BigShinyThing

You can access our Bistrotheque Annual Drag Ball photos directly on Flickr, with the rest of our London club photography. Excellent pictures from others can be found in the associated Flickr photo pool. [Image © Darrell Berry]

[And thanks to Jim @ Horse Meat Disco and Helen @ Film Noir]

BST: What was/is the vision behind This Is A Magazine? Has it changed/evolved over time?

This is a magazine about nothing.

The production values of TIAM are extraordinary — what is the nature of the relationship between This Is A Magazine and its printers/paper suppliers?

The Compendia are published with the help of a paper sponsor (Sappi) and the long standing collaboration with the print-suppliers Nava Milano. We work very closely with Nava on the production of the books which in a way become the result of the conversion of industrial processes into ideas and back again. “Who I Think I Am” was awarded one of the print industry’s most prestigious honors, the Gold Ink Award for Best Hard-cover Book world-wide thanks to our partners Nava.

Does your publication generate business and leads for the artists involved?

Each artist relationship is unique, some publishing for the first time such as Atsushi Hasegawa or Boogie, others are already established such as David Shrigley or Antonio Riello. Each collaboration evolves into a world in itself, each with its own particular orbit.

Personally, between making our own artworks and producing the various editions Karen, Ann and I rarely become fully conscious of the notoriety the project brings. Sometimes we get invited to art fairs and openings, which is always nice. But ultimately I think business does not always know what to do with us.

Is there any brief to the artists involved or is it simply ‘whatever you want to do’/'go crazy’?

Although we don’t offer predetermined themes or briefs to artists, much of what you see published is the result of a dialogue and (sometimes) several exchanges of varying vivacity between ourselves and the artists.

The content of this Compendium seems less political than previous ones — was this a conscious decision?

The short answer is that each edition is a by-product of our experiences.

The long answer is that with “Who I think I am” we wanted to make a collection of psycho-dramas played out in determining the parameters of that social-contract called “identity”. The book begins by asking for the reader’s signature of agreement that he/she will be required to “complete” the book, and therefore the reader is implied as an explicit and necessary part in determining the artist’s individual works, and ultimately the book’s collective vision. The book ends with a bag of cutouts from all the Compendia to date that can be used to complete the final chapter, which is presented as empty pages of coloured craft-paper. This is a game of empowerment where the political structure of publishing, where the roles of passive-reader and dead-author are inverted.

Who are your target market?

We are not organized or systematic in our approach to marketing, in our very first issue we opened with a warning: “Marketing studies have shown that you probably will not like this magazine”. We work directly with some bookstores mainly because we like them and know the owners and people who shop there, otherwise we trust that we can connect with potential readers through whatever means available, for example word-of-web.

What is the intended reaction to the content (if there is one)?

We want everything to come up to the surface, like in an earthquake. Then the reader can sift through and find whatever is of interest/use, and (we hope) rebuild new meanings.

Where do you see This Is A Magazine going next?

The publication started as an online flipbook, with micro-animations, from there we moved to streaming QuickTime editions (which we called Peepshows), followed by a PowerPoint issue which was intended to be performed, an animated-gif issue and most recently we are exploring raw programming languages so that the issues can be generated in real-time viewing. During these years we have produced a full-length DVD and read-along giant-picture folio book, a bunch of other Compendia which took various forms, the most recent being “Who I think I am”. Where to next? We have 2 squeaky-new online issues ready to launch including the hidden “jonkers worst comic ever”, and we have started production on a new 2008 compendium called “Trust me, you will not be sorry”, all made from smoke and mirrors and other magic.

With thanks to Andy and Karen Donnachie and also Simon and David at Someone.

Pictures from Studio Neon at Egg on Friday 24th August 2007. You can access our Studio Neon photos directly on Flickr, with the rest of our London club photography. [Image © Darrell Berry]

[Thanks to Helen @ Film Noir]

The FT reports today that America’s intelligence agencies are about to launch ‘A Space’, an internal communications tool modelled on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Thomas Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), believes that the site will help dismantle the agencies’ siloed mentalities and help process increasing amounts of information where the number of analysts is limited. He told the FT, “Burying the same number of analysts in ever higher piles of hay would no more increase the number of needles.”

Of course, this story has rather handily come out the day before ‘a systemic failure’ was blamed for the CIA failing to predict the 911 terrorist attacks.

The DNI has also built an internal collaborative site called Intellipedia, based on Wikipedia. The CIA recently used Facebook to recruit and has created a version of del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site, for members of the intelligence community. Another tool is an intelligence library which can be accessed via A Space.

The big lesson here is even the intelligence community is beginning to recognise the importance of opening up flows of communication and information. Mike Wertheimer, the senior DNI officer for analytic for transformation and technology (we are LOVING these job titles) said that, “We are willing to experiment in ways that we have never experimented before. It breaks a lot of traditional senses that people’s lives are at risk, and how can you take any step that increases that risk.” Spies — like big corporates — have issues with sharing stuff. But maybe for better reasons. Wertheimer says, “They ask ‘well can we have access (to the intelligence library)?’ I ask them back if you want access, what services are you willing to put in, have you thought through your risk/profit scenario? They kind of stand back because that is not normally how we talk to them. It is a new day.”

