Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Fall Foliage

Traffic signals fall.

The beautiful turning colors of the leaves in New England reminded me of a funny work by Ben Fry while he was a student here at the Media Lab. Eight years ago, Ben took the theme of leaves that change color and translated that to a tree full of traffic signals changing from green, to yellow, to red. If you click on the tree, the wind shakes the tree and makes the lights change quicker. Eventually all the "leaves" fall to the ground. Fall has never been more unnaturalaly natural.

Edelweiss Edelweiss

As part of my curatorial role in the Ars Electronica Simplicity Symposium, I am showing the work I presented earlier this year at Fondation Cartier in Linz, Austria at the Lentos Museum of Modern Art (Aug 31 - Sept 25).

In the event you're visiting the lovely city of Linz this month, please do visit the installation.

In the Blink of an Ear

The favorite airport book appears to be Malcolm Gladwell's Blink book. My data is formed by counting the number of instances I see someone carrying it in an airplane. On the average I count 0.80 people carrying the book across the last five flights I have been on. I haven't read it yet but I hear it is entertaining. However I doubt I will ever read it as I'm the kind of guy that rarely has time to go to the movie theater so I often cheat and read the summaries that are posted online. I know it's wrong so I don't need to be lectured.

At the AIGA Seattle Influenced conference I had the pleasure of seeing some really interesting people present their work and influences. Like all good conferences, you can tell by the smiles on the faces of the people that work behind the scenes when things are going well. It usually has something to do with their friendships for each other—teamwork is always easiest when everyone gets along well.

A gentleman named Marty O'Donnell from the famed videogaming company Bungie spoke about the art of designing sound for videogames. I was struck by one particular comment by Mr. O'Donnell where he said, "The ear doesn't blink." This should be an obvious fact to most of you, as you rarely find yourself talking to a person and see their ears flap spontaneously during conversation. If they did, you would probably be a bit concerned. His point wasn't to make biological humor, but that the act of editing, or putting together cuts of material as a single piece, makes complete sense visually because our eyes blink. We are used to being interrupted visually—not by the world around us, but by the fact that we blink.

Try this yourself. Close your eyes. Turn your head, and open your eyes again. There. You've edited a scene in your life.

In the case of our auditory surroundings however, Mr. O'Donnell's point was that our experience is generally continous. We can unnaturally disrupt it by surfing through stations on the radio—which nobody likes to hear because it is entirely unnatural and jarring to our ears. Or when you are in a skyscraper's elevator you get that annoying pop that seems completely out of place cognitively. Our auditory mind demands continuity because our ears don't blink.

Now try this. Cup your hands on both sides of your head and toggle your hearing by squeezing your head at the ears. There, your ears are blinking now. You may have also offended your co-workers at the office with this gesture. But at least, I made you blink.

Weed

Weedkillers stand to eradicate one of nature's most beautiful creations.

At my home, our lawn is unattended. Anything is free to grow as it sees fit. What was ten years ago once a quite fertile field of perfect green, is now a mottled patchwork of happenstance greenery. I see moss, I see ferns, I see tulips, I see weeds. Ah, I see grass as well. If I were to partake of proper lawncare, I might be able to perfect my imperfect scenery.

In our neighborhood, when we first moved in there were many older couples around. Now most of them have moved on. I recall one of them had a truly perfect garden. When we would marvel at her impeccably maintained fields of green, she would often say to us in the kindest voice, "Oh, your lawn is beautifully green too. " She meant that at a distance, it wasn't difficult to appreciate our decaying lawn because on the average, it was as green as hers. The difference of course was that her green was a pure green; ours was a more varied green.

Today I am glad that we have our share of weeds. I really love dandelions even though I am old enough to know that one puff ... and all the seeds are released to grow even more weeds. The temptation is simply too great to not want to puff at one of these things. Nature's done a smashing job at creating such an addictive visual treat. Weed.

Jeff Gates writes, "We have your classic 'au natural' lawn. We don't get a lot of sunlight because of the trees and this year we've got a bumper crop of dandelions, which my girls love to blow (hence the bumper crop). The definition I've always heard for the word "weed" is: an unwanted plant. This leaves open the definition to an individual's personal tastes." Taste is certainly a personal matter. Speaking of taste, dandelions taste pretty good in salads.

