SCOTT BURNHAM » media

ICON: Is Design Hacking a Quiet Revolution?

scottburnham — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:23:03 +0000

The current issue of ICON Magazine asks “From backstreet hack-labs to the Royal Society of Arts, design hacking is slowly making its way into the mainstream. But what does it offer?”

It’s an interesting read, not least of which because it contains plenty of quotes from yours truly and references to my work with design hacking, but also because Hacktivist Otto von Busch, tinker.it‘s Brock Craft, and Emily Campbell of the RSA are all asked to chime in on the topic.

A good overview by ICON Senior Editor William Wiles, who curated a nice gathering of people and opinions which hopefully back up the quote attributed to me: “design hacking as reached the cultural zeitgeist now.”

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Latest book launches in Italy

scottburnham — Tue, 26 May 2009 06:56:00 +0000

I’m pleased to share the news that the latest book to feature my work and approach towards urban creativity has just been launched in Italy. The book, Disegnare le città (Drawing cities), is an overview of a more organic and people-driven approach to design, creativity and the city rather than the top-down model that has been dominant for so long. As the introduction to the book states:

Drawing cities today cannot simply mean creating (or re-designing) an emblem for public administrations. As the populations’ needs change and diversify, so do the competences and the ways they are represented and communicated. Therefore we now can observe, alongside traditional elements, the more or less aggressive affirmation of new instruments requiring attention, specific cultural standards and creative sensibility.

In it you will find text and commentary from myself, images from some of my projects, and a number of superb contributions from others. More information can be found here.

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Web Browser as Creative Catalyst: Chrome Experiments

scottburnham — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 10:36:11 +0000

Google Creative Labs’ Creative Director Ji Lee emailed me the other day to tell me about Chrome Experiments, a new product Google Creative Labs has just launched. Now that I’ve had time to play with the site and many of the experiments, I have to report out that not only is it all good, but there’s also something particularly worthy about creative catalysts such as Chrome Experiments, as I’ll explain.

Chrome is, of course, a new open source web browser from Google. I’m a new tech addict, so when it first came out last year I fired up the old PC (the Mac version is “coming soon” says Ji), and after taking Chrome out for a ride, looking under the hood and kicking the tires, I dig Chrome.

Browsers are quickly becoming the OS of our computing lives. When I first log on early in the morning, I open the browser, work on projects with partners all over the world, email, chat, video conference, review designs and tweak images and documents, and never once leave my browser. It’s the platform for my work and global connectivity. And with Chrome Experiments, Google is extending it as a platform for creativity.

While Ji recommends “Browser Ball” and “Video Puzzle” as experiments to get things going, personally, I’d like to highlight the Monster experiment as a model of the Chrome Experiment’s creative potential. There are other experiments that are more dynamic and vibrant, but as Monster is a demonstration “of what can be done with browser web standards (without Flash)” it provides a window into another key element of creativity that is obsessing me at the moment: the creativity of constraints.

When you begin playing around with Monster, its functionality feels so much like you’re inside a Flash movie, run through the Flash plug-in. But this is straight-up Java, baby – toggle the background colour, rotate it, pan it, get right inside the creative process, with nothing but you, your keyboard, and the given functionality of the browser itself.

There’s a harmony here between experiments such as Monster, and many others within Chrome Experiments, that use only the given functionality of Java and browser standards, and the recent Wired feature Design Under Constraint: How Limits Boost Creativity. From magazine design’s constraints of a fixed page size and its 2D platform, to designing album covers for minuscule display on digital gadgets, across the board, constraints have always been a defining aspect of creativity. Today, however, as the general zeitgeist and the financial collapse turns all thoughts to one of constraints, those creatives who look at constraints, standards and fixed limitations as catalysts for expanding creative dialogue instead of choke points are well placed for a long ride upward through the downward economic cycle.

I recommend spending some time with Chrome Experiments and viewing your browser not only as a functional app, but as a platform for creativity. And for those of you who want to dig a bit deeper into Google’s platform philosophy, I recommend the book What Would Google Do?What">

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Magazine feature on “the anti-curator”

scottburnham — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:20:39 +0000

I’ve had a decent run in the media lately, which continues with a fairly lengthy article on me in the October issue of EnRoute magazine. It’s interesting that years ago articles were being written about me bringing street art into the gallery, and now the articles are about me bringing the gallery into the streets. I guess the circle is complete.