All those organisations busily banning Facebook and other new tools of collaboration and communication should take heed.

See more at SCOTTO.

Via WOW.

Last night I had a strange dream. The Two Fat Ladies (of cookery show ‘fame’) came to me, explaining that my computer had the first real Mac virus and that I’d signed up for every porn site on the web automatically. I now owed in excess of $10m on my credit card and I’d better come up with something quickly.

Ignoring what this says about my psyche (TV-obsessed, with a thing for matron figures, obviously unclean, feeling guilty about my erased bookmarks and in dire financial straits perhaps?) it did start me thinking. Web 1.0 was rubbish. Web 2.0 was better but still every little piece of my life online was pigeon-holed somewhere. I was promised my 15MB of fame and have been forced to settle for 26 comments on one of my flickr pics (a woman walking naked down a busy Brooklyn street). What will Web 3.0 really be like I wonder? Well here are some thoughts.

First of all I think that Social Networking will go beyond sending someone a virtual puppy on Facebook and start to morph into something useful. What’s the point of having 312 MySpace friends if you can’t borrow money from them?

I may be alone in this but I reckon that Social Networking will expand into community business with Friend Loans (yup, really ­ borrow money from those cyber friends, or put money into the pot for a decent rate of interest), group buying communities (you like Jabba figures too? Let¹s get together and negotiate a job lot) and Social Networking channels for people who like the same content and are happy broadcasting only to each other.

The End of Privacy

Everything I’ve done, said, thought and dreamed about in the last 2 years is somewhere out there online. I have no issue with that. Let’s face it; a lot of it was done not for immediate pleasure but in the knowledge that I’d get to post it later. I’ve said it often (as my web friends know) but I live my own life vicariously. The web has forced me to be interesting and if that means people being able to google my ass (literally) then so be it. At least in years to come I’ll be able to look back at a higher, firmer ass and say “those were the days”.

To this end I’m trying to get a bar concept off the ground. You round up all of the people indulging in a spot of on-cam cyber sex (via something like j-meeting) and you project them onto screens all around the bar. Turning something private into something public and helping end privacy once and for all. The great thing is they don’t know when/if they’re being broadcast.
Adds to the exhibitionist thrill for them and to voyeuristic thrill of my punters.

Marco Polo

There’s a lot to discover out there on the information superhighway. I predict, no I demand, that in the very near future people will pay ODiscoverers to go out and find specific content worth bookmarking for them. Actually they’ll probably just get the brands that they love to do it for them (I’d love to know what Gucci thinks is worth book marking).

Better brands

You know whether you’re a Match.com person or a Nerve.com person (are you looking for bridge and tunnel sex ­ not as dirty as it sounds) or for kinky sex with an underweight hipster on a urine stained mattress in a neighborhood that rings with Eastern European accents? The rest of the web is still a little unbranded. Right now 98% of everything sells something. But what nobody is taking into account is the fact that I want to buy my Burlesque books from someone I imagine wearing a corset rather than from the Amazon algorithm.

Babelfish 2.0

How about we move to one bloody platform. I have Mac, PC, Blackberry, CDMA phone, GSM phone and a Treo that I hate. Why don’t they all speak Intel? Somebody has to own portability. Somebody needs to offer me a techie babelfish.

Riding The Cloud

Let’s have lots of small, easily downloadable apps that surf the cloud of tags, images (and yes I want to be able to google search a picture too) and titles out there. I want to be able to Ovirtual tag the places that I love and search for things close by that I want to photograph. I want the world to be searchable and for my apps to all have access to that data.

So okay this has been a mad ramble. But it was a mad dream. Anyone that wants in on the bar, I’m serious about it.

Steve Walls is an inventor at What If New York.

It’s a bit too close to Creature Comforts for — um — comfort but a nice stage in the evolution of corporate communications all the same. Coca-Cola’s ‘Making of’ last year’s animated TV spot features the v/os of actual ‘happy’ workers.

Dansistor launched 11th August and will run monthly. Horse Meat (like you didn’t know) is every Sunday. You can access our Dansistor photos directly on Flickr, along with our other London club photography. [Image © Darrell Berry]

[And thanks to Tim for last-minute Nikon CLS tech assistance!]

All we have to say is: Ceremony, Hallelujah, Blue Monday, Hacienda.

Via NME.

Singer songwriter and producer who famously collaborated with Nancy Sinatra dies aged 78. According to the BBC report, on being diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2005, Hazlewood gave away his gold and platinum discs to friends outside the music industry and started worked on his final album, Cake Or Death.

Spotted in Shoreditch. Niiiice.