Hi my name is Ulrik Hogrebe. This is a random collection of stuff that occupies my mind at any given moment. Probably something to do with design, art, music and pop culture. For examples of my work, go here.

Another completely unrelated picture of a picture of my Granddad riding his motorbike, which I though I’d share. #grandswag

The New French Hacker-Artist Underground
Tags: Urbanity, hacking the city, preservation, activism
Interesting article on a group of French urban hackers-cum-preservationists who prowl Paris’ underground and fix clocks. Go figure.

Did The Sopranos do more harm than good?: HBO and the decline of the episode
Tags: TV, series, storytelling, content
Thoughtful article on the state and evolution of storytelling in an on-demand world. Good read for any series geek (and aren’t we all?)

Africa’s Dirty Wars
Tags: Africa, Kony, war, colonialism, superpowers
This month we saw the rise and demise of Kony 2012. This is a nice background read about how Africa’s wars are changing after the breakdown of ideology and the conquest of capitalism in a post-Cold War world.

A Code of Conduct for Content Aggregators & Stop calling it curation
Tags: curation, sharing, web, webiquette
“Discovery of information is a form of intellectual labor,” she said. “When we don’t honor discovery, we are robbing somebody’s time and labor. The Curator’s Code is an attempt to solve some of that.” This is the daftest thing I have heard in a long time. Other people agree with me, which is nice (See the Stop Calling it Curation reply). But in the end it Matt Langer sums it up quite well when he says “since by calling the activity of people who traffic in links “curation” instead of “sharing” we imbue it with all sorts of hollow importance and circumscribe it as something wholly apart from the selfless and benevolent sharing of knowledge.”

Why I left Google
Tags: google, social, ads, privacy
I love Google. I remember when they came out with the whole Do No Evil thing and I thought “Finally. Here’s someone who gets it”. However, in the past couple of years, the rumblings from the machine room have grown louder. This article might be pointing to some of the things that need a loving hand to get right (again). Also, it deals with the great Ads and Privacy conundrum which, in my line of work, is always interesting.

Spam-erican Apparel
Tags: zazzle, computer generated design
If you only read one thing – this should be it. Hilarious hijinx ensue as people seek to automate product design, as seen in non-sensical t-shirt designs on Zazzle. Especially relevant with all this talk of the New Aesthetic going on (see below).

Bank of America – Too Crooked to Fail
Tags: banks, bailouts, #fail, snafu
Ahh bankers and banking. This choice quote from the article kind of sums the whole thing up: “Worst of all, they completely suck at banking”. But if you, like me, can’t get enough outrage against a system that really should fail, but for some reason doesn’t - this article is a good read.

You will never kill piracy, and piracy will never kill you and the follow up Lies, damn lies and Piracy
Tags: piracy, Hollywood, business models, copyright
Good though hardly revolutionary article about piracy and Hollywood. Much might be old hat to people who follow the debate closely. However, Paul Tassi does have an intersting point when he says in his follow up: “I would argue that releasing crappy movies has a far greater effect on the film industry bottom line than piracy ever could.”, where he describes the massive losses Hollywood has incurred over movies that basically, suck (and we all know it).

Reacting to the New Aesthetic; Trains, Spiderwebs And Ship Minds
Tags: new aesthetic, visual culture
The New Aesthetic is terribly exciting if not just because it is New! and a bourgeoning aesthetic movement. Will people look back and treat the New Aesthetic like they do Modernism? And will I be able to say, Yes! I was alive and in London when it all kicked off!? In any case, this article might not make the most succinct attempt at nailing down what the hell it actually is, but it contains enough links and for anyone interested in having a good poke around in this new-fangled field.

London’s Overthrow
Tags: London, social issues
China Mieville describes a London always on the brink of collapse, yet somehow weirdly functional nonetheless. Good post-riots, post-banking scandal read.

Developing World: Beyond the frontiers of Science Fiction
Tags: sciecne fiction, Africa, technology
I am a science fiction geek, no doubt. I also grew up in Mozambique and Tanzania, which to most in the West are about as un-science fictiony as it it gets. The idea of a science fiction not born out of the fervid techno-monopolies of the West is fascinating and this article is enough to flood my brain with images of shantytown circuitry and low-fi, high-tech bio-tech black markets. Jonathan Dotse sums it up beautifully here; “It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the future will not be a monopoly of the current superpowers, but lies in the hands of tech-savvy youth from around the world, trying desperately to survive at all costs in an increasingly asymmetrical world.”

Bonus
Legos: How One Vulgar, Ambidextrous Toy Opened the Door for Gay “Marriage” in Denmark
Tags: Lolz
Christwire is hillarious. The debate on gay marriage is ridiculous. This marries the two and throws in some LEGO to boot.

Unrelated picture of the cool rigging in one of the BBC studios

This has proved popular (i had a comment!!!), so I will make it a recurring thing. 10 or so articles that I have read and enjoyed in February. Less directly work-related stuff this month, but lots of nice long form journalism. Enjoy over coffee on a Sunday – maybe with some Arthur Russel which has been haunting my iTunes a lot lately.

The Great Tech War Of 2012
Tags: innovation, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple
Fast Company has a thorough breakdown of the battle of the Titans. You can almost hear the “In this corner…” announcements and the roar of the crowds. Will this be the year we announce a winner? Or a at least an early frontrunner? Scarily enough, who wins the tech wars feels almost as urgent as the US Presidential primaries.

Newspapers, paywalls and core users
Tags: print,media, pay walls, revenue models
Having worked for e-Types and having done a fair share of thinking about newspapers and the future of print media in general, this article by  Clay Shirky was an interesting and illuminating read, full of concise and visionary thinking, Mr. Shirky rounds things like the death of bundled media, pay wall versus free, why papers need to think twice about taking the Murdochian approach and finally how papers need to wrap their head around rewarding, rather than penalizing their Users for wanting their content.

One Town’s War on Gay Teens
Tags: Queer, teens, Michelle Bachmann, conservative christians, suicide
The tragic results of bigotry and hate and the causalities of the Christian right’s campaign against LGTBs . Heartrending, infuriating and sad. Highly recommended, just for being a great piece of long form journalism. Even more for shedding light on such an urgent and important story.

Netflix’s Head of Content Sarandos queues up an original programming strategy
Tags: recommendation engines, biz models, user data, content
Recommendation engines and user data has become a bit of a pet hobby with me because of my current work. This is a great article for content producers, commissioners, designers, biz devs and anybody else who works in the video/TV field on why they should think about user data.

Cute Inc.
Tags: Japan, cute, kawaii
Funny article on Japan and the proliferation (and monetization) of cute. It’s old (1994 I think) but still worth the read. Contains references to Pikachu 747s and Hello Kitty weddings and men’s couture lines.

Drones and Democracy & The Crash and Burn Future of Robot Warfare
Tags: drone wars, skynet, democracy, #fail
It’s a double-header on the Drone Wars and the military, political and civilian consequences of our new killing machines. Also, the thing about them going rogue gives me the willies #AllHailOurRobotOverlords

How Companies Learn Your Secrets
Tags: user data, tracking, Target
Definitely this months must-read – a glorious romp through corporate data targeting land and the story of how Target figured out you are pregnant. Explains exactly how powerful and pervasive personal data is these days. And extremely well written too.

I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave
Tags: warehouses, sweatshops, e-commerce, darkside
Wow, this is hardcore. I had heard these places were bad, but I had no idea. Something to think on next time you grumble about the cost of shipping. This is what it’s like packaging up all the stuff you buy on teh interwebz. Like an evil Santa’s workshop.

The Boy Who Played with Fusion
Tags: fusion, reactor, teenager
The feel-good story of the bunch. A 15-year old Super-Brain builds his own fusion reactor, creating a plasma core 40 times hotter than the core of the sun. Wish I had thought of that when I was 15… And if that’s not your taste, here is an article about white supremacists and prison violence.

This is a completely unrelated picture, but it looks kinda kewl…

Since I read a lot of these – and since other people seem to find my tweets about them interesting – I will try to summarize 10 of the best/ most noteworthy each month. Which will also hopefully give people (another?) reason to return to my ramblings every now and then.

It’s Not Your Face, It’s Ours
Tags – face recognition, technology, New World Order
Jan Chipchase, The Indiana Jones of ethnography offers a rather dystopian view of face recognition. Personally, I think face recognition is kind of cool, but hard not to agree with Chipchase on what has the potential to become a fundamentally Orwellian technology. Am already looking forward to the various legal battles, scandals and general chaos that will ensue when this stuff becomes ubiquitous.

QR Codes Are the Roller-Skating Horses of Advertising
Tags – QR Codes, advertising, annoyance
Whenever I hear the word QR code, I reach for my revolver.

The Friction in Frictionless Sharing
Tags – facebook, sharing, User Owned Data
A very succinctly put analysis of why Facebook’s frictionless sharing is really quite annoying.

When did the Remix become a requirement
Tags – remix, music
Nice article on the remix phenomenon and it’s evolvement through different genres and technologies. Good “sunday morning over coffee and 90s east coast hip hop” read. I would recommend Tribe or Dilla.

