In this article, we are going to take a little tour through the history of information – or more specifically where to focus efforts if you want get in touch with other people.
Dub is your mobile business card. The goal driving DubMeNow is developing better ways to communicate, network, and exchange contact information – all from your mobile phone!
Read an interesting article on the NYTimes.com today, The Songs They Can’t Forget, which talks about how music can reach people with Alzheimer’s disease. From the article:
“Music has the power to bypass the mind and wash through us, triggering strong feelings and cuing the body to synchronize with its rhythm.
Researchers and clinicians are finding that when all other means of communication have shut down, people remember and respond to music. Familiar songs can help people with dementia relate to others, move more easily and experience joy.
Music memory is preserved better than verbal memory, according to Ms. Clair, because music, unlike language, is not seated in a specific area of the brain but processed across many parts.
Patients with a wide range of ailments — from children with disabilities to burn victims to people with Parkinson’s disease and stroke — have experienced the ability of MT to speed healing, improve mood and increase mobility.“
The healing/therapeutic aspect reminds me of the Patch Adams story, but with a musical twist.
I’ve been noticing some really interesting street art coming out of one of the BRIC countries recently: Brazil. Brazil’s rising creative and cultural strength and identity is resulting in some exceptional artwork and graffiti.
One of the things I learned at the recent PSFK Conference NYC from the Wooster Collective is that every piece of art has a story, so even thought the following pieces are upfront visually engaging, there’s deeper reasons and meanings behind their creation.
Here’s a brief collection of Brazilian street art I’ve found over the past several months:
PSFK also had a recent post on Pixação graffiti in Brazil:
“The angular style that seems to cover the city of Sao Paulo was first used in the early 80s and was inspired by heavy metal typography which in turn was inspired by viking type-style.”
The Big Picture is a photo blog that also has some great pics of the favelas in Brazil that are covered with giant pics of women that have suffered from among others things, drug trafficking and violence. This art display was created by a photographer named JR who has also recently launched his “Women Are Heroes” campaign.
I also learned of some colorful street art by Titi Freak, a Brazilian artist with Japanese ancestry that I really like. Check out these lovely Koi fish:
As Planners, if we’re really going to “think outside the box,” we need to think outside the lines of geography and physical limitations. There’s interesting changes going on outside our own borders and the unique urban artistry that’s evolved from societal, political and economic events should be recognized and understood. Sometimes thinking outside the box means going outside our normal boundaries and figuring out how we can find ideas and inspiration in other sources, and making them relevant to what’s in front of us.
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