Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Reebok Emoretion

My new limited edition shoes for Reebok will launch March 31. I'm certainly getting emoretional about the launch date.

Haiku Remixed

Clifton Burt from Mississippi writes, "I just wanted to let you know that our design resource center recently used letters from a discarded sign to construct the haiku from your Simplicity blog post of April 21, 2007." Thanks Clifton!

The Silence of Creativity

2008-02-05 00:37:16.480 painter[2462] REQUESTING load file named: mydata_blank.xml with numberid 1 out of 9
>>>>############ DOING CLEANUP
>>>>#### cleaned
>>> TOTAL LAYERS IS 33
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> set time to zero
**** drawview clearframep = 0
########################################DOING COMMON

> Prepping fb mgr ...
> Done.
/Users/maeda/python/bezshape.py:146: DeprecationWarning: integer argument expected, got float
for i in range(ni):
0 1
412.112297299 42.8183057777
2 3
333.76680165 156.817400328
4 5
371.739947367 112.152049732
6 7
152.322836043 96.5593323427
connecting
>> data 0
>> xml
>> lengths
>> scanning id
>>>>>>>>>> IDNUM IS 277
>>> made it
>>> going ahead with (102, 7, 3)
************************** GOTTA FREE LOTS OF MEMORY SOMEDAY HERE ************
**** drawview clearframep = 0
########################################DOING COMMON
> Prepping fb mgr ...
>> Brushes cleaned.
> Done.
0 1
240.368698757 65.0427509257
2 3
72.7788784829 71.6847370451
...

I realize that in my 41st year of life, one thing remains the same: I still listen intently to the strange codes that emit from the computer during the debugging of any new work. Programming to me has never been something I've enjoyed -- I've been quite open about that. Sure, there was a time in my life when I teetered on enjoying the process of it all more than the finished work; and then I would quickly swing back to a preference of focusing on the outcome instead. I owe that thought to one of my mentors from long ago.

For me, it is maybe the process of simply thinking about something in a creative sense ... that gets me excited. Does it have to result in something? Yes. That seems odd really. Because if all I cared about being creative was just to do something creative, then I wouldn't need to get to a finished result. No. Getting to some endpoint seems to be the real enjoyment. It's not for others to recognize the fruits of your work; it's for yourself. The desire is to complete a thought. So then ... you can go on and find a new one to torment yourself with. The intellectual torment ... is ... fun? Hmmmm. Difficult to say. Perhaps it is a kind of acquired taste for an odd pleasure.

Gerry Sussman put this all succinctly for me the other day quite graciously. And my debt to MIT continues to grow ...

I Google

Smooth and soft.

I have launched a new theme on iGoogle. The theme changes based upon the time of day (every 4 hours), and is based upon a series of strokes I drew by hand and a simple algorithmic manipulation thereof.

Fab It

But will they make you run faster?

In my colleague Prof. Neil Gershenfeld's book FAB, Neil outlines a future where the computer will facilitate a world where you no longer go to a store and buy what has been mass-produced, but instead go online and buy what is specifically designed and fabricated for you. The end point of the revolution will be a personal fabrication system (much like a personal laserprinter) that lives somewhere in your home that magically creates any object that you might select on Amazon.com with the future "Make Now" button to replace the then outdated "Buy Now and Ship" button. Plans and designs will travel from Amazon.com's server to your personal fab and within minutes the object you've purchased online will be popping out the other end of your fab.

We haven't made it to Neil's world yet of course, but we'll likely get there. Until then, companies are rapidly moving in the area of mass-customization as evidenced by the recent conference held here at MIT. I have personally entered this arena from 9AM tomorrow with the help of some new friends from RBK that are deeply passionate about the future that may come. Hopefully the next steps in this artistic collaboration will be nothing more than fab-ulous. Gotta run ...

The Objectivity of Subjectivity

I have recently become aware that when a client desires you to create something "beautiful," they will make the mistake of granting you free license to explore. This will likely result in a negative outcome.

I used to dislike it when a client asked me to do something similar to a previous work. Now I am no longer bothered. It's much simpler to know what they actually want. Everyone saves time in the end.

For a client to ask for something "new" then the goal is clear. Creative folks like to do "new" things. There is a match.

But when asked for something "beautiful," the client normally has an a priori idea of what he/she considers of beauty. Thus they should come clean with what they want as it is only honest.

If they want something "new" and "beautiful" the proper response is, "How new? And how beautiful?" They should make the choice clear from the start. Because what is truly new, will always take some time for it to register as beautiful. If a deadline looms, the correct request should be for beauty (as specified in clear terms) over the danger of the new. Most people don't have enough time to figure it out in the end because we're always in such a hurry. New is something that can only be appreciated by those that do not worry about deadlines.

I guarantee this knowledge, for the professional creative, will make his or her life much simpler in the long run.

Sunrise Thoughts

The search continues.

As soon as I get tired of thinking about the computer, something happens and I try to pick it up and attempt to play it again. The sounds it makes are absolutely perfect, but the thinking that goes into the performance is always the more difficult challenge. I've always liked to think more than making the actual codes. Lucky for me, I was never a great programmer. I think if I were, I would never have started to think.

One Month To Go

Another use for a toy paintbrush.

One month left until my exhibition at Riflemaker Gallery closes in London. A spirited review ran today in the Financial Times by none other than Anthony Haden-Guest.

Maeda: MySpace

21st century meets 18th century.

My exhibition opened in London last week at Riflemaker Gallery in the Soho area of London. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief on opening night that everything was operational. Phew.

At the exhibition there is a new piece I've made of 16 iPod Nanos which resulted in a terrible mess of power cables that we decided to reveal for the audience. On the one hand, the Nanos exhibited a kind of digital coolness and simplicity, whereas when your eyes wandered slightly east you see a tyrannical jumble of cables and plugs that embodies the underlying complexity.

A video walkthrough of the space is visible here. Matthew Sweet of the BBC interviewed me on the theme of simplicity and my exhibition for his popular show Nightwaves here.

Think-Make-Think

Mondrian was an electrical engineer.

Haiku for today:

All I want to be,
is someone that makes new things.
And thinks about them.

Phew, back to work.

Feeling Board

Remembering makes everything simpler.

Today the weather in the Boston area is rather poor. I remember when considering returning to the United States in 1995 I wasn't sure whether I wanted to live in Los Angeles or Boston. The designer Paul Rand advised me to live on the E. Coast exactly for this kind of crummy weather we are enjoying here; he said the weather in LA would be so good that I wouldn't do any work.

As a Professor involved in digital media technology, I often find myself a few years behind my own students in mastering the state-of-the-art. This may seem like something quite terrible to admit, but when you're busy teaching (or managing) it's rather difficult keeping up with the latest trends. I like to stay active as a builder of technology, so like the tortoise in Aesop's tale I slog along forward at my slowly pace.

For my upcoming show in London at Riflemaker, I am in need of designing a custom computer circuit board. A previous version of myself had mastered this two years ago and he even had his own desk. But he sort of went off to pursue other things and has completely forgotten the art. I've been looking for him for the past two months and I think he's answered my page. I hope he has not arrived too late.

