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This week has been crazy with the Knight Fellowship shifting into gear and sorting out my battle plan for courses: multimedia, digital video, human rights journalism and a possible intro to neuroscience.
Yesterday’s field trip to the city was great for the chance to visit the Yerba Buena Center for the first time, where we checked out the TechnoCraft Exhibition – a nod in the right direction towards all things crowdsourced, collaborative, hacked, modified and prototyped. Some of the products included: the design your own Puma shoe (in a bizarre partnership with Mongolian BBQ); hacked chairs made from assorted chair entrails scattered throughout London; and a company that allows you to custom-build your own fibreglass car (using the model to the left). Inspiring, but the price tag on all of the above was a bitter reminder of the niche elite urbanite target market for all this supposedly rethought design. Even if it is made out of a freight lorry’s tarpaulin cover.
I’ve been meaning to post this link on the two-fold face of digital activism, which, according to Gaurav Mishra of Gauravonomics is either:
1. you work with a disadvantaged group that suffers from limited access to even the most basic information and tools for self-expression. or 2. you work with a group that is anything but disadvantaged. This group is at ease with using always on internet and mobile devices, both for instantaneous access to information and for self-expression and social interaction. Here, the digital activist isn’t trying to solve a crisis of capability, but a crisis of caring.”
Needless to say, my Knight project is focused on the latter, bedecked as they might be in their custom-built Pumas.
a whiteboarded rainbow of inspiration
For an update on my ever-evolving Knight Project on an online multimedia comics interface, you’ll be wanting the Knight Project page.
Today was the first half of the Knight’s crash-course at the Stanford D.School in design thinking, half of which took place on the Cal Train and involved tackling the challenge of commuting: how to improve the overall experience, how that varied for the different types of commuter, the emotional influencers that dictate commuters’ behaviours etc. Once we’d acosted various travellers on the Bayshore-Palo Alto slow train and dodged the wrath of the design-challenged ticket inspector, we headed back to campus to thrash out our findings with post-its and whiteboards, dividing the feedback we’d received from interviews into 4 areas: things the passengers said, things they wish Cal train would do, things they felt towards their commuting experience, and things they thought. It was all about fast iterations, prototyping and not being hung up on getting a perfect result the first time round. In fact, being too eager to find an early solution stifles the creative process and will only limit your findings. Counter-intuitive, but very rewarding and looking forward to the follow-up session when we’ll dive deeper into designing a solution for our commuters tomorrow.
If you have any suggestions or feedback on ways to improve your commute, post a comment!
Part 2 of another comic from the upcoming human trafficking comic, Borderland. Featuring 7 true stories told by human trafficking victims in comics format. Now at 1/3 of our goal! Please order your comic via Kickstarter here – $5 for a digital version, $10 for a hard copy, as well as more luxurious options like signed posters, behind the scenes views of the project’s artwork, and the chance to sponsor a copy for a Ukrainian school or NGO. More news on yesterday’s SF Zine fest journalism panel below.
My haul from yesterday's Zinefest
I’m glad to say that the panel I was on at yesterday’s Zinefest provoked a predictably lively debate about the future of journalism and print publishing. Shockingly (to me, at least) only about 2 people in the audience had even heard of sites like Kickstarter or Chipin – not what I was expecting from the most creative, indie-minded spirits in the bay area.
To those of you unfamiliar with the fest, I’d say it’s like a more adult version of APE – same DIY/punk spirit, but fewer zombie comics and more socially conscious creators. Highlights from a few laps of the County Fair Building were: the Zines on Toast peeps from the UK, currently on a nationwide comics tour; Susie Cagle, fellow Bay Area comics journalist, whose comics on Food Not Bombs (9 Gallons, see left from my pile) and a recent trip to Israel were must buys; radical stalwarts AK Press, who hopefully will carry the Honduran coup comic (news on that when I have it); and Sparkplug books, who might do too. Rummaging around in various piles I also found some vintage Seth Tobocman (Squatter comics, see left), as well as a vegan cookery zine that looks interesting.
I’ve also been excitedly looking through the online Stanford Uni course catalog to choose my courses for the upcoming year – one of the many myriad perks of being a Knight Fellow. So far I’m leaning towards the Art and Communication depts, though there were a few neuroscience courses that took my fancy…One of the many innovative Stanford-related websites I came across was the Persuasive Tech Lab, which focuses on the interaction between decision-making and technology, and other behavioral connundrums. Currently they’re linking to this amazing audiovisual mashup of a song comprised of various different would-be youtube stars’ voices/tunes. Check it out below, it’s the future of creative collaboration (and music):
First panels from one of the stories featured in my upcoming Borderland comic – featuring 7 true stories told by human trafficking victims. I’ll be posting the next panels over the next week, but please order your own copy of the comic through our Kickstarter page to help us raise money towards printing and distribution costs. You can also help us out by sharing the link on FB, Twitter, Digg etc – thanks for your support!
This is MTV EXIT’s first forray into animation: a stunning piece of socially-minded animation from JM Animation Studio, telling the story of one girl’s descent into human trafficking and the overlap with the various people involved in the ring. There are 3 parts, with a total run time of 25 mins – well worth your time (not to mention the fact that the soundtrack’s provided by Radiohead). Share and comment on how effective a means of raising awareness/storytelling you think it is.
