kwamecorp

Sitting next to me, a lady died in her sleep as we were flying over the swiss alps. 

Congrats Martin, it looks beautiful and the game will be even better!

A few weeks ago I experimented with Buraka's black diamond look. This piece is my face.

Off for 3 weeks to Mozambique.

This last year I've been playing weird metropolitan roles. I am now metamorphosing into another being, one with spots and wings :-).

After a few days of hard work putting together the mekwa iPhone app, this is what Chris sent me. I did pray.

Trying to make a business case for designer toys and mekwa.

A quick trip to Egypt where I marveled in Coptic art, and the fact that their focus was the person, not perspective nor context, but simplicity outlining what was truly important.

Shooting Buraka's press pictures with a fading light.

Restaurant bathroom in Lisbon. Men are overwhelmed with choice.

I while ago I had this idea where once a year people would gather in squares, with their beds, and sleep together -- free from their box (home).

Heathrow airport. Very early, too early, no decent breakfast. Facebook has now become an airline (click on image). I need some sleep.

Well, sometimes you are so happy all you want to do is let you hair down and throw up a blurry smile...

Just chatted to Miguel. The big Australia trip is on!

If the markets collapse and life in the west becomes unbearable I will leave for the Tibesti mountains and build an army of gentle pom pom warriors. I will miss the ocean.

Double click to play/stop. Scroll to scrub.

The other day I dreamt of grass coffins and had to do one.

I would like to have grass growing from the back of my feet. Inside anthuriums making use of the the two thirds of water in my body, eventually taking it over. I imagine mobile beings which reflect their own anatomy and in the process don't require mirrors.

These will soon become sculptures in resin, water and life.

Conversation is now everywhere as more and more people become 'users' of some technical device which allows them to converse, to formulate opinions, to project their desires onto the digital realm. Everyone's carrying a little mirror.

If you cross-section it, you will find a wonderful layer, painted twitter blue. Busy, loads of users opinionating, writing about going to the loo, about whatever takes their fancy. A layer of noise where sometimes one can discern some melodies. Necessary noise, just like the noise our bodies produce with the flowing of blood, or the crackling of joints.

Some users within this layer, depending on social status or historical behaviour, become social broadcasters and their opinions are followed by even more people.

Conversation can be filtered, it can be localised. Conversations surface issues and issues are then dealt with by a secondary layer: a political layer.
What if the conversation layer was already empowered by tools that turn opinions into real actions? We probably would not need to look at a reality of layers.

A few years back I started painting this thought process using a vertical class system metaphor. The reality however, is not vertical, but a 2D mesh of people with mirrors. The political layer (in green) needs to be part of the mesh.

In my latest pieces i have been tinkering with a giant digestive system. Stemming from Novak's liquid architecture where the 'user' creates the space simply by moving his body. Using the same line of thought, i have become fascinated by this idea of how food meanders through our bodies giving us shape and structure. What architecture have we provided food with, in order to get as much nourishment out of it as possible?...  

The newly redesigned Fact Mag website is coming out soon. These are just some thoughts that drove the rebranding. Fact is for the discerning, eternally unsatisfied eclectic music lover that needs blunt, honest music reporting. It's in your face, blunt, sharp. It's also one of the digital properties I oversee and that gives me most pleasure working with.

Everyday we step on a thousand chewing gums spat out by a thousand people. What if the chewing gums contained some of the essence of the people that spat them out? What if we could recreate the last words before the spiting?

The following screens are an aesthetic exercise undertook by me this past summer, which yielded a few large paintings, a few small objects and some thoughts. The enterprise is not yet finished but I wanted to share some pictures because I love them. Pink is momentarily my favourite colour.

The problem is simple, what kind of body should the mekwa have? It's a creature that takes your face and gets beamed from mobile to mobile, satisfying its apetite for surprise and adventure, fulfilling its owner's wishes.

A few months back I started observing the behaviour of some deep sea creatures. They inhabit a very large ocean that brings most of its nutrients in the form of a light drizzle of decaying matter. I have lived in london for a while now, I can relate to the slight drizzle and the very large ocean of opportunity.

Because of the darkness, the apparent lack of context that is usually provided by light, creatures have evolved to perform in fantastic new ways in order to attract mates or prey.
You can almost see houses of style at play as they empower people to perform in all sorts of colourful ways.

