Friday 31 May 2019

Early American TV set designs (May 8, 2015)

https://www.wired.com/2015/05/early-tv-set-designs-even-groovier-mad-mens/

AS FAR AS song-and-dance TV shows go, American Bandstand and Soul Train could hardly have been more different. Bandstand, which originally aired in 1952, showcased poodle skirt–wearing teenagers singing along to Top 40 radio hits, while Soul Train, which debuted two decades later, had a funkier repertoire of R&B, jazz, soul, and gospel acts. But the shows did have one surprising thing in common: set designs heavily influenced by modern art. The abstracted platforms, stepped risers, and colored spotlights were lifted straight from the world of minimalist art, according to Abbott Miller, a Pentagram partner and one of the designers of a new exhibition up in New York titled Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television.
The advent of premium cable channels may have ushered in a golden age of TV, but the experimentalism of TV's early days shouldn't be underestimated. Today we praise shows that meticulously and authentically re-create a look or moment, like the 1960s-era New York we watch on Mad Men, or the meth labs and Albuquerque homes of Breaking Bad. But when TV was just getting started, executives and creatives saw it differently, as a place where the art world and mass media could intersect. “The pioneers of early television understood the medium’s innate power, and they mined the aesthetic, stylistic, and conceptual possibilities of a new and powerful technology,” writes curator Maurice Berger. Television executives of the time, Berger says, were fascinated by avant-garde artists and saw television as not just a way to entertain the masses but as a vehicle for ideas about modern art.

Ernie Kovacs, seen here, was an early experimental TV comedian.

COURTESY OF THE JEWISH MUSEUM
If you ever thought TV pre-HBO was the fast food of entertainment, Revolution of the Eye, now open at the Jewish Museum in New York City, has more than 250 artifacts to prove otherwise. The exhibit is all about the early days of network programming—from the 1940s to the 1970s—and spotlights the ways networks were influenced by the aesthetics of high art and clever design in a way they haven't been since.

Andy Warhol's cover design for TV Guide in 1966.**

COURTESY OF THE JEWISH MUSEUM
Design—specifically graphic design—helped executives pull that off. “Design was a critical kind of negotiator in terms of providing a new look at what this new medium was about,” says Miller, who worked with Berger to design the exhibit space and a book on the topic. “You see things like the [credits for] The Twilight Show, or this show calledLaugh-In, and you have this immediate awareness that graphics and CBS were really pivotal in defining a new look of what [TV] about and capable of.” Take the titles from Laugh-In, for example: “It was trafficking in this Pop, almost psychedelic, language that is pretty concurrent with the psychedelic poster explosion on the West Coast, but they were using it to signify that this was a different kind of media,” Miller says. Consider also that this was being broadcast to everyone, not just hippies in California. Likewise, Miller says, “The Twilight Zone used surrealism and the graphics of op-art in the same way, but to signify not something silly, but something scary and sinister.”

CBS: A Business, a School, a Museum
Television networks even behaved like incubators for design talent, especially CBS. The network had a full-fledged design campaign, and its talent roster included credits-master Saul Bass and Andy Warhol (“before he was fully Andy Warhol.”) CBS’s attention to design stemmed from its creative director, William Golden, who came up with the CBS “eye,” the company’s famous corporate logo, which, incidentally, was based on a Shaker religious symbol. The symbol made a strong impression on audiences that weren't yet attuned to corporate branding, and the company realized the impact that effective graphic design could have on viewers. “They created a stage for design to contribute more than it had before,” Miller says. “I don’t want to say they were the HBO of the time, but it was inventive, with a lot of cultural caché. People realized a network was capable of cultivating a sophisticated persona.”

The CBS logo, from an ad that ran in Fortune.

COURTESY OF THE JEWISH MUSEUM
By pulling famous designers—like Bass—from the print worlds of movie posters and advertising, CBS helped push the medium along. For a while, TV design often looked like newspaper or magazine design supplanted on a screen. On-air graphics let designers experiment, and the cross-pollination of ideas followed. For instance, Miller suggest that the design and editing Bass did on a Johnson's baby commercial may have inspired the famously suspenseful shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

It’s easy to see how CBS, Bass, and the other networks of the time created the seeds for the kind of TV we watch today. Yes, we had to suffer through Bonanza and Family Matters, and we’re still suffering through Real Housewives. But we’re also in the middle of a Cambrian-esque explosion of clever storytelling that creates new opportunities for designers. It might feel novel, but as Revolution of the Eyeand Miller point out, those artistic dynamics have been simmering under the surface for decades: “There was this idea that a network was sort of like a business and school and a museum all rolled into one," Miller says. "They felt they had an obligation to do things in the right way, that they had a mission bigger than just sort of selling ad space.”
Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television will be open until September 27, 2015.





Pete George: The many identities of Marc Spring (Jun. 1, 2019)

The many identities of Marc Spring

The launch this week of the book Whale Oil understandably put Cameron Slater and his dirty blogging at the centre of attention. But he has been in some cases paid and aided, abetted and used by a number of accomplices.
Someone who has been closely associated with Slater in his sustained attacks on Matt Blomfield is an ex-business associate of Blomfield’s, Marc Spring. If anything he has done more for longer than Slater.
One way Spring has kept attacks going against Blomfield (and others including myself) is his use of many identities (pseudonyms) in his online activities.
How many identities? That’s hard to quantify, but it’s many. my guess is well over a hundred identities, if not many more.
Spring has used multiple identities to make it appear as if there is wider support for his claims, his false and misleading information, and his mistruths or lies.
From Whale Oil (the book):
..,an increasing number of nasty and inflammatory statements about Matt started  appearing on news sites and blogs, under many different names, this giving the appearance of many people hating Matt and saying he was dangerous and damaging.
It was at this point Dunedin blogger Pete George inadvertently poked the bear. Noticing a number of nasty comments about matt on his blog he allowed Matt – with whom he had no previous contact – a right of reply.
As a result George found himself targeted on Twitter, tagged on @laudafinem and @marcspring…
Things got much worse for George, who found himself embroiled in a length and expensive legal action taken against him by Dermot Nottingham. Marc Spring also served documents on him, as well as suggesting to George that he could be ‘fucked over’ as someone else had been on Whale Oil.
Following a few clues, George ‘began’ to think about things that could be related’.
In September 2015 he wrote to Matt to let him know what he’d discovered: a list of 47 aliases, all emanating from digital addresses related to Marc Spring.
(Excerpts from the book)
That number of identities astonished me. They had started in January 2015, so over about eight months.
He used more since then, especially over the next few months when there was a major attempt to disrupt and discredit Your NZ. He continues too use multiple pseudonyms here. How many in all? I haven’t counted. Fifty, sixty, seventy perhaps. And that’s just here.
One common technique is posting a comment under one pseudonym, and then replying under one or more other pseudonyms that agree with or add to the original comment, trying to give an appearance of wider support and agreement for his accusations and attacks.
I’ve also seen similar methods used at Lauda Finem. It’s quite possible most comments there are by Spring and associates trying to give the appearance of credibility and support for the outlandish posts there. I believe that Spring has also either written or at least contributed to posts at Lauda Finem. Some of the later ones sounded deranged.
Spring has close associations with Dermot Nottingham, who was found last year by a jury and a judge to have been the main person behind Lauda Finem (Slater also has links to that website).
I also believe that Spring has probably been using multiple identities at Whale Oil, and I believe at Kiwiblog – there was a comment there this week that sounded very Spring-like to me.
It is likely he has used other identities elsewhere in social media.
Spring was blatantly and openly active on Twitter, often associating with @laudafinem in harassment of me, but has now tried to scrub that. But he has mostly acted anonymously.
It is hard to know whether Spring operated all these identities himself, or whether he had help. I know that Nottingham also used multiple identities, but they were identifiably different.
This use and abuse of pseudonyms has not only been a means of attack, abuse, harassment and defamation, they have also at times been done in breach of court orders.
It’s hard to imagine how Spring managed to manage so many identities, but to an extent that gave him away – he often tried to disguise himself when establishing a new identity, but eventually revealed the same old style and tricks. It became a giveaway when he inevitably attacked Blomfield. The manner in which he does this has become very familiar.
In ways Spring’s deception has been quite sophisticated, either carefully planned or from a lot of experience. But he couldn’t keep disguising his motives, which were to attack Blomfield, and anyone he considered a threat to his campaign of harassment.
This multi-identity deception is an abuse of the use of pseudonyms, and it makes things more awkward for the many people who legitimately and reasonable use pseudonyms (or more to the point, a pseudonym).
It means one has to be sceptical of online claims and campaigns. With experience it becomes easier to spot the pseudonym abusers, but only if you’re looking for it.
The use of multiple pseudonyms or switched pseudonyms is largely under control here at Your NZ. It happens, but I usually know when it happens.
Whale Oil in particular cannot be trusted. While I think it’s likely Spring has used multiple identities there it also looks to me like it is a common practice there – not of ordinary users, but of blog management. A few years ago Pete Belt was sprung giving a favourable review to  book Slater had published using an alias. Slater and Spring have worked together so it is not a surprise that they might use the same sort of deceptions.
From my experience and observations Spring has to be the king of fake online identities. And he is still at it.
https://yournz.org/2019/06/01/the-many-identities-of-marc-spring/

