Few articles to read…

REAL TIME
By JASON FRY
Traveling Without Leaving
The Computer and Cellphone Were in Chicago, But the Virtual World Was Perfectly Familiar | Wall Street Journal Online

Excerpt:

Arriving at my downtown hotel, I dropped my bag on the other bed, dumped everything out my pockets, looked out both windows (an airshaft and a level of a parking garage, respectively), plugged my cellphone in to recharge, hooked up the spool of Ethernet cable the front desk had lent me and fired up my laptop. […] After settling in, I wrote and edited and emailed and sent IMs as always, but twice had to explain, in the middle of perfectly ordinary conversations, that I was 700 miles away from where I normally was. That startled the person I was IMing with — and truth be told, it surprised me a bit too. Because as long as I was staring at the screen, the only substantive difference between my Chicago hotel room and my New York office was the chair. Wasn’t I in the same place I always was? After all, my work habits, conversations with people and even my morning perusal of favorite personal links were the same. It was only when I disconnected my New York desktop that things seemed odd — I’d look around the hotel room like someone waking up in a new place and think, “Oh yeah, Chicago.” This curious sense of dislocation isn’t just a function of computers.

Thank you Becca + Dave for the info!

Also (in French):

Le temps de survie des objets errants
Impondérables.
Laurent Wolf
Mardi 24 octobre 2006 | Le Temps

Excerpt:

Il y a des trottoirs inspirés sur lesquels apparaissent des objets divers, certains en parfait état. […] Certains objets ont une longue survie urbaine. Ainsi ce sommier apparu aux environs du 15 septembre et qui a tenu un mois. Armature de métal, lattes de bois, modèle standard, posé sur la tranche contre la vitrine de l’opticien voisin qui s’est empressé, dès l’ouverture, de le pousser vers la vitrine d’à côté. Le sommier n’a pas excité la convoitise, si ce n’est qu’il a perdu une latte par jour jusqu’à n’être qu’une armature de métal traînant sa langueur de long en large. Car le voisin de l’opticien l’a poussé vers le bord du trottoir, d’où un automobiliste l’a délogé pour parquer son véhicule. Il est ensuite allé de droite à gauche, d’abord devant un guichet automatique de banque, ensuite au milieu d’un parking de motocyclettes, puis à 2 mètres d’une terrasse de bistrot où il faisait mauvais effet, pour finir près d’une barrière de chantier.

Thank you Nicolas!

images from the tui-shop website.

“No matter where you are in the world, the “Monaco Bag Hotel” provides a cosy place to sleep in seconds, complete with genuine down duvet and pillow. Just blow it up with the electric air pump and slip inside. Compacts down to a handy 55 x 25 cm; overall weight 8,5 kg.” Swiss Magazine 10.2006 | 6 _ Travel Companions. (Thank you Edith for the page; Same page as the sakku messenger bag (thank you Adri ;))

Thinking about “surface real estate” for 2D codes, I came to envisage printing 2D codes on post-its… You know already how much I like post-its, as ubiquitous in our environment as 2D codes… so why not combining both… like that:

Let’s have them printed; let’s people pick the information about ourselves or rooms for rent… though YES!… once I see a 2D code I can scan it with my cellphone… so no need for carrying it you may say… yet… I or others can distribute the 2D-code-post-it, place it, re-place it, dis-place it as wish (and as long as the glue stands :) The post-it is certainly a good advertising tool, as the MIT Advertising Lab, blog on the future of advertising technology posts (And I will try to develop upon this post).

In fact the post-it enables both the posting and the un-posting of notes. Maybe you remember my un-post-it calendar? Having experienced using it, I have noticed:
1. It is slightly fatiguing for the arm to write on post-its, especially when standing
2. One gets an amazing sense of achievement when all the items on the list of the day “disappear”
3. It augments stress when there is a deadline coming up… but some, like me, may work better under a little of good stress!

So I have read that not so long ago, some celebrated the 25 years anniversary of this incredible invention. As the article by Greg Beato emphasizes, this minuscule idea, soon to be big, was the invention of a man who had a vision… that an outdated management couldn’t see.

Anyway, the original post-it, mainly because of its “pixel” shape has inspired many art works based on digital pictures! The pictures of the Post-it Note Video Games Characters are good examples of PIXEL ART, of which, I think, some Post-it art pieces belong. But have a look at the Post-it Note Elvis images!

