SortiPreneur

R.I.P.: J.G. Ballard

One of my favorite authors has passed away.  I recently finished Super-Cannes, and reminded myself what a master Ballard was in creating moods and ambiance. 

News of deaths of talented people leave me with a sense of emptiness.

Wisdom of Musical Crowds

This is really cool:

Bicycle Built For 2,000 is comprised of 2,088 voice recordings collected via Amazon's Mechanical Turk web service. Workers were prompted to listen to a short sound clip, then record themselves imitating what they heard.

They should open source the audio tracks and see what others will make of it.

Tweeting with Gods: Tweets as Haiku

Jeremy commented on my recent post and I thought I should elevate it to this blog's surface:

As a poet and a writer, I have to agree with Joe on the idea of constraints. Restrictions, parameters, forces of limitation: all of these require us to do what we as humans do best: problem solve. Like that lovely cliché, "necessity breeds invention": when confronted with an obstacle, a constraint, we invent. And we could say the constraint of 140 characters is as arbitrary as are the rules for writing Haiku. Yet the latter remains popular, fruitful, and (when done well) enlightening--after centuries. Does it replace the novel or the essay? No, it cannot serve the same function. Likewise, no novel can approach what Basho could in three short lines.

I suppose what I'm suggesting, really, is that like all hip content these days, it's generated by the user, and it's the user who determines quality. Just as I'm a better poet than I am a blogger or tweeter, there'll be people who'll bring the best out of the 140 character form. And I think, what'll continue to define the life cycle of the technology won't be whether there is portability or not, but rather whether Twitter or its confederates (like ExecTweets) enhance our ability to find those who, shall we say, Tweet with the Gods. Seems like these days there are plenty of worthy practitioners in every medium, but the media which survives does so on the basis that it's deliverable to the right audiences, at the right time.

Who tweets with gods?  Do you have anyone you follow whose best is brought out by the 140-character limit?  Twitter haiku is fun and interesting.

Contemporary Istanbul

This weekend, I had a chance to visit Contemporary Istanbul, the first true contemporary art fair in Istanbul.  Last month, I had visited Art Istanbul, which featured more of a 20th century perspective on Turkish modern art, whereas Contemporary Istanbul was focused on the current movements in Turkish art.  It also enjoyed a stronger presence of international galleries.  Congratulations to Orhan Taner and the team, who put the event together.

One surprise for me was the lack of video art, which seems to have emerged as the dominant medium, if the amount of video in the biennials is an accurate indication.

The White List

Complex Information Mapping

I have recently discovered the Visual Complexity website.  Generally, art that excites me the most is driven by complexity and attempts to represent and communicate it. At the 9th Istanbul Biennial last year, the most impressive work for me was in this area, by Axel John Wieder and Jesko Fezer.

Exploring the site is a lot of fun.

Via CoolHunting.

Omer Ali Kazma: Obstructions to the Second Law

This statement may be a little indulgent but my favorite Turkish artist is one of my best friends, Ali Kazma.  Yesterday, I attended a screening of his latest project titled "Obstructions to the Second Law" at Dulcinea, in Istanbul (unfortunately a Flash site - click "sergi"; in Turkish).  If you're in Istanbul, I recommend seeing it.  There are continuous screenings between 3 and 8pm, every day except Mondays, through March 24th.