dorian moore

Blogs: Mad about Design

Blogs: Mad about Design - cover

Blogs: Mad about Design - dorian moore spread

I'm flattered to have this very website included in the new Page One / MaoMao book 'Blogs: Mad about Design', a collection of spreads from websites about design. I don't know quite how I made the mark to be included alongside some of my favourites such as Visual Complexity, City of Sound and information asthetics, but I did, and it's nice ot have this 9 year old site design recorded for posterity! It's a shame I sent them my snaps and links over a year ago or I'd have added the very deserving Creative Applications to my roster of reads.

You can but it from amazon.co.uk here: Blogs: Mad About Design

Listening Non-Habits

I've started going through my record collection, listening to each record in order (1-n then alphabetically) was the original intent, but that got to 'Two Lone Swordsmen' - which in typing this I've only just realised should be filed under T not 2 - things started getting awfully repetitive, so now I'm leaping from artists to artists in this phase.

So far I've got to 50, and just listened to '50th Anniversary ov LSD - Tribute to Albert Hofmann' (released in 1993, and bought, I hasten to add - also, compilations are ordered by title, not in their own space, in my collection),next up is '50 years of Classic Horror Film Music (The Omen and Other Themes)'. Given the length of time my record collection was gathered over, and the various interests I've taken in different Genre's of music, this seemingly ordered approach is actually turning out to feel quite random.

Which is something I take great joy in: Chaos out of Order (especially when you try to beat mix them)

'The Reader' by Guestroom

'The Reader' by Guestroom

Last night I went to the launch of 'The Reader' by Guestroom, an artists edition book on the subject of Libraries, that is part of a greater body of work Guestroom are creating around collections, and libraries, including the Laswon Park Electronic Library that I've been asked to collaborate on. My first involvement in this is also my contribution to the book: an email of my initial thoughts on creating the library.

The book itself is beautiful fulfilling all of my book-as-fetish-object desires, from the lovingly screen printed cover designs that reflect my images of 'real' book covers, the patterns used inside it, the weight of the paper and the typesetting.It seems a crime to read it, to thumb through it and break the spine, to carry it with me to allow me ot absorb it and for it to be battered by that journey. But it is useful art to me, as well as beautiful art, and so it will be read, absorbed, and re-contextualised. It's use adding personal value to the object, whilst (perhaps) removing it from the art object.

The content is inspiring. From reading through the first couple of pages, and dipping into some random pages, it's made me consider ideas and directions, ways of using and presenting the Lawson Park Electronic Library that had previously been unformulated seeds, and are now blossoming in my mind. Let's hope we can do a fraction of them.

It's also nice seeing my email, in print. It made me re-appraise what I'd written, and think of it in a different context. It being the end of the book, but the start of the process of creating the library, was very poignant for me, spurring me on in my drive to make something unique, because of the feeling of something virtual becoming something real.

The reuse of my email, intended to introduce and start a process, full of typos, spelling mistakes, and wording I might not have used in a published piece is also nice. The permanence of it, the fact that I can not go back and edit it, might forever change the way I write emails, the way I compose myself. 

This is a task I'd already set of myself of late in the gathering of my output onto the web, which now has much more of a sense of permanence than it did when I started this website. The content of this database, my personal public library of thoughts, actions and events, is no longer in my control, it's indexed and aggregated and archived elsewhere, in servers I can only imagine the location of, owned by companies and people I will never meet, perhaps one day becoming the knowledge of a singularity I will never know.

So, perhaps, my words will come with more thought, with more meaning, and with more intent, than before. Or I will carry on as is. But I have been affected. Thank you Ruth & Maria.

• Review at ArtVehicle

The Open Rights Group: Join 'em!

I knew I was one of the Open Rights Groups founding 1000, but didn't realise I was #54.

They need a lot more support to help protect our rights anywhere our information is used and abused digitally. If you can spare some money, please donate, and they'll make sure our government doesn't run astray with bizzare legislation, or allow corporations to take advantage of our digital minutae, especially without being honest and open about it.

Mapping Memory: Web Designer as Information Cartographer

Having just read http://alistapart.com/articles/mappingmemory I felt inspired to post a link to it after having read the first article in a long time which resonates with how I work, and what I do.

I have a lot to add to it, but as ever it's not something I can ever seem to easily put into words. It's inspired a lot of memories of why I do what I do, and the parts I'm very interested in. It reminded me of many projects I've worked on over the years, not just the mapping projects but also developing intranets, managing large swathes of dense information, creating extendable publishing structures, managing multi-media information sets and more. And it more reminded me of things I have thought of but have not done and should.

Though for the meantime its on with today's work, rather than distracting myself from it. Still it is these forms of inspiration that drive us to produce anew, so I shouldn't berate myself too much.

Congratulations

Congratultations to Nina and Karen of somewhere for winning the Northern Art Prize... and obviously I'm basking somewhat vicariously in this 'cos I work with them on a few projects.

Atonality

And today could well be it's 100th Birthday: http://www.therestisnoise.com/2007/12/100-years-of--1.html.

Let's hear it for atonality, let's hear it for Schoenberg

Voice Of The Seven Woods

Voice Of The Seven Woods @ The Local - First track

Voice Of The Seven Woods @ The Local - Second track

Voice Of The Seven Woods @ The Local - Third track

Some live footage of Voice Of The Seven Woods them at The Local in Crouch End last month.

'Tails of Entrails' by Dream/Aktion Unit

It's causing John's computer to crash. Repeatedly.

The Chatham House Rule

It should be the name of a band really...

When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed