jacek, from 2+3D, was like “yeah, it’d probably benefit your career to have something published in English,” and I agree with that… to which I would add “… and also in actual print and not on some sort of blog.” Indeed.

I do love me some blog, though, although I still find “blog” to be one of the most repulsive neologisms ever crafted. I’ve been writing blather on the web for about 10 years now, and the practice has thoroughly fucked up my editing techniques. In the case of that Triennial article, for example, I wrote the first draft in Word. I cleaned up my grammar and whatnot, and then moved it into InDesign, where I simultaneously typeset the article, wrote the footnotes, placed images, and re-edited the fucking text. After that, I went through the whole thing again in Movable Type. It is the act of publishing the stuff online, though, that lets me see the real gaping horrid errors. I’ll fix like one error, rebuild the whole page, and then look at it anew, and with each pass I’ll find all the stuff that eluded me when editing in any other program. I think the scrutiny comes from when I originally had an “online journal”, which I updated in Emacs over dialup; in such an environment, retyping and reediting is a royal fucking problem.

Not that my shit don’t stank, or nothin’. I am sure the piece is far from perfect. But hey.

Another thing I should mention is that I have been nerding out so thoroughly these days, to the point where my social life is basically done. It’s quite sad. Now that there’s more light in the day, though, I’ve had it with such nonsense. So you (yes YOU) should call me up and buy me drinks. I promise you all types of entertaining conversation and observations, really. In fact, there’s a party here at Mason (yes, the studio, but it’s the best I can do right now) this friday after Open Studios. You come by there, that’d be an excellent start. Yes. Word. Allrite. Talksoon.

Yeah!

-fish

What follows is a rather annoying essay I had to write for grad seminar, in which I “reflected” on a presentation I gave on my influences vis-a-vis my work. Please excuse the rampant pretense. Yes.

There are a great many things in this world that pique my interest. Of those that fall under the general aegis of my practice and work, I’d say it’s pretty easy to draw a line down the middle of them. On one side, there are the things that I love because something about them speaks directly to my persona.

Figure 1. Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Room, synchronized light bulbs and mirrors, 1965.

Yayoi Kusama’s monumental works, through which she sought (nay, seeks; she’s still a practicing artist) to defray the constant crackle of her neurological problems, inform my process in a way that naturally goes beyond mere formalism. Her work offers a viewport into the war she fights with her own errant brain on a daily basis. As such, it serves as an example of how such a force can be channeled, rather than pacified or otherwise “cured”, into art. I see things like that and I think, aha yes, I could do that.

Figure 2. James Turrell, Live Oak Friends Meeting House, light installation, 2000.

James Turrell, on the other hand, produces work that is austere in presentation, punctilious in process, and clear in intent. My hands aren’t steady enough to make the things he makes, and my mind lacks the zennish clarity one needs to conceive of these things in the first place. I’m attracted to the work, because it offers something I need. Turrell himself, however, is not someone I particularly identify with: we have little in common in most aspects. I’m sure that if we were stuck next to one another on a plane and forced to converse for a time, we’d wind up pissy and uncommunicative long before landing. (Not that that would ever happen; he’s most likely flying first class these days, whereas I’m stuck in coach.)

Figure 3. Karel Maartens, Counterprint, experimental monoprint, 2004.

Unsurprisingly, those few characters who straddle that line are among the most compelling: Karel Maartens, for example, is a supreme master of printing processes and data visualization. However, he does not allow these highly technical and systematized facets of process to rule his work; he still finds value in irregular metal junk, as the monoprints in his “counterprint” monograph wonderfully illustrate. His work multiplexes the calclulated and calming qualities I find attractive with the ragged human aspects I can identify with.

Figure 4. Maya Lin, Topologies, variable installation, 1997.

Ditto Maya Lin: In her Topologies show, she had meticulously and mathematically CNC-routed slabs of wood happily intermixed with prints she made by inking fragments of glass. The stochastic and the inductive were both bent into form by her vision.

This, I think, is what I aspire to do: I would like to harness the edge of my constructed systems. The points at which these constructs break down is frequently where the most fascinatingly unexpected situations can arise. In edge-cases like these, these break-down points frequently serve as on-ramps, as it were; they are where the humanity of the maker can break through the mask of the system to greet those on the outside.

You know, like this:

Figure 5. Unknown Artist, Longcat vs. Tacgnol, apocalyptic cat vision, 2007.

