Archive - The Watermill Residency video | Open Studio | Maya Chami

Maya Chami | Open Studio | June 14, 2014 from The Watermill Center on Vimeo.
On June 14, 2014, Maya Chami presented three audio-visual works, Of Men, Champagne and Victory Aside (2012) and Transitional digital objects (2011) as well as a new work titled Jasmine - Tree: Copy Cat, inspired by The Watermill Center cat.

Born in Beirut in 1981, practitioner in graphic design and digital arts Maya Chami obtained a bachelor of science in graphic design from the Lebanese American University. In 2006, she was selected to participate in the UNESCO online masters module on art, design and technology, and in 2011 I completed her masters degree in digital arts at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London. She works in graphic design and digital arts on both commissioned and personal projects and has participated in several design and digital arts exhibits and events.
Maya's portfolio of live audio-visual work includes “Transitional Digital Objects” (2011), which explores compositing an autobiography in live cinema; “Of Men, Champagne and Victory Aside" (2012), a live audio-visual presentation, merging laptop-generated visuals and live music in a playful examination into the theme of the ‘victory sign’ in the Arab world, from the 1980s to the present.

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/what-matters-to-the-worlds-most-important-designers/

9 of the World’s Leading Designers Talk About What Matters Now

• Kyle VanHemert Design
• 01.14.15
• 6:30 am

Design is in flux. Where its practitioners were once expected to produce chairs, lamps, logos and letterheads, today their work is often less visible. Increasingly, design is concerned with interactions and experiences—it’s about software and the vast systems that power it. We asked nine top designers to talk about their craft and what it means today. Here’s what they said.

A World of Invisible Solutions

Robert Brunner Cofounder, Ammunition

Beats Studio headphones

There seems to be a difference between how most people perceive design and what designers really do. Why? People don't realize that their entire lives are shaped by a designer's work—from their home to their car to their office to nearly every object they use. We're deeply affected by the things other people have created, which outlines the importance of what designers do. But most people don't think this way. They assume things plopped out of a factory somewhere. By contrast, designers must see more deeply. The most valuable lesson they can learn is to keep their eyes open.

Gentry Underwood Head of Design, Dropbox

Mailbox email app

What's one overlooked or underappreciated way in which design affects our lives? Great design often disappears, leaving the user with no more than a simple and intuitive experience. This “invisible” design is all around us—in those airports where we have no trouble finding our flight, when we know just where to stand when waiting for a table, or when we thoughtlessly switch out the lights in a hotel room we've never been in before. It's only when we can't do common actions like these—when we fuss and fiddle and find ourselves lost—that the opportunity for design becomes apparent.

Building Experiences and Interactions, Not Artifacts

Jack Schulze Cofounder, Berg

Berg Little Printer

How is the current moment in design different from those before? When I was studying graphic design in the late '90s, there was a dream that as a designer, if you were good enough, you might create an archetype for the age—the sorts of things you see in Mad Men, artifacts and images that characterize an era. But when I graduated, it became abundantly clear that when people looked back on the decade to come, they would not be looking at record covers or chairs. It was going to be glowing rectangles and software. People would remember the aesthetics and noises of operating systems, the first time they pinch-zoomed something, the aesthetics of Google Maps, the Nokia ringtone, and Candy Crush Saga.

Kim Colin Cofounder, Industrial Facility

Herman Miller Locale desk

How has the role of the designer changed since you first started? The discipline has entered popular culture in funny ways recently—some of which we should celebrate and some we should be wary of. But this hasn't changed the fact that there is still no consensus about the role of our work. Are you a stylist? Do you serve brands? Do you make things? Did you invent that technology? Are you a philosopher? Can you fix a TV? I've been asked all of these! We continue to ask, what is design? And this is a healthy question to ask and to keep asking. Design is a collaborative effort between designers, manufacturers, distributors, and consumers. Raising questions propels us toward better things.

