Just discovered that National Gallery has bought a Peder Balke painting.

Enjoy photo of the painting and get more info on this Norwegian artist via link here:

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/peder-balke-the-tempest

Balke was an artist able to capture the special light and magic of coastal areas of Northern Norway.

Reading Eats and Reads...

READING EATS. Inspired by Italian columnist Giacomo Papi, Ingrid D. Rowland in the NYR blog (NYR=NEW YORK REVIEW of Books) reflects on how contemporary society has been revealed once and for all in the way we eat and our reading eats. "The mouth has become the most important organ..." says Giacomo Papi. "...Because eating is the only sensory, and hence aesthetic, experience that is entirely fulfilled in consumption. By destroying the work of art."

hmmm, a due warning before Xmas?
To recall that before Christmas is making rather than purely consumption time I have put in a picture of Norwegian flatbread baking. However, this could be a vanishing craft... (own photo).

BACK to the columnist: As in Italy and elsewhere, reading eats are changing in America, reflects Ingrid Rowland:
- "No one could have imagined that polar bears or the countryside would ever end when my family arrived in Corona del Mar, California, in the mid-1960s. The prevailing fantasy of those years, in that idyllic place, depended in equal measure on Walt Disney and Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki; apartments and bars bore names like Outrigger or Aloha Moku, and no one’s patio was complete without a series of flaming tiki torches to lend evening parties the allure of a luau. Since then, however, the collective imagination has turned Corona del Mar into an outpost of Tuscany; the cut of meat that used to be known as a “T-bone steak” is now a “Tuscan Angus"..."

ON READS. - "What would Machiavelli or Borges make of the fact that books, at least in the US, seem to be going the way of the countryside, butterflies, and polar bears? Asks Ingrid. "For more and more publishers no longer advertise “books”; they advertise, with hammering insistence, “reads”—and reads, abetted by the very brevity of that Anglo-Saxon syllable, are acts of consumption as voracious as the meta-culinary gobble that has turned dinner into an analytical ordeal for Giacomo Papi. A read, of course, can be consummated on a Kindle, on a tablet, or on a computer, as well as between the pages of a book—perhaps that is the point of emphasizing the sale of reads rather than evoking that archaic form in which texts have so long been embodied."

OLD WORLD ACTS. "In one respect, at least, the Italians still live in the Old World," Ingrid remarks. - "An Italian lettura is not a “read” but a “reading,” a word that, apart from its long history of liturgical use among the Peoples of the Book, suggests an experience through time—like its English cognate, lecture. A lettura is a feast on slow food, an act that still retains a hint of ceremony..."

Maybe some of us Norwegians appreciate this as well when making flatbread or special gift readings such as handwritten cards for Christmas. We make it into an annual passage ceremony. Though we tend to save time by putting a few handwritten words on the cards or on preprinted letters that are put into envelopes with pictures and colourful old postcards. Any way, it needs to go quickly by slow post. Mass wired letters won't do the same job since they are less able to become family treasure readings.

SV faculty of University in Bergen 40 y 2010

Here is a film in Norwegian grounded in interviews with some key figures.

https://www.uib.no/svf/artikler/2010/10/jubileumsfilmen

Design in Practice/"Design i praksis" new book

"Design i praksis: designledelse og innovasjon" (in Norw.), exhibited in Norli bookstore, Oslo, October 2010. Photo: Birgit Helene Jevnaker.

31.10.2010
This autumn, we, Per Farstad and myself, have finished our new book with Universitetsforlaget.

APPROACHES FOR DESIGN AND INNOVATION. The book is dealing with creative challenges and opportunities for designing and innovating in projects with others in realworld situations. Ten transdisciplinary work approaches are introduced for projects of many kinds - in service or product development, concept development, innovation and design. We suggest the work approaches are potentially relevant across several design disciplines and other making and planning disciplines including management, and especially in the current situation where both design and management fields seem to be under scrutiny and transformation.

PERSPECTIVES ON CREATING SOMETHING. No doubt, there are currently many new or latent problems surfacing in and across projects and organizations. From many years of work practice, studies and teaching, we have learned how students as well as scholars and practitioners are often striving with both innovation and developmental work including the conception of something new and different. Or how to actually renew and strenghten something already proven to sustain its actual or potential values? These are among the questions we explore throughout the book, drawing on research and experiential insights from realworld examples.