Rick Falkvinge: the Swedish radical leading the fight over web freedoms
Tags – copyright, pirate party, obsolete business models
“Musicians earn 114% more since the advent of Napster. The average income per artist has risen 66%, with 28% more artists being able to make a living off their hobby. What is true is that there’s an obsolete middle market of managers. And in a functioning market, they would just disappear.”

Chief ACTA Eurocrat quits in disgust at lack of democratic fundamentals in global copyright treaty
Tags – copyright, ACTA, EU, law
Another week, another daft piece of copyright legislation to combat it seems. This article is interesting because it A) it is about a person on the inside, saying enough is enough and B) kicks up a whole of questions around how laws are made at a European level. Ahhh the days you could just sit back and point at other countries and their corporate… erh, I mean corrupt judicial systems. Transparency is cool, although depressing.

Musicians praise Bit Torrent and Creative Commons
tags – copyright, bit torrent, business models
More proof that there really is an emerging business model for CC music and the music industry in general. Now would be the time to start experimenting with alternate business models, if you are say… a large multimillion dollar recording and distribution music company.

Inside Supreme – Anatomy of a streetwear cult
Tags – fashion, branding, streetwear, pop culture
Nice read on the notoriously shy streetwear brand Supreme and how they built their brand. Also reminds me of this BBC interview with Shawn Stussy from the 90s (Im guessing).

5 Big Ideas For A New Economy
Tags – economy, new models
Well we need some new ones, right? We can all sort of agree on that, right?

The Yin and the Yang of Corporate Innovation
Tags – Innovation, Steve Jobs, Google, Apple
In the wake of Steve Jobs’ death there seems to be a slew of people rushing to hail the “Genius Leader” as the only innovation model that matters, usually using the dreaded “design by consensus” as the polar extreme. I personally think it is slightly more nuanced than (benevolent) design fascism and dysfunctional democracy: great leaders can balance both – honestly it is to easy to just don the iron gauntlet. Apart from the horrible “innovation as jazz” metaphor, this article does present a slightly more nuanced argument.

It’s still January, so I can still sneak in a quick overview of the years reading. Being an avid bibliophile, this amounts to a sizable amount of dead cellulose since I believe that traditional flipping of dried pulp, earmarking and general coffee staining is the way to go when it comes to the #LongRead. Thats how I roll – or flip if you will

The Art of Immersion, Frank Rose
Having read Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture back in the day, this seemed like a natural progression. A good read on all things transmedia and UGC (user generated content) which spurred a brief flurry of interest in harnessing Otaku fan culture for content makers and steeled my belief in content production from below.

Nudge – improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness, Thaler & Sunstein
Probably should have read this when it was getting a lot of hype, but simply didn’t get around to it. One of the books that started the “persuasive design” wave and an interesting, though slightly dated read. Worth it so you can chin stroke with confidence whenever someone starts ranting about the value of default settings and such.

Game Frame – Using Games as a Strategy For Success, Aaron Dignan
I picked this up because I saw Aaron Dignan’s PSFK talk and thought “what a delightful, humorous and non-gushy young man”, who seems to have a balanced and nuanced opinion on the G-word. Somehow he comes across a lot less nuanced in the book. It has a framework though. I like frameworks.

Content, Cory Doctorow
More of Cory’s crusade against copyright. Nothing new but always a good read and a peak into the mechanics of DRM and the general intellectual property debate. Link takes you to a free download of the book over on Cory’s site.

The Brand Gap, Martin Neumeier
Hailed as the “designers guide to branding” because (and I kid you not, this is a direct quote from the person who recommended it to me) “it is a really short read” (because as we all know designers can’t read, right?). I decided to read it to see what the ruckus was all about. Honestly, in my opinion Mr. Neumeier sacrificed nuance and functionality for simplicity, which makes it more or less useless as anything but the briefest of introductions and doesn’t capture the intricacies of working with brands in as complex an environment as we have today.

Noise Music – A History, Paul Hegarty
I like noise music, so this was kind of a no-brainer when it came up on Amazon’s recommendations. Weirdly conflicted on this one. On one hand, there are some interesting points about breaking with classical form and mastery as a prerequisite to performing music, some good musings on what noise is and how it is a prerequisite of order and such… but in between the dense theoretical musings, I could have done with a raunchy anecdote from behind the scenes.

Exposing the Magic of Design, John Kolko
Terrible title aside, this is a straight up “from observations to insights to ideation to implementation” handbook from a man who obviously sipped the multicolored process-juice. I tend to agree with him on most counts.

