AlphaDesigner Blogue

There’s only one statement that can rival the post modernist claims there’s nothing new under the sun: Everything is Original. By accident or not, this is the title of a short documentary movie by Christian Svanes Kolding featuring my dear friend Brigit, who is one of the most interesting people I’ve met online. She’s also one of the few photographers who don’t contaminate their shots with their own auras.

In photography, it’s easy to yield to all kinds of temptations. Facial expressions, decorations, light, sexiness, cuteness, tragedy – they all can be decent foundations for excellent work but if your main goal is capturing reality, their over-emphasis often results in huge, unnecessary distractions. That’s one of the reasons I never try to capture reality – my focus has always been on the blinding temptation and my aura is sticky like a lollipop.

Brigit’s aura however resembles one of those high mountain lakes – they are utterly remarkable and highly impressive, however when you bend over their cool surface, you see yourself, not the lake. In normal circumstances, she would be my arch-enemy. In abnormal ones, she’s to me what Austin Powers is to Dr. Evil. That’s why I love her.

You can see some of the results of the photo session in Brigit’s “Invisible People” set on Flickr.

Twitter is a nasty tool. It forces you to go out of bed and read bad news at a moment when you should be probably sleeping. Maybe I shouldn’t keep my iPod under my pillow anymore, it’s quite disruptive.

Anyway, Michael Jackson died today – I am saying today because the sun hasn’t set in LA yet. I already watched a BBC World News Special and read a dozen of news reports and obituaries. I stopped being a fan long time ago but there are some things you can never get rid of. Like your childhood idols. Like it or not that person had a profound influence over me in one of the most crucial periods of my life. Of course that wasn’t Michael Jackson the person, it was Michael Jackson the way I imagined and perceived him. Now everybody’s talking how he revolutionized music. I think they are all wrong – he didn’t compose anything revolutionary. His most stunning achievement was his own pop star status and the distortion field it generated. His shock waves were felt on the entire planet, regardless of cultures, religions, prejudices. It’s a massive, almost supernatural achievement but it has very little to do with music.

The only musical thing which was truly special in him was his voice. I often catch myself listening to some of his songs I truly dislike and I am still able to amaze myself what a remarkable blessing that voice is. The world may have lost a tabloid junkie, an infantile wacko or a bankrupt multimillionaire but the real loss, the most significant one, is that we got robbed of one of the finest singers of the 20th Century. I was really really hoping to hear some new songs from him. Maybe there are some left… someone will manage to dig a forgotten tape or two and make an anniversary album but it won’t be the same. It’s a real shame he was busy with so many other things beside singing and dancing. One album per 5 years is not what we should expect from someone so gifted. Unfortunately that doesn’t matter much now.

Rest in peace, Wacko! I’ll miss you!

Domain name and online identity conflicts aren’t something new but Jonathan Ive’s unsuccessful attempt to gain control over… well, jonathanive.com is particularly interesting.

A judge decided that Ive’s claim over the domain name is groundless because the designer of the iMac and the iPod doesn’t seek publicity. One might wonder what kind of publicity the judge had in mind – maybe Ive should have adopted a Malawian child or at least appeared on reality shows, two activities that are undeniably related to industrial design. Yeah, that was sarcasm.

Even if you put aside the ridiculous fame-based criteria, there’s still plenty of controversy left – the “unofficial site” does not present someone else, accidentally named (and more famous than) Jonathan Ive, it is about the designer himself and his own achievements. Apparently, that fact doesn’t matter at all because in today’s world it is not enough when other people recognize you as famous, you have to be brave and state that yourself. Explicitly, shamelessly, aggressively.

Your mother may say it’s bad taste but it may prove useful in court. There, lesson learned!