World-famous street artist Banksy recently released a film called “Exit Through The Gift Shop” (trailer here), billed as the world’s “First Street Art Disaster Movie.” A commentary on the state of street art, a burgeoning underground movement, it is for many, the first look into a culture of art that takes place on the streets that provide context for the pieces themselves. Some of the best street art in the world changes the everyday outside and urban landscape into a thing of beauty, or a message to force those to look at their surroundings in another way.
The movie is a shot at the so-called ‘hype machine’, that overvalues the work of street artists, out of context, turning serious social and political commentary into a money-making enterprise. This phenomenon, the film seems to state, is sucking the soul out of the street art world.

“Exit Through The Gift Shop” focuses on the relationship primarily between three artists, Banksy, Shepard Fairey (best known for the Obama HOPE poster and his OBEY series), and the outsider, Thierry Gutta aka Mr. Brainwash.

I feel like the movie was a bit mean-spirited toward MBW, a sort of cliquish view of street art. Everything he did, Banksy and Fairey do as well, but they consider his work un-organic and derivative. Throughout the movie we see Mr. Brainwash following his heroes around, learning from them and, ultimately, becoming them.

The attacks on Thierry seem unfair when we are comparing to Shepard Fairey of all people. How is he truly different? While MBW’s works are sometimes derivative and devoid of context and meaning, that doesn’t mean at all that the entirety of his work is bad. It would be like saying Banksy’s rats or Fairey’s OBEY make their other works inconsequential.

At one point, Banksy mocks the mishmash of what Thierry’s movie was. It reflects the unclear nature of Banksy’s message, who is himself an enigma – someone whose art is at times overtly political and sometimes whimsical.

We have to ask the question of how much motivation is a part of this street art world. Must your motives be pure to participate? If so, while Banksy and Fairey have ‘outed’ the motivation of MBW, why do they consider themselves above that? And they played a role that MBW clearly wanted to emulate – if he was emulating the best he could, maybe he knows more about Fairey and Banksy than we do.

In this case, you’re excited about something…. that you have no idea what it is! Perhaps on Thursday, they will tell you Apple products are made of people!

I like my Mac as much as the next guy, but I’m concerned that the cult that is beginning to surround the Apple brand will blind people to the shortcomings of their devices. The iPad is nothing compared to some of the other technology out there but it gets more attention than other, more groundbreaking ideas. Apple does some pretty evil things too; a non-replaceable battery means they are pretty much leasing technology to you, you will never fully own it. Not to mention DRM lock-in for the media you buy. First music, then movies and tv, and now books and magazines.

The next Apple is out there, designing, and creating something even more fabulous than you can imagine. My worry is that when it comes, nobody will 1) recognize it because they are indoctrinated into the Apple cult or 2) be able to switch because they are locked into Apple’s DRM and devices.

So before you get too excited about iPhone 4… remember, that it might be people.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE

Now, a rising challenger from an unlikely source: The old guard, Microsoft. It’s been awhile since I’ve been impressed with something MS has done, but their new sneak look at “Courier” has me very excited. A cross between an ebook reader, digital collaborator, and handheld netbook, this is definitely a shift in the way we’ve been experiencing eBooks. By incorporating features that interact with a “journal” GUI and web-connection, Microsoft has created a product that has real potential to actually do things, rather than the frivolity that the iPad brings to mind.

At this point, Google’s Chrome OS has the challenge of bringing a new paradigm to handheld computing. While I love Android, and I’ve long thought that Chrome has the possibility to make individual devices irrelevant (your user experience is the same no matter what device you are on), Microsoft’s vision for the future has changed my mind. By making this new generation of technology in handheld devices, Microsoft has tapped into the personalization of device that appeals to so many. Even the concepts they use, such as “Journal” is geared towards making an emotional and personal connection with a device.

If Courier can pull off what it does in the demo videos with the same ease and grace, I will be in line for one. The race for innovation and inspired thinking in the eBook space is on, and in my opinion, while Apple has a product, Microsoft has inspiration.