Green Clouds

No, it's not a satellite image from Google Maps. It's my windshield.

I have a thing for trees, given that it's probably the one thing I write here about the most. There is the house made of tree bark, the trip to Amazon, the cactus in LA, the anti-tree, and then there's the quiet tree sitting in the snow. My fascination with trees probably comes from my connection to writing computer codes, or "programs." Every computer program is essentially a tree. You begin with a starting point, and then you continually branch out into subprocedures. I "grow" trees daily on the computer. Most of them are gnarly little fellas that probably should be more classified as "bushes" than "trees." But I like to give them the benefit of the doubt.

A side-effect of the return of the spring season is one of my greatest nemeses: tree pollen. Clouds of green dust abound in my neighborhood and my dark-colored car acquires a completely American Pop light green tinge. Being one of the many people out there lucky to be born with the hayfever gene ... is it luck or is it just fate? ... I eagerly await the departure of this pleasant looking green powder that causes me to choke and bring my eyes to a painful teary squint. I wonder what the equivalent of pollen is in the digital world?

Media Lab PhD candidate Push Singh writes, "Allergies are due to an oversensitive immune system triggering an immune response to things it shouldn't. Maybe it's like when non-spam is identified as junk mail. But I'm not sure if there is any digital analogue to 'seasons' (an analogue to the blooming of Birch trees.) Does anything in the digital world happen once a year or on any regular schedule? Perhaps new versions of the Mac OS...." I love upgrading my OS as much as I love having hayfever.

Through Thick and Thin

A broadleaf desert plant grows hair.

Exiting a restaurant in Austin, I noted a plant with two layers of growth. The base layer was formed by a fan of leaves; the upper layer was a contorted mesh of thin threads of organic matter. At first I thought that the wind might have carried the fine clumps of string. But the other plants in the locale were adorned in a similar manner. Nature makes its point in the affirmative sense.

Juxtaposition of two conflicting elements always creates important moments of contrast. As the greenery returns to the trees in the New England area, I am reminded of the long-term contrasts that occur. Often they are unnoticeable as they happen gradually. Our senses steep like tea leaves in warm water. Most things that are truly meaningful tend to be sublime. How do we better prepare ourselves to notice that which is unnoticeable?

Out-Of-Pocket Colors

Age has not diminished its beauty.

I've carried this flower in my pocket for four years now. I don't remember what I was doing, or what country I was in, but I do remember a beautiful combination of purple and yellow that I wished to carry with me. A wallet is the perfect flower press that gets a whole lot of pressure activity. Although since this flower has escaped from my wallet, it has picked up some unflatted-ness.

In my Managerial Accounting course, I've recently been grappling with the relationship between "out-of-pocket costs" and "opportunity costs." The concepts are simple I know, but I think my visually-oriented brain doesn't sync well with the world of accounting. Earlier in the year, Financial Accounting was like kryptonite to me, but I'm glad I learned the stuff as a whole lot of things make more sense to me now. I suspect the same thing to happen for Managerial Accounting in the long run. The process of learning is certainly painful, but well worth the ordeal. And when thinking about the money in your pocket starts driving you crazy, just pop a flower into your wallet ... there's lots of them out there.

Nature

"The artist cannot do without
  his dialogue with nature,
  for he is a man, himself of nature,
  a piece of nature and within
  the space of nature."
     Paul Klee

Today I am reading from Paul Klee's book The Nature of Nature. It is one of my favorite books, and is somewhat hard to get your hands on. Luckily I have somewhat long fingers in spite of having short arms.

What is the nature of the digital realm? This is the question that I am working on attempting to answer for my Paris exhibition. Thanks to Master Klee, I think my mind is now operational. Time for surgery ...

Taming Nature

One day it just stood up on its own.

As it is customary in the winter season, I have been enjoying clementine oranges from Spain (in Japan they are called "mikan"). It is said that a person that can peel the mikan such that the peelings are removed in a single piece is somehow of a sophisticated nature. I personally think a truly sophisticated person would have the mikan peeled for them by someone else. But aside from sophistication, there is great joy in the ease of peeling these little winter oranges.

