Creative Design
It was discontinued in 1998 but by then it had been around for more than 14 years. And now those who are fans of source code can visit the original MacPaint program because Apple donated it to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Nowadays there are numerous digital drawing tools but for many years MacPaint was the drawing program on Apple’s computers, allowing anyone to use the lasso or paintbrush or other tools to draw on a computer screen. For those interested in the actual code that made this possible, the MacPaint source code had 5,822 lines of code written in the Pascal programming language with another 3,583 lines of code in the Assembler language. That’s what was donated to the Computer History Museum. And rumors are that it’s easy to read.
But not everyone is into the programming details, which is why MacPaint and its relatives, MacSketch, Quickdraw and the like became so popular. The tools provided an easy way for non-programmers to pursue art on their computers. It also set the stage for Apple’s popularity with artists. And what of the guy who wrote the program? Bill Atkinson, one of the major figures in MacPaint programming, moved on to other things but most recently is pursuing nature photography in a big way – photographing the tiny details contained in polished stone. As a child he became fascinated with photographs in the Arizona Highways magazine. It isn’t yet clear whether he is a geek turned artist or the other way around. In any case, MacPaint once rocked, and paved the way for all the stuff we have today.
The term “land-sculpture” could conjure up images of numerous natural phenomena including waterfalls and old volcanoes. But in the case of artist, Beverly Pepper, who at 87 is still busily working on her art, a land sculpture is something entirely different. Some of her sculptures are built into the land to evoke the idea of the land and metal or glass forms merging as one work. Making news most recently for her sculpted amphitheatre at a private residence in New York, Pepper insists the work is more of a sculpture than a theatre, even though the owners use it for performances. The difference between it and other sculptures is that it cannot be moved around to galleries or sculpture parks. And to think, she started out as a “commercial artist.”
Pepper’s work, not all of which are land sculptures, involves forming land and metal or other artistic medium into something she defines as a sculpture. Most frequently her works have triangular elements though not all are shaped that way. As with most modern art, Pepper’s sculptures are subject to interpretation and not all are fans of it. One of her works commissioned for Dartmouth College in New Hampshire was the subject of much debate for its jagged edges and triangular shapes that did not sit well with students who wanted to sit there. Regardless, Pepper has received commissions to work her artistic magic all over the world.
Pepper's land art
Sunrise and sunset happens every day, sort of. But somehow it never gets old, especially for photographers who continue to pursue the perfect light and lens and setting for the perfect image of a sunrise and sunset. And ultimately, the perfect image is in the eye of the photographer as 100 photographers given the same task will arrive at vastly different results. Regardless of camera model and price, regardless of the photographer’s location and eye, whether on a pond or a mountaintop, this Gizmodo assignment brought out a world of creativity over the simple concept of sunrise and sunset.
Fashion forward could some day take on an entirely new meaning. With apologies to those well known fashion mavens, the future of fabric may very be in electronics. One day, clothing could be a surround sound device. Yes, that surround sound. Research at the MIT labs are about to yield electronic textiles. According to the experts, the key to electronic textiles is fiber that can change its properties over a wide range of frequencies. Such acoustic fibers are made from the same type of plastic commonly used in microphones. By aligning the fluorine and hydrogen molecules in asymmetrical ways, researchers created piezoelectric plastics which are not electric, plastic pizzas as the name might suggest.
Piezoelectricity is the magic behind fibers reacting to frequencies and therefore being used as speakers and microphones. Eventually any given wall could double as an audio wall. The sound could come from acoustically enhanced, wall paper fashioned from acoustic fabrics. And when someone says, “If these walls could talk,” well who knows, they actually might just do that. As is generally the case with cutting edge science, while the researchers were able to generate audible sound through fibers, the science is only in its infancy and actually purchasing such fabric at the neighborhood store is somewhat in the distant future. But just imagine the day your grocer asks, “Paper or plastic,” and the plastic says, “Pick me, pick me.” Well, that’s actually a different kind of technology but electronic fabric is still a very interesting idea.