Read more about the new device and see videos of it in action at Engadget.

Youtube recently announced automatic captions for YouTube videos. While the technology is imperfect, the system will analyze videos and make best guesses about the script. This is beneficial to Google of course, in analyzing the videos to deliver better ads, and eventually, translate videos into a multitude of languages. The core benefit to me is as a hard-of-hearing person.

This is definitely a step in the right direction, and personally, I think it’s long overdue.

While there are regulations in place to ensure equal access to television and like media, regulating such a thing on the internet cannot, and indeed, should not be done. It’s encouraging to see the de-facto standard distributer of video content on the web take this issue seriously and use the advances in technology to improve everyone’s lives, even in areas of lesser importance to a larger audience.

This is one of the many reasons I am a supporter of Google as a company and a brand. There’s still further steps to take, but I am very happy today to see this announcement. Making captioning easier for publishers and accessible to those that need it is an entire ecosystem of solutions for these kinds of problems. I hope Google and other companies continue to develop technology that pushes the limits of what can be done to ensure access for everyone to online channels of communication.

Check out the video from the California School For The Deaf, Fremont (where many people I know and family members have attended)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXZdhMyPHsQ

The open-source nature of Chrome does for notebooks the same thing Android has done for smartphones – make them more affordable and easily accessible to the masses.

The Chrome OS is more suited towards quick netbooks, nothing you’d do any long-term or serious production work on, but very possibly a controller for other devices in your home (see: The internet of things), and for now, a way to access your work, and browse the web.

Google doesn’t develop software packages for the desktop, they create web apps for access anywhere. The local storage is just an offline cache (like Google Gears on steroids). They’re offering an OS that suits them perfectly, and encourages others to follow their SAAS (Software-As-A-Service) model. If they can make sure the competition is following this same SAAS path (by making netbooks based on Chrome a widely available and cheap option, as well as free for manufacturers), they can continue to develop their own software with an advantage.

They are insuring the stability and safety of the Web as a platform by offering Chrome OS, and making it a viable alternative to other netbook-type OS products out there.

Of course, it’s tightly integrated into Google’s services and offerings, but you can’t develop OS’s without having a way to make some money off of it in the long run. This is a step in ensuring they stay relevant and homogenous in a future that doesn’t rely on traditional search as much as it has in the past.

Update: I downloaded an early preview and tested it out. I stand by my previous thoughts. I think what I was trying to say in the post is that this will ultimately bring the cost of netbooks down to where they are a commodity. Think $100 netbook you use to control a couple of things around the house and check Gmail and Facebook.

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

Toltz tells a fictional story about a truly remarkable but possibly mentally unstable family with a cast of interesting characters that keeps you wondering what they are really like. The book begins somewhat slow – a backwards look and review of some of the lives involved via retold stories and memories, diaries. However, the outlandish events that occur are really interesting – I suggest paying closer attention than I did in the beginning, because everything does come full-circle.

This is at its’ heart, a story about adventure, but it pretends to be a story about a father-son relationship. The adventures are unexpected throughout the book, but poignant and rich with meaning in the context of the book. The characters are too out-of-touch to provide any meaningful comparisons to most people’s lives, but readers can sympathize with the complexity of life, even if the book takes it to an absurd extreme.

It touches on some broad issues like the meaning of life and existential and philosophical end-runs, but more to point out that the point of existence is not to ponder existence. The two brothers in the story and the paths of their lives profoundly tell a tale of the dangers of under-thinking, or over-thinking one’s existence.

The most entertaining characters are the ones that revolve around the fictional narrator/author, rather than the narrator himself. The writing style switches often, from the narration to “discovered diaries” written from another character’s perspective. While I usually look down upon this technique, it is natural and works well in this story.

I don’t give books grades, but I’ll give it a word. “Fun”

I was recommended this book by a friend on Facebook and so when I got my new library card, I decided to check it out.

