Journaling and Blogging

Photo by pigstubs.

Around the start of this year I started to get into journaling. And I have to say that It has been a great experience, specially now that I’m blogging somewhat more consistently as well (lets forget this gap during April and May please). I feel that both blogging and writing a journal are great complements to each other. On this post I will tell you a bit about how I approach writing for the two mediums.

In my Journal, I direct my writing to future readers. And while I haven’t yet done so, I know that one day I will re-read these journal entries. Therefore, in a way, I am directing what I write to this future Norman that is going to read what’s on the journal. Personally, I feel that writing a journal is much more personal than writing for a blog, so don't expect to read stuff like "what-I-did-yesterday-was" on my blog. I reserve that stuff for my journal.

The way I view writing on my the blog is more focused on other viewers other than myself. Even though what I write is about my views and ideas, I write so that others may think about or learn from what I've written. For me blogging is more about sharing with others than writing about what I've done.

The line between journaling and blogging is little blurry for me because my writing medium for blogging and journaling are both computer programs. I use ViJournal as my journal and a combination of Marsedit and Macjournal for my blog and blog drafts respectively.

For me the distinction between the two mediums is the audience. In my journal I write for myself, either to vent of to write about personal stuff. Blogging for me is more about the public in general, about others. My blog is my space where I share with others about my interests and work.

Details

Here we are, with another video from Norman Perez's archive of artwork. This time we have "Details" a video that combines still images with 3D animation.



In this video I tried to present the sensation that when we are surrounded by an excess of information we lose sight of the details around us. The video starts with a single object in view and with the music sounding clear. However, as the view moves and shows more of the surrounding area, the music becomes more cacophonous and a stream of abstract objects overwhelms the scene.

Tagline change

I found out that I never explained the reasoning behind my tagline. Art/Animation, Philosophy/Ideologies, Technology/Web are the three sets of topics that I’ve decided to make my blog about. While I may have decided to concentrate on these subjects for my blog, the decision is not set in stone


On that account, I’ve found that I need to change the tagline for my blog. I’ve seen that I have rarely, if ever, touched the subjects of philosophy or ideologies on my blogs or even on my drafts for posts. Even though its a topic that interests me, I’ve found very little to write about them.

However I have noticed that some topics that I would like deal with more are those of productivity and purpose. For me these two topics are very related as I see that too be truly productive one needs to have their purpose clear.

I think the underlying reason for this change is due to what I read about most often. While I while I may be interested in philosophy I don’t read so much about it in comparison with what I do read about purpose and productivity (for example Lifehacker is one of my favorite sites).

In conclusion! This blog’s tagline will no longer be Art/Animation, Philosophy/Ideologies, Technology/Web.

It will now be:

Art/Animation, Purpose/Productivity, Technology/Web

Video of the week: Runner

From BLR_VFX’s vimeo site:

Exploit yourself is a Spec commercial inspired by NIKE.

Directed by Carl Erik Rinsch, Expliot yourself talks about your own limits. The commercial was produced in Big Lazy Robot Visual Effects studio from february to may.

Our wish was to show off the nerve and spark and freshness of the city with the strength and power of modern sport competition, all in a whole 3d environment.

‘Exploit Yourself’ talks about pushing your limits just for the sake of it.

Who said life at the city was placid?

The Runner -Exploit yourself- from BLR_VFX on Vimeo.

Personally I love how they combined the concepts of parkour and technology in this video. It’s as though you need to be a robot to have the agility and strength necessary to be do the moves you see.

I also find interesting that they never show the runner’s face. For me it adds a sense of mystery. It makes you ask questions like: who is the robot running from? Or if whether or not the runner is even a robot or maybe a cyborg? Actually the making-of video has sketches that show it’s face (robot face for all intents and purposes), but still the question of who is this character is still there.

Path to enlightenment 3D

Another old video of mine. This one was part of a rather large project I worked on. The story behind this video started when I took a Asian History of Art class. There I learned that one of the most important structures of the Buddhist religion are stupas (reliquaries the are used in part of their practices). I was fascinated by them, specially by the fact that by their mere shape one could make out so many symbols and meanings. I was also fascinated by how it was incorporated into their rituals such as the one were they circumambulate (walk) around the structure.