DESIGN ISSUES AND COLLABORATIONS. The book builds on the premises that platforms and collaborations for good designing are something that is constructed and unfold in practice. It thus delineates and discusses a number of design and developmental issues and seeks to provide new or synthetized perspectives, work methods/tools, and knowledge that we suggest can help something new or existing to become attractive as well as viable in practice. This is however a continuous and often complex challenge but one that we as humans can work on - with and for others.
Any experience, comment and suggestion that can help us to improve this, is welcome. birgit.h.jevnaker@bi.no

See more on Universitetsforlaget

Live Opera in cinema / Boris Godunov

LIVE OPERA IN CINEMA. Interestingly, live operas from some of the top opera houses such as The Metropolitan (the Met) are now sometimes available in a cinema theatre "near you", here in Oslo. The Met, established in 1883, now regularly transmits a number of their performances to other regions via a HD service thanks to certain sponsors. The calendar is available on the link here..

The Met's BORIS GODUNOV. Yesterday (23.10.10), I saw an excellent performance of Modest Musorgskij's opera Boris Godunov . It was broadcasted from the Met in New York to Oslo cinemas Ringen and Gimle. With a reputation for such cultural events, Gimle was sold out but Ringen could take more people. (In fact, all opera performances scheduled currently at Gimle seem easily sold out, at least it was when I booked my tickets for Boris Godunov on 25 September (for 300 NOK per ticket), whereas Ringen, a larger theatre East in Oslo still had vacant seats). Anyway, quite a large group of people still came to see and listen to this particular live opera performance also at Ringen, as did many people in other local theatres elsewhere, I presume. It was a great experience, because the singing and music by great artists and excellent performers were also dramatized with unifying aesthetic and ethical content, form and deeper meaning.
Here is a video from the initial work by Peter Stein (who later left but the work was continued by Stephen Wadsworth, see cast and production details below).



BORIS GODUNOV is a Russian epic opera - partly realistic in its drawing on Russian history and partly drawing on classical/experimental as well as folk music sources. Both music and libretto was written by Modest Musorgskij, or in English Mussorgsky (1839-1881). It is worth noting that he was inspired by Aleksandr Pusjkin's novel with the same name Boris Godunov (from 1830, though not allowed shown before 1870). Also much of Musorgskij's music were met with skepticism. It was not before his friend Rimskij-Korsakov rearranged the opera into a shorter piece and it later became performed with the brilliant singer Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin it became an international success. Later, the full complexities of Musorgskij's Boris have been rediscovered, one might say. The new Met version was, to our luck, performed with a mix of the first and second version of Musorgskij's original opera.

THE STORY in brief is zooming in on the ascendance of a new zar (tsar) and his relationship with the people or Russia at large. Boris Godunov, a bojar - who may have come to power by plotting or ordering the killing of Dimitri, the son of the former zar - has increasing doubts about his own role. Musorgskij shows us what this possibly criminal background does to the zar (he becomes haunted by a strange foreboding) and it influences his ethical relationship with the Russian people. He delivers out bread in the hope that people will forget the rumours. The people is however no unified heroic entity but rather expressed in nuanced and subtle ways by the choir as well as some noteworthy figures, for example, a couple of wandering monks (a new kind of character not common in operas at the time). In addition, the opera has a symbolic character, a fool, that tells the truth to the emperor.

THE PLOT. The opera shows the increasing self-doubts of the tsar on an enlarged background of hunger, mistrust, continued oppression of the people by the rich bojars (members of the highest ranks of the aristocracies), and political rivalry and plotting in and around Russia. This includes the false Dimitri, the Pretender, who is actually Grigorij, a former monk novice who hears about the previous political/criminal plot from his teacher, a chronicle writing old monk, Pimen. However, the young Grigorij - of the same age as would be the former tsar's son Dimitri - no more wants to become a humble monk continuing the chronicle writing. Very effectively, the book lies open on the stage floor throughout the opera and in some passages the key actors are literally in or playing on the book pages. Gregorij who reads the chronicle about the child killing, becomes filled with thoughts that he is the same age as Dimitri. Rather than justice or chronicle-writing, he wants to seize the throne for himself. When rumours begin to build up about this renegade "Dimitri", he escapes over the border to Lithunia. Later, pretending to be the next tsar, he engages in a loving relationship with Marina, a princess of Poland, who has her own ambitions for the Russian zarina throne and also is under influence of a Jesuit priest with ambitions for Russia - on behalf of the Roman-Catholic church.
It can be noted that this politically embedded love affair and Polish part of the opera was not in Musorgskij's imagination originally, it was actually inscribed into the opera by suggestion from Musorgskij's friend Rimskij-Korsakov. This latter composer also later made other, shorter versions of Musorgskij's Boris Godunov.

