Here's an idea, PBS Idea Channel is TED Talks from the fringe

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Now that the Idea Channel has gone weekly it is time to catch up (and if you haven't before, subscribe.) Hosted with great wit by Mike Rugnetta and produced by Kornhaber Brown, each one of their short videos presents things we knew from an interesting perspective to consider, or introduces something you didn't know existed (bronies, really.) Their content is that particular blend of art, culture, technology and that something extra that I love and that is why I am declaring them the TED Talks from the fringe of creativity. Take a look at these recent episodes and you'll be hooked. ​

Is Twitter the Newest Form of Literature?

Everyone is familiar with Twitter, the uber-popular micro-blogging site, which limits the user to 140 characters. The tweet is perfect for sharing your favorite links and updating the world about your life, but it might also be the newest literary form! While many think that art requires unbridled freedom, constraints often inspire the greatest creativity. And this massively constrained communication, which has remarkable similarities to the Haiku, has inspired creativity worthy of the name "literature."
For the past 200 years, the gallery has been the home of new and cutting-edge art, a place where the art community can come together and share new ideas. But in this episode, we ask: is the web browser replacing the gallery as the best place to view amazing, cutting-edge art?!? In the era of the internet, you can view remarkable art from the comfort of your laptop. Accessible to virtually everyone, web art does away with the physical limitations of the gallery and makes impossibly cool art a part of our daily lives! 
Some of the best things to be found on the internet are music mashups! It's a strangely pleasing experience to listen to totally unrelated artists commingling on the same music track. Mashups are awesome because they break genre expectations, which makes us think: why have genres at all? Nowadays there's so much cross-pollination in music and art, creating more and more sub-genres, that the larger genre categories are becoming a useless relic.
Nail Art is all over the internetz, and suddenly it is a THING. The crazier the nail art, the more we marvel at the technique and time that went into it. But is there an artistic message behind these little cuticle canvases? Nail Art may seem superficial and trivial, but its fleeting nature allows it to be a purely free expression, and it's pretty to boot. Nail art makes us wonder if anything, given enough creativity, can be a canvas for artistic expression. 
If you haven't had a chance to play with Microsoft's Kinect, you're missing out on some great video games and some amazing art! The Kinect is a crazy awesome piece of XBox 360 hardware that maps your physical movements onto any screen. Artists of all stripes have embraced the Kinect - using the gesture recognition technology to create some pretty amazing interactive artworks and insanely impressive visuals. These works wouldn't have existed without this amazing piece of technology, making the corporate giant Microsoft the 21st century's incarnation of Lorzeno de Medici.

How Did Sherlock Holmes Pave the Way for 50 Shades of Grey?

You've probably heard of the risque novel "50 Shades of Grey" since it's now the best selling paperback of all time. But you may not know that it's Twilight fan fiction! It seems shocking that a fan fiction novel has become so popular, but 50 Shades isn't the first book to break through the fan community boundaries into mainstream culture. Over 100 years ago, Sherlock Holmes' popularity created a profusion of well received fan fiction. It allowed authors from amateur to professional to explore the world originally created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and pave the way for other future fan fiction canons, including Star Wars, Harry Potter, and yes, 50 Shades of Grey.

Consider this ​Mike Rugnetta interview by The National Film Society a post extra:

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Children and Computers: State of Play→

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If I'm honest, my son – and even his sister, who's one and a half – have an ease around technology that I find scary sometimes. The baby scares me because she keeps deleting stuff off my iPad. Patrick scares me because he could use the Nintendo Wii controls, shift from game to game, choose players, set up teams by the time he was four. He still can't tie his shoelaces. There is research that says he is not alone: a survey of 2,200 mothers in 11 countries found that 70% of their two- to five-year-olds were comfortable playing computer games, but only 11% could pass the shoelace test.

Miranda Sawyer, writing for The Observer, takes a look at children's natural affinity towards technology and innate understanding of interfaces particularly complex ones found in video games. ​

I recently saw a very young child, she must've been about 4, get her mom's iPad, push the home button, enter the lock pin code, find the video app by scrolling through several screens, find the video she wanted to watch and then scrub the video to the right location she wanted to see again. The whole thing was perfectly natural to her. I was floored that she understood how to slow down and speed up her scrubbing by how she dragged on the timeline. 

