Hasta La Ideas

In the blink of a disembodied Tony Oursler eyeball, the Adobe Museum of Digital Media has mounted its second exhibition. Through the end of the year, visitors to the sleek site can watch John Maeda, embattled president of the Rhode Island School of Design, deliver an illustrated lecture on his version of the ABCs: atoms, bits, and craft—specifically the physical-meets-virtual mashup that he calls “neue craft.” Maeda begins his discussion of the potential for art and design to catch up with technology by tracing his own path from creating early computer graphics and discovering MacPaint. “That began this era where the computer began to feel more like our world, more like the physical world,” says Maeda, conscious that a sizable chunk of his audience may own an iPad 2 but never heard of an Apple II. “The virtual world, at the time, was very clunky.” Highlighting the technological jumps enabled by Adobe PostScript (cue the Bézier splines!) and Photoshop, the ubiquity of Flash, and the growing awareness of art and design, he asks viewers to consider the origins of innovation before tackling the intersection of craft and computers. At RISD, of course, craft has always been king. “Our students are so steeped in the art of making, bending, gnawing, sawing, changing, forming,” says Maeda. “Today, because of digital tools, we’ve lost that sense of reality. However, craft is alive in the space I live in today.”

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With chaos still enveloping Japan following that country’s massive earthquake last week, from afar we’ve all seen the terrifying, heartbreaking images and video shot both during the quake and its devastating aftermath. Christopher Hawthorne, the LA Times‘ resident architecture critic, wound up finding this amazing clip from during the original tremors, shot from inside starchitect Toyo Ito‘s Mediatheque, a building he calls one of the country’s “most significant pieces of contemporary architecture.” Fortunately, it appears that the building held during the quake and thus helped save the lives of those inside. Here’s the video:

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Have you dreamed of learning from the likes of Steven Heller, Gail Anderson, Stefan Sagmeister, and Brian Collins? These design legends (and many more) are among the design star-studded faculty of the School of Visual Arts’ MFA Design program, a two-year intensive that prepares students to excel as designers and “authors” of original ideas and unique products, using a range of media and media platforms. To get the full scoop, we would ordinarily recommend that you attend an information session in New York, but the innovative types at SVA are getting the word out to design education seekers the world over with a new series of online videos. Watch Heller and Lita Talarico, the program’s co-chairs, discuss the “Designer as Entrepreneur” program, then get acquainted with the MFA Design Studio, current students, and accomplished alumni. And did we mention the part about studying typography in Venice, swapping stories with faculty member Maira Kalman, and studying “Design and Intentions” under the all-seeing eye of Milton Glaser? Applications are due by January 15 for fall enrollment. Dig into more details here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.