Goodbye!

This blog has moved to http://trackingimagination.wordpress.com/

See you there, have a good trip!

Nerosim

I was flipping through Icon Magazine and found this interesting definition under "isms" for the 21st century.

Neroism

Rather than solving our problems, design is killing us. Architects and designers no longer provide for our needs but for our wants, fuelling the inferno of human consumption that is overwhelming the planet's life-support systems.

Yet our collective fear of impending disaster is overwhelmed by our unwillingness to make the lifestyle compromises necessary to reverse climate change and habitat destruction. Contemporary notions of “sustainability” are aimed more at assuaging our guilt than making a real difference.

Neroism describes the contemporary condition of hedonistic behaviour in the face of catastrophe and also justifies it: ours is the last generation that will be able to enjoy such wanton irresponsibility, so let's enjoy it while we can!

I thought this was a very apropos way of describing design's role in today's mainstream. I feel that this represents all that is wrong with design and presents an interesting new approach to designing objects. What if we designed not to satisfy needs, but rather designed to avoid satisfying needs?

Re: The Entrepreneurial Spirit

Noah’s latest post touches on a lot of things I have been thinking of recently. I recently hung out with a couple of friends from high school and after a few years apart, the ways in which we have all changed is very noticeable.

It was my understanding that everyone thought the way I thought. All my colleagues and friends in the design world thought the same as me and I assumed this extended beyond them. However when comparing my high school friends and myself, I realized how different we have become in only a few short years.

The world doesn’t think how I think and I am only beginning to understand how large this difference is. (The very fact that I can’t define what I do would scare the shit out of some people, but to me it seems right.)

As Noah said, “I'm not saying one is better than the other, just that we don't all have the same thing driving us.” I believe this is what it comes down to: motivation. I believe the separation that exists can be divided into two parts. The majority of people are driven to work so they can live their lives the way they want. The rest of us are driven by an intangible force. By this I mean that work isn’t work to us, it is a passion that we cannot deny. Our work is our lives, and vice versa.

The notion that "not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur" follows this logic by the fact that there are those who work to provide and those who define themselves by their work.

Brilliant!

For Maglite (for some reason the "scaryidea.com" banner is blocking the caption.)

via: Scary Ideas

A Blog Post a Day, Keeps The Doctor Away

So as some of you may have seen, I took a photo everyday last semester for a thinktank project. Although I skipped a few days here and there, the project was an overwhelming success. One of the main things I learned from this project was how easily something become part of your schedule when you are "forced" to.

So I was thinking about it and I thought that I should apply this same idea to some thing that I have a hard time fitting into my schedule. This thing is of course: Blogging. So starting next Monday, I will be blogging once a day. From a single word to unlimited words, the sky is the limit. I think that this will allow me to really get into blogging and create some unexpected consequences.

See you then!

(I'm aiming to post before then too)