Political pundits across the US and Colombia are on the edge of their seats debating the best course of action for the stalled, soon-to-be-scrapped year-old US/Colombia Military treaty. The treaty, which would allow for US use of 7 Colombian bases, was declared unconstitutional by the Colombian Constitutional Congress last week, and ruled it must be passed approved by the Colombian Congress. Now it looks like Santos, the new Colombian President, might be leaning towards scrapping the arrangement in order to appease his uneasy new neighbour Hugo Chavez. Read today’s op-ed on the saga over at the Washington Post. Find out more about the day of action against US militarism planned for Oct 11.
Turns out Colombia is quite the hotspot for US military action of late (not least Plan Colombia, starting in 1999) with a recent $42m civil settlement against everyone’s favourite military contractor, Blackwater (sorry, Xe services) from the State Dept, who apparently had no idea the company was providing combat training to groups in Colombia:
What is known is that the 2005 training was related to an agreement between Blackwater and the agency in Colombia, where “foreign persons were trained and deployed as third-country nationals in support of a contract with the US Department of State.” Blackwater responded to the State Department by stating that the training was held without the agency’s permission due to a “general misunderstanding” over licensing, although the department notes that there were many violations committed while Blackwater was “servicing US Government programs or providing training to US allies.”
What’s a little misunderstood paramilitary training between friends? More importantly, who knows how many of these “general misunderstandings” have led to the training of paramilitary groups in the region, trained under the guise of US foreign policy, that are impossible to hold accountable for their actions? Narco News has the full story here. And I may be a little late to the party on this one, but news is out that Blackwater is actually up for sale – though you can bet its Director Erik Prince will be keen to rebrand his paramilitaries-on-demand offering in the United Arab Emirates, where apparently he has skipped the country to in the wake of further scandals and mounting legal cases against his company. Serendipitously enough for Prince, the UAE doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US either.
[Reminder: check out the Knight Project page for the first report on my latest animation project.]
EA games made the headlines last week with the announcement that the latest version of its Medal of Honor series would allow gamers to play as the Taliban and, of course, kill American soldiers. Click here to watch the Linkin Park-backed trailer in all of its bodycounting glory.
This comes fresh on the back of the announcement that Activision’s Modern Warfare 2 is officially the best-selling game of all time in the UK. Fox News jumped feet first into the melee, bringing a grieving Gold Star Mother into the studio to comment (watch the video here), but enough people have commented on the polemic for me not to go into a equally predictable defense of art imitating life. Instead, what I want to focus on here is the rise of the videogame as an increasingly sophisticated (not to mention supremely lucrative) art form. And most importantly, ask why we aren’t waking up to the potential that video games like Modern Warfare or Medal of Honor represent for news reporting? Scrolling through the comment thread at Gamrfeed’s original article on the issue, Puffy’s comment says it all:
I really don’t understand the argument here.. I mean this is a purely fictional piece of entertainment that is based on real events. Do these media types this that when people play these games in multiplyer [sic] they think, oh good, I wanna be the Taliban and kill some Americans? It’s just a name and outfit to distinguish your teammates from the enemy team, gamers don’t give a shit who they’re playing as in these titles.
What we need to do is redress the balance of this sort of technology being used for pure entertainment purposes and think about how an interactive, immersive digital environment would be the ideal way to introduce students/viewers to the reality of what life is like on the ground in Afghanistan/Iraq/ war zones. Patrick Farley’s doing a similar, albeit deliberately hyper-fictionalised and stylised version of Afghanistan (using 3D rendering tools) over at electricsheepcomix, which I highly recommend. Gamrfeed later ran an excellent piece featuring interviews with US military personnel on the issue, which you can read here. Just as we’ve seen with comics, too many of the supposed gatekeepers of culture see videogames as just another form of lowbrow entertainment and not a state of the art opportunity to engage with an audience on a totally new level. To that end, what do you think is the average age of a videogamer? Answers in the comments section…
At the Disabled American Veterans convention in Atlanta earlier this month, President Obama announced:
“As a candidate for president, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end. Shortly after taking office, I announced our new strategy for Iraq and for a transition to full Iraqi responsibility. I made it clear that by August 31, America’s combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing – as promised and on schedule”
However, the definition of troop withdrawal gets a little murky when you consider how many US personnel will remain in Iraq after the last “military” units leave. Here are 5 Iraq troop withdrawal myths from the Washington Post that get to the nub of the issue. For more information about the nature of the troops who will remain in Iraq, watch this video interview [from 2:34mins in] with Jeremy Scahill, who has been investigating the US’s increasing reliance on Private Armies (such as Xe Services, the rechristened company once known as Blackwater) in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. I’m currently reading his excellent book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army , so will post my review once I’ve finished it.
For the scoop on last night’s talk at IDEO Palo Alto, go to my Knight Project page.
This brings my wordless comic on the economic meltdown to a close, but feel free to click here to read it from the start, tier by tier.
News below the fold, so scroll down. Today’s bulletins: the Iraq withdrawal and a report back on a talk at IDEO Palo Alto on the future of news and storytelling, given by Neal Baer, executive producer of ER and Law and Order, Special Victims Unit.
Please support my human trafficking comic on the crowdsourcing site Kickstarter.com if you haven’t already! Here’s the link to the pledge page, currently at 21% of our goal. Also checkout my new sketchbook uploads to Flickr (right hand sidebar).
