RYNSA: WORDS

In a throwback to 1980s kitsch, someone decided to make and market a bonafide Flux Capacitor. Far be it from me to geek-out in public from this blatant attempt to exploit my generation’s childhood memories for profit. But I must admit, it looks pretty cool.

Question: can I put this thing on my bicycle?

I can’t decide if this Lego photography series (with gratitude to Make Magazine for the link) is really clever and insightful, or perhaps a little dismissive of history. Maybe all of the above? I don’t know.

The artist is a British guy named Mike Stimpson, and on his redbubble profile page he has published (and apparently adopted) this telling quote attributed to American ’street photographer’ Garry Winogrand:

“I photograph to see what something will look like photographed” 

Not to whine too much about it, but my initial response is annoyance. Admittedly, I’m a little sore on all these ironic ‘art projects’ that rely on retroactive repurposing of an original form. Didn’t Warhol kill that metaphor a few decades ago?  I mean, is this high art, or just more posturing witticism from my iconoclastic, millennial cohorts?

That being said, I appreciate Stimpson’s interest in so-called ‘macro lighting.’ He really did put quite a bit of effort into setting up and reproducing these tiny snippets of global culture. I admire the dedication to an aesthetic… even if that’s all that’s there.

From the so-called ‘Steampunk‘ Department (with apologies to Gizmodo), check out this very simple, but effective, interactive art exhibit, which features an ‘underground’ telescope linking London and New York City. Passersby on both sides of the Atlantic ocean can apparently see each other in real-time. More info at Engadget, and again at CNN or CoolHunting.

The creator of the project is a British artist named Paul St. George, who refers to his telescope as a ‘Telectroscope’, referring to the electronic aspects of the piece. The thing even has a blog, on which web followers can track Mr. St. George’s movements underground (via Google Maps and beneath the ocean, in fact) as he builds his epic observational machine. The myth is taking on storybook-like aesthetics.

Whatever you call it or however you describe it, I think this ‘telectroscope’ is very, very cool. It’s kind of a magical artifact, really, and I regret that I wont be in either New York or London to go check it out. 

I ran across this odd widget the other day (via Rocketboom), and I had to share:

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

What makes this fun little web button even more interesting is that it comes from a free online dating website called One Plus You. I don’t know if they’re making some subtle comment on the modern romantic experience, but this San Franciso-based start-up nonetheless has adopted an interesting marketing strategy: humorous widgetry.

Normally, I would find this stuff a little tedious. The infamous ironic sensibilities of my generation, deconstructed to no end in academia and beyond, has left me with an untold number of psychological scars. But lately, under the intellectual framework of “Vernacular Creativity” (Jean Burgess), I’ve had to quell my initial sense of distrust and look a little deeper.

It’s possible that these widgets and other webpage add-ons, now hugely popular on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, etc., are indeed expressions of cultural creativity. They might actually represent a uniquely democratic form of digital creativity, as seen through the filter of pop technology and pop media.

Right now, I’m still researching this phenomenon. My sense is that these small, coded visual forms (entirely free, mind you) are frequently created and distributed through an unmediated process separate from traditional systems of media control. The tools for producing widgets of this kind, like most new media, are readily accessible by average, everyday people. Thus, the mainstream and marginal are on a more level playing ground. Marketing and design departments of major corporations around the world share, essentially, the same cultural leverage as a kid in his garage with Photoshop and an FTP client.

One concern I have, however, is the process of cultural mimicry. To what extent do/will these webpage bells-and-whistles serve mainstream values and reinstate traditional hierarchies of power? If the creation of online widgets merely copies old advertising techniques–ie, misrepresentation or manipulation for financial gain–then the creativity of visual artifacts on the internet is somewhat less ‘vernacular’. Basically, it’d be a new form with an old function.

Questions:

Is there a ‘third space’ of widget-making?
What would radical widgetry look like?