Over the last few days I've wondered how the political spectrum appears in design discourse, and how this applies to designers generally. But I always get stuck on one thing—where are all the conservative designers?
Convert To Shape
Neon Tribe: Shamanism in the Digital Age
One of the things that has fascinated me recently is the re-emergence of the tribal aesthetic, in fashion, design and film. Not tribal as in terrible tattoos, but tribal in the sense of the tribe—be that North and South American, Scandanavian, Celtic...
Subcultural Backlash
Criticism of the hipster is reaching fever pitch. But why? To what do we owe this displeasure?
Regarding Digital Revolutions
In a piece for the Age, Andrea Carson derides Twitter, at its worst, as little more than "a narcissistic medium of personal updates about nothing of consequence: a 'Daily Me' for a world that is obsessed with the individual and celebrity."1Carson, Andrea: 'Vacuous, shallow, banal - don't believe the twype' in The Age, Monday, 11th of October, 2010
The Rise of the Non-Game Game
I recently purchased a to-do list app for my iPhone. While this may not seem to be a revelation, there was something different about this app. It presented itself as a game.
Wayshowing and Community Identity Part Three
Wayshowing and Community Identity Part One
This essay forms part one of a series discussing the impact of wayshowing on community identity. Part two will go up later this week.
Gaga And The Postmodern Condition
If you like, you can read a brief NOTEI thought long and hard about how to do this first post for the new Convert To Shape. What would it be on? How would I write it? Should it be more formal, and appear as a proper essay, or would it be an extended piece of commentary? Perhaps these questions should have been resolved before beginning writing, but here we are. Inevitably, it is the content that has directed which way the good ship HMAS Convert To Shape will head. on this first piece.
New Look New Purpose
The past week has seen sweeping changes on the inside and out of Convert To Shape. Emboldened with a new look, courtesy of an unfortunate pilot error, this blog sets sail in a new direction.
Gallery Review: The August Shows at Platform
Platform, the artist run initiative situated underneath Flinders Street Station, is a gallery that lives in the subconscious — most people know that there’s something there, they just don’t acknowledge it.