Designing Crime

Small Things / Photoshop is Fun

Robin Willis — 2008-09-02T03:16:13+01:00

I have rediscovered Photoshop as a really fun and interesting way to experiment and come up with visual impressive pictures in almost no time. Here are a few things I made earlier this summer, some for fun some for friends that never used them so I thought wow i'll put these on my website. I originally wanted a blog so I could post sketches and small things quickly but then realized I was too lazy to scan stuff, so this is perfect. Enjoy. School starts tomorrow so it will probably be another month until I post. Click something around here to view them all nice and big.

Summer 2008

Robin Willis — 2008-08-22T19:55:00+01:00

In summary Summer 2008 is
Japan
Playbin
www.robincwillis.com
Delicious
click more to read about it...

hopefully this makes up for a summer of not posting anything. I took a long trip to Japan and Taipei for the MIT Japan Design Workshop, where I bathed with Yakuza, ate live clams and battled a typhoon. The photos from this excursion can be seen here. They were all taken with a Horizon 202 panoramic (the super tourist) camera.

Also when looking at these photos you will see the first signs of a budding flower known as Playbin. I spent a few weeks in June working/overstaying my welcome in San Francisco with my buddy and internet tycoon Phillip Nelson. San Francisco was such a surprising new discovery for me. Phillip put it best when he said it is the closest thing to a European city culture in America. I cannot wait to get back there and am happy to find a city in California that I truly enjoy.

I also recently went ahead and bought a new domain, www.robincwillis.com to host my portfolio (which is long overdue for an update, will i squeeze one in before school starts? I don't know, not likely). Right now the site just has links to everything else I have going on in internet land but will be replaced with something slicker in the near future.

Also if you go to my Friends page here I have added a feed for my delicious postings which I update regularly with the most awesome findings on the internet. I am too lazy to tag things but if you come to Designing Crime and nothing has changed in 3 months because my life is obviously too fun to take time posting on here, check out the delicious links, that will surely have new stuff.

Another Album Cover

Robin Willis — 2008-05-11T18:43:01+01:00

Here is the album cover i designed with mr Evan Koga for the band chief. You can buy/listen to the album at their myspace page and if you are in new york you can catch them playing at the mercury lounge this wednesday at 1030 its at ave a and houston. Full info on the show is on the myspace page for sure. Props to chief, keep doing great things.

Sonic Landscape 06

Robin Willis — 2008-03-25T07:06:00+01:00

Gourmet Food not so Gourmet Photography

Robin Willis — 2008-03-23T01:18:59+01:00

For some reason whenever I cook i have a huge impulse to take a picture of whatever I make. I am consistently shocked that I have created something that I can put in my mouth and it wont kill me. These are some of my winter dishes(created by yours truely except for the first, they are almost all remixes or mashups of other recipes or things I have eaten). Too bad I don't have a nice camera that can do these justice but hey.

1. Broccoli with White Cheddar (invented by Emily Grenader)
2. Beef Stew
3. Lamb Burgers with Mint Mayonnaise
4. 3 Cheese Macaroni with Bacon and Shallots
5. Corned Beef
6. Cucumber Dill and Yogurt Soup
7. Corned Beef Hash
8. Brusselsprouts with Butter and Garlic

Hearts & Lungs

Robin Willis — 2008-03-05T21:11:54+01:00

A while back I designed a cover for the first ep called Hearts & Lungs from my hombres Mickey and Evan's band White Arrows. The ep just cam out on itunes now, check it... School is killer

Dark Water 23

Robin Willis — 2008-02-09T07:43:00+01:00

Heres a little piece I made while staying in New York around the same time as this one. I don't know what to think of these, they both definitely come from images in my head stuck from There Will Be Blood. While they have nothing to do with the earth bleeding or of greed it is something about the water being like silence you can only find in nature. I dunno I need some feedback. I have recently been finding all kinds of little graphic tidbits that I made a while back and forgot about so I will post those soon. I also just finished a design for the cover for an ep and am in the process of designing another. I will post those as soon as they come out.

I just read a truly insightful essay by James Corner called The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention. It tought me alot about myself actually or at least made new connections between different things that I am interested in that I never before saw. It is from the book Mappings and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in space, time, media and little social people. I posted a little blurb on my classes shared MIT utopian blog about it.

