From a series entitled Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait, Chris Jordan looks closely at statistics of contemporary American culture. How closely? Have a look at his piece, Plastic Cups (2008), one million disposable plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the United States every six hours. At first glance it looks like an intricate pattern of plumbing, or ant factory work, but look closely and you’ll see stacks and stacks of cups, weaving their way into an untraceable road leading us nowhere. Best seen live, these prints offer a glimpse into our real consumer culture, a sobering visual representation of the stats we usually only hear run down during a speech or campaign.

View the entire series of portraits here.

Watch his 2007 pop!cast here.

Peggy Shea Andrews

August 29th marked the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

To commemorate the event for our community, Pop!Tech selected a very special installment for our August Book Club. This week, many of you will have received a copy of Chris Jordan’s book of photography, In Katrina’s Wake: Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster.

The book provides an opportunity for reflection on one of the worst natural disasters in the history of our country. All proceeds are being donated to hurricane relief charities, but the Book Club donation will be going to a new member of the Pop!Tech community - a man named Craig Howat.

A few months ago, Craig applied to receive a Participation Grant to attend this year’s conference. Craig has been a teacher in Lousiana for 12 years. When his school laboratory was destroyed by Katrina, he and his dedicated students raised funds to rebuild a brand new science center. Together, they’ve raised over $10,000 to pay for supplies and materials, and they continue to fundraise in order to complete the project. You can see architectural plans of the building at http://www.l00k.org/lulinglandlab/luling-land-lab.

We’re proud to be part of Chris Jordan’s charity and Craig Howat’s vision, and look forward to their participation at Pop!Tech this October.

The World Wildlife Federation recently launched an awesome billboard campaign in Canada concerning changing ocean levels.

Using “celestial mechanics” similar to the way a sundial works, a scalloped awning over the billboard casts a shadow, creating a rising water effect over the course of the day.

Here’s an explanation:
“The board respects celestial mechanics (Kepler Rocks!). It’s perpendicular to the equator, with an unobstructed exposure to the west. The “waves” start at about 12:00. The challenge was not azimuth (the daily path of the sun), but altitude, which due to the Earth’s tilt, required the scalloped awning’s shape to be distorted to compensate for 43N latitude, during the life of the posting (about 8 weeks). Thanks to CBS Outdoor, and PLEASE support the WWF.” - YouTube user LowerC02

The video below really captures the elegance and cleverness of the advertisement.

via: TrendHunter

another very clever YouTube-inspired ad to promote blood donation: http://www.blographic.com/divers/thank-you

Here is a cute little “map” of Online Communities.

I hear that the Blogipelago is lovely this time of year - but beware the Bay of Angst!

Via::SwissMiss

Our friends at Trollback + Company were selected as winners in PRINT’s A+C=D Business Graphics Review for their Court TV outdoor-advertising campaign and 2006 Pop!Tech conference graphics. The review recognizes the best in design work done for corporate clients across the globe, from print ads and corporate identities to animated short films, websites, interactive games and more.

Trollback’s work will be featured in the September/October 2007 issue of Print Magazine.

The young, talented graphic designers of Project M, founded by John Bielenberg, have started a unique fundraising project entitled “This is Not Grass” for the creation of a green space in East Baltimore that will inspire others to think about the importance of open spaces in our lives.

In their own words:

(from the thisisnotgrass.com)

During the Summer of 2006, a small group of designers drove from the rural coast of Maine to the urban center of East Baltimore with one goal…

to make a positive and significant impact on a blighted community.

What they discovered when they arrived, was that they were in way over their heads. The social and political machines had been in motion long before they stepped into town and the scale of the problems were staggering. There seemed to be no hope and little they could do as designers to help a city stricken with such alarming poverty and hopelessness.

However, they learned of several efforts by people who truly love the community of East Baltimore and have dedicated their lives to improving it. These heros have inspired hope and enriched the lives of people that many have forgotten.

One of the symbols of this hope was a field of grass, lined with daisies and guarded by hand painted totem poles. The word love was spelled out with flowers, designed so that the news helicopters would photograph it from the air. What once was a haven for drug dealers and vandals, was now the pride and joy of a community. This green space transformed vacant lots and back alleys into a living part of the neighborhood that lifted the spirit of the community.

Now, these designers want to continue the efforts started from within, by asking for help from abroad. Most people take things like yards, parks, and gardens for granted, but the social and psychological impact of green space is very real. With your help, the designers of Project M 2006 hope to fund the creation of another green space in East Baltimore and inspire others to proceed and be bold.

PROJECT M 2006
John Bielenberg, Bernard Canniffe, Erik Cox, Christian Helms, Brian W. Jones, Bruce Lindsey, Dana Malas, Jim McNulty, Victor John Penner, Jillian Perez, Anne Marie Purdy, David Stychno, Charlotte Sullivan, Kodiak Starr and Mike Weikert

The folks at Project M printed a “This is Not Grass” book in February 2007 and will distribute it soon.

Pop!Tech encourages you to go to their site and contribute to their project.

Addendum (May 29, 2007):

Also check out this post about Project M’s past and upcoming projects.

Members of Project M were also the ones who did the amazing design work for the Pop!Tech 2006 Artifact book . The Artifact is a full-length book documenting the 2006 event and was printed and shipped to all participants within days of the conference ending.

In October of 2005 Claire Nouvian, journalist, producer, and film director, took the trip of a lifetime traveling aboard a research submersible to the depths of the ocean.

“That was the most amazing, the most incredible moment of my life; as if I had been offered a trip to the moon … I thought of nothing else for months before it happened. Afterwards, for weeks I couldn’t talk about it without crying. I’m still not entirely over it … It was so beautiful and so intense, it changed me forever.”

Nouvian, whose interest in the deep sea was originally inspired by a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) directed by Pop!Tech 2005 speaker Marcia McNutt, has created a stunning new photo-book, The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Deep , recently published by Chicago University Press, with the hope of bringing the vastness of the deep oceans and their creatures to a wider audience.

Think you’ve seen images like these before? Think again.

You can purchase the hardcover, 256 page book at Amazon for $26.

Last weekend, new media artist and Pop!Tech 2006 speaker Hasan Elahi was interviewed on NPR’s Studio 360 hosted by Kurt Andersen about Hasan’s website art project, Tracking Transcience.

The website has tracked Hasan’s life in all its mundane glory, in real time, for more than 5 years now. He began the project in response to his experience in an airport where he was wrongly identified and detained as a terrorist and was constrained to report on all of his whereabouts and movements on the days around 9/11 to the FBI. After he was freed of all charges, he decided to voluntarily track his movements online.

Pop!Tech Host and Curator, Andrew Zolli is also on the program to discuss the impact of Hasan’s work and its context in a world with a changing view of privacy.

Listen to it here on iTunes, or visit the Studio 360 website and listen to the episode online.

AND stay tuned for Hasan’s upcoming Pop!Tech Pop!Cast of his 2006 presentation. Check Pop!Tech Pop!Casts for more information.

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City will be opening a new exhibit that explores designs made for individuals and communities of the Global South. “Design For The Other 90%” runs from May 4th to September 23rd 2007.

One of the designs that will be featured is the much-discussed “Life Straw” and other products that were featured at Pop!Tech 2006.
The exhibit will focus on water, shelter, health and sanitation, education, energy and transportation.

While at the museum, you can also check out the Design Triennial where the design for the Ipuli Medical Center is featured. (See previous Pop!Tech blog entry here)

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
2 East 91st Street
New York , NY 10128

Jason Moran is keeping himself busy.

A live performance by Jason is featured in a video installation called The Shape, The Scent, The Feel of Things by seminal video and performance artist Joan Jonas. This piece is based on Joan Jonas’ recent site specific work, presented as a performance at Dia:Beacon (New York) in October 2005, and repeated in October 2006. Also included in the exhibition is a new My New Theater project, part of an ongoing series of video objects. The Shape, the Scent, the Feel of Things is a response to German art historian Aby Warburg’s essay about his visit to the American Southwest at the end of the nineteenth century. This five channel video installation continues the artist’s investigation of the performing body and its interaction with media and space, transformed through drawings, photography, video projections, sound, music, movement and found objects. For the pieces, Moran composed new music for this collaborative work. The Shape, the Scent, the Feel of Things is presented at the Yvon-Lambert Gallery from April 26-March 29.

Jason also lent his skills to the short film STUTTER. He scored, along with The Bandwagon, Janice Ahn’s short film, which will screen at NYU’s First Run Film Festival April 13 - 3:30 April 14 - 9:30 The Cantor Film Center 36 E. 8th Street NY and also being screened on April 20th at SAY SO.