Category: art

Gatvol with Getty

picture-7I’ve been trying to buy an image from Getty Images for the last few days and it’s been a harrowing experience. I’ve spent at least 2 hours trying to login to the system on Firefox. My relief was short lived when I eventually moved over to Safari: it appears that South Africa is not on the list of countries that I can choose in order to get a %$@ price.

This is my first experience using (or at least trying to use) rights-managed photos – and I can honestly say that I’d rather scour Fickr for Creative Commons-licensed images instead of frustratingly trying to get this system to work for me. It appears that Getty is very good at taking pictures of us in South Africa, but not very good at offering us a service to actually buy those photographs.

Beautiful

Pages from 'Babylon', first issue of
Jason Bronkhorst in 'Babylon', first issue of Pangram

I love the first issue of Pangram called ‘Babylon‘ and I love the reader/publisher tool they’re using called ‘Issuu‘ (great page-turning action and pretty design) and I love this great pic of Jason called ‘what-a-yummy-icky-eye-you-have-there-in-your-hands’ (actually that isn’t the official title).

I like what Jason says below about getting stuff done:

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There are many other gems in there (like Charl Malherbe‘s illos – and if you don’t know what illos are you are as dumb as I was about 2 weeks ago), so please take a look.

Jason and Charl (a.k.a. Infiltrate Media) are our favorite designers and have done some really beautiful work for us at iCommons and more recently, the rad illustrations on africancommons.org and, very impressively, these beautiful illustrations for a job I’m doing for Cyber Nurse.

The new Cyber Nurse flyer
The new Cyber Nurse flyer

What I don’t understand is why people don’t use illustrators more. In Japan, even the roadworks signs are illustrated with cute little men in uniforms, and everyone knows that being able to see cute little men in uniforms as you navigate your way through the busy streets makes ALL the difference!

I wish beautiful people like Jason and Charl and the cool folks at Pangram many, many riches (both material and immaterial). May the true ‘doers’ like them lead long and happy lives.

Ars Electronica in Jozi: Call for proposals

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Just got this in an email. Sounds very exciting indeed! The Johannesburg theme is: ‘Neighborhood and co-existence’.

‘Join Ars Electronica, voestalpine and Linz09 on an expedition around the world and into our future.

From June 18 to September 6, 2009

In 1872, author Jules Verne dispatched Phileas Fogg, a gentleman who liked nothing more than an interesting wager, on a trip “Around the World in 80 Days.” In 2009, Ars Electronica, voestalpine and Linz09 will be sending the City of Linz on such a journey. This won’t entail any physical travel though.

The mode of conveyance will be the fiber optic cables and satellite hookups of our globalized Information Society. “80+1” will be visiting 20 locations across the face of this planet at which our future is being invented and mastered or thwarted and destroyed. Each of these places is linked to a particular theme: migration, climate change, energy, resources…

Join us on this journey into the future! Send us your idea for a project: LIVE BITS – art exploring real time connectedness.

The deadline: October 31, 2008.

The aim: facilitating fruitful interaction among people at widely separated locations and analyzing it while it’s happening. All the details, topics and background info are online at www.80plus1.org.’