hipstamatic = pre-ripped jeans

I’ve been playing with the popular hisptamatic iphone app for a couple weeks now.

The stylistic mangling of the photos reminds me of the idea behind ripped jeans. The way new pairs of jeans are pre-ripped to add character, imitating the effect that time and experience would have had on them and removing that stale off-the-shelf look. But by imitating character, you remove the stories behind each ripped stitch, and take all the meaning and authenticity out of the jeans.

In the same way, hipstamatic takes a quality image from the iphone camera and degrades it to the quality of a film photograph, adding character and removing any decision making or searching for equipment that would have originally preceded that final result. When taking a photo with the app you get an “interesting” image in seconds.

Having said that, I’ll probably use it for quick shots that I don’t feel like editing and will throw on facebook real quick. Here are few photos that I’ve taken so far with it:

35 years of the Brown Sisters

I visited the MFA this past friday thanks to the free-ness provided by the Highland Street Foundation.

I spent most of my time there with the Nicholas Nixon Brown Sisters exhibit, now onto 35 years of portraits with the 4 sisters. That missing space in the grid is waiting for the 36th photo to be taken and placed in the gallery this summer. Although I kind of like it the way it is: the presence of a past, waiting for more future.

MIT Media Lab

I stopped by the MIT Media lab today for a tour from a friend. The space feels like an advanced playroom - freshly opened boxes of gadgets, wires connecting half built objects and a vibrant array of oversized toys within big open spaces.

Here are a few of the groups/projects that caught my interest on first glance:

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Lifelong kindergarten - http://llk.media.mit.edu/

“We develop new technologies that, in the spirit of the blocks and fingerpaint of kindergarten, expand the range of what people can design, create, and learn.”

Opera of the future - http://opera.media.mit.edu/

“explores concepts and techniques to help advance the future of musical composition, performance, learning, and expression.”

Information Design Ecology - http://eco.media.mit.edu/

“We define Design Ecology as the study of malleable design that is aware of and can seamlessly react to changing environments. “

(The Daydar project, exploring social productivity, is right up my alley. http://eco.media.mit.edu/daydar/)

High-low tech - http://hlt.media.mit.edu/

“The High-Low Tech group integrates high and low technological materials, processes, and cultures.”

(The living wall, interactive wall paper - http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=27)