Lie Honestly

I find it strange how in the US we know our 16th President Abraham Lincoln as having been particularly "honest" -- thus the nickname, "Honest Abe." I wonder how many times I may have heard this as a youth, such that it is deeply programmed into my own brain. Can a person spend their entire life without lying? It seems impossible. Although I do think it is possible that one can evolve later in life such that they come to the conclusion that lying is not such a great thing to do, and thus attempt to become more honest instead of less. What is the value of honesty?

Lying tends to get you into trouble. We know this from experience. A lie, when introduced into the space of people, tends to morph out of control. It gets chaotic and can often spin into something terrible. But what affects the liar the most, is when the trail of chaos leads back to the liar himself. In this case, they are officially christened as a "liar." I think the worst case though is when the real liar can go free when during the backtracking process the wrong person is pointed to as being the source of the lie. Lying is bad stuff.

Honesty is said to be "the best policy." When you're honest, then you're really saying what you think. But saying what you think can also get you into trouble. Even if what you say is the 100% truth, people can still come after you with might. Being right sometimes doesn't matter so much when everyone thinks you are wrong. Like the scientist Antoine Lavoisier "the father of modern chemistry" was executed for being right. The late 1700s in France: a bad time to be an innovator for sure.

Both lying and being honest can cause problems. When being creative, you really have to lie to yourself that you think you are doing something new. If you are truly honest with yourself, you'll just look at the work of Klee, Mondrian, Duchamp, etc. and realize it's best to just keel over and disappear.

By lying to yourself, you are often able to innovate. You trick yourself into believing you are headed into something exotic and wonderful where no one has gone before. You imagine the thrill and seethe in the selfishness of seeing the chest of gold for the first time. You bask in your own glory that you are truly right and everyone else is wrong. And if you stay there too long, nobody will care for you. You are stuck in your own world. Your happiness is your happiness. That is that.

So in conclusion, a careful cocktail of lying and honesty seems to be a good apertif when approaching a creative task. Start from the lie, and find your way back to honesty. Pinocchio had it right.

My Other Desk

Untouched for two years.

I have three desks where I work. The first is here at MIT. The other is my one at home. But there's one desk that I had forgotten about until recently. It is my desk at home where I used to dabble on hardware projects from 2000 to 2002.5 when I had declared my creative phase as being "post digital." I can see that this is a phrase used out there more commonly. The term had a simpler meaning to me: I was tired of making things for a conventional desktop computer experience. I felt there was no elegance to the system. So I dove into the simplicity of single chip computer systems and more primitive means of digital expression.

A lot has happened since then. Around that time I tried out administration, and failed. Went back into my mind to begin the path towards simplicity, entered the contemporary art world, and also formally started to study business administration to have a better feeling for how the generic business world works. Along the way I began to interact more with sponsors here at the Media Lab that became my very best friends to help me realize the magic of this place. And also to realize that the business world is not really about the modern world of measurable ROI (Return on Investment), but that at its best it is about the old-world way of the importantly immeasurable ROR (Return on Relationship).

In the last few months I've been given the support here at the Media Lab to serve as the Associate Director of Research. I must admit that it's been a lot more work than I thought it would be but gradually, thanks to the efforts of the many incredible people around me -- students, faculty, and staff -- I am faithful that I will weather this season of my life in one piece.

At the same time I am challenged to figure out how to put some new work together for my show in London. Cancelling this event has crossed my mind several times given my current state of busy-ness. No. Correction. Maybe at least ten thousand times. (No fooling). I was looking deep in my heart for the correct answer. Of course I knew it was to do both. But it wasn't happening for me. Luckily Mr. Garcia stepped forth to provide me the pointer to the wisdom I needed.

In Hamming's lecture, he quotes another famous technologist besides himself, Hendrik Bode: "The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity -- it is very much like compound interest. I don't want to give you a rate, but it is a very high rate. Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thiking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime."Yet in the same breath, Hamming adds that this means that inevitably you must neglect your loved ones to achieve the intensity of thought you desire.

Finding balance is certainly the ultimate challenge in life. Luckily you have a entire lifetime to take on this challenge.

Over the end of last year, I've been tempted to stop doing my creative work because the other things happening around me are of high significance. And then out of the blue I will receive an e-mail from my favorite person in the world, Red Burns, who calmly tells me if I do so then I will have essentially devolved into pondscum. So the kick in the pants gets me running back to try to resuscitate the creative part of my mind. I think it is there. It has been there before.

So I sit here trying to summon back the person from 2002.5 that understood these various materials on my third desk. He doesn't seem to answer my call. I think I will have to go and look for him. Must go and get my keys ...

Nam June Paik

At Ssamzie in Seoul.

This week I was in Seoul visiting my favorite retail space Ssamzie Building which is a unique mix of upscale Korean craft, everyman food, and cutting-edge contemporary art. There's no other place like it in the world. Artisans without business skills can setup shop there at Ssamzie and get their creative businesses incubated.

Purely by coincidence, I was there on the 1st year anniversary of Nam June Paik's passing. Paik was, and continues to be, a core influence on any practitioner of dynamic media. My favorite work of Paik's is Random Access Music which is a series of technology art pieces. Imagine a wall with magnetic audio tape glued to it, and holding the playback head in your hand like a wand such that you can freely brush over the loops of tape and hear things. These pieces represent a wonderful destruction of conventional passive media, into completely different constructions that are interactive, analog, and ultimately human. Thanks Nam June.

Artist's Block

Picasso was here.

The instinct to create art is completely normal. From our time as little children, we seek to express ourselves. Whether that be by odd verbal utterances, or even a smile, or the drawing on the living room wall, we release our emotions that are bottled up inside and set them free.

To claim to be a "professional artist" ... is something I find to be an oxymoron. Art is a reflex. How can you professionalize a reflex? Ah! You mean "professional" = "can exist as a profession." Meaning that art flows out and dollars flow in. But is that "art" the result of a truly free mode of expression? Being paid to express something can often change the balance of purity.

Hmmm. Two years ago I thought about this topic a bit in a personal experience I had with the eponymous Paul Rand. As I read back, I really miss Paul. Let me find something else I wrote about him. Here it is.

Sorry for the digression. Much of my thoughts in this area will remain unanswered forever probably. But now that OPENSTUDIO is over a year old, maybe there are a few conclusions that we can make today. Art can be bought and sold. It can be loved and disliked. People can have fun or get bored. All aspects of the art enterprise are participatory, and most meaningful when there is deep participation.

The meandering form of this passage is indicative of the fact that I am writing here to try to dislodge my own case of artist's block. The good news is that I remembered my love for Paul Rand. So I think the writing therapy worked. I am on the path to recovery. G'day!

Ready, Aim.

Make art, not guns.

I am currently preparing for an exhibition of new work at Riflemaker gallery in London to open at the end of April. Part of me says that it's a mistake to go after another show so close to my recent one in Paris. Yet another part of me says that since I have only a finite set of springs left in me, I might as well keep cranking while I can. If you happen to be near Regent Street in London on April 30, please do drop by.

Thicker Skin 4 Sale

The frame's worth at least $40.

