N Thing

This is from Olly Moss.

#gestalt-switch

#gestalt-switch

Abstract Trip #3

(3.97 Miles /6.38 Km)

 

Abstract Trip #3 from Marco Cadioli on Vimeo.

Abstract Trip #3 (video version)

Abstract Trip #3 from Marco Cadioli on Vimeo.

 

Marco Cadioli creates films from Google Earth. You can play with them if you have the Google Earth plug-in.

#new-aesthetic

I can't tell you how excited this makes me. I'm dying to go see. (It's at the Tate Britain this summer, if you fancy it).

I still get excited by fighter jets flying overhead. And probably always will. This is very Ballard.

"Imagine you’re on the first slide of your powerpoint presentation and want to move to the next slide. Your remote control has two buttons. They are unmarked, but one button points up and one button points down.

Which button do you press?"

Yes, this is another one of those gestalty/two types of disagreement things.

Which I can't get enough of.

I loved the movie Up. I particularly enjoyed Dug, the dog with the voice box that translated his thoughts into words. During a conversation, Dug would suddenly interrupt himself by yelling: "SQUIRREL!" He would then orient toward that little moving rodent and watch. Eventually, he resumed his conversation. For a week after seeing the movie, various members of my family would interrupt conversations with the sudden cry of "Squirrel!" It's still good for the occasional laugh.

I was reminded of the movie when walking with our family dogs recently. I'm glad they don't have voice boxes. If they did, they would constantly be interrupting our walks with cries of squirrel or bird or rabbit! The attention of our dogs is easily captured by small moving animals. The cry of "Squirrel!" seems to really capture how attention works in both real and cartoon dogs.

Squirrel also describes how attention works for the rest of us. Perhaps with respect to attentional capture, we aren't so different from dogs (although clearly we differ in other cognitive capacities - see Dogs Don't Remember). Like dogs, our attention is easily captured by small moving objects: squirrels in the woods, flies in the kitchen.

I like things to have names.

In the beginning, I had the idea that I wanted to make things as simple as possible and I still do. It leaves lots of room for children's imaginations.

Here's what Dick Bruna drawings look like if you're not familiar with them.