EDEN from Sean Mullens on Vimeo.

Main Entry: Eden
Pronunciation: \ˈē-dən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Late Latin, from Hebrew ʽĒdhen
Date: before 12th century
Definition: Paradise, a place of pristine or abundant natural beauty

I would like to thank the following folks for the help in making the evening possible. Futuristic Films team, especially Monique Weiring and Richie Kendall. Director Ondi Timoner, for making such a thought provoking film. I first met her in 2002 while working at Radar Communications. I  remember her telling about the two these two films she was working on for a long time.  The first was “Dig,” and the other was “We Live in Public.” Both won grand jury prizes at Sundance. Proud to call her a friend. If you haven’t seen Dig, hustle on over to Hulu, as it’s one of the most popular downloads there. You won’t be disappointed, its a great rock n’ roll film…

Thanks also go out Open Media Foundation for hosting the event. If you aren’t aware of what they do stop by or visit them on the Web. Anyone who’s an independent film maker in Denver should know about this valuable resource. Jason Stoval, DOM board member, did a great job hosting our, brief, Q&A session with the other cities.

A big shout out also goes out to my friend Steve Nilsen (Lifestyle Marketing Manager at Pabst Blue Ribbon) for donating the libations for the after party. Mega hug goes out to DJ Ginger Perry for setting the mood with tunes. I know you were tired girl from other gigs over the weekend, so thank you again for making it out. Also to our VJ’s (Doug and Alie) and live painters (Kamla and Audrey.

Last, but not least, THANK YOU to all my friends who made it. There were a lot of you there and it meant a lot to see you there! It never ceases to amaze me how deep my network runs with solid peeps!

My imagination was captured by this image…it’s dream like quality just got me thinking. Its the shot of Joe Kittenger jumping out of gondola attached to a helium balloon at 102,800 ft. He did it in 1960, and set world records for highest parachute jump, longest free fall (4 min 36 sec), and fastest speed achieved by human being (614 mph). Now, after forty years, someone else is going to attempt to break that record, and by a significant amount.

Red Bull Stratos is the latest attempt by Felix Baumgartner to tempt fate. He’s going to push the limits of the human both physically and mentally. The plan is to break Kittenger’s skydiving record by a long shot, taking it a few notches up in the stratosphere to 120,000+ ft. The BBC is going to document the event. Now most people will brush this off as a marketing stunt, or a death wish on the part of Mr. Baumgartner. I on the other hand view it as a source of inspiration and act of contemporary hero(ione). What he’s going to do symbolizes so much more in my opinion, and it comes at an important moment in time. This feat has the ability to alter our perceptions of reality…

It feels like this effort has the ability to provide a cataclysmic subconscious affect on people out there. There’s never been a better time to make a dream come to life. Maybe its promoting an employee, or quitting your job of 8 years, or maybe just simply going back to school. Whatever it is, a level of commitment must be made.

Now more than ever we need more people taking chances. Kind of tired of the ‘wait and see’ attitude that’s has settled in around us these days. Indecision is paralyzing our ability to do anything. Things, ie, people, need to loosen up already. Felix can’t sit in the gondola forever, he’ll drift into the inhospitable environs of outer space. At some point he’s going to jump. That’s why what he’s going to do matters ultimately. Having the gall to lay something on the line would do all of us some good these days.

People need to stop asking questions like ‘are we there yet’, or ‘is it fixed yet’ and just jump off the balloon already? It’s time to come back down to Earth and deal/make shit happen.You’ll fall for bit, and there’s a chance you may encounter catastrophe, but there’s a higher likelihood you’ll have a parachute to guide your way down…I have a feeling Felix is going to prove humans have the stamina to make the impossible, well possible…

Only when you lose everything, are you free to do anything –Tyler Durden

The photos capture the essence of desire, motivation, and passion in my opinion. Big ups to the kids of Kitintale, Uganda. Seriously doubt Idi Amin would have ever condoned the act of building a skate spot…Power to the young to create change! – Kitintale Skatepark

Kitintale from Yann Gross on Vimeo.

The story line is intriguing because last summer was the first year I found myself not mountain biking in a really long time. Never got out once. Living in Denver made it hard to get out on dirt…so I picked up a sweet Bianchi steel cross bike and started riding to various metro skateparks. It was awesome and got me thinking of other bike/skate trips…

This summer I hope to see how many parks can be ridden to in one day. Thinking 7 is definitely possible. But now that I’ve seen this film trailer it makes we want to up the ante a little. With the state full of primo skate destinations the radius to explore gets wider…Anyone down for some riding and skating as the weather gets warm?

I’m actually surprised nobody else has done a similar type of film festival already, that I know of at least. Although, if you ever spend time at Forest Room 5 in Denver you’ve seen this concept done to a degree. Often patrons are left wondering what the heck is going on with the films they show filled with animals, magicians, and architectural wonders. Since they never have sound, you have no clue what they’re about.

