1989 was a very good year by Timothy Garton Ash

It was the biggest year in world history since 1945. In international politics, 1989 changed everything.

It led to the end of communism in Europe, of the Soviet Union, the Cold War and the short 20th century. It opened the door to German reunification, a historically unprecedented European Union stretching from Lisbon to Tallinn, the enlargement of NATO, two decades of American supremacy, globalization and the rise of Asia. The one thing it did not change was human nature. Read more from the LA Times

Sixth Sense

When I attended the last TED conference in Long Beach in February 2009, Patricia Maes and Pranav Mistry unveiled a touch sensitive device that allows users to project information onto practically any surface, including the human hand. In their own words: "The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques."

The technology is very impressive. Here is a TED video of Patti Maes explaining this important new invention.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

Claude Lévi-Strauss has died just a few weeks before his 101st birthday.

The loss is a profound one because Lévi-Strauss revolutionized anthropology both as a discipline and as a cultural practice. It is Tristes Tropiques his first book, and his masterpiece that drew me to Lévi-Strauss. I still have the first edition of the paperback. But, it was one of his last books that sealed my respect and love for this man. The title, *Look, Listen, Read* provides a sense of his range and the book explores everything from opera to painting. It is a transcendent book, rich in metaphors about culture, creativity and the extraordinary importance of looking — looking that is, beyond the gaze which to Lévi-Strauss also means listening beyond the norms of conventional listening. The book is written in a cut and paste style echoing Lévi-Strauss's own concerns with 'bricolage' which is a central theme of his magnificent book, Structural Anthropology. I will not delve too deeply into the *Look, Listen, Read* here, but suffice to say that there is a section in which he presents a dialogue between himself and André Breton that explores the relationships among aesthetics, interpretation and painting. That dialogue alone makes getting hold of the *Look, Listen, Read* worthwhile.

Ray Tintori and the new Video

This video is about the making of Time to Pretend by Ray Tintori who is now collaborating with Spike Jonze. The video was made very cheaply and represents the convergence of low-end special effects, video editing using a computer and Youtube as a broadcast medium. Time to Pretend has had close to fourteen million hits.

The Role of Research and Prototyping in Design (2)

Here, Tim Brown of IDEO talks about the importance of research and prototyping in Design. He discusses the importance of thinking big and moving beyond the creation of consumable objects to thinking about processes, change and innovation. The video is the second installment of my series on research in the arts and design.