Interesting bits that have caught the eye(s) of the NYT this year include:

Eye-recognition advertising technology… Bicycle Highways… Man-made Trees… Zombie defense strategies… and more.

Not necessarily the most mind-blowing stuff in every case, but many are things that I had not seen in 2009…

A nice opening of the Year End ‘Lists’ season…

Here’s the link.

Via Neatorama. Sniff projects a CGI dog in a shop window, interacting with passerby. The dog was created in Blender, the open-source 3D suite which is interesting; been thinking about learning it.

People on the sidewalk are monitored by an IR camera in openFrameworks. In oF each individual person is isolated and assigned a unique id for the duration of their interaction. Each persons’ position and gesture information is continually sent to Unity3d via OSC networking protocol. In Unity, an artificial intelligence system representing the dog forms relationships with the individuals. He chooses which person to pay attention to, is able to move towards them or back away, responds to their gestures and initiates gestures of his own. Based on the interaction he gets excited or bored, friendly or aggressive, which is reflected in his behavior.

Video Here:

Sniff from karolina sobecka on Vimeo.

Artist’s website here.

More inspiring work using the Processing visualization language. Processing.org has lots on show, here’s just a few: Balldroppings is a delightfully simple environment where you create soundscapes with bouncing balls.

Terre Natale (Exits 2) is a six screen installation making rounds in Europe. (Joy Division, anyone?)

Terre Natale – Population Shift (Graph) from Stewdio on Vimeo.

Visitors enter a dark rotunda to discover a mirror-image Earth revolving around the room, printing animated maps and data to the wall’s curved surface. Divided into five narratives, this piece quantifies both voluntary and forced movement across the globe due to political, economic, and environmental factors.

And finally, MTV Brasil used Processing for it’s 2009 ID’s.

Astroturfing is a word in English describing formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous “grassroots” behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf.

Facesofcoal.org, a pro-coal mining (and burning) industry advocacy group, gets busted using stock photography to represent it’s ‘members’ by the people who live on top of the coal …

Facesofcoal.org gets busted as a creation of D.C. spin-house Adfero…

Adfero gets busted for cutting corners and turning it’s grassroots movement into something more..weedy, but they do show some decent use of javascript for image captions, I guess… (Is that fair and balanced ?)

Appalachian Voices has more info.

I’ve shared drome riding before, but on deeper investigation, this thing is a bit of a sub-culture that has incredibly deep roots to the early days of motorsport and traveling carnivals in America.

Now with amateurs getting into the act, it may be a fad ready to break (again)… Viral video, anyone ?

(Homemade!)

Learn more about Motordromes at Wikipedia.

The Wall of Death (AKA Motordrome) is a carnival sideshow featuring a drum- or barrel-shaped wooden cylinder, ranging from 20 to 36-feet in diameter, in which stunt motorcyclists ride and carry out tricks. Derived directly from US motorcycle boardtrack (motordrome) racing in the early 1900s, the very first carnival motordrome appeared at Coney Island amusement park (New York) in 1911. The following year portable tracks began to appear on traveling carnivals and in 1915, the first “silodromes” with perpendicular walls were seen. These motordromes with perfectly straight walls were soon dubbed the “Wall of Death.” This carnival attraction became a staple in the US outdoor entertainment industry with the phenomenon reaching its zenith in the 1930s with more than 100 motordromes on traveling shows and in amusement parks. The first known Wall of Death in the UK appeared in 1929 at Southend.

(What Wiki fails to mention is that you weren’t really serious unless you also rode with a LION in your sidecar…

Further reading:

Thrill Arena

Side Show World

Once in a while, someone comes along and puts words to your own convictions so well that you just have to take a step back and point…

Why do Design and Aesthetic matter?

Stephen P. Anderson nails it at A List Apart, making the case for the value of design and aesthetics in the making of things… Probably the best case I’ve seen yet, and I will be forwarding this on, far and wide… Best of all, he’s a Poet and a Painter.

Excerpt:

Perhaps more importantly, “aesthetics examines our affective domain response to an object or phenomenon” (according to Wikipedia). In other words, aesthetics is not just about the artistic merit of web buttons or other visual effects, but about how people respond [my emphasis] to these elements. Our question becomes: how do aesthetic design choices influence understanding and emotions, and how do understanding and emotions influence behavior?

go check it out.

They get it, but why no mobile app ?

“As programs like OfficeMax’s Elf Yourself have shown, consumers love to be the center of marketing stunts, something that HBO has proved yet again for the second season of Flight of the Conchords.

HBO worked with Deep Focus for a program in which consumers were invited to send videos of themselves lip synching the Conchords’ classic Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros.

The Lip Dub promotion, as it was called, depended heavily on the show/band’s community of 500,000 fans on Facebook where it got more than 470 comments and 5,400 “likes.”

Article here.

Fifty one years on, it’s iconic for so many reasons in both technique and subject—this BAFTA Award nominated film captures the essence and texture of the 1958 Coupe des Alpes, and more broadly, a re-building Europe.

“Got it, race-cars, so what?” you say. Well. Aside from this being an excellent reference for period design, and camera… (Best just watch the movie and not waste your time on my inarticulate sputtering about why this worth your time)… There is charm and intimacy imparted to the event here in lush, un-hurried storytelling that doesn’t exist in today’s short-form highlight ‘packages’ that you’ll see on broadcast… No bleating background music, no chase-helicopters, no feigned drama or commercial breaks…

It’s pure.

Categorical golden ages are usually obvious only when they’ve passed. Their real measure seems to include a rise where all the supporting bits and pieces shine superlatively as well. The associated fashion, typography, industrial design, etc.

It’s all here.

Autoracing was hitting a style-peak in the late fifties, early sixties, and here’s a great window to enjoy it.

Without further ado – (Best in HQ mode) :

Design team HeHe built on the idea of contextualizing public spaces with Dr.Evil-grade “La-sers…” — a bunch of sites picked up on this already, I’m still recovering from the Holidays.  Illuminating the cloud in proportion to the energy use of the city is a great tool to build conservation awareness and engage folks. For other examples of beam installations, see an older post here.

much more about this at the project home page.

If you’re interested in more like this, check out Blinkenlights, Ars Electronica and their past winners at wikipedia.