TOP TALENTS. Many top talents are listed in the Met's new compelling long version of Boris Godunov, among these are many excellent Russian singers such as Ekaterina Semenchuk and the German Rene Pape. The opera is sung in Russian, which is a challenge for non-Russians, of course. Rene Pape told the audience in an interview during one of the two breaks that he was "adopted" by all the Russian singers who each and all helped him express the words rightly. The conductor of this new performance is not to forget the highly creative Valery Gergiev from Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, home to the Kirov Opera and Ballet. Gergiev is also connected creatively to the Met as this opera shows.

CAST
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
Marina: Ekaterina Semenchuk
Dimitri: Aleksandrs Antonenko
Shuisky: Oleg Balashov
Rangoni: Evgeny Nikitin
Boris Godunov: René Pape
Pimen: Mikhail Petrenko
Varlaam: Vladimir Ognovenko

THE PRODUCTION TEAM
Production: Stephen Wadsworth
Set Designer: Ferdinand Wögerbauer
Costume Designer: Moidele Bickel
Lighting Designer: Duane Schuler
Choreographer: Apostolia Tsolaki


OWN BRIEF REFLECTIONS ON PARTS OF THE MET PERFORMANCE. There is much to reflect upon in this magic opera. The music and epic story are accumulating into a unifying experience in its deeper-ethical layers and original complex music style as Mussorgsky had it composed. The scene shifts are however done swiftly, without much disturbance in this "new" Boris Godunov, and the costumes are traditionally rich, even against a background on a relatively stripped down modern stage design, which may help us focus on the main drama rather than exotic detailing. We still sense the fundamental consequences of human actions and the evolving gaps between the power elites and the people. Although a relatively clean or simple, stripped down stage can help focus on the inner tensions and outer troubling times, I am not sure whether we actually hear the bells or clocks of the cathedral in the death scene. A few destiny-ringing bells or some other suggestive sounds might perhaps have helped our imagination regarding the sounds of ghosts that Boris seems to hear. But the personal drama of Boris in Rene Pape's physical gestalting comes forward clear enough any way - whether the bells actually toll or not.

If I shall dare to point to something more suffusing that could be improved, it is one aspect that comes to my mind. In Yesterday's performance, I found the Dimitri character perhaps the most "weak" one ("weak" in relative terms because they are all high-performers in terms of singing!). Nonetheless, the dramatic acting of this and a few other key roles (also prince Shuisky) could be somewhat improved, e.g., the novice monk part by the Dimitri character was not so credible. For example, he did not seem to have been spending his time in a cell as a novice with the old monk Pimen, nor did he act particularly well as a thirsty wannabe ruler. He was more credible as a man longing for love though. As to the Polish acts, however, I really enjoyed the highly seductive song and tight interplay of Marina and the Jesuit priest Rangoni, both ridden by power ambitions and sexual undertones in a credible and memorable way.

Most moving for me was, nonetheless, the whole complex of music going on and on including the expressive singing and excellent acting of the self-doubting Boris (performed by Rene Pape), such as his dying act with his children present and also the various symbolic scenes with the fool.
The last Kromy scene in the woods - when people take violently revenge over bojars and their soldiers and a woman in vain try to stop the mob's cruelties and is slaughtered while finally the fool expresses all the sorrows - shows that this scene was not meant as a simplified "revolutionary" or heroic tale of the people, it rather shows a mob seduced - in-between rival oppressors.

MORE ON THE MUSIC BACKGROUND. How could Musorgskij at a relatively young age come up with this moving, complex music? His opera Boris Godunov was first allowed to be performed in 1874 (and Musorgskij died already in 1881, at age 42). The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece.

Some enabling aspects may be his own dedicated creating and his particular teacher in a creative milieu with a handful of composing friends. As far as I have read, Musorgskij did not travel much but devoted himself to music composition (and alcohol), perhaps not surprising because his family went bankrupt and he also met much skepticism among his music contemporaries. See for example, Andras Batta (2001) Opera, p. 404.

Musorgskij's TEACHER. Although taking piano lessons from his early boyhood, Musorgskij had no full classical education. However, he was regarded as an eminent pianist, and eventually (from 1857), he started to study composition with his friend Mily Balakhirev (or Balakirev), who is regarded as the founder of the Five, a handful of composers, and its new Russian music school.