The article “The Girls Guide to Elvis” by the New Observer newspaper gives us some data: “We’re talking about a mosaic of the King, Elvis Presley himself, made from Post-it Notes. A total of 2,646 sticky notes, to be exact, on a 14-by-9-foot wall.” Tedious though to calculate how many post-it per color scheme one would need, so to calculate how many pack to get… Anyway, would you want to convert a flat image into a post-it art piece, please follow the post-it mosaic howto [updated]!

I (as well) like very much the post by the insurgent muse, “The Under-Appreciated Art of the Post-it”! The art work by Rebecca (picture below comes from the same posting) makes me think of many of the customizable-environments-and-hotel-rooms inquiries that I have been sharing with you.

But I still think that the dimension of the PACK of post-it, which gives a depth to the post-it surface, has unfortunately not been taken into close consideration. After all there might be as much jubilation to post a note as that to un-post it; and to keep un-posting it until the pack ends (Actually, I shall now revise my un-post-it calendar ;)

Hence, one of the most beautiful Post-it work of art is that of the artist VASSEVA, who I have met when drifting in the streets of Budapest (I went to Budapest for the SASE2005 conference and to give a presentation about neo-nomads). Here is a picture downloaded from her website… For me it is more about “effeuiller” (defoliate, denudate…) than “leaving a message.”

Yet I also recall the power of Post-its (mute messages) in the movie by Elia Suleiman, Divine Intervention, 2002. Poignant. On another note, the interview of the movie director in VACARME is particularly interesting, as he also “compares himself to a Bedouin, and claims his experience of nomadism…” The article is in French.

TRAIN AWAY a collection by Puma… pretty interesting “practical fashion-forward products for business travellers.” The shoe has a “unique hotel card storage slot in outsole”… well… it is to put your [W] hotel key. Free to roam, but tied to a chain hotel?

A neo-nomad scenario developed in my thesis… Neo-nomads embody spaces remotely. Via the Internet they customize their hotel room in advance, bringing in the complementary piece of home, the last piece of the “home” puzzle, with them, their luggage, and transitional objects.
In the HOmeTEL, a user can by Internet choose the color of the walls, the configuration of the room, the food he can get in his in-room fridge. The room will not go back to its neutral state once the user is gone. The other user will improvise based on the previous configurations. One can thus say that the space is dynamic, based on chance, and fosters the emergence of new spatial configurations. The next users could reconfigure it on the basis of how it had been left by the previous user. Hence space can hold traces. This relates to a certain “memory” of the place. The new technologies augment the dynamism of the space by offering a greater possibility of change, thus the potential to satisfy more individuals. What these technologies do is enable a greater combination of elements.
On that note, I would like to point at an article fowarded to me by Eléonore (I have really amazing supporting friends!!!): Le monde virtuel d’Habbo Hotel devient en partie réel






Illustrations produced for the Doctor of Design defense presentation, held May 15, 2006. The illustrations have been created manipulating material found online (by Googling “blinky-thumb” and “Mac Icon”)

… light channel! Continuing on hotel stories and spatial appropriation: you can change the lighting scheme, thus the ‘mood’ of your hotel room at the Hotel Concorde in Frankfurt, while participating in changing the appearance of the facade…

Rooms are advertised as following:
“Individually styled and air conditioned; bathrooms / toilets / telephone / Internet access, cable-pay-TV, in room coffee/tea bar, minibar and safe / colour adjustable illumination / 24h room service”

DDes dissertation | DRAFT excerpt:: conclusive concepts (in development!)

“I call emergence the irruption of an event which is nonetheless approximately predictable because it results from the concurrency of elements, the neo-nomad habits, that one can trace back, and the context in which the event occurs. The event, which is the concurrency of factors, defines the temporary appropriation of space. However, the appropriation of space, the adherence to it (to use the word coined by George Amar) vary widely from “just passing through” to feeling “at home” in a hotel room. The meaning of the word “hotel” extends to any space that people invest for a certain amount of time, and share the usage with other strangers—though any trace of the other stranger using the space is conscientiously erased before you invest it (this relates to the idea that spaces for neo-nomads are somehow resilient). So the notion of emergence has to do with time as much as it is tightly linked with the other concept henceforth developed: the concept of frugality or temperance.

Neo-nomads do not only carry and use items that are necessary “to survive” in case the need “to survive” occurs; neo-nomads carry and use items only when these items are needed “to survive”. For this to happen, tools, and items needed “to survive” must be available at all time, everywhere. This is what happens when societies develop infrastructures and systems like “pay per view”, “Cyclocity®”, and “ZipCar”. These are examples defining the becoming as-need and shared basis of our societies. Everything from space to information is like a hotel or a taxi. We are building hotel-cities or taxi-cities, TAXITIES… and by that redefining the habits of people on the move.

