The Open Road: an early travelogue in colour
"In 1924 Claude Friese-Greene (cinematographer and son of moving-image pioneer William) embarked on an intrepid road trip from Land's End to John O'Groats. He recorded his journey on film, using an experimental colour process. Entitled The Open Road, this remarkable travelogue was conceived as a series of 26 short episodes, to be shown weekly at the cinema."
(Independent Cinema Office, UK)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Consultation to reclassify and measure the UK Creative Industries
"The purpose of this consultation is to update the DCMS Creative Industries classification and we are inviting input from interested parties. We have been engaging with industry and partner organisations over potential changes via a Technical Working Group of the Creative Industries Council and are now at a point where we would like to go out to consultation and seek wider views.
We have been working with partners (NESTA, Creative Skillset and Creative and Cultural Skills), to review and update the classification used in the DCMS Creative Industries Economic Estimates (CIEE). We intend to use this review 'Classifying and Measuring the Creative Industries', referenced below, as an objective starting point to suggest which occupations and industries should be included in the updated DCMS classification.
The review uses the idea of 'creative intensity' (the proportion of people doing creative jobs within each industry) to suggest which industries should be included. If the proportion of people doing creative jobs in a particular industry is substantial, above a 30% threshold, the industries are candidates for inclusion within the Creative Industries classification.
Similar to the outlook in our current Creative Industries Economic Estimates, the 'creative intensity' approach focuses on industries where the creative activity happens. The intention is to produce a classification which provides direct estimates of employment and the contribution to the economy, with no double counting - rather than attempting to capture all activity further down the value chain, for example, retail activities. The classification generated in this way can be used as a starting point for indirect estimates which include wider economic effects along the supply chain.
Any approach has data and methods constraints, which may affect some industries more than others. These limitations are reflected in the consultation and consultees are invited to suggest alternatives, supported by evidence-based argument. Weaknesses in the underlying classifications and data used to construct these estimates, which are identified by users, will be fed-back to the organisations which set these standards and provide these data so that we can influence longer-term improvements."
(Department for Culture, Media & Sport, 19 April 2013)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
How and when Muslim societies will move away from seeing violence as a resolution to human conflict
"This week the minaret of one of Syria's most beautiful mosques was destroyed in the northern city of Aleppo. The Ummayad mosque established in 715 was rebuilt in 1159 after being damaged by a fire and then built again a century later after the Mongol invasion. The oldest surviving part was the minaret and both the State forces and the rebels accuse each other of its destruction. Lying in the Old City, the mosque is a Unesco world heritage site but has become part of the wider devastation of Syria's rich cultural heritage; a Crusader castle and Roman ruins in the ancient city of Palmyra have also been damaged.
However sad this physical destruction of history and art is, it should matter less to us than the recent reports that some 70,000 lives have been lost in this terrible civil war with hundreds of thousands more displaced. This is a war which is gradually ripping the country apart but about which the rest of the world doesn't seem to know what to do. Yet there is a different poignancy to the loss of a country's artistic and cultural past. It is these visual artifacts, building and ruins which speak to us of a country's history, its collective memory, the love and passion of the people who make a piece of land into a nation state. That so many Syrians are now killing each other and destroying ruins and religious sites poses the disturbing question, what exactly is still held sacred in so many part of the Muslim world?
A couple of weeks ago I returned from a short break to Istanbul. The area surrounding the majestic Hagia Sophia and the Blue mosque is also a Unesco world heritage site, tourists wander freely, the buildings stand sublime, the contested past of the place breathing its religious spirit into a refashioned, modern and vibrant city. But I wonder whether the preservation of history is only meaningful in countries where there is the preservation of peace, where people can enjoy the ordinariness of life, where there is order and purpose and we have the luxury of self reflection.
Earlier this week the former Met commissioner sir Ian Blair said societies choose what kind of violence they will tolerate. Looking across to so many part of the Islamic world where there is civil war, state violence and individual acts of terror, I wonder how and when Muslim societies will move away from seeing violence as a resolution to human conflict. When God is great is uttered as people and buildings are blown up what kind of God have so many created in their hearts and minds? The destruction of the minaret is not just a physical destruction but a tragic metaphor for a nation's soul."
(Mona Siddiqui, 26 April 2013, BBC Radio 4: Thought for the Day)
Fig.1 At left, the damaged Umayyad mosque in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, on Wednesday 24 April 2013; at right, the view of the mosque with the minaret intact on 6 March 2013. (AP) [http://www.wbur.org/npr/178906558/minaret-of-iconic-syrian-mosque-destroyed-in-fighting].
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
A Manifesto for the UK Creative Economy
"The UK's creative economy is one of its great national strengths, historically deeply rooted and accounting for around one-tenth of the whole economy. It provides jobs for 2.5 million people - more than in financial services, advanced manufacturing or construction - and in recent years, this creative workforce has grown four times faster than the workforce as a whole.
But behind this success lies much disruption and business uncertainty, associated with digital technologies. Previously profitable business models have been swept away, young companies from outside the UK have dominated new internet markets, and some UK creative businesses have struggled to compete.
UK policymakers too have failed to keep pace with developments in North America and parts of Asia. But it is not too late to refresh tired policies. This manifesto sets out our 10-point plan to bolster one of the UK's fastest growing sectors."
(Hasan Bakhshi, Ian Hargreaves and Juan Mateos-Garcia, April 2013, NESTA)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Navimation: Exploring Time, Space & Motion in the Design of Screen Based Interfaces
"Interface design has often been considered a subsection of interaction design (Moggridge, 2007; Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004; Bagnara & Crampton Smith, 2006). In the shift from designing objects to designing experiences, interaction design needs to investigate temporal as well as spatial form (Redström, 2001; Mazé & Redström, 2005), and to see computation as basic material.
From a social, cultural and humanistic perspective, studies of the design of interactions and their contexts of use can be understood in terms of mediated communication and the historical, social, playful and aesthetic in digital design (Blythe, Overbeeke, Monk, & Wright, 2003; Lunenfeld, 1999). This approach has been framed as Communication Design (Morrison et al., in press). This mediational perspective of digital communication is informed by studies in new media, social semiotics, socio-cultural studies of learning and work, and practice-based research into multimodal composition in which mediated discourse itself undergoes change through active use (Jones & Norris, 2005; Morrison, in press). This view is distinct from the structuralist and directional or 'transmission' models of communication (e.g., Crilly, Maier, & Clarkson, 2008) that are not rooted in cultural and mediational theory. From a Communication Design perspective, the interface itself mediates; it is understood as socially and culturally constructed and situated. Such a perspective is not very widely articulated in discussions of the interface in design research. Further, few studies exist of dynamic, digital interfaces and their multimodal characteristics from a specifically media and Communication Design view (e.g., Skjulstad, 2007).
In their design activity, interaction designers invest heavily in the shaping of interfaces as symbolic and cultural texts. Alongside this attention to design, and with reference to user-driven studies, we also need to unpack the features and possible functions of these emerging forms of mediated communication. The proliferation of 'movement in the interface' demands that we pay attention to a variety of media types, genre conventions and earlier media, and to the ways that elements of these are combined in different configurations. Social semiotics provides some means for relating the various graphical, animational and kinetic aspects of dynamic interfaces within a wider communicative perspective.3"
(Jon Olav H. Eikenes and Andrew Morrison, 2010)
Jon Olav H. Eikenes and Andrew Morrison (2010). "Navimation: Exploring Time, Space & Motion in the Design of Screen-based Interfaces", International Journal of Design Vol 4, No 1.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