If you've never been to colette, then you've never experienced the greatest retail design experience that Paris has to offer. Owner-curator Sarah has arranged a simple exhibition of works entitled "My 2007" for the month of January 2007 at colette with the proceeds for sales to go to the WWF. I chopped the recent Thicker Skin work from my notebook and framed it for this charitable cause. It's available for 200.7 Euros in an edition of 1 (it's the original scribble) for the good cause of happier and safer animals in the world.

Takeoff

"You have to get up, to get down." Brian K. Smith

Monday means it's time to get your airplane into the air for this week.

December means that January is coming. January means there's a whole new year that awaits your creative energies.

Thus December is like the Sunday before Monday. A time for rest, but also a time for focus. Get ready for take off!

Thicker Skin x 75

Thicker skin.

Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin. Thicker skin.

Process vs Outcome

At the recent Media Lab faculty retreat led by our new director Frank Moss, we had an interesting time discussing our favorite topic here at the Lab -- the future. It's never easy to discuss the future when you're living in the present of the course, but with the impressive array of colleagues I have here it's not that difficult.

Digital music impresario Tod Machover and the mind of Lego's Mindstorm Mitch Resnick led a discussion about the future of creativity. It was here that the past collided with the future, or at least in my mind. The timeless question in art arose: What matters more: the process of creating an artwork, or just the artwork alone? There are only a few variants to this answer. My simple mind calculates four total:

process	outcome
matters	doesn't matter
doesn't matter	matters
matters	matters
doesn't matter	doesn't matter

The "correct" answer is that all are actually correct. Is one more correct than the other? Probably not. But maybe. I'm not sure.

Technologists usually feel that the process matters. For instance, the classical engineer will marvel at a painting by getting up close and from the perspective of the fractally pattern in the drying of the pigments, and might inadvertently ignore the picture being depicted itself. On the other hand, a non-technologist might only marvel at the picture alone without need to understand or acknowledge the process by which the image was created.

A deeper interpretation of art usually involves understanding both the process and the outcome -- knowing the story behind an artwork creates a more meaningful connection perhaps. But knowing nothing about an artwork and still being able to appreciate it ... is that not the result of true genius?

That neither process nor outcome matter -- that art does not matter at all. There are greater issues in the world than art. Some would think this. Which to choose when you are truly hungry. A beautiful painting by Monet of an apple? Or a real apple that is bruised and ugly? The choice is simple for anyone I think.

In terms of my own prejudices, I think that I can easily rule out two of the four, and decide on the remaining two as the current and future drivers of my work.

process	outcome
matters	doesn't matter
doesn't matter	matters
matters	matters
doesn't matter	doesn't matter

Oddly ten years ago I would have marked these choices in complete opposite. I have a few springs left so I shall not worry about this as there might be time left to pick completely different choices in the future. And thus I know my own future. I hope you know yours too. But don't worry, it will probably change from what you imagine now. Isn't that the point?

Simple RSI Advice

I received a letter from a student whose friend was suffering from RSI. She now feels her creative career using the computer is over. No. Not true. There is hope.

Fifteen years ago my RSI had developed into something quite nasty. I still deal with it today and it's a continual fight. If you're approaching your late 20s and you're a wicked fast computer user, welcome to the club! There are a few things I can recommend to you in case you'd like to keep on going:

• If you touch-type, stop touch-typing. Hold a pen in each hand and type. It's awkward but works. I can't stop touch-typing. So when it's bad, I use the pen-method.
• Keep your body warm. Circulation improves this way. Wear socks as acupuncturists say that the feet and hands are related. I stopped swimming because the coldness of the water seemed to only aggravate my condition.
• Acupuncture works. But I"m not certain it's just the needles. My personal theory is that it's about taking time for yourself -- for your body. Imagine spending the same amount of time getting to an acupuncture appointment and lying there -- just using that time to lie anywhere even outside of the acupuncture office might be well spent.
• Try not to stress out about your work. Whenever you can, take a relaxed outlook on things. Life's short. Relax.
• When your right-mousing hand fails, move to the left-hand. I have used every form of input device: stylus, trackball, trackpoint, etc. They're all bad for you. Don't believe in that "ergonomic" marketing-speak. When everything fails, use this mouse.
• Don't live on a laptop. Laptops are bad bad bad for you. Their keyboards are too constraining. Laptops set your body up in the bad-for-you crouch. When everything fails, use this keyboard (contour model).
• There's the normal things people say like: 1) Get a nice chair, 2) Take breaks often, 3) Change your career. I've got #1 down pat, but unfortunately haven't been able to use options 2 or 3.
• Disclaimer: I have doctorates but I'm not a medical doctor. Whatever I say here is not medically founded.

Sculptors get RSI. Writers using ballpoint pen can get RSI. Occupational hazards are well-represented in the creative fields. But when there is a will, there's always a way!

Good Enough is Good Enough

It's good enough.

There is a common misconception that a perfectionist is someone that engages in the singleminded pursuit of what is perfect. Any perfectionist that needs to make a living knows this not to be true. After all, nothing's really perfect forever.

A sculpture made to its quintessential state of form and finish, once displayed, is commonly mishandled and fingered. A wedding cake that is baked and decorated to a blissful refine sits three or more hours past its prime while waiting to be eaten. "I AM A PERFECTIONIST!" wails the genius artist in the movie in the maddening moment of creation. But in the end, everyone's got to say, "Well, it's good enough." The world does not wait for those who just wail.

Recently I was visited by a talented student filled with angst over his future creative life. He said something to the effect, "Surely you know the moment -- when you spend a year drenched in a single idea, or spend an entire month working towards that singular goal." I answered, "No. Actually I don't." My method is simple. I get in, and I know when to get out. And then I get into something else.

I subscribe to the modified Muhammad Ali principle -- "Float like a jellyfish, sting like a bee." Hmmmm, actually since a jellyfish stings too I guess this means all you really have to do in life is to float like a jellyfish. Yep. That's good enough for now.

Num6er5

So many numbers, so little time.

I am working on a piece for Wired Magazine now and am inspired to write a few programs for old times' sake. But I think I've made it clear that I find computer programming particularly boring -- so I have to make it interesting for myself some way. It's all too dry. Too perfect. So few ways to leave your own marks and taste. No flaws allowed. Bugs are meant to be eradicated. Every syntax error must vanish before the computer will let a piece of software's virtual machinery come to life. It's terribly inhuman. All the fun of the imperfect is taken away. Tonite the challenge is to smuggle a bit of humanity into the machine. I hope to not get caught.

Ars Simplicity

I have officially signed on as this year's guest curator of Ars Electronica -- the oldest art and technology festival in the world. The topic is none other than SIMPLICITY.

Overlinked

What if every word were a hyperlink ? Hmm ...

Andre Brocatus of Utrecht suggests visiting Droog's site for a linky experience.

Nature Closing

This is the last week of my show in Paris at Fondation Cartier and although I am sad to see it close, I am happy to envision new things for the future. Paul Kahn composed a poem that encapsulates the experience nicely. Who needs place when we have words?

Play With Your Food!

Yummy pixel frosting.

