something: An Open-Story Plot Device for Life

An antidote to friend buttons, or what Shakira, Seth Godin and JJ Abrams have in common.

We’ve got something, something we share with Sir Richard Branson, Dave Eggers, Shakira, and Seth Godin, among others. And now, you too can have something — for free.

something is a plot device in a story you choose to ascribe it to, part MacGuffin Library, part Significant Objects, part creative vehicle all its own — a fascinating side project by our friends at m ss ng p eces, whom you might recall from the lovely Behind the Scenes of a TED Talk, the Michael Wolff mirco-documentary on the three muscles of creativity and last month’s excellent James Murphy interview on the future of taste and music discovery.

Today, we sit down with founder Scott Thrift to talk about something.

What, exactly, is something?

ST: something is a profoundly simple work of art that connects people, inspires new ideas and generates curiosity.

How did the something story start?

ST: After film school my writing was taking me deeper into the meaning of the moving image. The impact a single frame could have on someone began to hold more interest for me than a feature film. While applying pressure to what a one second film might feel like; I began to wonder what media, books, or art ‘do’ in the first place. What do we ‘have’ with us after the experience? I wanted to be able to grasp that intangible mystery. I wanted to ‘have’ what I wanted an original film to ‘do’ to people, without making the film.

Where is something going?

ST: For the past nine years I have given it as a gift to people who have meant something to me. It’s an effective way of giving thanks for everything beyond words. I would estimate that there are close to 500 pieces throughout the world.

One of my favorite things about something is that it cannot be downloaded. I’ve always wanted to send something to people in the mail to celebrate the physicality of connection.”

I kind of miss that in a world of friend buttons, so I’m going to give that a go and see what happens.

What has been the most surprising response to something that you’ve seen?

ST: Something connects people to the present moment. In the newness of that moment I’ve seen people bite it, laugh uncontrollably, shake it next to their ear, try desperately to open it, smell it, go on a pun fit or become frightened, confused, jubilant, jealous, I’ve seen it make people cry, become furious, throw it or take a picture with it but most commonly, share it with everyone around them. The most enjoyable responses for me are the surprising insights and deeply interesting conversations it inspires concerning meaning, perception, value and the thingness of things.

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LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy on the Future of Taste

Iconic musician, producer, DJ and DFA Records founder James Murphy is perhaps best-known as the frontman of hipster darling LCD Soundsystem. Earlier this year, he broke many a fan’s hearts when he announced his retirement, and last weekend he made his dramatic exit with LCD Soundsystem’s final epic performance in Madison Square Garden, an event most eloquently described by Jeremy Larson as “an exploration [of] how one band compiled every good sound from every band that came before them and turned it into a four hour sound orgasm.”

To commemorate Murphy’s retirement, our friends from m ss ng p eces — the same folks who brought us that priceless behind-the-scenes look at TED earlier this year and last week’s superb Michael Wolff documentary — dusted off their archives, dug out a 30-minute interview they shot with Murphy in 2006, and edited it down to 9 insightful minutes of his thoughts on the future of taste, music discovery and the challenge of reconciling creative merit with technology.

What’s going to be missing is the unconscious peer pressure that guides people into different forms of taste. What it’s gonna be replaced by is lifestyle marketing and taste engines, which scares the crap out of me.” ~ James Murphy

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Ball of Light: How Light Painting Saved a Man’s Life

We love a good creativity-saves-lives story, and it hardly gets any better than Australian photographer Denis Smith‘s: Two years ago, Smith was suffering from depression, cracking under the pressure of a demanding job, struggling with money, and living on the verge of alcoholism. One day, he discovered photography and light painting, and eventually developed his unique, otherworldly “ball of light” style, the product of a remarkably simple — and absolutely brilliant in its simplicity — technique.

It all takes place at night. I can’t tell you exactly how I find them, and I’m still not exactly sure what they mean. But what I do know is that taking these photographs has changed my life.” ~ Denis Smith

In this microdocumentary by photographer Sam Collins, Smith shares his fascinating life story and his unusual creative process:

With normal photography, the shutter opens and closes in a photograph, and you get a snapshot of what’s there in front of the camera. And with light painting, what you do is the shutter stays open for a long period of time, so when it’s a dark environment, it brings more light in, and if you move a light around in front of the camera, it stays embedded in the picture.”

Smith’s art embodies the saving grace that is creative restlessness, and his life experience is a living testament to its duality — the same restlessness that may drive us to addiction and depression can also drive us to invent, to innovate, to create. The challenge, of course, is choosing the creative over the destructive edge, and resting in it.

via PetaPixel via @kirstinbutler

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5 Questions x 8 Interesting People x SXSW 2011

This year, we went to SXSW and decided to ask 8 of the most interesting people we know — including The New York Times’ David Carr, Behance founder Scott Belsky, and Fast Company’s Alissa Walker — 5 questions about technology, innovation and the information economy. We photographed them with their answers and used projeqt, the wonderful storytelling platform we introduced a few months ago, to share their answers.

The questions:

• What’s the most overrated product, service or idea of the past year?
• What’s the most underrated product, service or idea of the past year?
• What product, service or platform could you absolutely not live without?
• What’s your #1 information source? (site, platform or person)
• If you could, what buzzword would you kill?

Go ahead and explore this visual micro-portrait of today’s tech landscape. And we’d love to hear what you — yes, you — would’ve said, so drop us a comment below if you’d like to share your 5 answers.

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