Note: The portfolio link is broken if you want to look at my previous work go to myplaybin.com or to selfportrait.net - sorry I will get it straight soon, broken links are my nerdy pet peeve.

Shout out to Devin Kenny who has a new website and to Lost

Wallpaper

Robin Willis — 2008-01-31T00:00:00+01:00

Wannabe: Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Hans Haake, Robert Morris, Marcel Duchamp

Filthy Mcnasty

Robin Willis — 2008-01-22T20:49:00+01:00

Filthy McNasty is a podcast that just hit the information alleyways.Composed by old friend and audio connoisseur Mel Stern, it is a great playlist with some of my long time favorites. Ahmad Jamal's Whats New (check out Planet Asia - Fresno State of Mind) and Dorothy Ashby's Windmills of Your Mind (also find the Dusty Springfeild version) are a few tracks that stand out as songs you need to hear or you havent really lived a meaningful life as a hunter/gatherer. Filthy McNasty is hot and reminds me that Musical Dope v3.0 wrapping up the audio life and times of 2007 for Robin Willis is overdue. So I'll get on that fast. New York is cold, whiskey and stew are warm.

Post Ruffles & Rot

Robin Willis — 2008-01-08T04:44:00+01:00

Thank You to everyone who made it out to the show and to those who didn't but gave me very interesting drawn out excuses. Nicholas Foster took some excellent photos, some which can be seen on his blog . I feel like the show was a huge success and almost had as good a time as Mickey over here. Pretty soon we will put all the designs and photos together to create a little web presence for people interested in the show but who are geographically challenged.

Ruffles & Rot Exhibition

Robin Willis — 2007-12-30T00:00:00+01:00

Ruffles & Rot is a group exhibition curated by myself and Vera Neykov. The Opening / Party is on January 5th and the Mandrake, if your in LA come by. 16 artists were asked to create wallpaper patterns focusing on themes of decay, death and decadence. Their interpretations range from social through historical to biological. The surface of the wallpaper, and the patterns illustrated, are presented through an array of techniques including images, drawings and words.

While wallpaper has a history almost as long as architecture, it is disconnected from it because wallpaper is simply ornamental. Unlike architecture, it serves a meaningless function of decoration. It is excessive, indulgent and even decadent. Wallpaper has been applied as a term to creative efforts that are all surface without substance. It suggests a lack of depth, rigor and integrity. It attempts nothing else but to be beautiful and enhance its surroundings. However, some may say ornament has a function: It symbolically identifies space through decoration, motif and illustration, much like the furniture and objects within the rooms.
Wallpaper and decay have a specific history. Wallpaper is dated, it stood still as the world moved on. It symbolized class, wealth and taste in the past. With its decline in use, it began to decay, along with the houses that display it.
Ruffles & Rot seeks to inject ornamentation with content and meaning, while maintaining wallpapers original, decorative purpose.
Artists included are: Cab Broskoski, Ian Burnley, George Christian, Willis Elkins, Griffin Frazen, Phillip Gabriel, Emily Grenader, Mei-Ling Hubbard, Billy Jacobs, Louise Ma, Lansing-Dreiden, Zlatka Paneva, Tim Riccio, Scott Schwartz, Alex Spain-Strombom, Jessica Williams
For

My Architecture

Robin Willis — 2007-12-29T06:24:39+01:00

My first architectural project that I feel good enough about to share.

Here is my final project from my first semester at MIT. The project started with a component study of the material wool felt. From there I developed a system of configuration that included felt and wood framing. The building is the Kresge Chapel 2.0, a non denominational church on MIT's campus.

Eisenhower Interstate System

Robin Willis — 2007-12-22T08:00:00+01:00

let the sunshine in.

On the road again, from MIT to Yale to check out some of Louis Khan's buildings down there.

Ecoliteracy

Robin Willis — 2007-09-01T23:48:00+01:00

Ecoliteracy is using ones relationship to the growth of an organism as a metaphor for the actions and understanding of ones life, as well as using the understanding of ecological processes as a guide to design and production.

Ecoliteracy is a term that as far as I know was coined by a friend and fellow artist Natalie Jeremenko. Who share the idea with me that rather than technological advances saving us from the toll we take on the planet, changes in peoples ideas and relationships attitudes, and ultimately actions towards the environment are more important. That is that the heart of this series of Ecoliteracy projects. They serve as micro-utopic actions and symbolic models for greater change.

Summer 07

Robin Willis — 2007-08-22T02:53:00+01:00

I'm in Cambridge now with too much time on my hands so I made a little webpage full of artifacts that have come my way this summer to excersize my scrapbooking demons: Summer 07

PROGRAM:nature Issue 1

Robin Willis — 2007-08-15T01:21:00+01:00

My good friend Morgan and his partner Kovas have just released Issue number one of their Zine: PN. It is an introduction to the interesting work they are doing. Beautifully designed, like Bruce Mao meets Guy Deboard and a must for all programming rockstar nerds. Click Here to veiw the Issue: PN #1

PROGRAM:nature is the at the forefront of a powerful new way of understanding and interacting with our universe. From science, to technology, to the arts, the deep link between natural form and computation is radically transforming what is conceivable, what is practical, and what is fashionable. By providing access to practical tools, timely and actionable intelligence, and a network of cutting-edge artists, intellectuals, and programmers, PROGRAM:nature seeks to be a platform for extending and shaping this movement.

www.programnature.org

Discussion Video Online

Robin Willis — 2007-08-07T00:09:00+01:00

[Disk]ussion Round 2 video in four parts. Click guide to view more episodes. featuring Morgan "God of Thunder" SG Jason Lena Imamura Devin "voice of reason" Kenny Madaline and Celia Hollander Cabbie Eli Bock Emily Ruth Grenader Matt Howard Matt The Billy Jacobs Robo Robin Willis

Something I came across -

-Ned Rifkin — 2007-07-11T18:06:49+01:00

«A Fool, according to the dictionary, is» a person with little or no judgment, common sense, wisdom, etc.; a man formerly kept in the household of a nobleman or king to entertain by acting as a clown.« Central to this definition is the infinitive »to entertain,« which derives from the French »entre« meaning between, and »tenir,« meaning to hold. Thus, its literal definition (and the one which Webster's uses within its etymological brackets) is »to hold between.« In the case of a fool, what is held between is teh attention of the audience, involving a suspension of judgment which inevitably renders the fool's role comedic in nature. For an artist, »to entertain" is to hold his or her audience between two worlds - the private, subjective world of the artist's vision and the commonly held accepted conventions of a more universal, public world... (1983)

Subject: can you?

Robin Willis — 2007-06-27T04:50:00+01:00

«culture is not your friend. It insults you. It uses and abuses you. None of us are treated well by culture. The cultura is a perversion. It fetishizes objects. Endless forms of false happiness....It dehumanizes ourselves into meme processors..By creating art. By putting the art petal to the metal, we really maximize our humanism and become much more necessary and incomprehensible to the machines.»
-Terence McKenna
Psychedelic Society

«Since in any situation 10 percent of the events cause 90 percent, we ignore the 10 percent and are stunned by the 90 percent. Without an anti-environment, all environments are invisible. The role of the artist is to create anti-environments as means of perception and adjustment. Hamlet's sleuth technique for coping with the hidden environment around him was that of an artist: 'As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put on anti disposition on . . .»
(Hamlet, Act I, Scene V)"

«The criminal like the artist is a social explorer.»
—Marshall McLuhan

First excerpt from «culture is our business» (out of print), second
from a lecture i can't track down.

–
John Joseph Bachir

The Revolution will not be Verified

weezel1122 — 2007-06-23T19:20:03+01:00

"You see, any user can change any entry, and if enough other users agree with them, it becomes true. ... If only the entire body of human knowledge worked this way. And it can, thanks to tonight's word: Wikiality. Now, folks, I'm no fan of reality, and I'm no fan of encyclopedias. I've said it before. Who is Britannica to tell me that George Washington had slaves? If I want to say he didn't, that's my right. And now, thanks to Wikipedia, it's also a fact.
We should apply these principles to all information. All we need to do is convince a majority of people that some factoid is true. ... What we're doing is bringing democracy to knowledge."