According to a Wikipedia article, I found this passage (courtesy to Wikipedia, link here):

In conjunction with critic and fellow nationalist Vladimir Stasov, in the late-1850s and early 1860s Balakirev brought together the composers now known as The Five—the others were Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. For several years, Balakirev was the only professional musician of the group; the others were amateurs limited in musical education but possessing enormous potential. He imparted to them his musical beliefs, which continued to underlie their thinking long after he left the group in 1871, and encouraged their compositional efforts. While his methods could be dictatorial, the results of his influence were several works which established these composers' reputations individually and as a group. He performed a similar function for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at two points in the latter's career—in 1868-9 with the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet and in 1882-5 with the Manfred Symphony.
As a composer, Balakirev finished major works many years after he had started them; he began his First Symphony in 1864 but completed it in 1897. The exception to this was his oriental fantasy Islamey for solo piano, which he composed quickly and remains popular among virtuosos. Often, the musical ideas normally associated with Rimsky-Korsakov or Borodin originated in Balakirev's compositions, which Balakirev played at informal gatherings of The Five. However, his slowness in completing works for the public robbed him of credit for his inventiveness, and pieces that would have enjoyed success had they been completed in the 1860s and 70s made a much smaller impact.

COMPLEX CREATIONS. According to several sources, Boris Godunov, among major operas, shares with Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos (1867) the distinction of having a complex creative history and the greatest wealth of alternative material. The composer created two versions—the Original Version of 1869, which was rejected for production by the Imperial Theatres, and the Revised Version of 1872, which received its first performance in 1874 in Saint Petersburg, according to Wikipedia. These versions constitute two distinct conceptions, not two variations of a single plan. It is noteworthy that the Met version seeks back to much of the original version while also including scenes from the second one. Thus, it became an approximately 4,5 hours opera but I really enjoyed also the length - of a magic evening. Many seems to agree with this rich experience of "original Boris".

a photographer's constant creation - Anton Corbijn

"i think i live in a dreamlike state and the only way to function is to create something"

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Courtesy Anton Corbijn, You Tube etc.

Ibsenmaskin / ball rolls out in the audience

Ibsenmaskin: A new play based on 12 of Ibsen's contemporary plays and written for the 20th year celebration of the Ibsenfestival at the Nationaltheatret, Oslo. Direction Sebastian Hartmann, Leipzig.

Kjersti Botn Sandal tries the Zorb-ball for the first time! Music: Steve Binetti.


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COURTESY, dybwadsplass1's channel and YouTube.

Ibsenmaskin, Oslo Ibsenfestival 2010

Magic moments during Sebastian Hartmann's Ibsenmaskin, premiere 26 Aug 2010, on Nationaltheatret, Oslo.
It is a thematic journey into several of Ibsen's late plays, such as Ghosts, Lady from the Sea, The Masterbuilder, Hedda Gabler.

I'd like to share with you the Love song by young actress Kjersti Botn Sandal who plays Osvald *from Ghosts.
Since I happen to know Kjersti from many summer hiking tours when she was a child, it is especially moving to listen to her song.

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Odd Nerdrum online

ODD NERDRUM'S AMAZING PAINTINGS. I'd like to look more in his books, too... But this entry is about Odd Nerdrum works online. He is both on Facebook with interesting photo albums (also of other painters) and he expresses in multiple media via several webpages. Discovered this today, so now I will visit him online, a good opportunity to enjoy his highly moving paintings. For example this new one.


You see we are blind, 2010 CREDIT PHOTO & PAINTING ODD NERDRUM

Interestingly, he is now using FB to interact and communicate.
For example, suggestions for a painting's title (See above: You see we are blind).
In March, he added this invitation on FB: Unfinished painting.Can you help me with the title?
First proposal is: "You se we are blind " - Thor Kristiansen
the picture: (260x188)

Here is more on Nerdrum's works: http://www.nerdruminstitute.com/main.php

a 5,500-year-old leather shoe found 2010

Courtesy for photo and text: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areni-1_shoe

The oldest piece of leather footwear in the world

FOUND IN CAVE BY POST-GRAD STUDENT. The Areni-1 shoe is a 5,500-year-old leather shoe found in good shape in 2010. It was found in the "Areni-1" cave located in the Vayots Dzor province of Armenia. According to Wikipedia, the shoe was discovered by Diana Zardaryan, an Armenian post-graduate student, in the course of excavations by a team of archeologists of Armenia’s Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography as well as from Ireland and the United States.

