Guardian: Wednesday 25th November

An interesting illustration by Kipper Williams discussing the news that high street chain Borders has gone into administration. The latest victim of the recession will be a sad loss, but the illustration remains fully true.


















Steve Bell is one of the most popular Guardian illustrators. This illustration deals with many topics in just a small amount of space. It seems to depict new Council President Herman Van Rompuy's thoughts on the EU as he becomes President Elect. The multilingualism represents his roots in Belgium, and perhaps also signifies the Franco-German heart of the EU. It seems that 'der roob' could mean 'the rule', referring to the unwritten rules of the EU in relation to expansion, with the rule being that paradoxically, the EU is a Christian-only club where Turkey cannot join.

BBC: Five Ways Ergonomics has Shaped Your Life

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8363862.stm

Capitalism and Society: New Media

The most recent product in the music industry, Spotify, is helping to change our society. Spotify is not just a great leisure innovation, it is one that gives the consumer a feeling of liberation. It seems to be the case that the tides are turning among those who control the markets. For years, they have had the technological edge that has allowed them to exploit the general public and create a consumer machine. With the development of the internet and high speed broadband connections, new technologies have been deployed among the general public.

Inspiring a social change, YouTube first led the way by making programmes and music available across the globe freely. Following YouTube, Spotify created an application out of this philosophy. At the advent of this new media, corporations tried to fight back by removing videos from YouTube. More recently, catch up services have been rolled out across the major television broadcasters, and Channel 4 has this month announced it will make all programmes available on YouTube in full.

It is interesting that this is the case because it is not just about a new style of media, but about a social change too. Society has been bombarded with the tricks of capitalism so much that it has learnt to mobilise itself against corporations. How much longer will society be controlled by corporations? There is a feeling that people are starting to take something back- perhaps this is the dawn of a new relationship between society and corporations. The creators of Spotify and YouTube have realised that they can make digital media freely available to all by allowing companies to advertise on their sites and applications.

In some respects therefore, it is valid to say that society has embraced capitalism, and equally capitalism has embraced society. Perhaps people have started to realise that to improve our society, we can't go on subscribing to capitalism as it is. People must form a new relationship with it, and this doesn't just have to stop with media. It will be interesting to see how this develops in the future as we could be about to witness the basis of our economy change.

Fly Swatting

We are constantly designing. Sometimes a job needs doing, but we do not have the specific tool available, so we improvise. The illustration shows how we can work out that a tea towel can be used for many things other than its intended use, including for the very useful purpose of fly swatting.

'Tear Down This Wall'

Europe celebrates 20 years of a united Berlin, a united Germany and a united Europe. 'All of the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city shall fall down flat so the people can go straight into the city.'

Light Neville Street

http://www.holbeckurbanvillage.co.uk/nevillestreet/#/home/

Light Neville Street is a recently completed arts installation on Neville Street, under City Station in Leeds. The project has been commissioned by Leeds City Council at a cost of £4.6m to help make this gateway entrance to the city more pleasant.

I saw the installation for the first time last week while collecting information for a college project. It consists of two parts; the visual installation on the East Wall and the sound installation on the left. Together, they create an atmospheric environment within the city. The west wall is the most interesting I believe. It is covered in hundreds of LED lights that create a new pattern every day- infact the same pattern won't be repeated for another 20 years. On the East Wall there is an illusion as you walk past, but this has limited success. The audio installation is interesting and adds to the existing noises of the trains above.

One thing I think it fails to do is quieten the traffic noise in the tunnel. The tunnel is certainly more pleasant than it was before, but traffic noise still dominates over the arts installation- something the installation was intended to rectify. I also think that the project would be better if the LED lights were also used on the West Wall as well as the East. The sound installation could still exist if this was done too. While the static patterns are interesting, I would love to see the lights constantly changing to create a dynamic, moving installation.

Light Neville Street has greatly improved this entrance to Central Leeds without doubt. I have no major criticisms of the project, but I am sure that other residents of the City will have huge reservations over the astronomical cost of a small arts project.