So hi. By most measures, F2 was a damn good time. I had about 10 tons of human beings dancing their respective faces off in my bedroom, with their visages going through a bunch of video feedback loops involving security cameras and whatnot. It was nice to do video again, even if the whole system was largely on autopilot for the night. Juggling the roles of host, video performer, retarded jump-up-and-downer, itunes dj, and finger pointer did not afford me much wiggle-room, but whatevs, just setting up all the RCA cables and little boxes brought back all sorts of memories, like when I’d do that kind of insane shit once a week or so as a matter of course. Yeah.

Anyway. My dear associate James Chae has an article up on Writing Design Criticism, and you should read that shit and tell him what you fucking think, I say.

I, too, have been writing some shit. Some of it may be ready to see the light of day soon, but not just yet, for the most part. Sometimes, you’re jotting shit down in your little notebook or Stickies or whatever, and just one sentence just says all you want to say. That’s nice, but it does not beget essays of the caliber favored by most publishing institutions. For example, I found this in a text file on my desktop just now:

the book Skin and Bones needs chapters on j. mandle performance wear, yayoi kusama, maybe banksy, etc… it does NOT need more puff-piece frippery about OMA/AMO or herzog and deMuron. look beyond the obvious, you idiots.

… and really, I can’t refine or explicate that one any more than that. So, blech. There it is. I will rock you with more interesting shit soon. But not now. But soon! Yes. Thankyou.

-fish

good:

• rebuilding merce cunningham’s internal database
• frying hot dogs in butter (the only worthwile thing I got from the book “dry” by augusten burroughs, you axed me)
• the similarity of mcgorlick park with washington square park, not just in design (that sort of radial french-garden plan thing) but also in the way that each lane in the park seems to self-segregate into a micro-region based on foot traffic (e.g. in washington square, southwest corner = chess players, west middle corridor = nyu students going to class, center area = tourists watching breakdancers, etc… in mcgorlick park the distinctions are a mite more subtle, like polish dog walkers vs. new moms with bugaboos, but they’re still there).
• maybe maybe maybe selling a book, knock on wood, yes yes
• interviewing people and having them blab about design and language on tape for hours
• cupcakes from billy’s
• dancing with girls, all night long
• riding a bike from greenpoint to redhook with your friend on a summer day … normally I enjoy deriding “bike people” as hillarious fanatics, but I can sort of see where they’re coming from with that. weaving in and out of the little niches between cars at high speed gives you this total man-over-machine type buzz, and plus if you’re doing this in new york, your perspectival POV of the city is very similar to how the video game Grand Theft Auto looks, which is entertaining. the whole thing is further enhanced by stopping at grimaldi’s and/or swimming in a redhook swimming pool, indeed.
• doing laundry … just now in my laundry, I unexpectedly found an almost-new deerhoof shirt that I know is not mine, but is in my laundry and is my size. this never happens, but karmatically it makes sense considering the staggering quantities of my own clothing that has disappeared without warning or explaination into washing machines and dryers throughout my 27+ years of garbed existence
• cutting video again
• shakespeare in the park

bad:

• the G train
• hangovers
• when someone you love very much is in a bad way, such that it makes them seem mean and nasty when really they’re just tired and scared, so you have to repress your emotion when interfacing with them, which is not easy because you love them and seeing someone you love in pain makes you kind of emotional
• the total wasteland of despair that is typographic control in CSS
• dumping liquid into your new laptop, destroying the keyboard
• talking before thinking
• drinking too much
• forgetting recipes
• transcribing interview tapes where both parties are hyped on coffee and talking 400wpm or thereabouts
• money
• not being able to sleep because of hideous anxiety attacks concerning life decisions and whatnot

ugly:

• old polish men peering in your window at night and catching you dancing to really stupid shit
• thinking proudly to yourself, “wow, I haven’t seen a single cockroach in my apartment all summer”, because as soon as you have thought that, you have of course irrevocably jinxed yourself and you basically see a huge one crawling up the wall as soon as you’ve finished the thought
• rats that have been smooshed by cars
• the hipsters who have formed a kickball league (replete with un-funny ironic team t-shirts) and play relentlessly in mackerren park
• the blackouts currently plaguing brooklyn and the subway in general
• leaving a cabinet open, forgetting you have done so, and then smashing your temple on it when abruptly standing up

… basically, yeah.