Yeah…that’s exactly how I feel about my research right now.

Brown Skin, White Masks

"[The Typical Narrative Informant …] can feign authority while telling their conquerors not what they need to know but what they want to hear. (In return, American and European liberals call them “voices of dissent”.) Faced with the Islamophobic conditions of their new homes, they have learned the art of simultaneously acknowledging and denying their Muslim origins. They speak English with an accent that confirms their authenticity to their white interlocutors. The recent incidents of urban terrorism have been so good for their business that they have had to hire PR firms (such as Benador
Associates) to negotiate their speaking fees and manage their media appearances."

Brown Skin, White Masks by Hamid Dabashi (2011)

Whereas Dabashi’s thesis focuses on the intellectual as “narrative informant” (Rushdie, Nafisi, Warraq, Manji, Hirsi Ali, and Ajami), it seems a new form of “narrative informant” is among us, one that isn’t only confined to academic circles, but rather within the creative/cultural space - the pseudo intellectual cultural practitioner.

Riders of the London Underground

Photographer Bob Mazzer captured Tube riders during the 1970s and 80s. This series is really interesting to see. It feels as though the Tube had a much more eclectic demographic because it was much more accessible years ago. I wish the names of the stations were included though.

35 Clueless quotes

35 Clueless Quotes that Make Everyday Life Worth Living

4. Tai: Why should I listen to you, anyway? You’re a virgin who can’t drive. Cher: That was way harsh, Tai.

Happy 18th birthday to one of the most brilliant films of the 90s - Clueless. It never ages.

Preparing the literature review

This is exactly how I feel about my research right now - dipping into one too many topics.

Fantastic Man vs. Adam Levant

A few months back, I found myself in a waiting area sitting next to a famous graphic designer. This designer, who was formerly a big magazine collector, told me that he hates magazines because, “they all look like, or try to look like, Fantastic Man to me.”

While looking through Antoine bookshop in Beirut last week, I stumbled on “Adam Levant,” a magazine “for the man of the Middle East.” I snapped this shot to show you just how much this attempts to look like Fantastic Man, in both design and concept…guess the magazine cynic was right.

The Literature Review: Colonialism, nationalism, and education

The next set of readings

The Full McBain Movie Hidden Throughout Simpsons Episodes

The Full McBain Movie Hidden Throughout Simpsons Episodes

http://gawker.com/5750211/the-full-mcbain-movie-hidden-throughout-simpsons-epsiodes

!!!

!!!

Why The Simpsons is one of the most amazing TV shows

The history of typography

Great video on the History of Typography by Ben Barrett-Forrest. Apparently, it took 140 hours of work, 2,454 pictures, and 291 paper cut outs for the 5 minute animation.

Biennales on the Edge

"[…] the Indonesian city of Bandung, which — again, auspiciously, in 1955 — held the conference at which Asian and African countries that were not aligned with either the US-led capitalist ‘First World’ or the U.S.S.R.-backed communist ‘Second World’ sought an alternative, transversal community of so-called ‘non-aligned’ nations. This was the birth of the ‘Third World’ not as a racialized category of poverty or under-development, as it would become in the First World’s hierarchical imagination, but as a critical geopolitical entity, one based less on explicit ties of solidarity than on shared experiences of decolonization and an insistence on independence from the Russo-American binaries of the Cold War."

Biennales on the Edge, or, a View of Biennales from Southern Perspectives - Anthony Gardner 

This is what happens to diagrams after a 3 hour supervisory meeting.

Clients From Hell: Editor’s Note: This story was submitted with theclient comments in...

Clients From Hell: Editor’s Note: This story was submitted with the client comments in...

clientsfromhell:

Editor’s Note: This story was submitted with the client comments in green comic sans, which was impressive to include, but something I don’t want to subject our readers to.

I work as a photographer in the Middle East, where aesthetic value is depressed across all industries. The demand…

Haha, reminds me of a recent blow up I had on a woman who thought all branding projects should be made into a student design competition so they can get the work free of charge.

Should social design be taught in the art college?

A question and a quote summarising my presentation. Looking forward to further developing this presentation into a more comprehensive research paper.

Damaged books

The Goldsmiths library has impressed me, but I’ve noticed the most haggled books happen to be related to post colonial studies, cultural imperialism (see above) and anything by Foucault, Barthes, Hall, Papanek, etc etc. The one I’m currently reading, a 1991 edition of Tomlinson’s Cultural Imperialism, contains highlighted passages, notes in pen and pencil, underlines and doodles (mostly flowers). It’s also falling apart (but not as bad as Design for the Real World, where I spent a good time reading and scotch taping the pages back in - unfortunately all three versions at the library had pages falling out.) But seriously, isn’t this cover awesome?

The ‘Good’ Design Brief: Examining the effects of social design projects on communities

I will be presenting my brief paper “The ‘Good’ Design Brief: Examining the effects of social design projects on communities” at the Goldsmiths Graduate Festival on the 30th of April at 11:30am.

The festival goes on for three weeks and features a wide array of performances, installations, papers and more by the Goldsmiths, University of London graduate community.

gold.ac.uk/graduate-school/goldsmithsgraduatefestival/