The great thing about this festival though is that your probably going to get a little history lesson on social context and meaning behind the artist’s vision when making their film. I think this would be rad to check out…

Says Aaron Rose: “It is my hope that by removing all these films from their usual theatrical setting, and instead presenting them in an art gallery context, that people will perhaps look at them a little differently. Not just as entertainment, but as the works of true artists, who contribute greatly to the visual culture of our times.”

Great read. I found this essay by Paul Graham incredibly inspiring. It emphasizes every decision Rob and I have made about our careers, lifestyle and where we see ourselves in the future. This is our rule book. Some key points I like below.

01.
“Great cities attract ambitious people. You can sense it when you walk around one. In a hundred subtle ways, the city sends you a message: you could do more; you should try harder.”

02.
“Maybe the Internet will change things further. Maybe one day the most important community you belong to will be a virtual one, and it won’t matter where you live physically. But I wouldn’t bet on it. The physical world is very high bandwidth, and some of the ways cities send you messages are quite subtle.”

—I think the internet is changing things a bit, but your physical relationships will only enrich your virtual ones. At the end of the day you still need to share and participate in ideas with people over dinner and drinks. Sometimes, these dinner and drinks happen via video chat.

03.
“No matter how determined you are, it’s hard not to be influenced by the people around you. It’s not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do.”

04. I think this is key.
“Does anyone who wants to do great work have to live in a great city? No; all great cities inspire some sort of ambition, but they aren’t the only places that do. For some kinds of work, all you need is a handful of talented colleagues.”

Also a great read – Taste for Makers. Read the rest of his essays here.

The Ruins of Detroit

At the beginning of the 20th Century, the city of Detroit developed rapidly thanks to the automobile industry.

Until the 50’s, its population rose to almost 2 million people. Detroit was the 4th most important city in the United States.

It was the dazzling symbol of the American Dream City with its monumental skyscrapers and fancy neighborhoods.

Increasing segregation and deindustrialization caused violent riots in 1967. The white middle-class exodus from the city accelerated and the suburbs grew. Firms and factories began to close or move to lower-wage states. Slowly, but inexorably downtown high-rise buildings emptied.

Since the 50’s, “Motor City” lost more than half of its population.

Nowadays, its splendid decaying monuments are, no less than the Pyramids of  Egypt, the Coliseum of Rome, or the Acropolis in Athens, remnants of the passing of  a great civilization.

Head to Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Photography – The Ruins of Detroit to see more.

Peretz Rosenbaum, better known to the world as Paul Rand produced the essay, The Politics of Design (1985) for his second major written work, A Designer’s Art, almost 40 years after his first and highly critiqued written work, Thoughts on Design (1947).  It’s as pertinent and poignant today as when he drafted it 25 years ago.

“It is no secret that the real world in which the designer functions is not the world of art, but the world of buying and selling. For sales, and not design are the raison d’etre of any business organization. Unlike the salesman, however, the designer’s overriding motivation is art: art in the service of business, art that enhances the quality of life and deepens appreciation of the familiar world.

Design is a problem-solving activity. It provides a means of clarifying, synthesizing, and dramatizing a word, a picture, a product, or an event. A serious barrier to the realization of good design, however, are the layers of management inherent in any bureaucratic structure. For aside from the sheer prejudice or simple unawareness, one is apt to encounter such absurdities as second guessing, kow-towing, posturing, nit-picking, and jockeying for position, let alone such buck-passing institutions as the committee meeting and the task force. At issue, it seems, is neither malevolence nor stupidity, but human frailty.

The smooth functioning of the design process may be thwarted in other ways, by the imperceptive executive, who in matters of design understands neither his proper role nor that of the designer; by the eager but cautious advertising man whose principal concern is pleasing his client; and by the insecure client who depends on informal office surveys and pseudo-scientific research to deal with questions that are unanswerable and answers that are questionable.

Unless the design function in business bureaucracy is so structured that direct access to the ultimate decision-maker is possible, trying to produce good work is very often an exercise in futility. Ignorance of the history and methodology of design — how work is conceived, produced, and reproduced — adds to the difficulties and misunderstandings. Design is a way of life, a point of view. It involves the whole complex of visual communication: talent, creative ability, manual skill, and technical knowledge. Aesthetics and economics, technology and psychology are intrinsically relate to the process.

One of the more common problems which tends to create doubt and confusion is caused by the inexperienced and anxious executive who innocently expects, or even demands, to see not one but many solutions to a problem. These may include a number of visual and/or verbal concepts, an assortment of layouts, a variety of pictures and color schemes, as well as a choice of type styles. He needs the reassurance of numbers and the opportunity to exercise his personal preferences. He is also most likely to be the one to insist on endless revisions with unrealistic deadlines, adding to an already wasteful and time-consuming ritual. Theoretically, a great number of ideas assures a great number of choices, but such choices are essentially quantitative. This practice is as bewildering as it is wasteful. It discourages spontaneity, encourages indifference, and more often than not produces results which are neither distinguished, interesting, nor effective. In short, good ideas rarely come in bunches.