My exhibition at Fondation Cartier in Paris is coming to a close this month on February 19, 2006. Part of this exhibition was a small room for children entitled "Eye'm Hungry." In conjunction with this theme, Cécile Boyer ran a special series of workshops for children using a silly computer program I wrote to play with images of food. Kids played with yummy French pastries and so forth, and added their own pixel decorations to them. If the simplest needs in life are food, water, and shelter, then I should want to make that list a teeny bit more complex by adding the spirit of play according to the law of more.

Charge It

Friend and foe.

There is a new line of special Visa cards available in Japan through Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ that carries my artwork. I wish I could have one.

Design as Politics

Sascha Pohflepp and Susanne Schuricht interviewed me in Berlin a month ago, but the magazine didn't publish the text in English (makes sense as it's a German magazine). They have placed it online as entitled "Design as Politics". The web is freedom ... at least for the time being until governments inevitably take control.

Illustrandom

As I engage in end-of-the-year cleaning of my brain, I dusted off a video of Illustrandom to easily be added to the playlist of your new video iPod. During this phase I was fascinated with complexity as derived from simplicity, but I'm glad to be in a different thought space today. Things are much simpler for me now. Sort of.

Forbidden Christmas Gifts

Like everyone in the states, I'm increasingly confused as to what to say this time of year. Last year, my research group experimented with the seemingly politically correct phrase, "Happy Christmahannukwanzakah!" It was terribly difficult to remember.

Although my family was not Christian (way far from it), we had a decorated tree to get into the spirit of commercialism. So heck with it, I say to everyone, "Merry Christmas!" My gift for all is posted here.

German to English

Claudia and me.

Earlier this month I went to Berlin to receive the Raymond Loewy Foundation's Lucky Strike Designer Award. Raymond Loewy was one of the early industrial designers that popularized a style known as "streamlining," and he was a major influence while I was working on my PhD. My research interests then were on how artists and designers created motion -- either with explicit moving parts or with cues that implied dynamism. Loewy borrowed visual elements from the jet age such as fins and aerodynamic curves and translated them to the consumer landscape. Probably his best known example is the iconic glass Coca-Cola bottle.

The presenter of the award was Claudia Roth, the head of the Green political party in Germany. Her speech was in German, but she was kind enough to give me a translated text in English. She talked about the late German sociologist Niklas Luhmann and his "reduction of complexity" in his systems theory as manifested in "every meaningful utterance and every form of designation." I don't mean to misinterpret Luhmann, but I saw the upside of his theories as the accessibility of simplicity to anyone and by anyone.

My impression of Berlin was that everyone was so darn smart there. On the trip to the airport, my driver instigated a discussion of the metaphysical properties of being and I knew that I was simply outclassed. Fortunately the US Customs official let me back into the States with a simple, "Welcome back." instead of a Nietzche quote.

Nature in Bloom

Free admission.

My show curated by Leanne Sacramone opened at the Fondation Cartier yesterday. A short video walk through is visible here. A total of seven large projections are up in the Nature exhibit, and seven reactions for children (and playful adults) are on display in the Eye'm Hungry room. Phew. Now I can re-focus on simplicity again.

Now On DVD

It's nice to be in good company.

I have a visual collaboration with legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto now available from Colorcalm on DVD. The new work is available worldwide at Conran Shops in case you have one in your city. The music group New Order is on this disc as well so I feel a bit young again, although that's nostalgia talking ...

SK8RBOI

Perhaps it is because I live in a pre-teen home where Avril Lavigne is considered something of a hero. What is that popular song? "SK8RBOI (Skater Boy)." My skateboard design by Mekanism was released in Paris yesterday and is now available online.

I have no athletic abilities beyond typing fast, and thus as a youth I did not partake in the activity of skateboarding. Watching Lords of Dogtown helped me to understand the spirit of skateboarding, although it did not teach me how to keep my balance. Maybe they will cover that skill in the event of a sequel to the movie ... I hope.

Gone Fishing

Gotta clean them digital fishies.

As the two-week countdown begins for my exhibition in Paris, I feel almost dangerously smug. I appear to be on track in a way that I'm not sure how this happened. Perhaps this whole MBA education thing has made me more efficient? Perhaps it's programmed me to be complacent? I fear the implications of the latter thought.

I spent four hours cleaning up some digital images of scanned anchovies that I used once in Rebirth that has been literally reborn as a new kinetic work called Silver. As I clicked clicked clicked away at the extraneous pixels that occur during a dirty scan (by "dirt" I refer to dried fish particles), I felt a kind of sculptor's pride.

Twelve works down, two more to go. Two weeks will be tomorrow soon.

Pick a Card, Any Card.

Just in time for the holiday season.

Continuing my interest in a variety of means for procrastination, I wrote a simple e-card service themed on my Fondation Cartier exhibition. It's an entirely simple service in line with my love for simplicity. Messages of no more than 50 characters are input and sent as a JPEG link that is delivered to your friend or foe. I apologize for the fact that it currently only supports the English language.

Related, Unrelated

Am I related to you?

As the leaves begin to turn here in New England, every day I see my trees shed their green, yellow, orange, and red parcels of wonder. They land on the ground in a sort of unceremonious manner as they atrophy into brown, black, and other nondescript organic matter. What determines, which leaves shall meet their death sooner than the rest?

This season of transition once inspired my expression of fall in a little applet.

Now, as so many calamities have hit our earth this year, I wonder about the difference between closeness and far. I am puzzled by the way the online world works in relationship to disasters. With the Asia tsunami and Louisiana hurricane incidents, within hours online services like Amazon.com and Google were quick to advertise ways in which fundraising methods were available. I expected the same thing to happen with the earthquake in Pakistan but that still is yet to happen. I used to marvel at the way that Google news delivers articles that freshly emerged "6 minutes ago" -- but that is the act of a machine doing the delivery, whereas Google's front page is governed more directly by humans. Can a machine (or "computer program") be more fair than a human? We know that programs are written by humans, so in the end it's really about human decisions.

As computer science enrollment goes down worldwide, I am hopeful that there will be an increasing number of students from the liberal arts and non-technology minded fields that take on software development efforts wholeheartedly. Creating software systems that can not only think, but also have a conscience, shall be a critical factor as we move forward in this odd century of extreme proximity and ever-present distance.

Fruit, Mineral, Number

No farm is an island.

Part of my upcoming Fondation Cartier exhibition involves a smaller show of new work for children entitled, "Eye'm Hungry." I haven't made anything interactive in a while, so it was kind of fun to try to make thing runs on 2005-class computers. There is so much activity now in the dynamic graphic space that the task once in front of me was quite daunting. I took it all in a lighthearted space of mind, and the result is simple and hopefully can make a few children (and adults) smile.

In my business school studies, I have learned of the cost of setup in the process of production. This refers to when you have an assembly line, and you change what is going to be assembled. The time required to retool and reconfigure your assembly line can be costly (if you're not a Toyota). I've recently tried to make my mind run more efficiently by borrowing some of the manufacturing techniques I've learned. Unfortunately a mind isn't really a factory, so I must admit that the CEO should have fired me by now for production inefficiencies.