It’s a well-written piece which features, both in the magazine and online, some nice images of Roadsworth and I hanging out while he does some new work (as seen above), and quotes from others and their observations on what I do. (Now I know.) While it’s rewarding to hear a critic comment that “Burnham creates opportunities to tell stories that aren’t being told in mainstream galleries,” I’m also left to ponder how I feel about being referred to as “a kind of anti-curator”; (though “irreverent”, I do like). So while I wrestle with those issues, make up your own mind and read the article here.

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Urban Play in the media

scottburnham — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:44:02 +0000

We’re still compiling the fantastic amount of media coverage Urban Play and Experimenta Amsterdam has received over the past few days, but for now, I thought I’d share a very good video done by Dutch “Innovative Lifestyle” magazine Bright on the project. For those who want to see the Moving Forest, well, moving, or get a quick video-walkthrough of the Urban Play exhibition, this is a good start. The narrative is in Dutch, but the interviews with me and Sagmeister’s team are of course in English, and the overall video coverage is very good.

For those who would rather read than watch, an interview with me and an overview of Urban Play is on design.nl, with some great images from the street hits of Mark Jenkins and Windowzoo in addition to the design interventions.

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Interview with The European Urban Knowledge Network

scottburnham — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:19:32 +0000

An interview with me exploring the underlying themes of Urban Play has just been published on the European Urban Knowledge Network. It’s a nice platform for the debate Urban Play is causing, as the EUKN is primarily read by urban planners and policy makers. Here’s a clip:

“… [shared space in the city] is increasingly devoted to commercial messages and advertising – communication that is exclusively one-way: the public is being spoken at, in areas where the social expectation is one of shared interactions between people, so the same is expected of the shared visuals of the areas. Yet the one-way visuals and communications of the city run in opposition to the instinctive behaviour of people in the city. Therefore people are increasingly reversing the communication streams of the city and are communicating back.”

I’m fairly pleased with how the interview went. So if it’s a slow news day where you are, you can read the rest of it here.

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Mark Jenkins article for DAMn Magazine

scottburnham — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:39:29 +0000

DAMn magazine asked me to do a piece on artist Mark Jenkins, and I obliged, as I love Mark’s work and writing about it is always a pleasure. The issue has just hit the stands, so check it out.

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Berlin Beauty

scottburnham — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 08:56:03 +0000

Was interviewed yesterday by journalist Birgit Rieger for a paper in Berlin and a magazine in Barcelona – nothing like a two-for-one interview. We were discussing guerrilla design (of course) and its role in contemporary urbanism when she mentioned an intervention she came across recently in Berlin. Following the interview she was kind enough to send me an image of it (above). I love this piece and felt like sharing it – I’m particularly impressed that it has been designed to function in its three different states. Reminds me a lot of Arno Piroud’s work. Could be hers, but she usually only does the hearts on the red. [Photo by Birgit Rieger. Location: Karl-Marx-Allee in Mitte.] Thanks Birgit.

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Piece in Icon

scottburnham — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 23:05:30 +0000

Just hitting the stands now is the 50th issue of Icon, for which they asked me to do a piece on the latest wave of urban interventions. The result, “Customising the City”, is a general overview of some of the guerrilla design being done at the moment around the world. Featuring interviews and images from Leon Reid, Knitta, Pixelator, Abstractor, Mark Jenkins and a whole lot of guerrilla design goodness. Check it out.

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Times Interview

scottburnham — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 00:27:27 +0000

A little love from the media to kick off the new year. Nancy Durrant from The Times (UK) interviewed me today about my work with Village Underground in London. Village Underground is a project I’ve been working on with Auro Foxcroft for some time. For those of you in London, if you’ve seen several London Underground subway carriages sitting on top of a building on Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch, you are not hallucinating (even if you are, don’t worry, those carriages aren’t part of your trip; just find a fixed point to focus on, take a few breaths, and drink some water). The carriages are part of a much larger project to create a series of spaces in cities around the world to allow an international exchange of creativity and ideas. I’ll be writing more about Village Underground soon, but for now – the essence of the project is that Village Underground will be a catalyst for new creativity, where street-level innovation and skill sets are brought inside to refuel the tired and outdated practices that dominate much of culture today. Watch this space. And in the meantime, play the visualisation above to give you an idea of how it will look when it’s done. It’s pretty sweet.

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