Frankly, I keep a fairly messy desk. This is not a recommended behavior of course. I've noticed that people with neatly organized virtual desktops on their computers tend to have neatly organized physical desktops. I'm jealous.

A month ago I left a sophisticate's peeling of a mikan on my desk, only to notice that on the next day, it began to dry from the inside of the skin such that it crumpled into something akin to a Frank Gehry building design. I found this transformation to be miraculous! Further experimentation revealed that I could make the mikan peel stand up in a variety of configurations. My final experiment shown here is a cubic formation of the standing mikan peel created by resting the peel on top of an acrylic cube. While the peel dried, I conformed the shape to the cube with some gentle molding techniques. Perhaps this is the new modern bonsai-like hobby for the modern individual?

Signal In The Noise

Susan Sarandon is digitally disturbed.

In the middle of the snowstorm on the Cape, I turned on my television set in the hotel room. Perhaps their video system ran on satellite feeds. This might explain how every signal seemed garbled in some beautiful and exotic way. Witnessing the power of the unexpected digital glitch is my favorite means for understanding the digital medium. Computer programs running in controlled conditions deliver expected results; computer programs disturbed by chaotic influences break apart the limitations of human logic and give us a glimpse into the nature of the digital realm.

Having yawned through many digital video art installations and works, in complete fascination I sat and witnessed this incomparable exhibition of performance art realized in collaboration between the cable TV processor and the snowstorm. I may have found a new career as their exclusive talent agent.

We continue our slow trek towards the 16th Law of Simplicity next week with some thoughts on "technonature."

Snowgirl and the Turkey

Frostina the snowgirl before cosmetic surgery.

In my neighborhood there is a family of wild turkeys that wanders the streets and gardens of suburbia. You can sometimes find them walking in the middle of the road, and when you drive up to them, they don't move out of your way. I would have thought by now that some crazy driver would have accidentally made a turkey sandwich out of these bold fowl friends. Yet they've been around for at least a year now. There's something regal about these creatures. My image of turkeys has always been colored by the only way I've seen them—as food. As such, I think of turkeys as feeling eternally hopeless for they will inevitably be carved up for Thanksgiving or else end up in a meat loaf. So it is the regal walk and stance of these birds in my neighborhood that make me feel, aside from my past prejudices, honored to know them.

With all the snow that we've been getting in New England, a snowgirl was built in our yard. I've seen the procedure before of taking a snowball and rolling it along in the snow to get larger. I was an utter failure at making my snowball get any bigger, until it was explained to me that I had to role the snowball slower. In my rush to make the snowball big, I was just making my snowball smaller. There is an key theme hidden there of universal importance.

A carrot nose completed the snowgirl and she seemed to do fine for a day, preserved by the current cold spell we have here. But I understand that the turkey family found its way to the snowgirl, and without hesitation picked off her nose. It turns out that turkeys (like many humans) don't seem to care for carrots as they left the carrot on the ground for the squirrels. The ecosystem of nature is curious.

After the snowgirl's extreme and sudden makeover, I am resolved today to amend her difficulties with the sense of smell by finding another nose for her. And, not out of a vindictive sense, I am probably going to be eating turkey (an unrelated relative of our turkey family) today.

The Opposite of Trees

Dirt clumps blossom after the retreat of snow.

It's snowing today in New England, and suddenly we are blanketed in the beauty of white. Yet it was only last week when we were treated to the melting of snow piles. I akin these piles to the opposite of trees. Trees increase their allure as they reveal their leaves in the spring. What was once brown and dead, is suddenly green and alive.

Snow piles on the other hand, when they melt, reveal the various dirt that is trapped inside the snowbanks. This phenomenon is especially visible at the side of the road, where dirt tracked from all over the city finds itself nestled inside the frozen silence of ice. As the snow melts, the dirt begins to layer upon itself in the process, forming mounds of what looks a lot like ice cream with Oreo bits inside.