The speed of switching mental processes is a critical skill to master if you don't believe that your mind can multitask. Computers today all multitask (thus you can have a few browsers, Word, and the desktop clock happening simultaneously), but unless your computer has multiple processors, it never is truly processing things in parallel. It's all about the speed of switching behind tasks, and how finely you can chop up the task and also at the same time reduce the cost of switching. I think that's why I marvel at Nicholas Negroponte's ability to respond to every e-mail he receives within 24-hours. I don't understand how it's physically possible. I guess that's the key. Physical, versus mental. Analog, versus digital. Marvin Minsky often mumbles about how he wants to get rid of his body and upload his brain to a computer. If I had my wish, I don't need to upload my brain or be an e-mail machine -- I think I'd like to work with fewer tasks in order to process deeper. Your mind running clean and deep. That's a nice thought.

Pure Interactive Art in 2005

In the undergraduate class that I am teaching this term at MIT, a wonderful thing happened. I am an unabashed fan of Marcel Duchamp and we discussed his famed Bicycle Wheel that is credited to be the first interactive art piece. The concept is simple. It is a sculpture that achieves its significance when the viewer breaks the conventional passive relationship of an arms-length distance. Grab a hold of the wheel, and spin!

Many years ago while visiting MoMA with my former student Tom White, I pointed out this fact to Tom when I saw Bicycle Wheel on display. Tom proceeded to spin the wheel ... at which point he was immediately stopped by the security guards. Tom found it odd that the first interactive art piece in the world, was not allowed to be interacted with. I did too.

David Stiebel, a freshman in my undergraduate course, inadvertently discovered a pure manifestation of interactive art on the web that I have never seen. He presented a paper for the class as a web link that shows up in my browser in black text on a black background. David says that his intention was to show black text on a light blue backdrop but my version of Netscape and Firefox shows black on black (his HTML represents the background color in an erroneous way and will show differently on different browsers -- Explorer will display it the wrong way that I wish you to see it). I sat in wonder as I realized that the only way I could read the text, was to select it with my cursor. The text was truly interactive, but not in a hypertext sort of way. It was at its purest form of interactivity in a manner similar to the Bicycle Wheel that I have re-created here in the blogosphere for you. No Flash and no Java. Just pure, clean, and simple interactivity in 2005. Click, drag, unclick, drag, enjoy. Today shall be a good day.

Resist the Future

I come into contact with a lot of "change management" experts in a variety of business and social circles. They tend to come in all shapes and sizes as the perfectly customizable antidote for an organization that has ceased to change (translation = "got old"). Change involves risk. And we are programmed to avoid risk whenever possible as part of our basic programming to survive. However, that may be the "geezer" part of our brains turning the volume up more than necessary.

Like most people that shot to the top in a short period, I did so at a sacrifice. A lot of things happened that I wish I was more present for. Presence is an interesting thing because one can be physically present, but the mere presence of your body is meaningless unless your mind is there with you as well. I try to tie a steel cable between my mind and body whenever I can. Unfortunately, with the skills of a good magician, the two sides come undone unbeknownst to either brain or body. I'm now starting to use a stronger, heavier alloy in the cable and that seems to work much better. It is not about how the two synchronize in space, but has everything to do with how they synchronize in time.

Toddlers are interesting to observe when they first learn how to walk. While navigating the single step that separates the kitchen and dining room, my toddler would crawl headfirst down the step only to hit her head on the floor. She would quckly learn the danger of this obstacle, and developed a technique for turning around in the opposite direction and letting her legs fall first over the step. This pattern continued for several months until she realized that her older sisters would simply walk upright and just extend their legs and go down the step. So as she began to walk, she had to try it herself. And of course, the result wasn't too pretty. I found it interesting how although she could simply drop down on all fours and use the method that she had already developed for safely navigating the step, she chose to do it a new, but less safer, way. A young person is constantly taking risks as a means to improve him or herself; an older person feels that he or she has taken enough risks already and is sated with his or her point of development.

A writer asked me recently, or more accurately expressed her view that, "simplicity is when things do not change." Is simplicity simply about taking the older perspective of being change-averse? Do younger people desire simplicity? No. Do older people desire simplicity? Yes. Do older people desire to feel younger? Yes. Do younger people desire to feel older. Sometimes -- or more precisely they want to be taken seriously. Being serious means being rigid. But even a rigid person wishes to be less uptight. In short, most people deep down inside want to be both. Anything to be said about the need for simplicity is implicitly about the need for complexity as well. You cannot have one without the other. You need both, but not at the same time. Thus to conclude, the primary issue at hand is not simple versus complex, but time itself. Time to prepare for class.

One Piece

I dusted off an old work by the request of a reader. Once upon a time I was in tune with the tangram. I would carry the pieces in my pocket around Tokyo and try to interpret anything I might see. I think it was my way of trying to escape the tyranny of the pixel. In spite of the tangram puzzle's overall pixel-shape -- or should I call it a square? -- I could forcefully break the single pixel apart and reform it into patterns that were typically non-pixellated. And I could do it with my own hands, which was also something of a special bonus.

Beauty is the Experience

What is beautiful to you?

I was recently interviewed by a German magazine regarding the beautiful objects that I own ... I realized that ownership ceases to make things beautiful.

As I look for designed objects in my studio that "signify beauty" I find many examples, yet none of them are entirely beautiful to me. I find beauty in freshness and fragility -- two qualities that the modern designed object is not allowed to possess. Once an object is acquired, it eventually becomes stale in your apartment; were an object to be crafted as to break upon the slightest touch, it could not be sold. For these reasons I find my beauty in nature, where every item has a purpose and a life cycle that is perfectly natural.

The moth: On a walk around my home, I saw this beautiful white moth dying on the paved road. The contrast between the whiteness of nature, and the darkness of manmade materials -- combined with the two deaths -- one of the moth, the other of the ground that lay beneath the pavement. This complex, yet simple moment of the lightness of life to soon vanish into the dark ... rendered in a black and white palette represents the kind of beauty that cannot be owned, but only experienced.

Hearing Sounds

Can you "hear" it too?

Some things are meant to be seen; some thing are meant to be heard. I use industrial ear plugs at work when I need to focus. Everything around seems to come into better focus when I do this. You can also hear yourself breathing much better. It's kind of like running a low-cost version of perfmon for your body and mind.

Over the past few days I have created a simple pseudo-visual script. I was inspired by the whole language invention concept of Tolkien. All "characters" derive from the same set of 100 or so strokes I've been farming. They are designed to change dramatically over a period of 30 seconds. It's all not happening fast enough. So I've been inventing a new kind of fertilizer. Luckily this stuff never has to hit the market.

Going to Get a Coffee

French sounds better than it looks.

Being a great procrastinator is not easy. We are taught that to wait to the last minute is a sin. But what does that mean really? Anything one does is always finished at the moment of the deadline. To arrive at a deadline unfinished isn't possible, because when the deadline comes, you are officially finished. There are many dimensions to this word.

In the days of the Lisp Machine, due to the constraints of what is now to be considered tiny bits of memory in conjunction with a somewhat obese language like Lisp, there were times of speed, and times to wait. The machine would run in spurts because it would essentially run out of memory. A process called garbage collection would fire up to essentially clean up the memory and so forth. Whilst this process was set in motion the Lisp Machine would be temporarily paralyzed, and you would then go and get a coffee.