The team's findings were published on June 9, 2010 in the journal PLoS ONE. Interestingly, this is an open access online scientific journal. See their article "First Direct Evidence of Chalcolithic Footwear from the Near Eastern Highlands" here

Plos ONE Output
In 2006 the journal was launched in beta version and published 138 articles; in 2007 it published just over 1,200 articles; and in 2008 it published almost 2,800 articles, making it the largest open access journal in the world. This was also the year when the journal started to publish on a daily basis. In 2009, 4,406 articles were published, making PLoS ONE the third largest scientific journal in the world (by volume), tells Wikipedia. See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLoS_ONE

Interesting! I learned all this navigating from an old shoe rediscovery!

Glow by Madcon and mob dancing in MGP interval

In the Eurovision Song Contest 29 May 2010, "Glow" with Madcon and many people dancing in the interval were great fun! Here is some background from how the mob flashdance was orchestrated. Meet Karene Lyngholm and others, from training ground in Dusseldorf.

Stek eller bli stekt: Strid om en singlet (in Norwegian)

Foto: Håvard Prestegården

Kan "kjendisbruk" av en singlet gi noen åndsverkrettigheter for kommersielle formål? Eller en god læringsmulighet for å sette igang noe. Vi snakker om en STEKEsinglet for salg, et mulig hett objekt denne sommeren!

Jeg stiller spørsmålet fordi Håvard Prestegården i Bergens Tidende (24.mai) forteller denne historien:
- Carl Eliassen (22) vant årets utgave av realityserien «Paradise Hotel».
På TV gikk han ofte rundt i en singlet med påskriften «stek! stek! stek!» og omtalte seg som en «stekare» (se annen bloggpost, min anmerkn).
Nå har Eliassen startet nettbutikk hvor han selger kopier av signaturtrøyen.
I Bergen sitter tre økonomistudenter og føler seg snytt. De sier TV-kjendisen har stjålet ideen deres. Egentlig skulle de starte et samarbeid med Eliassen. Men nå opererer Paradise-vinneren på egen hånd.

Møttes på ferie
- Denne skjorten har jeg designet, forteller Sondre Holvik (21).
- For moro skyld lagde vi fire sånne singleter da vi skulle på ferie til Magaluf sist sommer. Der møtte vi Carl. Han la merke til singletene og syntes de var kule. Han spurte derfor om han kunne kjøpe en for noen shots i baren hvor han jobbet den sommeren, forteller Holvik.

Ifølge Prestegårdens reportasje i Bergens Tidende benekter Carl Eliassen at han har stjålet noen forretningsidé.
- Dette stemmer ikke i det hele tatt. Hvem er det som har brukt denne t-skjorten? Det er det jeg som har gjort. Uten meg ville den ikke hatt noen verdi. Jeg har rettighetene. Det de sier er fake, sier han.
- Hvordan skaffet du t-skjorten som ble brukt i Paradise Hotel?
- Jeg husker ikke helt. Eller jeg tror jeg fikk den av en jeg kjenner. Men jeg husker ikke navnet hans.

RESTEN av BT-artikkelen kan du lese via link under.

Sondre Holvik er forøvrig student ved BI Bergen. Og Sondres versjon av historien kan etter sigende bekreftes av flere kilder. (Har sjekket via egen kilde. Skylder å gjøre oppmerksom på at jeg kjenner gutta littegrann via familie).
Få derfor vite mer om denne historien bl.a. her:
http://www.bt.no/kultur/media/Full-krangel-med-Paradise-vinner-1089569.html

OPPDUKKENDE MULIGHET. Denne historien viser at ting som oppstår spontant og morsomt i en liten kompisgjeng faktisk kan slå an og bli til noe. Det kan vise seg å bli en oppdukkende forretningsmulighet. Eller en god læringsmulighet for videre entreprenørskap med venner på laget.

Vil du sjekke ut mer om den opprinnelige STEKsingleten, så finner du den på www.stek.no

Stekare before and now (in Swedish)

Courtesy to You Tube and user122aa — October 31, 2008 — Exempel på stekare på 00-talet och 50-talet
Category:
Comedy
Tags:
stekare bergman Sommarnattens Leende Packat och Klart

Relevance: Will Diaspora need to SCALE to "hundreds of millions"?

Today I posted this comment following up Jonathan Higgins comment regarding Diaspora (see a recent post for intro):

Will Diaspora or other alternative distributed friendsfeeds solutions need to SCALE to "hundreds of millions" to be relevant? Good Q Jonathan!

On the one hand, I guess perhaps not (though I do not know the technical details).

Because I guess socially, Friendsfeeds can still become very relevant IF it can attract many cliques of friends and thus gain some critical mass also among smaller networks of friends. If it becomes popular, the new practices can then become endemic spreading further.

