Crisis in the Credit System is a four-part drama dealing with the credit crisis, scripted and directed by artist Melanie Gilligan. A major investment bank runs a brainstorming and role-playing session for its employees, asking them to come up with strategies for coping with today’s dangerous financial climate. Role-playing their way into increasingly bizarre scenarios, they find themselves drawing disturbing conclusions about the deeper significance of the crisis and its effects beyond the world of finance.
Using fiction to communicate what is left out of documentary accounts of the crisis, the short, TV-style episodes reflect the strangeness of life today in which the financial abstractions that govern our lives appear to be collapsing.
Crisis in the Credit System, commissioned and produced by Artangel Interaction, is the result of extensive research and conversation with major hedge fund managers, key financial journalists, economists, bankers and debt activists.
Xerox is working some magic and creating self-erasing paper to combat paper waste:
“Recycling’s better than sending good paper to the landfill. Even better is not printing in the first place. But there’s still a lot of stuff that comes out of printers and some studies show that more than 40% gets discarded on the day it was produced (and a lot of the rest gets discarded not much later, or gets stuffed in a box and is never looked at again).
The researchers at XEROX looked at that problem and came up with a paper that self-erases within 24 hours and can then be re-used.”
While still in development, products that redesign the office environment (which is always highly wasteful) is an awesome first step!
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged and quite a bit has happened. Stearns was acquired by Jarden and we’ve been merged into Coleman (yes, the lantern guys). Most of the company has been laid off and all but 1 designer is being laid off at the end of october (yeah, myself included). I think I know the progression of events lead to most of the company being cut (without slandering, I’ll say that ego trips and power games do more damage than they are given credit for). So come the beginning of November I’ll be job hunting full time and looking to start Jan 1st. In the meantime I’ve moved from St. Cloud to a temporary living situation in Minneapolis and couldn’t be happier. We’ve got some good events lined up this fall and winter for the IDSAmn chapter and I’m really excited to be throwing our first portfolio review on Sept 26th for 25 Wisconsin Stout Industrial Design Seniors!
In the quest to bring MMA to the spotlight (and to many people, have MMA become the successor to boxing) the world of mixed martial arts, in which athletes must be well versed in both striking and grappling fighting styles, might be putting its ugliest foot forward. I’m terrified that botched television events and highly questionable product placement will undermine perception of the skill, talent, and prowess this sport actually demands of its fights and its fighters. I can\’t tell if this is marketing gone horribly wrong (in the name of promoting the sport) or just franchises selling out for a quick buck.
“On June 10, Zuffa jumped into the merchandise market when it announced a four-year deal with JAKKS Pacific to create a line of action figures based on current UFC stars. By fall 2009, Brock Lesnar, Michael Bisping, Forrest Griffin, Anderson Silva, Chuck Liddell and others will have action figures in their image for sale from K-Mart to Toys R Us.” -Josh Gross
