The Selfish Meme

Excessive conformity is a soul killer

In this video, Jaron Lanier talks about how we interact with digital stuff which is primarily in two ways.

The first adds something novel and truly beautiful to the world, like the internet. The second, much like today’s social networks, lures us into a “regimentation scheme,”  spawning an incredible wave of conformity that in the long term, restricts us and stops us from inventing ourselves.

Think tweets. Think status updates. While we can’t do without them today, what kind of impact will they have on us in the long term? 

Copy, transform, combine

Is remix culture all that bad? Or it lies at the center of every piece of creative that we produce?

Kirby Ferguson’s must watch docu-feature goes on to prove exactly that. Told in four parts, it is a story worth visiting, and re-visiting, as i did this past weekend.

In essence what Ferguson is saying is that there is no such thing as an original masterpiece. The films demonstrate in exquisite detail how everything from Led Zeppelin to Star Wars and from art to technology, not to mention science is based upon hundreds of uses of other people’s creations. 

While telling this story, Ferguson lays down the three laws of creativity: copy, transform & combine. And to me that’s the highlight of the series.

In our collective urge to worship originality, we tend to debunk ideas born out of a more obvious culture of remix. We tend to also debunk the maxim that no ideas are really original anymore as lazy thinking.

Perhaps its time for us to revisit this approach and acknowledge the fact that transforming and combining too is an art, and worthy of admiration or emulation.

Here are the links to watch part 2, part 3 and part 4.

To know more about the series,  read Neurobonkers’ super review and this Kirby Ferguson interview.

p.s. the first 2 mins of part 3 where Ferguson talks about social evolution really is about the way memes work as well :)

1+1 = 3

So what makes a great story?

Here’s American director and documentary producer Ken Burns‘ perspective.

Great storytelling complicates things, manipulates people’s feeling and moves them to think about things they wouldn’t earlier. Or ever. And even compel them to change.

The short documentary was made by  Sarah Klein and Tom Mason. 

p.s. while you are at it, also explore  ”the Ken Burns effect” :) 

darwinised:

Advertising re-imagined

Just in case you missed this…best idea this year by a mile.

Take four iconic ad campaigns, and the people who created them. Teleport them to the new media age with a brief of re-imagining these campaigns.

What do you get?

A mesmerizing experience with enough insights and learning for all ad-folks. 

A Google initiative, the project is a showcase of how new media tools & technology can augment the art of advertising, can add meaningful layers to a piece of brand storytelling by extending & amplifying the original thought. 

In the process, Google also perhaps gives us a framework of how classic advertising fundamentals can work in a new media age.

At the core is an idea derived from a communicable brand insight. That idea is then put through certain filters:

• Will people want to talk about it?
• Will they share it?
• Can it be extended meaningfully, using new media & technology layers?  

The project will be released as a docu-feature this spring, directed by Doug Pray, who also made “Art & Copy.” The film synopsis on the website sums up the essence of the project superbly:

” Project Re: Brief is a film that aims to shake up the ad industry and inspire new ways of thinking. While shifting formats and media platforms is one thing, as we learn from our heroes of the past, the basic tenets of human storytelling haven’t changed.” 

Happy viewing :-)