On the other hand, "users" have actually got new habits through FB and its huge scaling. Some might enjoy to continue friendsfeeding and group connecting through the possibilities of a huge mass social medium. While others may rather wish to move on to more free and "true" friendfeed networks. Thus it might differ among us where and how we may wish to continue. This is only some preliminary thoughts... wish to learn more!

Posted on the website ReadWriteStart by: Birgit | May 16, 2010 3:13 AM

Bad Design: destructive combinations

Bad design of the week:

mobile phone cases with magnet locker. It demagnitizes your credit cards.

This is an example of destructive combinations that can emerge, Do not know whether effects are possibly thought about in advance.

Source: own recent experience in our family.

Visuelt business award 2010 to Halvors

Næringslivsprisen 2010

"Design gir gjennomslagskraft for Tradisjonsfisk" (Design helps achieve breakthrough for Trad Fish, my transl.) Courtesy for photos: Fotografene Kristin&Vibeke.)

Visuelt Business Award 2010 was given to Halvors Tradisjonsfisk, a small entrepreneurial firm located in Tromsø and it is preparing, packaging and distributing Norwegian fish to restaurants and some groceries and supermarkets. Halvors is a newcomer, established in 2000, but deals with traditional clipfish, "tørrfisk" (dried fish) from Lofoten, lutefisk etc. Clip fish is fish for baccalao and other uses, see some suggestions of recipes here.

This case shows how a skilled graphic design approach (from Tank design, Tromsø) can actually contribute to building an attractive and relevant identity, a good and differentiated packaging, a meaningful presentation and so forth in close collaboration together with entrepreneurs.
- You need to respect other kinds of expertise, said Halvor Hansen, one of the cofounders to me just after receiving the Næringslivsprisen (Business award) during the Visuelt award ceremony.

LEARNING LESSONS. Although not yet fully researched in academic ways, we may learn many things from this Halvors case. Here are three suggestions:

1. Working on a skilled design approach with designers and business entrepreneurs can help even a small trad business recreate and project itself - for example, as Halvors Tradisjonsfisk. Design can help create a distinct and attractive character and elegant, differentiated packaging. A skilled designing can also form the online material on the web so as to show and tell in sensuous ways the benefits of the offerings.

(In turn, this may signal and significantly help communication with actual and potential customers, dealers, own salespeople and workers, and other interests).

2. Exploring design work with a holistic take even when starting small. Think beyond - rather than just one separate design/business issue at the time.

(Fish enterprise is also designing the fish and sharing food recipes and possible dish designs).

3. Collaborating closely throughout the design/business process may include many relevant concerns and engage entrepreneurial managers and other specialists.

(Halvors Tradisjonsfisk for example has a key person who also is a cook employed and Halvor Hansen, the cofounder has worked in fisheries for years and traveled much, he told me).

Given the awarded design but also knowing about some of the challenges of continued quality delivery and distribution for small food producers, it will be interesting to see how Halvors Tradisjonsfisk is sustaining their design/business creative efforts in the future.

Hope to learn more from Halvors!

***

Jury statement and some background info in Norwegian:
Næringslivsprisen 2010 ble delt ut under Visueltdagene på Christiania Teater i Oslo 7. mai 2010. Prisen går til en bedrift eller organisasjon som har utviklet en ny visuell identitet som et strategisk virkemiddel for å skape en konsistent og helhetlig presentasjon av bedrift og/eller produkt. Det var mange sterke kandidater til Næringslivsprisen 2010 og HALVORS var i år klar vinner av denne prestisjetunge prisen.

JURYENS BEGRUNNELSE

Halvors Tradisjonsfisk har vist godt entreprenørskap ved å benytte design på en gjennomført måte, og har gjennom de gode resultatene de har oppnådd vist at design er en viktig bidragsyter for å øke omsetning, distribusjon og merkestyrke. Designet skaper oppmerksomhet gjennom sitt nøkterne og kvalitetsbevisste uttrykk, og har en moderne tilnærming til opprinnelse og tradisjon. Halvors Tradisjonsfisk har spesialisert seg på klippfisk og tørrfisk, og gikk fra å være restaurantleverandør til å entre dagligvarehandelen med det nye designet som hovedvirkemiddel. Gjennom sitt nye design har Halvors fått stor gjennomslagskraft, noe som var en klar målsetting for prosessen. Det prisvinnende designet er utviklet av Tank Design i samarbeid med Halvors, og juryen berømmer dem for et solid designarbeid med gode resultater.