Bike rental projects like Cyclocity®, which in 2006 has received an award from the French Institute of Design, and ZipCar both relate to the concepts of temperance and frugality. Not only individuals decides to choose, rent, share on a as-need basis, but also as stated about the Cyclocity® project, “Users can move faster, participate actively to the protection of the environment by reducing gas emanation and maintain their health through physical exercise”. [1] These project have a “green” aspect, however a brand strategy, that is not negligible. Paradoxically, when mobility is linked to advertising and consumerism (JCDecaux is a company specialized in designing street furniture including those for advertisings), it also involves the conscious respect of the terrain neo-nomads roam in. As if societies compel neo-nomads to respect their territories the way traditional nomads (anyway) do.

On another note, the multiplication of special parking places for ZipCar and Cyclocity® and the related infrastructure (you need space for the bike, the post to which you attach the bike and the automat as you need to pay for the service) modifies the image of the urban environment. Parking places, storage places in fact, are scattered in the city. Besides, a central control unit can track the bike of Cyclocity® and a shop is needed for repairs. [2] This puts forth the concepts of meta-architecture of storage space as the space branches out, scatters, and requires extra other spaces.” [3]

[1] Janus de l’Industrie 2006
My translation of « L’usager peut ainsi se déplacer plus rapidement, participer activement à la protection de l’environnement en réduisant les émanations des gaz d’échappement tout en maintenant son bien être par un exercice physique quotidien. »

[2] Laurence Girard, Le vélo urbain en libre-service bouscule les contrats d’afficheurs, LE MONDE 13.02.06
“The bike which costs a thousand Euros a piece, has been custom made in collaboration with Mercier society and equipped with monitored alarms and maintenance so to be tracked by the central control. But the number of technical failures is higher than expected. Each day, a bike out of 500 comes back to the shop. In Lyons, JCDecaux had to organize a team of thirty people for the repairs. ‘What cost most is maintenance’ asserts M. Decaux.”
My translation of: “Le vélo, qui coûte 1000 euros pièce, a été conçu sur mesure avec la société Mercier, et équipé de dispositifs de téléalarme et de télémaintenance pour être suivi à distance par le système de contrôle central. Mais le nombre d’incidents techniques dépasse les prévisions. Un vélo sur 500 revient à l’atelier chaque jour. JCDecaux a dû constituer à Lyon une équipe d’une trentaine de personnes pour la réparation. “Ce qui coûte cher, c’est la maintenance”, affirme M. Decaux.”

[3] Yasmine Abbas, Neo-nomads and the nature of the spaces of flows, workshop UbiComp in the urban frontier, proceedings UbiComp2004

There was a time when men… and women had to sit in front of a TV set to eat a Swanson TV Dinner®, now a hotel provides “meals to take on the flight or drive home“!

“On Monday, February 16, 1981, after a year of trying and waiting, I was finally hired as a temporary chambermaid for three weeks, in a Venetian hotel: Hotel C.
I was assigned twelve bedrooms on the fourth floor.
In the course of my cleaning duties, I examined the personal belongings of the hotel guests and the way this succession of people staying in the same room set up their temporary homes. I observed through details lives which remained unknown to me.
On Friday March 6, the job came to an end.” Sophie Calle: L’Hôtel, 1981

The project of Sophie Calle: L’Hôtel caught my eyes for its beautiful simplicity in detailing life of strangers. In 1981, the artist—visual ethnographer, detective and fiction storyteller—Sophie Calle surveys a population in transit. By capturing traces of living being in transit, and appropriating evidences “She transgresses the boundaries between public and private, fact and fiction.” [1]

If I am not yet getting into the notion of objectivity, I would like to stress the interest of such a project to me who is developing a method to explore, describe and analyze people’s habits, in transitional spaces like hotel rooms. Statistical data can hardly inform you about the psychological and the emotional level of people on the move, and to what extent and how they get attached (or detached) to the built environment.

However, all the work is amazing! If you haven’t been to the Centre Georges Pompidou exhibit: SOPHIE CALLE M’AS-TU VUE held in 2003-2004, it is always time to track her :) or have a look at the book!

[1] Sophie Calle, a Survey; Exhibit curated by Deborah Irmas for the Fred Hoffman Gallery