Lies My Teacher Told Me (James W. Loewen)

I love books and I tend to judge them by their ability to enjoy many times.

I’ll start by saying – I wouldn’t re-read the book. That doesn’t mean it was a bad book by any means – in fact, it is very informative and interesting. It brings to light parts of American History that are all to often overlooked in the interest of competing ideas – patriotism, hero worship, and the idea of “progress”.

Mr. Loewen does a great job of discussing the problems inherent in the way we teach history in schools, particularly high schools and elementary schools. I was, however, looking for a less academic review of history textbooks. Although the aim of the book was specifically to critique history textbooks, I felt that it did so in a way that felt repetitive – assess situation, compare to history textbooks.

I’ll be honest that I skipped parts that droned on about the specific failures of individual textbooks and instead thoroughly enjoyed a review of history from a non-revisionist perspective. I felt that the same points could be made in a more effective way by pointing out the very things Mr. Loewen does point out in his book – the failures in the way we teach history, without being so specifically critical of each textbook’s approach. Although this is a great critique of history textbooks, I think it misses the mark with the audience and could benefit from less of that and more of the clarity he brings to American History and the reasons “why” we look backwards in that way.

He clearly writes why we view history the way we do and how we view it differently at different points in time. He points out the “nadir” of race relations in America and how politics has been racially motivated up until present day. He points out the conquest of native americans and how the ways in which we refer to those cultures reflect our domination of them. (Until a certain time period, native americans were just “Americans”. Very much a different way than we view that term today.)

This is a great book to read, but don’t feel bad about skipping some parts about textbooks. The book itself doesn’t lay the blame entirely on books or the education system and could do well with a re-focused effort that doesn’t revolve around that central thesis.

Enjoy!

So far, I’ve had it for a few days and so far, I really like it, but it is not without its’ shortcomings.

The physical device itself is sleek and nice to hold. I’ve ordered a custom case that hasn’t come yet, but I really like the style and design and can’t wait to protect it a little better. The standard mini-USB cable works great, although there is no dedicated headphone jack, this really isn’t a problem for me as I rely entirely on bluetooth for audio. There are only a few buttons and no keyboard, but I feel like it could be done with fewer buttons. There is a trackball which is nice, but I rarely use it. It doesn’t get in the way though, and it’s good to have as an input.

The software that comes with the phone is all very good and tends to be snappy and responsive. The on-screen keyboard takes some getting used to but with a vibration-feedback option, I’m getting better – it takes a little bit more pressure to use the screen on this than an iPhone.

The thing I was really dying for was Google integration, and it is great on all sides. It’d be nice if the Gmail app could handle more than one account, but it works pretty well anyway – I have it integrated with my Google Apps for Your Domain account with no problems.

Now for the “killer” apps – many of the bundled apps that T-Mobile provides are in fact, fantastic. However, some of these, such as “Freshface”, a skinning app, make the user experience awful and slow the phone down significantly. I do not recommend it, and uninstalled it myself pretty quickly. This tends to be the par for course for many apps, there is a lack of quality in some stuff currently on the market and a lot of them seem to slow the phone down significantly. I’ve installed a lot of stuff and ended up uninstalling to get back the responsiveness.

There are a few fantastic exceptions, such as the game “Cestos” (online mutliplayer), and “Google Sky” (Not that useful in LA where you can’t SEE the stars, but WOW factor is high)

Battery life has been surprisingly high, and Qik video-streaming live to the internet is an amazing feature! The camera quality isn’t breathtaking, but it’s probably on-par with my own, old “regular” digital camera.

Another letdown is the official Google Voice app doesn’t yet support Google Apps accounts, only accounts with @gmail extensions.

This is a great phone and very fun to use, reliable for the most part, but it does lack some of that iPhone polish. On the flip side, the plan wasn’t too expensive, the phone looks awesome, and I enjoy the relative open-ness of the platform and fully expect the App offerings to improve rapidly with the release of several more Android phones this year.

(Update: It’s now released so the long and short of it is that it is AWFUL.)