I knew it was coming. The day before, I had put my home-grown vegetables to rest in a basket with fine-grained sand on the balcony. I had brought my winter clothes down from the attic and now they were everywhere, breathing new air. I had bought two pair of black winter boots, with thick rubber soles to put between me and the ground, while waiting for the bus in the mornings.
I knew, and still it hit me. Hard. Despite layer upon layer with fabric, I felt naked. The first night of frost. Very much like a relationship gone cold.
In his new book, Negative Space, artist Noma Bar uses this feature in a very creative way. I very much like the dog-cat-mouse cover, but the dog front and back picture is also very appealing. Constantly questioning what is foreground and background. Which incidentally is a very good question when it comes to formulating agreements between partners involved in research and innovation projects. But that’s another story.
I feel the disharmony the concept ”negative space” brings. It makes me remember the times I’ve struggled not to let a certain place become a negative space because of the events that took place there. Maybe that is also a question of defining what was foreground and background. Or perhaps rather what is.
I was going through some of the boxes in my attic, when I found this poem written in my own hand on a piece of paper:
It sometimes happens when looking for Lost objects, a book, a picture or A coin or spoon, That something falls across the mind - Not quite a shadow but what a shadow would be In a place that lacked light. As though the lost things have withdrawn Into themselves, books returned To paper or wood or thought, Coins and spoons to simple ores, Lustreless and without history, Waiting out of sight And becoming part of a larger loss Without a name Or definition or form Not unlike what touches us In moments of shame.
"Lost Things" by Mary Swann (as created by Carol Shields)
The recent horrible development in Oslo demonstrates the difficulty facing those we employ to look out for potential terrorists. What makes a person go from talk to action? When should we take threats seriously? When are figures of speech just images? And what predispositions make us look and interpret in certain ways?
It’s only natural for a government initiative with the tag line “ Be The Future” to launch a Metaphor Program. The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) recently opened up for researchers to contribute in the development of automated tools and techniques for recognizing, defining and categorizing linguistic metaphors associated with target concepts and found in large amounts of native-language text in order to identify the conceptual metaphors used by the various protagonists, organizing and structuring them to reveal the contrastive stances.
Similar, critique regarding this program is only to be expected by someone who has organised his website according to a water metaphor: From the drainpipe, Half-filtered and Pure Water. Here David Allan Barker provides six elaborate arguments for why he thinks the program is the lamest idea he’s ever heard.
A more neutral approach is held by Wired blogger Lena Groeger. She manages to squeeze in three metaphors in her first paragraph and continues throughout the text. One of her links takes you to research regarding how metaphors impact how we think about crime and more importantly, how we act.
Are you measuring an organisation's character by looking at the number and kind of Dilbert strips posted on the walls? Well, here's a new version on that theme. Kenneth and Julie Kendall checked out what kinds of basic metaphors were used by employees to describe the way they were governed in order to find out what kind of IT system that went well with what kind of organisation.
According to the Kendalls, government can be described as a machine, war, a journey, a society, a game, an organism, a family, a jungle or a zoo. Turns out that traditional management information systems and expert systems go well with autocracy (machine) while computer-supported collaborative work and group decision-support systems fit better for enlightened absolutism (journey). Whach out for trying to deploy any kind of system in organisations characterised by panarchism (jungle) or anarchy (zoo), while almost any kind of systems fits a meritocracy (organism).
What the article don't say is how you should communicate these facts to a potential customer…
This year, the winner of the Photo Competition 2011 was my former work mate Jeanette. Congratulations! She received a boquet from Interflora in collaboration with Médecins Sans Frontières.
The picture that attracted most votes was number 7, taken outside Lyse in Bohuslän.
I hope for a really nice summer this year since I’ve bought a new camera and several books by Scott Kelby and John Freeman. And of course, Dewitt Jones is also an inspiration! Thank you David, for introducing me to his video "Celebrate What's Right With the World"!
In Swedish, the same word is used for vote and voice: "röst". Something to keep in mind when looking at what's being said about my hometown Göteborg. Of course, there's the official websites www.goteborg.com for tourists and www.goteborg.se for citizens. And our best promotion person Håkan Hellström has been very popular with the press lately and he's still famous for his "Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg" (Don't be sorry for me, Göteborg).
During the past months, Göteborg has also been frequently mentioned in the national press, but not for positive reasons. Several scandals regarding misuse of public funding and bribes have shaken the decision-makers into looking deeper into the fabric of the so called Göteborg spirit of collaboration.
One of the organisations figuring in the media is Göteborg Energi. They have now launched a campaign in order to shift the public opinion, contracting the artist Timo Räisänen to do the song for their commercial video.
Another interesting story-telling project has also been presented lately, but by totally different people and for quite another reason: The Gothenburg Shout initiative. Here people for different parts of the city present their story with photos, voices, sound and music guided by students from Kulturverkstaden. An article about the initiative states that they got inspiration from city of Berkeley. Since this is the hometown of the non-profit Center for Digital Storytelling, this makes sense.
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