In 1996 I saw the Mediascape exhibition at the Guggenheim SoHo. A collection of digital art, some interactive, it was bold show from a major museum. It received mixed reviews — but one of the pieces there left a lasting impression on me. It was “Piano – As Media Image” by Toshio Iwai. From the exhibition’s catalog: [the piece] combines a real grand piano with virtual images. The player uses a trackball to place luminous…
 
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  It’s a beautiful day here in Los Angeles. So going to rainy London doesn’t seem like that much fun. But I think I might change my mind if I could go see the recently opened exhibit Decode: Digital Design Sensations at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The exhibition: “…showcases the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small, screen-based, graphics to large-scale interactive installations. The exhibition includes works by established international artists and…
 
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Ever since last week’s iPad launch, the image of an iPad’s web browser with the missing-plugin Lego-brick has been generating a lot of discussion. Is Apple at war with Adobe? Is Adobe’s Flash critical to the web experience? Is Apple’s restriction going to doom the iPad? It’s not only bloggers talking, even the New York times has a story on the issue. There’s a great deal of support for not including Flash. In fact, the…
 
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In 1994 Muriel Cooper presented work at the TED5 conference in Monterey, CA that changed the way designers thought of the possibilities of electronic media. The work, from her group at the MIT Media Lab‘s Visible Language Workshop (or VLW), took typography, literally, into three dimensions — and gave it dynamics and interactivity that had never been seen before. Tragically it was just after this that she passed away. I was a grad student in…
 
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