As I sit here waiting for my machine to finish rendering a preview movie to be shown at a show window in Paris for Sonia Rykiel I am glad that computers are so fast today that I can innnocently type away while I'm waiting for my data to be fully cooked. It doesn't look like it will be done for a while. Time to go and get a coffee.

Thick and Easy

When in doubt, choose the fat nib.

Thick and thin. It isn't a new thought for me. Yet as I struggle to understand the art of motion, I find that my preference for 0.5 mm pen tips has been the obstacle all along.

Drawing with a fat tip allows you to gain distance from the image. Your space of drawing is immediately reduced because you cover so much area so quickly. Thus thoughts must be clear, otherwise there is no room to think. On the other hand, drawing with a thin tip promotes you to draw much more. You can think much more precisely about a topic in all of its incredible dimensions. That is, when you have the luxury of time.

The moral of the story is simply, When in doubt, reach for a pen with a fatter tip. Maybe Dr. Atkins was right all along?

50 Lashes Remixed

Are you lost? Or are you found?

With fifty little hand-drawn curves that I have input to my system, I have sat for two weeks watching them become transformed into all kinds of new reformations. I will often see the little monsters rise up as if success has immediately been ordained -- only to quickly see them fizzle out as failures. I would not confuse my little experiments with the grander pursuits of Karl Sims. Evolutionary art? Genetic algorithms. Nope. Just old-fashioned mixing.

The challenge of mixing things is to end up with a new flavor. When your starting ingredients already have wonderfully distinct flavors, often the resulting mixture pales in comparison to the individual ingredients. I am of the belief that premium ingredients should not be mixed. If you've got excellent organic strawberries and perfectly ripened bananas, don't bother making smoothies. But if the strawberries are bruised and the bananas are slightly green, and then you toss the two into a blender with some ice, the mixture embodies the old "greater than the sum of its parts" principle. And if you don't have any fresh fruit available, you can always reach into the freezer for a frozen yogurt pop. That's the "least work possible is sometimes sufficient" principle in action. Mine is (by coincidence) strawberry this evening. Who needs caffeine?

Circle The Nightmare

Curves just want to have fun.

I've never been a fan of circles. I think as the whole mantra of shapes goes, "Circle, Triangle, Square" I have spent most of my life as a disciple of the square. Yet now I find that the square is something that I cannot escape. All modern thinking lives in a ridiculous rectangle of something -- whether it be a rectangular page of paper, one's rectangular desktop, or the rectangular screen you are now looking at. Ten years ago I felt a similar frustration and made a painting program mapped to a circular form called RadialPaint that still sort of works along with other oldies on an OS9 Mac. Hmmmm, looking back I guess I was terrorized by circles back then as well.

Today my favorite shape is a mixture of the triangle and the amorphous, hand-drawn curve. I'm not sure how they relate to each other. The triangle signifies a kind of perpetual imbalance and awkwardness; the hand-drawn curve, to me, signifies humanity in many ways. I'd like to eventually leave the pure land of circle, triangle, square and fall of the deep end to a state of shapelessness. Perhaps then, I might become friends again with the square. Of course, he may not want to be friends with me. I'll have to risk it.

Posted by at 09:03 AM | Work

I Guess ...

I have a large collection of rulers, yardsticks, straightedges, and so forth in all kinds of materials. Although when you think about it, when I measure something, I usually guesstimate instead of enlisting these tools to aid me. I think it's because the primary reason for my pile-o-rulers is because I tend to cut things quite often. And when I slice, I prefer to slice straightly. In the studio of my research group at MIT, there is a well-known straightedge affectionately called "Excalibur." It is the most glorious of straightedges, and is more valuable than all of the computers in the area combined (at least to me of course).

In recent years, I have had to build a better personal understanding of the field of statistics. If I understand correctly, the field of statistics is all about the inexactness of the world. If so, then this whole central idea of the 68-95-99.7% Rule strikes me as somewhat funny as a number like 99.7 seems suspiciously accurate. I recall a debate between my statistics instructor in my MBA course. When a professor was in argument with a student regarding the student's utterance of the number "99.6," the instructor quickly corrected him, "That's ninety-nine point SEVEN not SIX."

How different are two or more things from each other? When the two things are different like an apple versus a banana, you don't need a PhD to assert that the two objects are different. But how different are they really? And if they're both fruits, aren't they in Sesame Street terms, "kinda the same"? If you define an apple as having specific attributes like color, size, origin, and so forth as specific numbers, and apply the same metrics to the banana, you get a handy list of numbers that describe both fruits.

Figuring out how "far" one set of numbers is compared to the other set of numbers is somewhat arbitrary. There seem to be numerous ways to measure the distance between sets of numbers. The respective results of each method of course are all different. And thus with one method you could prove that an apple and banana are kinda-the-same, and with another method you could also prove than an apple and banana are way-different. I think it's a good thing that the various methods we have to measure, map to the various ways we can perceive a situation. There is no single, definitive answer for how we measure and compare things.

The power of the less scientific way of a guesstimate is, perhaps, the fact that it is a non-answer to a question that really has no definitive answer. And thus perhaps the guesstimate is actually the most precise answer of all. I guess ...

Furrocious

What does "hand drawn" mean?

Today I wrote a simple system to take 100 or so odd strokes with my mouse, and then assemble those strokes into some 100,000 strokes. I've done this many ways in my life. Today I think I"ve found the optimal way to do this. What use could such really have? Perhaps I have been after "the perfect mess."

From around 1988, when I began to combine computer programming with all this visual stuff, I quickly learned that making a mess on the computer is quite easy. However there's a difference between a good mess, and a mess mess. I think that Jackson Pollack's arc of work shows the evolution of what was once just a mess for a mess sake, and then a later conscious approach to a mess. I wouldn't say I'm "there" yet. But at least I'm "here." Now it's time to go "there."

Expose-d

Complex to simple.

Few things can clarify one's life or work more than a deadline. If there weren't things like the end of term, or the end of the book, or the end of the week, or even the end of life, would you ever try to get something done?

On the hunt for all things that are digitally natural for my Cartier exhibition, I am trying to focus on that which is right in front of me. I think the only feature that I am particularly enamored with on OS X is their Expose function. With the press of a key, all my windows turn into little teeny tiny ones so I can get a better sense of how to reach out and find the window I might be looking for. I use the feature as a kind of "whack-a-mole" game where I try to get rid of work that is pending on my desktop. Hit the expose key, find a task I have to finish, select it, close it, and then iterate until all windows go away. When I hit the expose key and I have no more windows that get sorted, I feel ... peaceful.

How does this magic occur? I've always had a sense of the simple trick, but it didn't dawn upon me that we only see the final result. Everything is instantly ordered before our very own eyes. I did a little time-lapse simulation of the process by growing some of my own rectangles and confirmed that it's not all that interesting to look at. I prefer the time-lapse growth of flowers to the time-lapse motion of GUI windows most certainly.

Systematic Disorder

A perfectly flawed grid.

Understanding simplicity is such a complex problem. Ironically, I think my most clearest moments regarding simplicity occur when creating complex imagery. On the computer, it is so easy to make something complex without really thinking. Set up a simple drawing loop in the computer that runs for infinity, throw in some pixel splatting, and within seconds you get a a chaotic mash of colors and textures.