After taking this class, I decided that I would build a video-installation that would interpret some of the symbols present in the stupa. The first part of the project was to create this video that would later be projected on an installation I would build.

The structure one see at first is a Tibetan style stupa. And, each set of images one sees on the inside of the structure is supposed to represent what each layer on a stupa symbolizes.

Mindmapping

Diagram by Philippe Boukobza

One of my techniques for writing notes in classes was to create diagrams. Other times I would still write them in sentences but I would connect them to other sections of my notes using lines or marks. I never thought that there would be a computer program that would get close to how I worked but I've found that there are quite few mindmapping programs that get pretty close. Mindmapping is a fancy word for diagrams where there is a central word or idea that is connected to other related ones. Essentially you end up with a large branching diagram that looks like the root of a tree.

The program I'm using now is called MindNode (the free version) and it's been an great experience working with it. It works just like a the mindmapping process I explained above and it's is mainly promoted for its use as a brainstorming tool. However the way I use it is more structured and less spontaneous. Still, in certain circumstances, creating diagrams like these feels a lot more natural to me than writing outlines or using prose. For example when looking to learn how to procrastinate less I created a mindmap of the reasons and possible solutions to my procrastination problem.

I feel that using mindmaps is a great alternative for people looking to organize and better understand their ideas.

Video of the week: Jasper Morello

This isn't what we would call a normal youtube video (spending more than 4 minutes watching a video is an investment these days). But for this week's video I decided to present you the whole animated short: The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello.

Directed by Anthony Lucas

This short was nominated for an Oscar and I think it deserve this honor since it had a great story while at the same time uaing a unique way to present it through the use of silhouettes. I feel that the use of silhouettes let you identify with the characters more easily plus it adds to the mystery of the story.

My reasons for the Ipad

Around a month ago I posted an entry about my favorite E-readers and at the time I didn't write anything about this Ipad thing Apple is going to release simply because I didn't know about it. And let this be clear: I knew about the rumors (who didn't know about them if they followed tech news) but I wasn't convinced; I've been burned before by these apple rumors. However my expectation of these rumors being false were proven wrong and Apple released their mythical tablet: the Ipad.

I decided to wait before writing this article to overcome my excitement and to read the arguments against the iPad. And there have been lots. Personally I want to tell you folks why I think the product fits me. It may not necessarily be a perfect product or even a successful one when it comes out, but I feel it fits my lifestyle and I want to tell you why.

I feel that the Ipad really does fit somewhere between your main computer and your phone. I don't think it should or that it can even replace your main computer. However it may replace your secondary computer (laptop, netbook) or one of your additional gadgets (E-reader, MP3 player). For me it would be a good replacement of my aging laptop. These days I've been using it to play games on it, but waiting 10 minutes to start playing Civilization is just annoying. I think that the iphone games that are available and the ones that might come out for the iPad will be good enough and have the right price for me to relax during the day without breaking the bank. I won't be able to play Windows games, I know, but that's ok since I couldn't play any of the newer ones on my old laptop anyway.

Another use I might have for it is to show my artwork to people. It's a bit annoying to carry your stuff in a thumb-drive and have to pray that the person has quicktime on their computer or play them from my website and wait for the video to download. I feel that this way it would be like having a portable portfolio for my work. I could use an iPhone to carry these videos but then I would not have the screen size the iPad has to better showcase my work.

Now, I know that there's a lack of flash in the iPad/iPhone world but I don't see the point. I don't go to that many sites were the content is flash based, like in Hulu or Newgrounds. And the other sites I go to pretty much only use it on ads. Personally, I feel that unless there is a need to make the site entirely on flash, it should be used as little as possible on a site. So with web-surfing habits like mine where I don't absolutely need flash I can live with what the iPad offers for the browsing I do.

However one of the things I constantly do on the web is read articles through my RSS reader (I'm a fan of NetNewsWire). So with the Ipad and already available RSS readers for the iPhone I can read my articles without having to constantly use my Imac. Plus with the iBooks app they plan to roll out I can also get into reading ebooks on it as well.

Overall My reasons for considering purchasing the iPad are its gaming platform capabilities, using it as a portfolio and for reading my RSS feeds. However, since the product hasn't been released yet, I have no concrete way of knowing wether it can do these things adequately. I'll have to wait until I know for sure but I look forward to testing the device and putting it through its paces.