I came home and downloaded the contents my camera, comforted in the fact that I left it in capable hands.
Author Archive for matthew
Hello!
My contributions to last Sunday’s world building exercise centered around concepts of self-censoring and rejuvenating spaces for free expression - blank walls and screens where everyone’s encouraged to scrawl, write or txt themselves to the world.
So it’s no big surprise that I’m a fan of initiatives like Graffiti Archaeology -
“Graffiti is the chameleon skin of the urban landscape…
Graffiti Archaeology (grafarc.org) captures this process of constant change and makes it visible. Grafarc.org is an interactive, timelapse collage of photographs of certain walls, taken over a span of months or years. The photos are precisely superimposed, so that by moving through the layers, you experience a compressed version of time passing, as old tags are submerged beneath new ones. You can see how one writer’s style changes over the years, or explore the dialogue between writers as they paint over each other’s work. The project also functions as a living archive, since most of the pieces on the site no longer exist in the real world.”
And here’s their Flickr.
How to find out what they want
Todd, Ploy and myself created this eBook yesterday based on the brain bubbling topic, “How to find out what they want.” Rather than being a polemical piece or an essay-style study of the topic and techniques used “to find out what they want”, this is a near verbatim transcript of a conversation between ourselves about our immediate and long term goals.
My personal favorite aspects of this work are how casual and quick it reads, so hopefully people are more receptive to reading it than something instructive or formal. It might come across as lightweight at moments (which possibly puts it in danger of being dismissed) but our awareness of the conversation’s recording comes across in the eBook, especially at the beginning when we were finding a way to get the conversation going and at the end when we tried to wrap it all up.
The opportunity for discerning readers to identify when we’re being more genuine or self-conscious of what we’re saying is a commentary on the (in)effectiveness of “finding out what people want” when information is gathered -
- directly from participants/samples;
- in an informal and casual environment;
- with the participants’ knowledge of the recording; and
- with the participant’s knowledge of the information’s application and public distribution.
(cf. census info, statistical data, vox pox, phone surveys, door-to-door, random sampling, anonymous commentary, etc.)
Download the eBook today, it’s a modern classic!
MATT HUYNH is a Sydney based comic creator and illustrator. Huynh’s graphic novels span a diverse variety of genres from surrealist fantasy to polemical essays, dramas and autobiography. His comics work has received recognition from Ledger Award for Excellence in Australian Comic Arts and Publishing, the Australian Cartoonist’s Association, ABC and Sydney Morning Herald. His inky, energetic brushwork has appeared on magazines and prints to clothing, accessories, health resources, tattoos, film, performance projections, vinyl toys and dolls. When he’s not at the drawing table, he can be found conducting instructional workshops, public presentations, exhibitions and live art demonstrations. He’s been known to operate under the pseudonym ‘STiKMAN’, having taken a bad high-school nickname to heart.
Huynh’s participation in artists’ collective, ‘Popperbox’, has fostered an exploration of new media art, performance, installation work and digital work.
Find out more at www.stikmancomics.com and www.popperbox.com.