My first encounter with this phenomenon was as a child when my mother would take me to a shopping area near Seattle Center. There was a small booth where atop a motorized turntable a piece of paper would spin. Different colored paints would be squished out of squeezable ketchup and mustard dispensers and you'd sit there and watch this beautiful circular pattern instantly form. Then the motor would be cut off, and slowly the page would stop spinning and come into focus. The result was always breathtaking. "I really made that?"

I've tried my hand at spin art kits and so forth, but nothing really beats the industrial version with real paints and accompanying real mess.

Three decades later, I'm still spinning art. Setting up the programmatic turntable, mixing the digital paints, turning on the virtual motor, waiting for the imagery page to stop spinning, and see what I get. I'm hoping that in the process it will all get simpler some day. Actually, honestly it has.

Pick A Color

What's your favorite color?

When it comes to conversing with children, one common topic of conversation besides what foods one might like is the classic, "What's your favorite color?" Children are subject to as much peer pressure as we adults, and thus you can see their sway in color favoritism as a dynamic norm that fluctuates based upon their company.

Selecting a color on the computer isn't an easy task. We are told by a myriad of computer manufacturer's marketing materials that there are over 16 million colors to choose from on today's computer screens (and there's 68 billion on higher-end systems). I remember when there was only three choices for the color on my computer screen -- some combination of black with either phosphor-green, soothing-amber, or dirty-white. I recall becoming frustrated one time and augmenting my display screen with the ink from whiteboard markers so as to simulate having a color screen. Today we know that people are not forced to resort to such desperate measures anymore. We have great color screens, and fabulous color printers. Life couldn't be any better really.

However when I lived in the monochrome world, I do recall that I never had to ask myself the question, "What color should I use?" as I really had only one choice. "Hmmmmm ... okay ... let's see ... all right ... I'll use green." And then, "Ooooh, this is tough ... well ... yeah ... it's got to be green." And so forth.

I've spent two weeks trying to re-understand computer color (i.e. the wonderful world of RGB -- Red, Green, Blue) and the bizarro world of the conversion of RGB to HSV -- Hue, Saturation, Value) and I finally understand that HSV is simply an evil bastardization of the color scale of the natural world. I wrote a variety of computer codes to finally tame the various scales in order to create an algorithm to give me a good set of color selections. Many people have already done this quite well. Why am I doing it? Well, because I don't like the colors that are generated with their methods. Hmm, that's not fair. Maybe I'm just an old-fashioned wheel inventor and I really like to re-invent the wheel as often as possible.

The left 2 columns are simply random color selections; the middle 2 columns are my picks. Since color is highly subjective, you might actually like the random selections better (I at first had a hard time buying that my selections were any better). The right 2 columns represents a compromise -- the majority are my picks, with a random element thrown in just for good luck. And luck is what I need as my Cartier exhibition looms quite ominously in a few months.

Profess-sions

What are you? I have always found this question somewhat difficult to answer. The obvious answer is, "a person." But that response never gets the look of recognition from the person doing the asking. The question is meant to elicit your self-categorization. The correct answer is something like, "I'm a cook." The response is, "Oh, you're a cook. I'm an x." where x is one of the many kinds of professions one might choose to adopt in their lifetime. Sometimes the person doing the asking is from the same profession, "You're a cook? Wow, I'm a cook too!" Once both parties are aware that they share a common footing in society, an implicit bond is formed. The person doing the asking can be of a discordant profession, "You're a cook? I'm a King. I shouldn't be talking to you!" Thus a profession is a means to place oneself within a social caste, and thus it is an effective means to promote particular prejudices between professions.

Are you an engineer? Are you an artist? Are you a designer? Maybe. I'm really not sure. I've never been completely sure what it is that I do. But I tend to do quite a bit. Thus I am allowed to survive in spite of not knowing particularly knowing what I do. I just do.

However a few days ago I realized that I do know what I am. I'm a teacher! It dawned upon me on the drive into work. I have students around me, and I try to teach them a variety of things through both explicit and implicit means. What a revelation ... however obvious this may seem to the reader. I think because I am officially called a "professor," I assume that my job is to "profess." Webster's dictionary tells me that to profess is "to affirm openly" or "to make a presense of" or "to teach." The two former definitions actually sound quite a bit empty.

This morning in my 5th grader's graduation ceremony, the Principal of the school suggested that the essence of a good teacher was the ability to model a particular, positive behavior for students. I think this really sums it all up ... all the pressure and responsibility of it all to be a teacher. This of course isn't restricted to the profession of teaching, but in the role that most people play in their workplaces of being a mentor. I once had mentors. Now I have none. I've got to say that it's much better to be mentored than mentorless. Although the mentored should always be aware that someday they will become mentorless ... it makes the experience of being mentored by a considerate and caring mentor, that much more precious for them. They won't be there forever. I guarantee that.

So since you know you're a teacher, what do you teach? I teach that it's okay to do a variety of things. That it's better to do than to not do. I haven't the slightest idea how to ride a skateboard, but I do. Doo doo doo doo as the song goes ...

James Shewmaker taught me a few things about using the word "Webster" erroneously, "Many years ago, the term 'Websters' was protected by the laws concerning copyrights and trademarks to such a degree that when someone referred to 'Webster's Dictionary' everyone knew precisely which dictionary was meant. However this is no longer true. Several companies now use the term to describe their company's family of dictionaries. Each company's dictionary may present a completely different set of definitions. Your posting did not, however, include the mistake which is often made of treating dictionaries as if they were objective authorities of the 'proper' meaning of words. Modern dictionaries are swayed by the winds of usage and are not intended to be steadfast anchors which may be appealed as 'absolute' definers of proper definitions." If you can't trust a dictionary anymore ... who can you trust? I'm glad I threw out my Encyclopedia Britannica long ago ...

Which Came First?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Howstuffworks says that the egg came first. I can dig that.

But today I am wondering: Which came first, the API or the application? With my recent decoding of "What is an API?" let me attempt to understand this a little bit further. I ask this question because it is the fundamental question that faces someone trying to make something interesting on the computer. Their first assumption is that they have to design a great API, because everything springs forth from the properly designed API. Using my new analogy, it is like trying to build a creative company by figuring out the company telephone book first. Hmmm, that sounds bad. Maybe it confirms my assumption that you should never spend too much time working on designing an API, and you should instead spend more time working on getting your program doing what it is supposed to do. Going back to my analogy, you might be better off building the company first, and then alphabetizing the company phone directory.

I fall into this trap myself all the time. I design and build at least three large API's a year. For rendering, or analysis, or simple interprocess glues ... I love making API's because it's the ultimate form of constructive procrastination. You manage to get something significant done (the API), but you never have to do what you were really supposed to do (the real reason why you are making the API). The same thing can be said for the person that designs some sort of software tool with the intent of doing something. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred they are so tired out from building the tool, they never get around to actually using the darn thing. One of the true pioneering creators of so-called digital "paint programs" is the legendary Alvy Ray Smith (he's the guy I thank everyday for inventing the RGB to HSV transform) who is set for life financially and professionally, but never went on to create great computer art with his own tools.