Jonas Damon Executive Creative Director, Frog

Areaware iPhone radio dock

How have the problems you work on changed in recent years? Designers have had to become hybrids. In the '60s, '70s, and '80s, the industrial designer's role was clear: Create a physical object. Now I have to understand the technology that drives it, the physical components, the sensors, the ecosystem. I need to understand how a person will interact with it—whether that's on the object itself or a smartphone app. I need to understand how it fits in with the brand. High design was once much more exclusive. Now it has trickled down and touches so much. Because of that, the designer has to be far more aware of society—and much more sensitive to it.

Natasha Jen Partner, Pentagram

Identity system for OfficeUS

Technology is not only changing how we design, but also the types of things we design. How has this affected your work? Obviously, technology has been shaping every design discipline. It creates new needs and desires on an unimaginable scale. It also establishes new criteria for evaluating how design works. For example, graphic design is an indispensable part of all digital interfaces—so it has never been scrutinized so closely for performance. It's an amazing time to be a designer: There's so much terrain that's yet to be discovered. There's so much yet to be tested and so much yet to be improved. It's fascinating to think how design now will be viewed in 20, 50, or 100 years.

From Books to Service to Algorithms

Bethany Koby CEO and Cofounder, Technology Will Save Us

TWSU plant-monitoring kit

Describe a case where thoughtful design has an impact beyond just producing a prettier object. I have become increasingly excited about service design. When a service experience has really been thought through, it can make a lasting impression on someone's life. My example is having a child here in the UK, under the care of the National Health Services. It was incredible. Someone designed this experience with empathy and creativity. Not only did I have both digital and printed records of my doctor's visits along my nine-month journey, but I also had access to classes, a midwife, and automatic reminders about doctor's appointments and my son's development milestones. And all of this was for free!

Mia Blume Product Design Manager, Pinterest

Pinterest’s guided search

What everyday object or product do you find especially well designed, and why? I love the design of books. Not ebooks, real books. Books represent one of our oldest utilities and communication tools. Their design—from the structure to the art of the page—has been developed over centuries to relay information and stories. Every aspect is designed for function and production, yet books remain a nuanced craft, from the binding to the serifs on a page. Even today, our digital versions seek to imitate the structure, workmanship, and emotional connection of a well-honed volume.

Alexis Lloyd Creative Director, New York Times R+D Lab

NYT R&D’S smart kitchen

What big problem keeps you up at night? We're seeing new relationships emerging between people and technology. Algorithms influence an ever-increasing number of facets of our lives: the media we consume, what our health insurance knows about our physical condition, whether we're approved for loans or hired for jobs, and whom we may date or marry. But we don't have much agency in those interactions. These “smart” systems are black boxes, eschewing transparency in favor of simplicity. But when we can't interrogate a system, that disenfranchises us. Designers now must facilitate interactions that balance ease of use with transparency.

Danilo Agutoli

Test for "Jasmine-Tree: Copy Cat" Project - Foreground only

Test for "Jasmine-Tree: Copy Cat" Project - Foreground only from maya chami on Vimeo.

final edited clips - white heels

transitional digital objects - white heels - 2011 from maya chami on Vimeo.

final edited clips - wave building

transitional digital objects - wave building - 2011 from maya chami on Vimeo.

final edited clips - slide flower

transitional digital objects - slide flower - 2011 from maya chami on Vimeo.

final edited clips - pinochio

transitional digital objects - pinochio -2011 from maya chami on Vimeo.

final edited clips - plastic purple heart

transitional digital objects - plastic purple heart - 2011 from maya chami on Vimeo.

final edited clips - crane

transitional digital objects - crane - 2011 from maya chami on Vimeo.

final edited clips - bricks

transitional digital objects - bricks - 2011 from maya chami on Vimeo.

final edited clips - buttons

transitional digital objects - buttons - 2011 from maya chami on Vimeo.

final edited clips - ladder

transitional digital objects - ladder - 2011 from maya chami on Vimeo.

final edited clips - marble

transitional digital objects - marble - 2011 from maya chami on Vimeo.