What if we were to play with an architecture of participation that at its core has desires/wishes. One that is not driven by what others have done, but by what others will do? This is the differentiating driving force behind Mekwa. "I want you to produce for me and I will produce for you". My thesis argues that if empowered with a structure that focuses on the near future (desires I wish fulfilled) as much as on the near past (what desires were recently fulfilled), users will question the assumed historical authority of their own identity and enter a realm that allows them to better shape it.

In order to simplify my thought process for Mekwa and other services in the making, I have started thinking about them as simple tools. A hammer is a tool. Microsoft word is a tool (a little more complex, but its core functionality can still be achieved with a mechanical typewriter, or pen and paper).

The hegemony of the couch and a simple broadcast model where a few produce for the many to consume is being challenged. The time we 'waste' apparently distracted in front of the TV, consuming, is aptly called the cognitive surplus. One way we have of carving some of this surplus is by implementing architectures of participation that will convert some consumers into users. Social networking sites, UGC structures, wikis... they all carve a little bit of all the cognitive surplus and transform it into social capital.

The broadcast model, however, is still very pervasive, even amongst architectures of participation, the reason is simple: Architectures of participation are being built around the core act of consuming. If I was made to draw it I would imagine an enveloping layer around the core consumption need that transforms consumers into users.

So I launched a little Valentine's experiment on Tuesday the 12th, and it's going very well. The Snoggr is out of the bag. It has been an interesting adventure into the bowels of premium rate numbers, short codes and mobile keywords. It has allowed me to assess how users are interacting with the mobile web across the country as well as the true condition of the blemished Wap push market. There isn't enough kissing in this island.

From an early age, men have striven to possess [own] the image. Today, tribes who are closer to the living habits of the ancient cave dwelling man, still hold image as sacred.
The caveman used to paint the images of the beasts it needed to kill. It was a way of invoking their spirit, making sure the following hunt would be a successful one. It all started with the appropriation of the image.

If you ever see a monkey paint your image, run. It means it has been empowered with the ability to represent its desire. A monkey that paints a human is a monkey that for a reason or another desires a human. If a lion could draw, it would fill entire canvases with impala, and wildebeest and probably you.

Drawing is a primordial reflection of desire. When thinking about new interfaces, we should really be thinking about how to empower the user with better tools for 'drawing', for it is the the equivalent of informing the machine of the user's desire.

A condition of order at the juncture of crowded city thoroughfares implies primarily an absence of collisions between men or vehicles that interfere with one another. Ross, E. A (1901)

'A condition of order', 'A condition of order' -- makes you think. One of my offices is located in the corner between Oxford Street and Regent street and one of the things I do on a regular basis is watch crowds stroll along both avenues. The argument that usually arises is simple: if the physical world implies the necessity of 'A condition of order' that prevents people from bumping against each other, how does that translate to the web?

The economist is running an Oxford-style debase on the following proposition:

"Social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom"

Here's Ewan McIntosh's pro argument and here is Michael Bugeja's con argument.

Here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

Teenagers are very curious beings, they always want to be surprised and stimulated. No matter how many playstations you may give them there is nothing like the prospect of human contact and Wii has understood it. What are others doing? how are they doing it? -- Teenagers don't meet a lot of people, specially in westernized fear cultures, so the physical interpersonal appeal is very prized.

Affordable and user friendly web browsing opens up the most important part of the global mobile service layer. Now web publishers need to convince users there is added value is accessing their websites on the move, in installing their mobile applications. Just like snake, tetris and other casual games have been relegated to the commuting slot, many web services and apps will find their place in users' mobile slots, but not without a fight.

The mobile computer, like any other mobile artifact must add value to the mobile user. Having established that mobile usage is at the same time dependent and independent of place has crystalized one thing: it's really quiet simple, the swiss knife syndrome is not going away, on the contrary it will continue to grow.

Early 2008. We sat down with a visionary and a pragmatic. Among many other things we talked about content distribution models and making money in today's market by leveraging existing user behaviour.

Today I devised a character which works in an Harrry Eng like factory where he has specialized in putting large objects into bottles. Every now and then, somebody comes along and asks him to put an even larger object than the last, inside a bottle. I am that character. I am the bottle.

Rapidus Quenianus

A long time ago I fell in love with a girl from a far away land as she visited Lisbon. She was called V.
For the first time I decided to analyze what was happening to me. I could not think straight, nor could I eat, it was as though a creature was growing in my stomach. I new the creature had to be the product of light + desire. We had both looked [light] at each other and felt desire. That was what had created the creature. I named it rapidus because it was really quick as it hit against the walls of my gut. Quenianus, because she was soon to leave for Kenya.

The following is my account at the time of the events. Its nature is true and personal.