The purity of white makes way for a mottled dotting of dirty brown and black. I've begun a collection of photographs of these kinds of tree-opposites because I find them quite varied and always surprising. Unfortunately nature has covered them up today so I will have to continue my photographic collection rounds next week ... sigh.

Nature Machines

Leaf undergoing torture.

A few years back I visited a friend at Pennsylvania State University in State College. They had one of those cave parks nearby where you ride a boat through an underground cavern to see a variety of unique natural rock phenomena. Stalactites from the roof and stalagmites from the ground surround you as you ride in a slim boat through complete darkness. As I road through the caves, my only thought was a set of octopus-like tentacles rising from the water to pull each of us into the dismal deep. Knowing that the water was only two and a half feet deep gave me no peace of mind. What is it about darkness that makes the imagination roam so freely?

We get to see most natural phenomena happen before our eyes. The snow falling from the sky, waves hitting the shore, and steam rising from a pond. Whenever I see time lapse photography of a flower blooming I cannot help but gasp in wonder. One cannot help but be overcome by a feeling of transcending the limitations of spacetime. But given the slower than snail-like pace of the development of rock formations, setting up a webcam to observe a hundred years of a rock formation slooooooowly elongating appears to be technologically impossible today. Granted, with computer graphics you can simulate anything today. But I'd still be first in line and even pay good money to watch a real cave change over thousands of years. Maybe I can get VC funding for this big idea ...

When I observed the leaf to my right on this wintry morning in Massachusetts, my immediate instinct was to pick up the oddly cracked leaf as the newest accession for my mantle of curiosities. But as I gently pulled on the leaf, I realized that it was bonded to the backing of ice. The changing state of the ice over the past few days appears to have stretched and compressed this leaf into its current predicament—much like a fly caught in a spider's web. There is nothing more simple than for nature to perform its natural deeds. I wonder who pays nature's overtime and benefits?

To become a subscriber to natureTV you don't need an iPod, a mobile telephone, give away your e-mail address, or even do a Google search. Just have to learn how to throw away your remote, and turn off the blog.

Sparkling or Still?

Petrification of a dandelion top.

In Europe when ordering water, I am always petrified when the waiter pauses for me to tell them the particular type of water that I wish. In the States we get tap water served to our table without any hesitation by the waitress. The moment of choice is always a moment of stress for me. I feel like carrying a coin around in my pocket with one side marked "still" and the other marked "sparkling" so I don't have to make a selection. In case we have a meal together in Europe today you should know that I'm impartial to either type of water. My only goal in life is hydration ... bubbles or no bubbles.

Something absolutely still can be unnerving. Like when you are in a forest and don't hear a sound and everything around you is completely still. Perhaps because we have an innate mechanism that makes us fear that which is non-moving as we equate the state with death. On the brighter sided of things, when we see objects move around we perceive them to be alive. This phenomenon is brought up by Valentino Braitenberg in his eminently accessible book Vehicles. Anyone who makes things move around the screen for a living should read this book (it is a very slim book so it won't take long).

My fascination with moving things began with a classmate at MIT named Bob Sabiston. There really is no more talented person in the world than Bob. Anywow, inspired by his early work I wrote my own animation system shortly after I dropped out of grad school at MIT. Writing this system changed me immensely. I realized that I didn't like to express myself by making tools for expression, and preferred the act of expression itself. Tools all too often get in the way of expression. How to create new digital work without the stench of existing digital tools is the challenge for this century.

The Song of A Tree

High atop the mountain stood a great tree.

I gave a talk at Amazon headquarters in Seattle today. For some reason I thought the company would be housed in some super high-tech campus that enacted the Amazon rainforest metaphor to the n-th degree. Perhaps it was all those times that I've passed by the Rainforest Cafe in shopping malls in the States that made me think that the receptionist would be wearing some sort of elephant helmet? Or that I would be greeted by a robotic gorilla? No such frills unfortunately.

Housed in an old building on top of a hill that is reminiscent of the opening credits for the soap opera General Hospital, Amazon is actually set in what used to be a real hospital that I drove by every day as a youth. To think that in hallways once filled with deep human drama there would be legions of computers and young minds percolating on the future of world commerce ... human spirits that are recast as ghosts within the machine.