This is Service Design Thinking, Stickdorn & Shneider
The epic service design tome, bound in black with nifty design details and all. It is supposed to be an attempt at a textbook for aspiring service designers, which it seems to do quite well. Did feel they went through the methods/tools bit slightly quick and I am still looking for an insightful and interesting book with service design cases, where touch points are explored in detail, brand and strategy discussed, process unveiled and deliverables analyzed etc.

Business Model Generation, Osterwalder & Pigneur
Wow, this is useful and is quickly becoming a bit of a must-read in the service design community. Used the framework with quite some success for a BBC project and find it is really useful for breaking things into chunks and allowing people to deliberate on the small bits that make up the whole. Recommended!

Drawing the Head and Hands + Figure Drawing for all it’s Worth, Andrew Loomis
I started drawing again. It’s hard. These are supposed to be the definitive books on drawing. They are hard. I haven’t technically read them cover to cover – rather I have flicked through picked up a tip here and there, and failed miserably when trying to apply them. They are also quite fun and it’s nice to be drawing again – even though I just like doodling silly cartoons on post-its while on the phone.

Animation 1, Preston Blair
How to draw silly cartoons! Yay!

From Hell, Alan Moore & Eddie Campell
I am getting heavily into graphic novels again, after a roughly 20 year hiatus. This one is cramped, dense, claustrophobic and just plain amazing. Deals with Jack the Ripper, who used to haunt my current ‘hood. The part where the Doctor rides around London explaining the significance of the Masonic/druidic origins and meanings of the architecture had me riveted and now I can’t walk past anything Hawksmoore built without looking for hidden symbols and feeling slightly creeped out.

The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Will Self
As a newcomer to the country, I feel it is my obligation to study my host nation. People splutter into their beer when I proclaim that I am reading Will Self as a result.

Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delaney
Simultaneously one of the most confusing and most heart-achingly beautiful books I have ever read – my copy is now earmarked with a thousand different quotes that had me slack-jawed with awe. The style, the denseness, the schizoid incomprehensibility and the stark yet wonderful dives into self reflection are simply stunning. I have had dreams about the book ever since.

Cyclonopedia – Complicity with Anonymous Materials, Reza Negarestani
A so called “theoretical novel”, this book is as obscure as it is oddly cinematic. Detailing the role of the Middle East and “petro-politics” as a narrative baseline for world history, the author mixes in arabic occultism, syrian demonology, diverse conspiracy theories and mathematics - plus a slew of other concepts which I am still struggling to digest, into what is one of the hardest reads I have ever undertaken, paling even to Nicholas Luhman’s thoughts on discursive theory (which my proffessor confided to me “Nobody actually gets it – academics just say they do. It might all be nonsense for all we know”) that I plowed through in Uni. However, it invokes images of vast arid desertscapes and cavernous putrid secrets – and for that alone, it’s still worth a read.

Teatro Grottesco, Thomas Ligotti
Apparently popular with the whole Boyd Rice crowd, I think this just reads like a poor mans Lovecraft. Meh…

Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
Recommended to me by the guy who started the NO2ID movement in the UK and a mix between a James Clavell novel and a beginners guide to cryptography – this was one of the most enjoyable books I have read this year in terms of pure pleasure (with a bit of learning thrown in for kicks.)

A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R Martin
Yep I saw the Game of Thrones series and then proceeded to hoover up every book available so far. All roughly 4500 pages. In what amounted to two months. I am not afraid to admit it – this was two months of plain getting my geek on. If you haven’t read it, rip out a couple of months of your social life and start reading. Who needs friends when you can have epic things like murder, conspiracy, dragons, bloodshed and even a bit of sordid incest.

Honorable mention: The Paris Reviews interview with William Gibson, by David Wallace-Wells.
Not a book so it technically doesn’t count, but this is just a great long form interview. Keep returning to it, so it should go on here too.

Honorable mention 2: Who killed Video Games, Tim Rogers
Brilliantly written and highly entertaining piece on the evils of social gaming (yes, that means you Zynga).

Everybody knows I am not a big fan of copyright as it currently stands – I think it is bad for innovation, a threat to the greatest creative economy we have ever seen in the history of man and finally, I believe the legislation used to enforce old-fashioned and ineffective business models on us is akin to censorship of the worst kind. SOPA (or the Stop Online Piracy Act) is censorship not just from Governments (which is bad enough), but effectively from private organizations who have everything to gain in making the internet a less free space. You on the other hand, stand to loose everything that the internet has stood for since it’s birth. Enough ranting – please watch the video and sign-up at americancensorship.org if you run a website of any kind.

