14 December 2008
Going with the flow
I love typography in movement, text used as moving image.
This is a beautiful example of interpretation of text, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, made by the Human Rights Action Center, over their campaign for Burma and for the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an important and inspiring text, it had to be toned down to accommodate a consensus of the first countries who signed it in 1948. It reminds me that I should write one day of the Declation of the Rights of Men and Citizen of 1793, a text that never got to be implemented in the turmoil of the 1st French Republic but that was far more ambitious than the one of 1789. It stated in its first article the common welfare - as in "well-being", "happiness" - as the aim of society: "Le but de la société est le bonheur commun". The overall tone of the Declaration is also quite libertarian: insurrection against a government that violated the rights of its people becomes a right and a duty.
The text of the 35 articles in French and in English.
--Joëlle.
This is a beautiful example of interpretation of text, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, made by the Human Rights Action Center, over their campaign for Burma and for the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an important and inspiring text, it had to be toned down to accommodate a consensus of the first countries who signed it in 1948. It reminds me that I should write one day of the Declation of the Rights of Men and Citizen of 1793, a text that never got to be implemented in the turmoil of the 1st French Republic but that was far more ambitious than the one of 1789. It stated in its first article the common welfare - as in "well-being", "happiness" - as the aim of society: "Le but de la société est le bonheur commun". The overall tone of the Declaration is also quite libertarian: insurrection against a government that violated the rights of its people becomes a right and a duty.
The text of the 35 articles in French and in English.
--Joëlle.
Labels: French Revolution, Human Rights, Moving image, Typography
05 December 2008
An indispensable testimony
A 8.13 minutes video seen on theguardian.co.uk follows a correspondant in the territory of Walungu, in eastern Congo : "Rape in a lawless land. Leah Chishugi, a nurse and survivor of the genocide in Rwanda, travels into the heart of eastern Congo to record the testimony of more than 400 women and girls abused by marauding militias".
Please forward as much as you can.
The war on terror should start there.
-- Joëlle.
Please forward as much as you can.
The war on terror should start there.
-- Joëlle.
Labels: Congo, Human Rights, War
29 November 2008
"Flirting across a distance"
This is the title that the editors of the Stanford-based publication Ambidextrous chose for the article about Passages published in the current Fall/Winter issue, which theme is about "Getting it on"... This issue is somewhat a follow-up to the CHI '06 workshop 'Sexual Interactions: Why we should talk about sex in HCI' organized by Johanna Brewer, Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye, Amanda Williams and Susan Wyche. I was truly happy to have participated to this workshop which was attended by an eclectic and refreshing panel and which surprisingly wasn't easily accepted by the academic community - clearly talking about sex still makes people blush.
I'm glad this workshop continues to propagate echoes and so 2 years later, the organizers' perspective on this subject is also featured in this Ambidextrous issue.
I wouldn't have spontaneously chosen the title "Flirting across a distance" for my article, but it's growing on me. It evokes actually nicely the unclear, unsatisfactory and blurry touch of the Passages experience which is then assimilated with that one of flirting with someone.
I shall thank warmly Amal Dar Aziz for working on this article as my brilliant editor, Lilly Irani as my early correspondent and Amanda Williams for offering me the opportunity to publish an article in this modern and very well designed magazine I discovered while working at Distance Lab.
-->The PDF version of this article is available here for download.
Or you could as well support Ambidextrous by subscribing!
-- Joëlle.
I'm glad this workshop continues to propagate echoes and so 2 years later, the organizers' perspective on this subject is also featured in this Ambidextrous issue.
I wouldn't have spontaneously chosen the title "Flirting across a distance" for my article, but it's growing on me. It evokes actually nicely the unclear, unsatisfactory and blurry touch of the Passages experience which is then assimilated with that one of flirting with someone.
I shall thank warmly Amal Dar Aziz for working on this article as my brilliant editor, Lilly Irani as my early correspondent and Amanda Williams for offering me the opportunity to publish an article in this modern and very well designed magazine I discovered while working at Distance Lab.
-->The PDF version of this article is available here for download.
Or you could as well support Ambidextrous by subscribing!
-- Joëlle.
Labels: Ambidextrous, Distance, Flirting, Passages, Publication
23 November 2008
Carpe diem
Last Thursday, as I was leaving work to my climbing wall, I listened to a message on my answering machine. It was telling me that Wes Anderson would be at the militant cinema theatre Meliès in Montreuil the very same evening for a talk with director Peter Bogdanovitch.
At first, I hesitated because I really wanted to go climbing as I couldn't go there the week before. And I did go to the climbing wall. But then in front of the wall, I realized hey my favorite contemporary director is 10 mn away from here, what am I thinking. On my MySpace profile, I answered to the question "who I'd like to meet": "Wes and Owen". So it'd be a bit silly to miss on that one unexpected chance. So I hoped on my bike and rode to the cinema. There was a retrospective on Bodganovitch that week that I didn't hear about and for his open invitation to a director of his choice to present and chat with, he asked for Wes Anderson. So that evening, the cinema presented two movies by each director: the Royal Tennenbaum (Bogdanovitch's pick) and Saint Jack (Anderson's pick). In between the movies, they talked for about an hour and it was just great to be there. The audience was offered to ask questions, and surprisingly, I was the only one to raise my hand. I took the opportunity to ask Wes about his use of music as a narrative in his movies. I was interested to know what was his writing process around pop songs. Of course there wasn't as much time to go through this subject as I would have liked but during an intermission I went to see him directly and talked a few more minutes about it. I felt quite shy and clumsy but it was still nice to approach him. He was very kind and patient with the few people around him. After the talk, I stayed to see Saint Jack, a movie that Anderson mentioned as an inspiration for the Royal Tennenbaum. The connection is not obvious, but still it was interesting to watch this curious, sensitive, picturesque movie, following Ben Gazzara in every scene, as a pimp in Singapour.
The 2 directors with translator.
-- Joëlle
At first, I hesitated because I really wanted to go climbing as I couldn't go there the week before. And I did go to the climbing wall. But then in front of the wall, I realized hey my favorite contemporary director is 10 mn away from here, what am I thinking. On my MySpace profile, I answered to the question "who I'd like to meet": "Wes and Owen". So it'd be a bit silly to miss on that one unexpected chance. So I hoped on my bike and rode to the cinema. There was a retrospective on Bodganovitch that week that I didn't hear about and for his open invitation to a director of his choice to present and chat with, he asked for Wes Anderson. So that evening, the cinema presented two movies by each director: the Royal Tennenbaum (Bogdanovitch's pick) and Saint Jack (Anderson's pick). In between the movies, they talked for about an hour and it was just great to be there. The audience was offered to ask questions, and surprisingly, I was the only one to raise my hand. I took the opportunity to ask Wes about his use of music as a narrative in his movies. I was interested to know what was his writing process around pop songs. Of course there wasn't as much time to go through this subject as I would have liked but during an intermission I went to see him directly and talked a few more minutes about it. I felt quite shy and clumsy but it was still nice to approach him. He was very kind and patient with the few people around him. After the talk, I stayed to see Saint Jack, a movie that Anderson mentioned as an inspiration for the Royal Tennenbaum. The connection is not obvious, but still it was interesting to watch this curious, sensitive, picturesque movie, following Ben Gazzara in every scene, as a pimp in Singapour.
The 2 directors with translator.
-- Joëlle
Labels: cinema, Peter Bogdanovitch, Wes Anderson