It’s a tree trunk. It’s a bench. It’s both. The chair backs are bronze and it costs $15,700. But the artist Jurgen Bey doesn’t believe in expending resources transporting tree trunks. So what you get is a collection of chair backs. Add your own tree trunk – fallen or chopped.
Most people would request that you don’t hit the chair. And why should you, especially if the chair did not hit you first. But here’s an artist, Marjin van der Poll who has designed the Do Hit Chair. For around $6,000 you get a cube of metal and a hammer. Keep hitting and eventually it will become a chair. But if you’re more traditional, you can request a pre-hit chair. Make that pre-formed chair.
Who says a radiator should look like, um, a radiator? Not Jorik Larman. He designed one that is more decorative. And it can be yours for somewhere between $4,000 and $10,000, heating bill to be paid separately.
Wine glasses are for wine, and door bells are for announcing the guests who will bring and drink the wine. But Peter van der jagt combined the two ideas and arrived at this door bell where metal strikes “bottoms-up” wine glasses to sound the arrival of guests. Not known if a moment of desperation drove anyone to drink from the glasses – which would have to be ripped from their moorings and upturned, so to speak.
Yes, granny’s lace collection inspired a new take on the chain link fence. Designer Joep Verhoeven is having these manufactured in Bangalore, India. Not known when they will appear at your neighborhood home improvement store.
The best sight on a hot summer day is a man selling ice cream. It could be a woman. But it doesn’t have to be in the park or a Saturday. And it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to guess that the most popular flavor is vanilla, followed by chocolate. And ultimately it isn’t clear whether rocket scientists know more about ice cream than say, artists – as in, it doesn’t take an artist to figure out that strawberry ice cream is pink. Anyway, as it turns out there are places where plain vanilla ice cream is too ordinary for their menu. Forget about giving the people what they want, in these places the mantra could be – give the people what we want. And while this may seem to be a recipe for a business meltdown, these are the places that get the buzz, ink and Twitter followers.
Such a place is Humphry Slocombe, an ice cream shop in San Francisco where the offerings include several meat flavored ice-creams. Among them is one with foie gras or fattened goose liver, which caused PETA to protest. Yet folks are flocking there for flavors with balsamic vinegar, curry, prosciutto and bourbon with corn flakes. At the Bombay Ice Creamery also in San Francisco, they offer a concoction which is topped with rose syrup and rice noodles. In Los Angeles there are ice-creams with wasabi, vodka and gorgonzola cheese among others. Possibly egg on the face of those who thought a successful business model depends on safe choices. But if it’s summer, ice cream is probably a safer bet than say – piping hot clam chowder. And just for the record, there is clam chowder ice cream in Boston. But it won’t win any ribbons because the Clamfest folks banned it from their annual competition for not being a true chowder.
Several years ago a team of researchers at the Mars Candy company had the idea for personalized M & Ms. They may not have imagined such a concept going viral for birthday parties and weddings. Retirements and housewarmings. Party hostess gifts. Baptismal, confirmation and graduation presents. But the idea of printing faces or names or company logos or cute sayings on M & M candies took hold of their imagination. But barring historical data and research from focus groups, their bosses were reluctant to go with the project. And ultimately, if not for small group innovation teams, the personalized M & M may never have made it to the marketplace.
The Mars R & D team competed for, and won funding for developing their idea in a sort of Skunkworks innovation environment. In such an environment, their small group had the green light and the autonomy to develop the product and bypass the usual bureaucratic process. Though in many cases bureaucracy is a necessary and important part of product development. However, in the case of M & M’s with cute personal messages and faces, this environment yielded a product that was soon selling like hot cakes – without the melty aspect.
Skunkworks is a popular moniker for small, innovative, autonomous development teams working secretly to arrive at a product that would later go through the normal review process. The curious name originated in the Lil Abner comics where a toxic product called “Skonk Oil” was manufactured in secret for unspecified purposes. The M & M’s Skunkworks team involved about a dozen people working by trial and error and testing their product among employees rather than using focus groups. Such an approach allowed them to quickly implement changes from feedback. Soon enough they had arrived at a winning formula that’s now hugely popular.