The designer who voluntarily presents his client with a batch of layouts does so not out prolificacy, but out of uncertainty or fear. He thus encourages the client to assume the role of referee. In the event of genuine need, however, the skillful designer is able to produce a reasonable number of good ideas. But quantity by demand is quite different than quantity by choice. Design is a time-consuming occupation. Whatever his working habits, the designer fills many a wastebasket in order to produce one good idea. Advertising agencies can be especially guilty in this numbers game. Bent on impressing the client with their ardor, they present a welter of layouts, many of which are superficial interpretations of potentially good ideas, or slick renderings of trite ones.

Frequent job reassignments within an active business are additional impediments about which management is often unaware. Persons unqualified to make design judgments are frequently shifted into design-sensitive positions. The position of authority is then used as evidence of expertise. While most people will graciously accept and appreciate criticism when it comes from a knowledgeable source, they will resent it (openly or otherwise) when it derives solely from a power position, even though the manager may be highly intelligent or have self-professed “good taste.” At issue is not the right, or even the duty, to question, but the right to make design judgment. Such misuse of privilege is a disservice to management and counterproductive to good design. Expertise in business administration, journalism, accounting, or selling, though necessary in its place, is not expertise in problems dealing with visual appearance. The salesman who can sell you the most sophisticated computer typesetting equipment is rarely one who appreciates fine typography or elegant proportions. Actually, the plethora of bad design that we see all around us can probably be attributed as much to good salesmanship as to bad taste.

Deeply concerned with every aspect of the production process, the designer must often contend with inexperienced production personnel and time-consuming purchasing procedures, which stifle enthusiasm, instinct, and creativity. Though peripherally involved in making aesthetic judgments (choosing printers, papermakers, typesetters and other suppliers), purchasing agents are for the most part ignorant of design practices, insensitive to subtleties that mean quality, and unaware of marketing needs. Primarily and rightly concerned with cost- cutting, they mistakenly equate elegance with extravagance and parsimony with wise business judgement.

These problems are by no means confined to the bureaucratic corporation. Artists, writers, and others in the fields of communication and visual arts, in government or private industry, in schools or churches, must constantly cope with those who do not understand and are therefore unsympathetic to their ideas. The designer is especially vulnerable because design is grist for anybody’s mill. “I know what I like” is all the authority one needs to support one’s critical aspirations.

Like the businessman, the designer is amply supplied with his own frailties. But unlike him, he is often inarticulate, a serious problem in an arena in which semantic difficulties so often arise. This is more pertinent in graphic design than in the industrial or architectural fields, because graphic design is more open to aesthetic than to functional preferences.

Stubborness may be one of the designer’s admirable or notorious qualities (depending on one’s point of view) — a principled refusal to compromise, or a means to camouflage inadequacy. Design cliches, meaningless patterns, stylish illustrations, and predetermined solutions are signs of such weakness. An understanding of the significance of modernism and familiarity with the history of design, painting, architecture, and other disciplines, which distinguish the educated designer and make his role more meaningful, are not every designer’s strong points.

The designer, however, needs all the support he can muster, for his is a unique but unenviable position. His work is subject to every imaginable interpretation and to every piddling piece of fact- finding. Ironically, he seeks not only the applause of the connoisseur, but the approbation of the crowd.

A salutary working relationship is not only possible but essential. Designers are not always intransigent, nor are all purchasing agents blind to quality. Many responsible advertising agencies are not unaware of the role that design plays as a communication force. As for the person who pays the piper, the businessman who is sympathetic and understanding is not altogether illusory. He is professional, objective, and alert to new ideas. He places responsibility where it belongs and does not feel insecure enough to see himself as an expert in a field other than his own. He is, moreover, able to provide a harmonious environment in which goodwill, understanding, spontaneity, and mutual trust — qualities so essential to the accomplishment of creative work — may flourish.

Similarly, the skilled graphic designer is a professional whose world is divided between lyricism and pragmatism. He is able to distinguish between trendiness and innovation, between obscurity and originality. He uses freedom of expression not as a license for abstruse ideas, and tenacity not as bullheadedness but as evidence of his own convictions. His is an independent spirit guided more by an “inner artistic standard of excellence” than by some external influence. At the same time as he realizes that good design must withstand the rigors of the marketplace, he believes that without good design the marketplace is a showcase of visual vulgarity.

The creative arts have always labored under adverse conditions. Subjectivity emotion, and opinion seem to be concomitants of artistic questions. The layman feels insecure and awkward about making design judgments, even though he pretends to make them with a certain measure of know-how. But, like it or not, business conditions compel many to get inextricably involved with problems in which design plays some role.

For the most part, the creation or effects of design, unlike science, are neither measurable nor predictable, nor are the results necessarily repeatable. If there is any assurance, besides faith, a businessman can have, it is in choosing talented, competent, and experienced designers.

Meaningful design, design of quality and wit, is no small achievement, even in an environment in which good design is understood, appreciated, and ardently accepted, and in which profit is not the only motive. At best, work that has any claim to distinction is the exception, even under the most ideal circumstances. After all, our epoch can boast of only one A.M. Cassandre.”

- Paul Rand