The idea of a Digital Public Space is a sound one. Maybe even a grand and honorable one. Yet the road to this promised wellspring of renaissance-like illumination and democracy runs straight through a virtual minefield of conflicting ideologies and vested interests. Oddly enough this is not necessarily a bad thing.

The Background – why I am writing this
The Guardian did a little podcast about the Digital Public Space (DPS) – which is a kind of public sector internet, linking data and assets from libraries, public institutions, archives, museums etc. At the moment, there is a small yet very dedicated team of people working on it at the BBC as part of the Beebs plan to unleash (and yes, anything of this magnitude and volume deserves a bit of hyperbole) it’s archives and make them publicly available.  I had the pleasure of running a workshop with the team – doing a preliminary fleshing out of some of the aspects of the DPS that don’t pertain to the data architecture and models describes by Bill Thompson in the podcast. If you look at the helpful diagram by Bill up top, I’ll be dealing primarily with things related to the big square in the middle and the vaguely alien-looking canisters with tentacles at the top. You don’t have to listen to the podcast to read the below, but it is a useful backdrop to the things I’ll be bringing up in this (lengthy) post.

I’ll try not to bore you with all the details of the work I did on this and instead give you a general overview of some of the aspects of the idea of a Digital Public Space that I find interesting on a personal level. Usual disclaimer is worth reinstating here – these are my thoughts and opinions, not the BBC’s.

It should be noted that  I am talking about the Digital Public Space both as a webspace that presumably contains lots of data and assets and allows for users of some sort to interact with said stuff – and as an abstract ideological space – and will be using the two meanings interchangeably. Because the truth is, it is probably both but nobody really knows for sure – although some have started the (very commendable) work of fleshing it out.

So enough disclaimers and yaddi-yaddi-ing. Lets get to the point(s).

So the idea of a kind of open data digital public space in whatever that form may take – whether it be the BBC releasing their archive or a municipality releasing APIs full of demographic data or both and more  -  into a Digital Public Space is an interesting one for several different reasons. The following is 2 reasons why the Digital Public Space should/must work, at least 3 or 4 why it probably wont and finally why this is actually, quite possibly, a Good thing. (Continues after the jump since this really is a wall of text!)

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Nicolai Levin

Every year I do a bit of writing for the lovely folks over at ArtRebels in connection with Trailerpark Festival – this year I had the pleasure of interviewing Lars from Graffland. Nuff said – interview after the jump or over at ArtRebels.

Read the rest of this entry »

Carcas, 2010, Wood, plaster, fluorescent light, 180 x 60 x 60 cm

I did an interview with the Danish artist Brian Ravnholt for the ArtRebels blog a while back – and originally posted it on my portfolio blog. I honestly think this is the best interview I’ve done so far so thought I wanted to repost it here. Brian is a pretty amazing guy, working both in visual art and noise/performance. Check it out after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Back when I was working for e-Types, Jess and I commissioned Sacha to take some pictures for us, for a project that unfortunately didnt go anywhere. Sacha has put the pictures up on his site – you can see the rest of the series plus his other work here. We put the whole thing together in 24 hours more or less, finding a model, scouring our network for a location and getting everything setup. Goes to show that amazing things can come out of the moment sometimes.

Just wanted to post this little interview with Cory Arcangel – one of my favorite artists working within the dubiously named field “Net Art”. Im not going to pretend I have anything clever or art-like to say – just that he has a really humorous take on our tech-dominated life. He really nails it with the little quote about how technology often feels “awkward” – not just from a usability sense but from an emotional point of view. Sometimes interacting with tech is like going to your jock high-school friend’s party and being forced to interact with people you have nothing in common with. It’s painful, often uncomfortably silent for extended periods of time. And you usually end up feeling slightly nonplussed and kind of stupid in that alienated “I wonder if I’m the one who’s weird or if the finer details of Tottenham’s defensive strategy in ’83 really is common knowledge” way.

Cory Arcangel just has a knack for exposing those digital awkward silences, that in retrospect are extremely humorous yet deeply frustrating – as we find ourselves staring slack-jawed at a particularly bewildering UI or some silent techno-sphinx, wondering what the answer to the riddle is. Also, look out for the “Research in Motion” piece about 30 seconds in, which instantly threw me back to those CD towers of teenage rooms past and other design horrors of the 90s. There is an interview in Interview Magazine here that I haven’t read yet, which I’ll probably “read later” in my instapaper and get around to in about a years time or so.

Also, if anybody stumbles over an affordable edition of the gradient/ photoshop prints, lemme know OK?