JOHN MAEDA
Riflemaker presents
Maeda; MySpace
Maeda; MySpace
MAEDA:MySPACE
at Riflemaker from Tuesday 1 May, 2007
MySpace, a forum for expression: ideas, personal philosophy and doodled thoughts, as well as a place to display your wares, is in effect, an unlimited ideas pad; a diary, market-stall and confessional rolled into one. A MySpace page is the ultimate 'stickie', the ultimate power point.
As one of the first spacemen in Cyberspace, John Maeda helped create the landscape that makes the phenomenon which is MySpace possible. As one of the first civilians online in America, Dr Maeda was instrumental in the design of this digital environment - an environment we have fallen in love with and often fallen victim to.
Now, in his first exhibition in the UK, within a live MySpace page, he questions the tech-dense, often passive landscape he helped create, using the tools of simplicity to guide him. In this round-the-clock 'surround', with Maeda firstly live, then beaming in from his control center in Massachusetts, he explores and explodes ideas about repetition and 'reduction' - personal downsizing - discussed in his recent book 'The Laws of Simplicity' (MIT Press, 2006).
Visitors interact with a roomful of pods, texts and films, the conduit for John's personal philosophy, as he presents possibilities for an almost unimaginably 'simpler' life, works up grand schemes or just cyberdoodles. Maeda is an artist thinking beyond art, beyond where we are. He questions our very existence, our position on a raft floating somewhere between the Garden of Eden and Canaan - the promised land. Our frantic, but 'new-improved', interactive 'life'.
Can this life be improved by observation of the 'Goldilocks Rules ?' How exactly do we become 'green digital', and make use of 'tiny computers for tiny hands' ?
Fresh from his installations at the Fondation Cartier in Paris and at MoMA in New York, John Maeda presents his first solo exhibition in the UK. Updating and downloading, inputting and outsourcing. He will propose, we will think about it . . .
MAEDA INFINITY Wi-Fi
Between the hours of 4pm and 6pm John Maeda provides his Infinity Wi-Fi (TM) for your exclusive use at Riflemaker. Take a seat in the sunshine on our window bench, bring your laptops and log on. Maeda's IWF is karmic. It's an emulsive, benign, green-digital, triple-Alpha signal and 'simple' to use. Connection is automatic and free. Password: 'Telstar'.
at Riflemaker from Tuesday 1 May, 2007
MySpace, a forum for expression: ideas, personal philosophy and doodled thoughts, as well as a place to display your wares, is in effect, an unlimited ideas pad; a diary, market-stall and confessional rolled into one. A MySpace page is the ultimate 'stickie', the ultimate power point.
As one of the first spacemen in Cyberspace, John Maeda helped create the landscape that makes the phenomenon which is MySpace possible. As one of the first civilians online in America, Dr Maeda was instrumental in the design of this digital environment - an environment we have fallen in love with and often fallen victim to.
Now, in his first exhibition in the UK, within a live MySpace page, he questions the tech-dense, often passive landscape he helped create, using the tools of simplicity to guide him. In this round-the-clock 'surround', with Maeda firstly live, then beaming in from his control center in Massachusetts, he explores and explodes ideas about repetition and 'reduction' - personal downsizing - discussed in his recent book 'The Laws of Simplicity' (MIT Press, 2006).
Visitors interact with a roomful of pods, texts and films, the conduit for John's personal philosophy, as he presents possibilities for an almost unimaginably 'simpler' life, works up grand schemes or just cyberdoodles. Maeda is an artist thinking beyond art, beyond where we are. He questions our very existence, our position on a raft floating somewhere between the Garden of Eden and Canaan - the promised land. Our frantic, but 'new-improved', interactive 'life'.
Can this life be improved by observation of the 'Goldilocks Rules ?' How exactly do we become 'green digital', and make use of 'tiny computers for tiny hands' ?
Fresh from his installations at the Fondation Cartier in Paris and at MoMA in New York, John Maeda presents his first solo exhibition in the UK. Updating and downloading, inputting and outsourcing. He will propose, we will think about it . . .
MAEDA INFINITY Wi-Fi
Between the hours of 4pm and 6pm John Maeda provides his Infinity Wi-Fi (TM) for your exclusive use at Riflemaker. Take a seat in the sunshine on our window bench, bring your laptops and log on. Maeda's IWF is karmic. It's an emulsive, benign, green-digital, triple-Alpha signal and 'simple' to use. Connection is automatic and free. Password: 'Telstar'.
The current John Maeda installation at MoMA, New York
John Maeda and MaedaStudio install Maeda:MySpace at Riflemaker April 2007
