Robert Rauschenberg died last night. He was 82. It’s all over the entertainment news, so it’s no inside track here, but worth noting, and dutifully with hats off and a bow. I just Googled like a madman hoping to find a transcript of his MOCA/Calvin Tomkins interview at the Pacific Design Center, May 21, 2006, and came up empty. There was something he said that was so elegantly simple it caught me a bit by surprise when it stuck with me like the sound of one hand clapping for the rest of the day (and, obviously, even to now).

I’m going to try and paraphrase, hopefully I don’t butcher this, but when asked to elaborate upon his sometimes caustic differences of opinion with Merce Cunningham while designing for the dance company from 1955 to 1964 (and several times since), he paused what felt like over a minute, and summed it up pithily … “without separation, there can be no connection.”

Food for thought. Good night, and good luck.

Posted by: Colin Mangham

One great way to celebrate Martin Luther King Day is to take the day off. How’s that for a novel idea? Another is to read a graphic novel — or three, if it’s Ho Che Anderson’s acclaimed King series.

Comic Book Bin calls it, “an essential edition to any comic book library.” (I suppose they would know, eh?) I simply call it an intriguing approach to biography. I dug into the series when I first discovered it in 2003 shortly after the publishing of Volume 3, though I was decidedly late to the party of insiders who’d been following Anderson since Volume 1 debuted a decade earlier.

If you’re not familiar with graphic novels, these are not at all comic books by the common definition. Anderson underscores this with a dark, moody tone to the imagery and narrative, and what would appear to be a somewhat objective eye on not only the man’s triumphs but also the less flattering details of Dr. King’s life framed in the context of the hard-fought struggles of a man who would be, well, King. It is, however, the artist’s subjective and richly realized visual interpretation of the story we think we know so well that makes the trilogy worth a read or, at the very least, a quick flip-through at the Barnes & Noble.

Posted by: Colin Mangham

MLK, lyrics by U2, The Unforgettable Fire (1984)
Sleep, sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realised.
If the thunder cloud passes rain
So let it rain, rain down on he.
So let it be.
So let it be.

Sleep, sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realised.
If the thunder cloud passes rain
So let it rain, let it rain
Rain down on he.

Posted by: Colin Mangham

I’ve followed the works of artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher for some time now, continually intrigued by the interactive “assignments” that fuel their projects, often on a daily basis. According to the website (www.learningtoloveyoumore.com), participants accept an assignment — for example, “24. Cover the song ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’,” “11. Photograph a scar and write about it,” “50. Take a flash photo under your bed” (sample entry below) — complete it according to the provided instructions, email it to them as a photo, text document, video, etc. and await the posting of the assignment on the website.

“Like a recipe, meditation practice, or familiar song, the prescriptive nature of these assignments is intended to guide people towards their own experience.” Over 5,000 people have participated in the project since it began in 2002. A book showcasing the crop’s cream just came out last month.

Posted by: Colin Mangham

Hard to believe, though it’s stating the obvious, that John Lennon was gunned down 27 years ago today, and by none other than Holden Caulfield (sic).  I know I’m breaking Yoko’s rule that we should remember John on the day of his birth not his death, but it’s hard for me not to remember December 8, especially as it comes right on the heels of that other Day that Will Live in Infamy.  Anyway, some  lyrics from the Double Fantasy LP (1980):

Before you cross the street
Take my hand
Life is what happens to you
While you’re busy making other plans

Before you go to sleep
Say a little prayer
Every day in every way
It’s getting better and better

Posted by: Colin Mangham

Flashback. Beginning June 16 last year, more than 130 treasures from the tomb of the famous boy King Tut and other Valley of the Kings tombs and additional ancient sites [were] on display at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for five months. According to The Art Newspaper, by early September, 600,000 tickets had sold, and total attendance was projected to approach one million, placing the exhibition second in overall attendance only to the 1.2 million attracted by the 1979 show.

LACMA did an excellent job of addressing all five of the strategies above by managing reservations and crowds through the support of its partners: AEG finances the show, AEI manages production and some of the logistics of the tour, and National Geographic produces related books and films. LACMA members were able to be first in the queue to choose not only the date they would like to attend, but also the time. The latter is not typically an option and, in fact, it was a stringent requirement to address number 3 above. The museum took reservations several weeks in advance to fill the calendar dates as well as time slots each day. This way they were able to manage the demand by spreading out the attendance more evenly over the course of a day.

To further optimize queuing beyond the initial entry point, they disallowed back tracking within the venue and metered out optimally sized groups that could spend only a certain amount of time (e.g., 20 minutes) in each exhibit room. Most people I spoke with agreed that it helped enhance their experience as it regulated the number of people crowding each artifact. Which is important to note with respect to the museum staff given last week’s labor strike at the Louvre, where, as described by Digital Journal, “There can sometimes be 65,000 visitors on one day. No wonder they are stressed … they are constantly telling people, no flash photography, who don’t listen. The crowds get larger, but the staff does not.”

Posted by: Colin Mangham

For my colleagues at the University of Liverpool, Dyson’s success is a household story. It’s been said that Dyson is one of the country’s most respected innovators. In fact, in a BBC poll to name “Britain’s best entrepreneur,” Dyson himself was voted #2 to Richard Branson’s #1. (BBC News). But in the U.S. the leader has been Hoover … well, until last year, when Dyson took the top position.

Dyson’s modernist and innovative industrial design has been a key differentiator. The company claims to have gone through 5,000 prototypes before launching its first model. It also charges a premium price. Dyson stormed the market with an entirely new technology and also smartly pegged his unusual looking product with a luxury price point more than 200% higher than the industry average. Though the quality of Dyson products has been met with its share of harsh critics, the company has in only four years succeeded in challenging and beating out Hoover, the long-time incumbent.

There was a time, seems like yesterday, when more than half of American households used a Hoover-branded vacuum cleaner. Today, sales of the bellwether Hoover, invented in 1907, have been all but destroyed. According to the Financial Times, when Dyson entered the US market in 2002, the Hoover had a tight grip on its home turf with a 36 per cent share. In the past 12 months their positions have reversed, with Hoover’s share slipping to almost 13 per cent and Dyson’s sales going beyond the important 20 percent mark. Suffice it to say (with tongue firmly in cheek) that Hoover’s hearing a loud, sucking sound….

Posted by: Colin Mangham