KORG NANO KONTROL 2 From KORG

The Korg midi controller that I might need.

Below taken from the website: http://www.korg.com/nanoSERIES

Compact USB Controllers

Meet the Korg nanoSERIES - The Most Compact Family of USB-MIDI Controllers Ever!

The Korg nanoSERIES provide a keyboard controller, a pad controller, and a studio controller with dedicated transport controls. Each of these USB-powered, slim-line controllers is designed to make the most of your valuable studio space, and is small enough to take with you on any musical journey. Place one of our keyboard controllers in front of your laptop, rest a pad controller on your music workstation, park a studio controller on your recording console - or anywhere else you need versatile control over your DAW, virtual instrument, effect or DJ software. Although small in size, all three nanoSERIES controllers go HUGE when it comes to functionality, yet their intuitive layouts provide extremely easy operation for any user.

So c'mon; meet the nanoSERIES!
The first on our list is the nanoKEY, keyboard controller, featuring a great-feeling 25-key velocity-sensitive keyboard that's ideal for song production. Each key on this USB-MIDI controller can also be set to send MIDI control data, further expanding its power.

Next up on our list is the nanoPAD, a pad controller featuring 12 highly responsive trigger pads, each one capable of sending up to eight notes - or eight MIDI control messages - simultaneously, in addition to an X-Y touchpad with roll and flam functions for realistic drum programming.

Last, but not least, the nanoKONTROL offers nine faders, nine knobs, 18 switches, plus a full transport section for expansive control; even a flexible note input mode to help you lay down your next big groove!

draft_sound_1

here are some of the sentences in Ziad's voice, these will be later embedded within the sound.

Final Sentences Sound and Voices

2 weeks ago, I asked a tenor friend Ziad Nehme, to try to read operatically the sentences I would like to embed in the sound layer of the project. I also contacted another friend (who would like to remain anonymous for professional reasons) to compose and edit the sound layer.
There is no one reason why I would like to include an operatic narrator in the project. I love Ziad's voice, and in the drafts he sent me (to be posted in another note) he reminded me of when I used to come up with songs when we were young, a very common boredom related exercise. Do children still do that?
Here are the sentences I asked him to sing, the long ones will be rather read.

- Transitional Digital Objects: Fluidity in compositing an autobiography or a failure to create a portrait of the whole?
- Look at me not falling apart.
- Look at my sister.
- Look at my mother.
- Look at me, randomizing the course of my events.
- Autocorrecting my autobiography.
- My arbitrary decisions are random.
- How can I embed meaning in my random life?
- At the age of 5 I was like a black and white film, silent until further notice.
- My communication consisted of muttering few words intermittently.
- My memories are abundant there’s a jungle in my head.
- I whistle in the vacuum to retrieve a memory.
- It is all so connected like threads woven with threads.
- It is all so connected like a contour of an amorphous form.
- In a football game, the player reads and anticipates the action of the other.
- In this game, I can read and anticipate the action of you, the other.
- The idea of restoration of dialogue is omnipresent.
- We were two kids, my older sister and I, living with our parents. Our entertainment was to watch the plants grow and the flowers blossom. My mother’s efforts in providing us amusement included, one day, an outing to watch a football game at the only playing field in the village. Upon our arrival, one of the players kicks the ball and the ball hits me squarely in the face. As my nose starts bleeding, my mom quickly takes me into her lap and places my head on her shoulder. She runs back with me towards our house to nurse my injury. That day, my nose bled so much it ruined the removable collar of my mother’s dress.
- The removal or reduction of the ‘bread and circuses’ from mass culture will threaten the continued operation of the market and society, as well as higher philosophical truth.
- Beirut had become a potential ‘winning’ project; the mere existence of the country on the map is a victory.
- The citizens reclaim symbols of the republic, the flag and the national anthem which otherwise are usually confiscated as the property of right wing nationalists.
- The delirious crowd, the intellectuals glued to their television screens, and the public literally colonized by magical passes or punches.
- “Voluntarism of imagination” on a small screen.
- The simulacrum of the field is a field in reduction, a micro-field.
- On ultra big screens: the ability to imagine is reduced to zero.
- The screen enlarges players, giving back to the audience, as in their early days of movie theaters, their childhood perceptions… a period where all adults appeared as giants.
- The relation between the public and the television screen is revealed at the end of the match; suddenly the event is no longer inside the screen, but totally outside it.
- The screen is reduced to its modest role as witness, or substitute with the mere task of giving older and sick people a reflection of what is happening elsewhere.
- The urge instantly felt by each viewer to meet the crowd. There’s something to share, something that does not exist outside the sharing process; and that is the object that the screen cannot contain. It is at the same time the victory and the limits of the media… the moment when television screens become abandoned by all those who rush to the streets to congratulate each other.
- It is not by accident that, twenty years later, I still recall the football hitting my face that day in my parent’s village. It has become the alarm that wakes me up every morning.
- A marble / A crane / My white heels key holder / A button / the Sun / Plastic purple heart / Ladder / Flower / Wave / Me / My sister / My mother.

classicists and modernists.

Earlier this week, I was watching a Guardian video ( along with its article, could be found on the following link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/may/27/week-in-architecture-art-banksy ), about Francis Terry, a classicist architect who had intervened over the work in "Banksy's Tunnel". He mainly restored/painted a facade over one of Banksy's guests artworks, one of the people who have been invited by Banksy, almost 3 years ago, to intervene (with their graffitis) on the walls under Waterloo Station.
What Francis Terry does could be found on the following link:



The classicist annoyed me, but I couldn't figure out why really, is it because I have just watched Banksy's film "Exit through the gift shop" and I sympathize with Banksy or whether Terry's artwork was too perfectionist and at the same time meaningless for my taste? Anyways...

The article Jonathan Glancey wrote (link above) is very considerate and opens up to different dimensions, much more valuable than my simple annoyance.

So 2 days ago, again, I was watching the Helvetica documentary (about Helvetica the font), and the documentary is very good, and both visuals and research are very well done... it starts with "Designers have a huge responsibility, these are the people who put their wires into our heads" and things start deteriorating, the irritation problem again, specifically whenever I hear modernists Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones speak...

or when Bierut tears down old advertising to replace it with famous helvetica image:

I started wondering what is wrong with me and whether I am really in a compulsive hate mode? then again, in the middle of the documentary, things start to get better, when Paul Scher speaks, she says: "I was morally opposed to helvetica because I viewed the big corporations that were slathered in Helvetica as sponsors of the vietnam war, so therefore, if you used helvetica, it meant you were in favor of the vietnam war, so how could you use it?" and then Stefan Sagmeister who says: "I myself got fairly disappointed with modernism in general, it simply became boring. If I see a brochure now with lots of white space that has like six lines of helvetica up on the top and a little abstract logo on the bottom and a picture of a businessman walking somewhere, the overall communication that says to me is DO NOT READ ME, because I will bore the shit out of you, not just visually but also in content because the content will likely say the same as it says to me visually."

David Carson massacres the font "There's a fine line between simple and clean and powerful and simple and clean and boring!" and Michael C Place also intervenes in a very simple and nice way, even though he's not a Helvetica hater, he convinces you!
So helvetica is the corporate thing, not that I hate the font, but the pride of modernists experiences today are breaking me: geeks preaching and making jokes about how geeky they are!

objects as sculptures

I was skimming through the art book, "Art Now", and in the back of my mind I was hoping to find object related works. I found this sculpture by David Mach, "The Bike Stops Here", 1989, 134 x 134 x 81 cm, tête de cerf et bicylette. The main trick is the bicycle's steering that become the deer's horn, which I find a witting way of composing a universe, the latter being one my concerns lately for the project.

location: GEFINOR - possible pano - 1 angle - vertical

I have to look at how to homogenize the sky when shooting, otherwise, this could be easily fixed in photoshop.

location: GEFINOR - extra shots - upper view