One important point of our discussion was the challenge of presenting a customer with less choices rather than more choices as the central differentiating factor for Amazon. Of course in everyone's mind, Amazon is synonymous with more, and that anything less than more just wouldn't be Amazon in the consumer's mind. I couldn't help but notice the evergreen trees visible from the conference room window.

The advantage of living in New England versus areas with superior climates like California or Hawaii, is that we see some very dismal weather in the winter. Growing up in Washington, also called the "Evergreen State," I was used to seeing the fir trees green all year long. In contrast, during the fall in New England, the trees voluntarily shed all of their precious leaves, and all that remains by winter are just the empty branches. The barrenness of winter is accentuated by the naked trees. Nature gets a rest from her work. As a result humans miss nature's beauty even more. Fewer things are truer than the saying, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

Is a tree with more leaves more beautiful than a tree with fewer leaves? This question is unanswerable I think. However the one related truth is that cycles of replenishment are intrinsic to the rhythm of the natural environment. In the digital age we expect always-on, always-all, and always-now. Although attractive qualities from a human's perspective, these desires are not natural.

In the design of future electronic systems, we may want to consider the rhythm of nature as a mediating theme in interfaces. We don't like it when the computer freezes, but we have better tolerance when a disruptive snowstorm hits. Both events are out of our control, yet we only react to the seemingly understood determinism of the former.

A company that symbolizes many trees, and that is in responsible for countless trees' lives all over the earth, could probably benefit from listening closer to the song of the trees. I'll be tuning in as well ...

Jana Snyder of Kansas comments, "Your 'trees' bit reminded me of this poetic quote: I't is in winter that trees reveal what they most truly are.' (I have the author's name somewhere, but not in my brain nor close at hand.)

Gaussian Blurs and Snowfall

Nature selects "Gaussian Blur" from her menu.

In Adobe Photoshop there is an often-used tool in the Filter menu called "Gaussian Blur." Just above this filter are two other filters "Blur" and "Blur More." I never choose either of these vague options for my blurring needs, and always go to the source: "Gaussian Blur." However I think it is overkill to label the feature "Gaussian Blur" as I don't think that Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) is going to come back from the dead to sue Adobe for using his name. Super-smart folks in the old days way way way way way way way before the dotcom era didn't care for money (or lawyers) and just did it for the thrill of thinking. I believe that the name "Gaussian Blur" is important to distinguish the blur that Photoshop performs from a "box blur" or other blurs that exist in the image processing toolbox. But then I wonder why there isn't a "Box Blur" option in the menu? That's like an ice cream store that sells only Strawberry ice cream. One would think that for such an expressive tool like Adobe Photoshop, (if you aren't me) you'd want more features than you could imagine.

Yesterday at the Media Lab's SIMPLICITY program we had a visit from the Product Manager for Apple's Shake and Motion products. Her mission was to make Apple's professional tools as powerful as possible—which translates to being as complex as possible. The professional market is indeed driven by complexity as a desirable feature from a marketing perspective. Only problem is that even the msot skilled professionals are getting fed up with all the thick manuals they have to read (which the manufacturers try to hide in their CD-ROMs or 75Mb 'readme' files now), all the bugs they have to deal with because the complex software introduces considerably more complex errant behaviors, and all the training courses and bboards that have to be constantly trawled for insights that are missing in any of the manufacturers' public documentation.

What we need is a "blur" feature to apply to software tools that can help us see the forest for the trees. We may need to "blur more" such that we can see the mountains for the forest. Snow falling on a terrain has this effect of blurring every detail of an environment such that only the most basic topography of an area remains.

One of the best tricks for improving a page or screen layout is to squint your eyes and look at your piece. Suddenly you can see how all the elements are out of balance in size relationships, overall contrast, and priority of relevance. In essence the squint of our eyes is the blur that we use to simplify what we see, in order to adjust an outcome for greater efficacy.

Big picture thinking acquired with just a prolonged squint? Maybe eyeglass companies might be out of business in the future if this technique ever catches on ...