Category: Politics
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Journal: PayPal, and the word “Iranian”
This was going to be a post about our new Fabrica publication, "Iranian Living Room", and in a way it still is. "Iranian Living Room" is a new photojournalism project we've produced and self-published. Enrico Bossan, our brilliant head of photography, sought out 15 young Iranian photographers to take pictures of "interior life" in Iran…
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Journal: Roberto Saviano at Fabrica
Roberto Saviano's speech at Fabrica, 21 May 2013, after a brief introduction by me, and Enrico Bossan. Beware: it features my pitiable attempts in Italiano, which you may wish to skip. We were honoured to have Roberto Saviano speaking at Fabrica yesterday evening [Update: you can now watch his speech (in Italian) above, or at…
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Essay: On the smart city; Or, a ‘manifesto’ for smart citizens instead
Please note: This piece has moved over here, in the publication But What Was The Question? at Medium. Please read, and link to, that version instead. ———– Oh, the smart city. I have “previous” here, over about a decade of writing about the interplay between cities and technology. And particularly, having written about The Street As…
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Journal: Fabrica
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I’m writing this flying over the Alps, on BA579 from Venice to London. It’s a big blue sky lit by hazy sunshine, and the Alps look unreal. We just flew a few metres over a contrail, a perpendicular arc into the sunlight, hundreds of kilometres long, a surprisingly distinct temporary structure of curly vapour. Best…
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Essay: Dark Matter & Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary (Strelka Press)
Please note: this piece has moved over here, as part of a publication Dark Matter & Trojan Horses at Medium. Please read, and link to, that version instead. —- Q. What connects Bryan Ferry and Cedric Price, dark matter and Hitchcock’s “Macguffin”, Trojan Horses and iPhones, 21st century social contracts and street food, the Brisbane floods…
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Sketchbook: Dark Matter
What follows is a note to refer to later, and is also adapted from a section of my recent essay/e-book for Strelka Press: "Dark Matter & Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary", of which more here. It’s been quite a month for dark matter of course. While the latest twist in the Hunt for Higgs…
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Journal: A walk in Schöneberg, Berlin: energy policy, gentrification, protest, and the humble joys of communal flower beds
I didn't think that a humble flower bed could have quite this effect. The verges – for they are numerous, every few metres – turned out to be the key feature of the streets of Schöneberg, Berlin, where I was walking with my colleagues on Friday morning. We were being given a tour by Dr…
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Journal: Passport Control to Pimlico
1500 Around John Islip Street, Pimlico, London, 30 November 2011. Notes written on Finnair. I arrived in London on the day of the national general strike, the scale of which no-one could seem to agree on: it was somehow both the largest strike since the 1970s “winter of discontent” as well being as “a damp…
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Journal: Festa 2010, Turin
Italy should be the best country in the world, it really should. It has abundant riches in terms of culture, history, food, weather, urbanism, architecture, industry, craft, design, literature, football, cinema, language, and almost impossible beauty in its landscape, terrain and people. But it isn’t the best country in the world. It’s far from it.…
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Suomenlinna
I’m just back from another intellectually enriching visit to Helsinki for a Sitra strategic design event. HDL Global 2010 followed the Helsinki Design Lab studio I was part of earlier in the year, and combined notes on all this to follow. For now, the HDL site provides a great record of events. The video was…