Assange showing symptoms of 'psychological torture': UN (Jun. 1, 2019)

  1. johnm8
    Assange showing symptoms of 'psychological torture': UN 
    Statement accuses the US, UK, Sweden and Ecuador of "ganging up" on Assange to "isolate, demonise and abuse" him.
    John Pilger: US Charges Against Julian Assange are RIDICULOUS!


    • RedLogix8.1
      Thanks for this john. I've been following this sad development and watching the entire fiasco unravel on every front. I used some strong language a few days back, and the light of this I don't resile from it one jot. 
    • johnm8.2
      “They made him very ill by refusing him ANY access to life sustaining fresh air, exercise, sun/VitD or proper medical care for 6 YEARS of illegal Embassy detention
      Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief, wrote that "Julian's case is of major historic significance. It will be remembered as the worst attack on press freedom in our lifetime. The People need to voice their condemnation; it is their politicians, their courts, their police and their prisons that are being abused in order to leave this black stain on history. Please act now to avert this shame".
      • francesca8.2.1
        Unfortunately the mass campaign to vilify Assange has done its work. 
        Even on this supposedly progressive site, the attack lines are relentlessly repeated 
        "Melzer went on:
        “In the course of the past nine years, Mr. Assange has been exposed to persistent, progressively severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy, and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination.”
        Trigger alert : sensitive souls may note this comes from Consortium News and includes information that may be contrary to dearly held beliefs
        We should be out in the streets over this

        • greywarshark8.2.1.1
          I looked at the letter writing to Assange at Belsem? Prison campaign, it advises to put in a plain sheet of paper and self addressed envelope with UK stamps for reply – of course he woud need a pen or pencil.    I have not been able to find NZPost information about how to deal with pre-paid mail in other country's currency.   At present I have a question placed yesterday about this but have received no email reply.
          I asked about stamps or an international coupon which I imagine there should be available but who knows it seems to me that NZ Post is just managing down the business.  If I could buy a pre-paid envelope rather than stamps – that would be practical.  I thought they might have replied by now.
        • Morrissey8.2.1.2
          "Abstaining from the witchhunt would have classed the dissenter as an enemy.  Stalin was supported by fanatics, cynics, sadists and moral cowards."
          —-Donald Rayfield, Stalin and His Hangmen: An Authoritative Portrait of a Tyrant and Those Who Served Him (Viking, 2004)
        • greywarshark8.2.1.3
          deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation…  We have seen that on this site frequently and from people who one would expect to have been on the side of exposing the secrets of powerful people and countries willing to destroy others for their purposes.  
          For good people to do nothing….  Have I got time to be good, what with all the other things I give my time to, as well as my own living tasks for me, my family, friends and community?     These sort of unworthy thoughts about my lack of action are I think echoed by quite a number.
          We should be out in the streets for Assange, but the attention now is on climate change and receiving a living wage for those who are trying to hold society together and retain the advances that were gained by exhaustive social interaction last century.  
          Got to keep trying to do it all or the golden bulldozer driven by a robot with such a cheeky, lovable grin in such a cute hat, will scoop us all up.    Ever looked at the photos of naked bodies being thrown into burial pits in Holocaust archives?   That sort of thing has happened multiple times in even near history.   Those images should be in everyone's minds;  the reality of what we can do when we have our mind setting on the mark of Cold, Hard, Unfeeling, Uncaring, Unrespecting, Unloving, and Choose your level of Evil – Eager, Sometimes, Neutral, Not sure, Wrestling against it every day.
        • johnm8.2.1.4
          They are trying to kill Julian Assange
          Martha S.
          The so-called journalists of the msm are presstitutes, they write what is expected from them. They sold their soul.

          That Mike Who? is one of the best paid presstitutes infesting NZ airways and press.
  2. ianmac9
    "Treasury hacking: The time I hacked WINZ – Keith Ng."
    Remember the fuss when Keith discovered the "hole" in WINZ? He did the right thing by informing WINZ about the "hole." Bridges didn't did he?
    Imagine if you only saw the last part of the process. Imagine you didn't see the first 200,000 times where the security system blocked access, and you just saw the 200,001st attempt. You would simply see the hacker walk in and succeed at accessing the information. You might think there was no security at all.