If yes, you’re a digital immigrant. If not, you’re a digital native. This is probably one of the simplest explanations of the digital divide, as explained by Sir Ken Robinson at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), on his Commencement address. Enjoy this and other pearls of wisdom regarding creativity.

James Paterson has been busy lately. Besides filming an Actionscript 3 training DVD with Colin Moock and Hoss Gifford, he cooked up the software component of Harvest, his exhibition currently displaying at bitforms gallery in NYC.

The Rotten Fruit Tardis is an animated vehicle that transports viewers between a myriad of dimensions and nested worlds and displayed as a wall-projection. More than 5000 of Jason’s drawings are drifting in a space with each viewer explores the omni-directional interface.

With music by K-rAd and the help of other brilliant minds like Jeh Ham, Amit Pitaru, Jeremy Felker, Colin Moock, Branden Hall and James Braithwaite, it’s the digital synthesis of his impressive collection of works. Press on.

Following yesterday’s news, i’m sharing a collaboration between blog network Prt.Sc and OFFF, that are inviting all portuguese bloggers to OFFF Screen Challenge and win a chance to be at this renowned festival of post-digital culture, taking place in Lisbon, from 7th to 9th May 2009.

*Disclaimer: As an executive member of Prt.sc, I’ll be judging the entries. That leaves all other portuguese bloggers more chances to win the 3day ticket and show your project at the venue.

The Challenge

OFFF and Prt.sc are showcasing the best of portuguese digital culture: from the garage hack to your web project, OFFF Screen is giving the chance for those using social media to showcase their projects to a wider and interested audience.

The submitted projects are preferably within the broader Catalogue theme “THIS ISN’T FLYING, THIS IS FALLING WITH STYLE · FAIL GRACEFULLY @ OFFF”.  Unleash your creativity, don’t be afraid to fail.

How to apply

Each application must be submitted by a member of  the project that has been writing for a blog at least since December 2008.

Each blog must write at least 3 posts until the 1st of May, related to the project or OFFF Festival, and tagged with  offf and prt.sc. On this date, judges by the OFFF and Prt.sc team will select the 3 best projects. These will be awarded with a 3 day ticket and the chance to present the project on the venue.

Submissions should be sent to offf@prt.sc, with project description, name and contacts, and a permalink to the post announcing the challenge entry.

All posts related to the challenge will be agregated at offf.prt.sc. For further info, contact offf@prt.sc.

From guerrilla marketing to urban interventions, the streets have become a new canvas for creativity. One of the most prolific projects in this area comes from Brazil, with the creative duo Anderson Augusto and Leonardo Delafuente, aka, 6emeia.

Started as a intervention to transform daily environments as a reflection of their creative work, the duo started painting gaping holes and other objects on urban landscapes, reminding us that even the most forgotten object can be regarded as art.

Last week was really busy, with tight project schedules and a 24h coding marathon at Codebits. Nonetheless, there’s always time to share the latest fresh inspirations:

First, another great idea by FarFar, with Nokia presenting the next step in workload management. Just upload that boring document you have on your Documents folder and be surprised.

Speaking of mobile, and for not accusing me of a Nokia bias, there’s Samsung Omnia, a video exploration on what a mobile device has to offer, at 42goodthings.com. Also created by a Swedish agency, Projector.

Having a great time? Then grab a Heineken beer, and take a good look around the bar to know the signs.

It could be easier to understand, so i wouldn’t had to put up with the annoying voice off. The Oddcast custom video is nice though. Work by Unit9.

After the digital inspiration, a few more video bytes on creativity, starting with Lit Studio’s Interactive Mirror (not sure how it would work out on a Monday morning)

Interactive Mirror from Alpay Kasal on Vimeo

and ending with an essential talk on creativity and play by IDEO’s T shaped men, Tim Brown.

You have to hand it to those bright minds at IDEO. They do know how to have fun and break the rules. Jay Kaplan and team have put together a modern time Rude Goldberg chain reaction, on eight worldwide locations, six time zones, and roughly fifty people involved.



The Boston team gets their machine ready amongst scenes of local history. Photo credits: Ideo Labs

The video below is 15 minutes of pure blend between engineering and creativity, with each office creating their own chain reaction masterpiece. Enjoy.

IDEO Global Chain Reaction from IDEO Labs on Vimeo.

Just a quick note about a new tool, Multicolr Search Lab, that extracts the colours from 10 million of the most “interesting” Creative Commons images on Flickr. Just select your colors and get your Flickr colored and filtered photo.

Really useful when you’re looking for a comp photo that goes well with your artwork.
IdeeInc had previously developed Visual Search Labs, but this one seems a lot more useful.

UPDATE (24/10/08): Paulo reports (in portuguese) that Renova has contacted Todd from ImprovEverywhere and apologized for the misappropriation.

The cat is out of the bag, now. After posting a comment and emailing Renova, the napkin and toilet paper company, and not getting any answer, it’s time to take a stand and share Agent Todd’s frustration.

As some of you know, i’m involved at the Urban Prankster group here in Portugal. Our missions are inspired by the collective Improv Everywhere, which you might know from the famous “Frozen Grand Central” viral video.
Some of the missions are pretty original, whilst others are inspired by advertising. What i wasn’t expecting was to find a blatant copycat done by Renova, with no attribution whatsoever.

The ripoff:

The original:

Renova produced this guerrilla marketing stunt, based on the original Food Court Musical, and didn’t bother to credit the music authors or idea creators on their video. Hey, they didn’t even bother to change the lyrics. At Renova’s corporate blog, they’ve already set the video to private (wonder why), but i’m posting it above, along with the original idea. Just because i care.

Will someone get Renova a napkin to clean this mess, please ?

Yahoo spreads some Gogol Bordello love to the web on their new website Start Wearing Purple.

http://startwearingpurple.yahoo.com/

The hotsite intends to celebrate not only Yahoo’s official color, but also “that unique, charmingly eccentric side of all of us“.  With some fun purple trivia, purple gadgets and a whole purple set of mind (whatever that is), the site does a great job on bringing back Yahoo’s culture, that has been in so bad shape lately, after the failed Microsoft deal.

One of the most interesting parts of the site are the videos prouced by agent Todd (of ImprovEverywhere and Frozen Grand Central fame). Several people were filmed in a Manhattan elevator, with a new performer getting on at each stop and singing Bordello’s “Start Wearing Purple”. I’ll leave you with the reactions: