Website of the week 6

This week's WOW is included because I thought it might be useful for any of you involved in those pesky group collaborative projects.

Etherpad is an on-line collaborative text editor in which up to 8 users can simultaneously participate in producing documents in real time. It was devised by a couple of ex-Google employees and is wonderful in its simplicity.



I've tried it and provided your internet connection is fast enough it works like a charm. You can save the documents on-line and then cut and paste them for use in whatever word processor you happen to favour. It doesn't handle images or other objects yet, but I suspect that's only a matter of time.

For those of you who might need a more 'whiteboard' type of approach which can handle drawing you might like to try Twiddla or you can check Etherpad out here

Anyway, I'm off to celebrate Rene Magritte's birthday with one or two of these:

Website of the week 5

These contemporary drawing machines echo some of the devices on show at Cybernetic Serendipity in 1968 while simultaneously rejecting a modernist trajectory by the use, in many cases, of pre-digital technology. Some of them definitely possess a certain Victorian mad scientist chic.



I'm not sure what to make of these yokes. Are they just weird contraptions with pens attached? Is the art in what is produced, the means of the production, or a combination the two? Anyway you can check out the set here

The real art lovers amongst you might like to watch this. I think Leonardo would have approved.

Thanks to Sean Fallon at Gizmodo for this gem

Website of the week 4

This week's WOW comes from Antrepo Design Industry

It consists of a series of movie posters which are a kind of reductio ad absurdam of film hype. The designs simply list the brands promoted by or integrated into the movies being promoted. In an important sense these posters open up for consideration the way commercial film has become little more than a means for pushing products on unsuspecting consumers.

It is particularly appropriate in the week following the release of the latest Bond movie, a franchise that probably did more for product and brand hyping via the cinema over the last 40 years than any other.

Website of the week 3

This, or by now last, week's WOW is Joyce Walks by Irish artist and NCAD old boy Conor McGarrigle.






According to it its maker

Joyce Walks is a psychogeographical tool which generates walking maps based on routes from James Joyce's Ulysses in any city in the world using Google Maps. The system prints maps to be used as the basis of walks exploring the city of your choice and generates mashups using your pictures and videos documenting these walks to share with other users.

Need I say more? I thought not.

Check it out and make up your own walk in the city of your choice. On a less cerebral level this could be a great tool for generating random pub crawls with literary pretensions as well.

Website of the week 2

Web without words



This week's site is an unusual, not to say strange, one. Web without words takes a popular website such as Yahoo or CNN and strips out all the text leaving only the design elements in the form of graphic blocks.

According to its creator, Paul Armstrong, WWW seeks

to visually represent my core belief that hierarchy, grid systems and uniformity ultimately lead to a more natural user experience -- to show the overall structure of any website, by striping away all the distractions of text and ads and images and showing a site for what the eye unconsciously perceives.

Whatever.... It makes for interesting viewing and his personifications of the sites are damn funny too.


Thanks to Jay Hathaway at Download Squad for pointing me towards this one

Website of the week 1

I'm thinking of establishing a 'website of the week' as a regular feature of this blog. What I wish it to do is to draw our attention to ways in which digital culture can capture our attention and reveal the world and ways of thinking the world. Hopefully it will also raise some discussion of and engagement with the topics we encounter as the course progresses.

Anyway so, this week's site of the week was developed by Laurier Rochon and Marc Beaulieu of Concordia University and involves personal hygiene, deodorant, and a usb docking station.




As the author describes it

Iamclean.org is a critique of social networking sites and devices. I was talking to a friend on msn Messenger earlier, and after pointing out that she had spent the whole day at the computer doing nothing, she added "msn, aim, icq, facebook, myspace and music. Enough to waste complete days". More specifically, this project takes aim at the idea of online "status", where you can let people know where you are at any moment in time very easily with the help of a computer and a little Internet.

Click on the link and check it out. If you have any comments insert them below.

Nominations for website of the week are also being accepted. Please email me with any suggestions and an explanation of why you think a site should be included.