Oslo, 08.05.2010

Kilder: egen deltakende observasjon som jurymedlem i Næringslivsprisen samt linker til Halvors tradisjonsfisk og til Visuelt vinner i denne kategori 2010.
Sources: Own participation as member of the jury of the Visuelt Business award, see also links to Grafill Visuelt and to Halvors Tradisjonsfisk above.

The Four Freedoms, listen to Stallman

Photo courtesy of Think Ubuntu.

SOFTWARE AS COOKING. Freedom for computer use can be compared with cooking, according to Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation. You should be able to do four things:

0. Freedom to use the recipe (or software) when you want
1. Freedom to look at ingredients and change them
2. Freedom to copy recipes and share with your friend
3. Freedom to write down your version of a recipe and give it to the community

These are four essential freedoms for software use as well.
Learn more from GNU website (courtesy http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html):

“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.”

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program's users have the four essential freedoms:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. (END of citation)
  

THE PHILOSOPHER. Richard Stallman is behind the GNU project that Linux became a part of. He says nobody knows how people actually use software. Indeed, he does not want tracking of free software.
Stallman rather wants you to defend the four freedoms of free software.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:051118-WSIS.2005-Richard.Stallman.ogg

The inventor's dilemmas

I save this link from NY for later read: The inventor's dilemmas.

See http://bit.ly/abLu1W

Centralized or distributed friendsfeeds? Notice Diaspora

The Diaspora team maxwell daniel raphael ilya

(Courtesy for photo: joindiaspora.com)

SOCIAL MEDIA EXPLOITATION. Currently, much of the attention and discussions in mass media and among companies are focused on how to enter, use and exploit rapidly growing social media such as Facebook (about half of the population of Norway is apparently already having an account on FB).
However, many issues of reuse, commercialization and privacy seem yet unsolved. Would Facebook administrators for example share our FB information and emergent behaviours with corporate others such as publishing houses or magazine sellers?

While some corporations and publishing houses are debating the new media possibilities of reaching potential customers in new ways through Facebook, some users and developers are already looking for alternative and what they see as less centralized ways of sharing news and other content with friends.

THE BIG QUESTION is how to actually combine sharing content with (many or selective) others with some privacy intact or at least a degree of self-governance of your "own" information, pics, news feeds, variety of connections and other activities including both social and purchasing behaviour.

DIASPORA. Notice the alternative project Diaspora by a dedicated "boy-band" it seems, of young developers and students (from NYU). At least when you see four of them on You Tube, seems to be a devoted group of young men, check out the link below where they introduce their dedication to working on this current project. (Need to check out more on their backgrounds and interests later!)

See some introduction first here:

Is Your Startup Too Geeky? Written by Audrey Watters / May 15, 2010 http://bit.ly/cc42Vr

TEAM EXPLAINING. The current Diaspora Team is: Maxwell, Daniel, Raphael and Ilya. Hear the guys self-explaining their project here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqxQgfQD24M&feature=player_embedded

NAME BACKGROUND. Diaspora, what does it mean? A diaspora (in Greek, διασπορά – "a scattering [of seeds]")

- and according to Wikipedia it is "any movement of a population sharing common national and/or ethnic identity. While refugees may or may not ultimately settle in a new geographic location, the term diaspora refers to a permanently displaced and relocated collective."

(It is a name with a long history of meanings connected to for example exciles of people which is beyond this post).

- according to the current Diaspora project (link) is specifically "the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network."

I guess we might also associate this with the possible future alternatives, complementaries, and/or excile from FB?

Ron Callary over at Inventorspot says:

- The central premise is to replicate the Facebook user experience that’s proven popular (until recent date), but to allow the Diaspora social network to be available on users’ own personal Web servers -- called “seeds.” This differs from Facebook's centralized user interface that claims ownership of users’ content and marketable data while running roughshod over their privacy data. At the rate at which Diaspora is growing and gaining funding, if it continues at its current pace, it might be the Facebook alternative many ex-FBers are looking for.

If anyone has more info on the further work of this free and possibly antifacebook project, please share with us.

UPDATES AND COMMENTS:

Jonathan Higgins comments on Diaspora on 16 May 2010 on the ReadWriteWeb:

- Will that scale ? Time will tell.

Does Diaspora need to scale to hundreds of millions of "users" to be relevant ?

Now that's a question that's worth thinking about.

(SEE my comment in separate new post 16 May).

Visuelt days in Oslo 6-7 May 2010

For two days, a bunch of graphic designers and illustrators and other interested people met in Oslo for the annual Visuelt event offered by Grafill (association for graphic designers and illustrators in Norway). The seminar was arranged in Vika Cinema and included welcome speeches, several visual screenings and a range of interesting presenters, many from international agencies and collectives. On Friday evening, it was time for the annual Visuelt Award Ceremony in Christiania Theatre. A number of awards (so many subcategories!) and much praise was shared with an enthusiastic audience as also the after-awards party time got closer.

