ambigrams.

An ambigram is a piece of stylized text that is still legible (either the same text or different) right side up or upside down.

Walking to work this morning, I think it might be the best way to consider communications - something that has a clear, valid message regardless of which angle you approach it from.  If you are betting the success of a campaign on the idea that your messages will be interpreted only from the perspective they were conceived, you are ignoring the way the world is.  Once you release a message, you relinquish control.

Control goes to the hands of anyone interested in interpreting, re-interpreting, dissecting, disseminating, remixing, mocking, re-purposing or otherwise using what you've created.  Everything has multiple readings.  Everything can be interpreted from multiple viewpoints.

Make sure you get the message across upside down or backwards.  It increases the chances of your meaning remaining visible, despite the presentation others may give your messaging.

iphone as music platform.

I will be the first to admit that owning an iPhone rather than an iPod has resulted in a massive shift from listening to music, to watching video.  That said, it's still my primary music device, and it opens some interesting possibilities.  Two notable things I've seen:

Perennial BrokenGent favourite Nine Inch Nails are featured in a special addition version of Tap Tap Revenge, a simplified Guitar Hero / DDR style rhythm game.  Included are 13 tracks from The Slip and Ghosts I-IV, apparently personally selected by patron saint of the Future of Music, Trent Reznor.  On sale for $4.99 on the iTunes app store, this is a potential, though clearly untested, additional revenue stream.  Like a Rock Band download pack for your pocket.

This idea further positions music as an additive experience, which I think has been the core impact of the iPod.  At least this implementation keeps the music as an integral element of the experience.

The second thing is the free Apps that have popped up which duplicate and expand the functionality of liner notes, including the Snow Patrol one released.  It's an interesting experience, letting users dig through origami stars that contain lyrics, behind the scenes videos, etc.  This lets the iPhone app act as both a promotional tool for the album, and an addition to the album.  Nice incentive for purchase.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  The music business isn't about selling music, or plastic slabs that contain music.  Sell simplicity, background, a datashadow, immersion, an experience.  The music is the core element, but not the merch is where the money is.

adbusters decries remixing of culture (more or less).

Adbusters isn’t a publication I’ve ever found myself agreeing with.  Mostly because it’s core proposition is based on self-deceit: that you can create a worldwide brand based on anti-branding, anti-capitalist values, and still judge popular culture as deluded and vapid.

I did not, however, think I would find a place where Adbusters, and the copyright lobby, would agree with one another so precisely.

The final sentences of the article titled ‘Hipster: the Dead End of Western Civilization’ are as follows:

We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.

The idea that combining previous ideas, previous works, cannot result in new culture, not only denies the entirety of popular culture’s history, but it also very clearly explains the distaste with capitalism that defines the magazine – if only wholly original creations count, there would never be a need for business to make things better, or more valued.  With this mindset, capitalism is a factory that re-hashes the beautiful and original, making it valueless.  Obviously, this is true in some cases.

But I’d argue that remix culture has resulted in profound statements, both from a political standpoint, and a beauty standpoint.  I’d argue that melding past elements into a new ideal or aesthetic, is how culture (and business) moves forward.  Adbusters disagrees, and wants you to stop doing what other people are doing, because it feeds the machine.  The copyright lobby also wants you to stop mixing and matching the work others are doing, unless you pay heavily for it, because that would stop the machine.

Someone, or everyone, has to be wrong here.

relationships and mobile media.

I am an avid text messager. I use my phone to send and take images, track my time, and give little reminders to those I care about. I don't have a smart phone, or one with any remotely impressive PDA capabilities, I use a somewhat outdated Sony Ericsson model that fulfills my needs of very long battery life and good reception better than I have come to expect from portable telephony. I had a cell phone for almost 2 years before I used any of these things, despite them being available to me. And, I think, the deciding factor for me to begin using the cell phone as more than just a last minute communications tool (as in, 'change of plans, to another coffee house') was entering into a serious relationship.

I went, in the space of a few months, from being completely against the concept of text messaging, to being the kind of person who sends a few a day. My original stance on the issue was something to the tune of 'why would I pay ten cents to send a five word email I typed with my thumbs?' This is still, when I think about it, a reasonable position. I think, more than the introduction of a girlfriend into my life, this was a matter of my relationship with the telephone in general changing greatly due to the introduction of said girlfriend.

Let me explain; to the average single male, a telephone call need not last more than 45 seconds, unless one is talking to a family member. At that point in my life, most of the phone calls I made were about who was picking up whom, where we were going, what movie we were seeing, etc. Now that I had a significant other, I was actually having conversations on the phone. About how my day was, how hers was, making plans for the next few times we would see each other, and yes, sometimes just sitting and enjoying a mutual silence for exorbitant fees. This is, I would assume, a very common occurrence in young men, that entering a relationship is the point at which one makes phone calls for more than the sake of organisation.

The difference is, the telephone is no longer just used for voice conversation. So instead of changing the way I used a single technology, entering a relationship recontextualised SMS messages, sending digital stills, and other pocket technology minutiae, such as the use of a picture of my significant other for my phone background.

I changed my phone number today, and sent a message to some of my friends with the details. And I realised that I never would have done that, if my relationship to that technology hadn't expanded with my relationship to the phone, which in turn expanded due to my relationship with a certain girl.

And that, is my mostly sappy post for the day.