So, the moral of the story is you gotta make tools and API's to scout out new territory on the computer, but you also gotta make stuff with your tools or API's, otherwise you will never make any major digital art ... but at least you might become set for life financially and professionally. Seems win-win to me.

Graduate Researcher Kelly Norton of MIT says, "It turns out the question of which came first (at least as it focuses on the chicken or the egg) has been definitively answered."

Fish Wish

I wish I were a fish.

In the now classic The Incredible Mr. Limpet there was the line spoken by Don Knott's character, "I wish, I wish, I wish, I were a fish." And from that wish sprang forth a variety of songs and story with a heartwarming ending.

Pioneering computer graphic artist Yoichiro Kawaguchi also had a similar fish wish. His love for scubadiving was the motivation for his odd, sea-like colorful environments and creatures. He proved that abstract art, is usually better, when it's not abstract.

Today I see fish. Although not intentionally of course. I'm plodding away working on different algorithms for generating images for my upcoming show in Paris. I guess I'm a bit like a fish. Kind of floating around, wandering around, looking for some kind of 'food.' It's a peaceful ocean with no predators in the water. Swim swim swim.

David Womack points out the following passage from Chuang-tzu as translated by Burton Watson, "The two masters were strolling along the Hao River, when Chuang-tzu noticed a school of fish down in the water. "See how these minnows swim around as they please!" he said. "That is what fish really enjoy!" Hui-tzu, skeptical in his logic responds: "You are not a fish; how do you know what fish enjoy?" Chuang-tzu said, "You are not me, how do you know I don't know ... " Huit-tzu agreed, but was still not convinced: "I admit I don't know what you know, but it still proves that you don't know what fish enjoy!" Chuang-tzu then said: "Let's get back to the original question: You asked me how [whence] I know what fish enjoy — so you already implied that I knew it. Well, I know it from standing here along the river." It'll take me a longer swim to grasp the meaning of this passage.

Aesthetic Vegetables

Kaleidascopes are descended from flowers.

I've recently revived some old Java applications I wrote for Shiseido. They barely run properly on a Mac, but nonetheless they seem to work sometimes. The first is an orchid-themed card designer that was my first client-server system. It seems to be the most temperamental of the triplet. The second is a morning glory-themed system that also somewhat mocks the newer Java versions. The third was inspired by poinsettias and the winter holidays. It was my last such system due to the frustration I had with trying to get these things stable and running in the uncooperative and constantly-changing landscape of dynamic media on the web. Luckily there are MIT alums Casey Reas and Ben Fry working on Processing which forms a more stable core for developing Java-based systems on the web.

I had a conversation with the Kennedy Center folks yesterday on a related theme of media stability. Many prestigious physical venues are interested in maintaining some kind of equally prestigious virtual venue. The answer to this common desire remains unanswered. Virtual things generally stink because they are thought to be somehow self-sustaining. In the physical world, we have heating systems breaking down and water leaks that occur from time to time. There is a specific need for human staff to attend to the qualitative needs of a facility. In the virtual space we have the concept of tech-support and so forth, yet there really is no way for a remote staffer to fix a crashed Flash page on your desktop. Who you gonna call? Really nobody. Just reset your computer and hope the problem goes away. At least 99.9% of computer problems are solved with the close-your-eyes and pray method. There's serious room for a lucrative religion to form around this theme. The antidote will be true simplicity. We're almost there with our collaborators here at MIT. I'm as impatient as you are.

Doing Just Do It

I was asked for a comment on the work of Joshua Davis by I.D. Magazine for an upcoming profile that they will be running about his work. Usually when you are interviewed about someone else, from the magazine's perspective it is better to run either a positive or negative comment on the primary subject matter.

Often times you can get into a situation where no matter what you say can be re-edited as positive or negative depending upon the editorial direction of the magazine which sits on the extremes of sensationalism and journalism. For instance, in 2003 I was informally speaking with the usually quite lucid Brendan Koerner who later wrote about me in Wired: At an MIT symposium in 2000, he (Maeda) blasted an audience member who referred to the Lab as "the place where Renaissance painting and polymer science overlap." What Mr. Koerner was referring to was a partial transcript he had found on the web regarding a talk I gave at MIT in 2000 with the controversial title, "Real Artists Don't Go to MIT." The title of my talk was positioned in typical tabloid literary style (because I really did grow up reading the National Enquirer as it was my mother's favorite periodical) to get people to prove me otherwise wrong. And in retrospect, many of the things I did say bck then, I have changed my position on (because I can). Yet for the life of me I don't recall blasting anyone. Of couse it sounds much more dramatic that way. Less certainly becomes more. Especially when you add more. Adjectives and adverbs are the requisite literary spices if you want at all to be exciting. Kind of like how I may drive you crazy with all my overusage of underlining, italicizing, and so forth ... too bad they got rid of the HTML blink tag ... oh I absolutely loved that one.

So what do I really think about Joshua's work? As I have mentioned before, I admire Joshua in the same way I do Yugo Nakamura and Ze Frank as well as all of my former students and current students and a whole bunch of other people out there just doing things. Because practically anyone can proclaim themselves as a "futurist" or "visionary" as it becomes increasingly vogue in these uncertain times. It's much harder to make stuff versus just talking about it like you know what you're doing. Which reminds me ... it's time to shut*p and go back to making my stuff.

Simple Things Need Simple Help

I am currently in the process of resurrecting some of my older work for the web. A while back, I created simple games in Java that would now seem kind of like toys in a Cracker Jack box instead of the full-on videogames you see today. One of my favorites was the golf game (which if you can't get to work, try a few different browsers).

The key to all good type designs is the careful balance between the positive and negative space of the letterform. I saw this process as bearing a striking similarity to the art of golf course design. So I put the two concepts together and got an unexpected mixture of clean fun and an implicit tour around a kanji character of your choice.

I would say that the major problem with interactive pieces is that really only the author of the work knows how to interact with his or her piece. Only he or she knows where to click, where to drag, what kind of ridiculous gesture to make, and most importantly—where not to touch otherwise their artwork will crash! Thus I think a better term for "interactive art" is "the artist interacting with their art." I'm not lodging a criticism here; just making an observation. Or maybe expressing a frustration?

In the raising of 'morigolf' from the detritus in my sunken data archives, I realized that (like many of the things I've made in the past) I was really the only one that could explain how to use it. I had designed it for simplicity. Who's simplicity? My simplicity. But we know now that everyone's simplicity tends to vary greatly based upon one's attitude and tastes. Today, success in simplicity usually has to do with "hipness" instead of ease of use—as in the successful Apple iPod product. As one of my students recently commented, "Some people want to buy an iPod even though they haven't the slightest idea of what it does."

Going beyond mere hipness, SIMPLICITY researcher Marc Schwartz is currently researching a topic that goes back to the earliest days of the Media Lab. Marc is working on "The Art of the Tutorial"—embedding tutorial-making into a suite of digital art applications that we are currently developing under the codename Treehouse. If Marc is successful, we may never have to wonder how to do something on the computer again.

Back to my own problem with an old golfing applet that can be a tad bit difficult to understand, I found a simple solution. I commissioned a tutorial video from the new video production firm that lives in my studio. I expect their rates to go up shortly.