You can see more here: ............(links to come)

http://bit.ly/9qfRoD

New Tannhäuser in Bjørvika, Oslo

(courtesy for photos Den Norske Opera og Ballett)

Brilliant way of recreating Wagner's grand opera placing it in a Salvation army context. This is actualizing the opera from the old themes of whore and madonna, pleasure and sin, to also questions of being seduced and staged - even by the heavenly forces.. Salvation army leaders and followers - singing for the good for others - become seduced by own fundamentalism, rituals, and double morality. Doubt about what is the right way remains a recurrent theme throughout this opera. The intricate play of seduction is helped by comedian elements.
Stefan Herheim and his team give us highly scenic and fun qualities showing glimpses of opera history in the opening scenes and of heavenly forces in the final ones.

Brief interview with Stefan Herheim, the director here:

http://www.nrk.no/nett-tv/indeks/203381/

Key info (in Norwegian):

Opera av Richard Wagner, premiere Den Norske Opera og Ballett 6. mars.

Regi: Stefan Herheim,

scenografi/kostymedesign: Heike Scheele,

dramaturgi Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach

Roller premiere: Tannhäuser: Gary Lehman, Elisabeth: Elisabet Strid, Venus: Judit Németh, Hermann, landgreve av Thüringen: Magne Fremmerlid , Wolfram von Eschenbach: Geert Smits

***

I want to add that I really enjoyed the eminent Swedish singer Elisabet Strid as Elisabet!

The Girl and The Robot

Nominated for the annual Spellemann in the category Music Videos. To be decided tonight in Oslo Spectrum, 6 March 2010.

The Girl And The Robot from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

Barefoot running

Ever been impressed by Masai barefoot runners? Read a brief note in a recent Times magazine issue about barefoot running and the fivefingers' support, probably better for a modern runner not so used to run entirely barefoot. Then I stumbled over this concept again on a physiotherapist student's blog and finally I found a Scandinavian distributor, if anyone is interested (* I have no commercial interests in this).

http://www.head2foot.se/fivefingers/

Marimekko exhibition in Oslo 14.2-9.5.2010

Courtesy for Photo Marianne Siebke and nrk.

This colourful exhibition recently (14.2) opened at Kunstindustrimuseet - Museum of Decorative Arts and Design - in Oslo (see National museum of art, architecture and design).

This is the retrospective travelling exhibition of Marimekko (first exhibited in 2003, so finally now in Oslo).
More info from the museum here: http://www.nationalmuseum.no/index.php/content/view/full/6955

And here you can find an article with more photos by Marianne Siebke, for nrk: http://nrk.no/nyheter/kultur/1.6967878

Siebke has interviewed Anne Kjellberg, senior curator of the Kunstindustri museum. We get to know an interesting anecdote about the woman designer Maija Isola who later designed one of the most well-known Marimekko patterns, the interlocking poppies (valmuer in Norwegian). Maija Isola had lived in Oslo, where she worked at the restaurant Gamle Raadhus (old townhall). She also visited the Kunstindustri museum and was inspired by old jugs to draw the pattern "Amfora".

In Norwegian (excerpts from Siebke's article for nrk):

Kvinnen bak valmuemønsteret

Allerede i 1949 engasjerte de designeren Maija Isola (1927-2001). Isola hadde bodd i Oslo, der hun jobbet på restauranten Gamle Raadhus. Hun vanket på Kunstidustrimuseet, og der inspirerte gamle krukker henne til å tegne mønsteret «Amfora».

Later her famous patterns for Marimekko were used on a variety of objects such as raincoates.

Prinsesse Märtha Louise i Unikko-regnfrakk.

Foto: Lars Harald J. Kristiansen /Scanpix

Marimekko is not only an example of Finnish joyful design. It has been a huge marketing success but also experienced troubled water economically speaking as a company. For some elaboration on this, based on empirical design and management research on Marimekko, see a good chapter by Antti Ainamo (1998) in the research anthology book Management of Design Alliances (Bruce and Jevnaker, eds, published on John Wiley & Sons, UK. You will probably get it via a library).

Taking a sabbatical - designer Stefan Sagmeister

Courtesy to TED and Sagmeister.
Filmed July 2009, posted on TED talks Oct 2009.
Link (if problem with the video here): http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/stefan_sagmeister_the_power_of_time_off.html