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Project Re:Brief, the documentary

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​Last March I tweeted about Google's Project Re:Brief:

During the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity Google premiered a documentary, directed by Emmy winner Doug Pray, to share the experience of making the re-imagined campaigns. 

Project Re:Brief, the documentary - Google Blog:​

This hour-long documentary follows the story of the five art directors and copywriters who made the original ads as they come out of retirement to “Re: Brief” their classic campaigns: Harvey Gabor (Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop); Amil Gargano (Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it”); Paula Green (Avis’ “We try harder”); and Howie Cohen and Bob Pasqualina (Alka-Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”). While major shifts in technology have reshaped the advertising business, as we learned from our heroes of the past, the basic tenets of storytelling haven’t changed. We found these icons’ ideas, wisdom and passion for great advertising inspiring and hope you do as well.

This documentary is as fascinating as the re-imagined campaigns. It is the genius of old school advertising meeting the realities of digital. In the middle of all the technology we are reminded of the words of Bill Bernbach "Always adapt your technique to the idea, and never your idea to the technique."

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Pop Culture Through The Lens Of Nostalgia: The Evolution Of 8-Bit Art

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Beginning with early Atari and Nintendo video games, the 8-bit aesthetic has been a part of our culture for over 30 years. As it moved through the generations, 8-bit earned its independence from its video game roots.

Is it really nostalgia if the creators of the 8-bit work didn’t originally experience what we are supposed to be feeling nostalgic about? That’s what comes to mind as I watch PBS Off Book latest episode: The Evolution of 8-Bit Art. 

Beginning with early Atari and Nintendo video games, the 8-bit aesthetic has been a part of our culture for over 30 years. As it moved through the generations, 8-bit earned its independence from its video game roots. The idea of 8-bit now stands for a refreshing level of simplicity and minimalism, is capable of sonic and visual beauty, and points to the layer of technology that suffuses our modern lives. No longer just nostalgia art, contemporary 8-bit artists and chiptunes musicians have elevated the form to new levels of creativity and cultural reflection.

For complete credits visit (and subscribe to) the PBS Off Book YouTube channel. 

Previously:

Tattoos: Pop Portraits, Japanese Traditional, American Eclectic
Art In The Era Of The Internet: The Impact Of Kickstarter, Creative Commons & Creators Project
Animated GIFs: The Birth of a Medium
Off Book Series One: The Complete Series

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Moment Factory: The Making Of A Super Bowl Halftime Show

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While the Giants’ surprise victory over the Patriots made for an exciting Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, Madonna’s half-time show – a spectacle within a spectacle – also provided a thrill for U.S. television viewers, drawing an estimated 114 million faithful, edging out the record-setting 111.3 million NFL fans who tuned into the game alone, not including the nearly 70,000 attendees in the stadium itself. For Moment Factory, the challenge was considerable: Create an enhanced, immersive visual environment around Madonna throughout a 12-minute, five-song performance. With unique concepts designed to evoke the emotions of each individual song, the game-plan was not only to enthrall those in attendance, but also convey the same live energy and excitement for the many millions participating in the televised experience. With the collaboration of Cirque du Soleil’s Michel Laprise and Jean-François Bouchard, set designer Bruce Rodgers, Madonna creative director Jamie King, lighting designer Al Gurdon, TV director Hamish Hamilton and the NFL, Moment Factory made the grid-iron appear to come alive. --- Le spectacle de Madonna présenté pendant la mi-temps du XVLI Super Bowl, le 5 février 2012, a été perçu comme une des meilleures performances artistiques de l’histoire de l’événement. Moment Factory est fière d'avoir contribué au succès international de cette explosion musicale de 12 minutes en imaginant et en réalisant l'ensemble du contenu de projection. 114 millions de téléspectateurs et 70 000 amateurs réunis au Lucas Oil Stadium d’Indianapolis ont ainsi pu apprécier la création d’un des plus grands environnements multimédias immersifs jamais produit pour un spectacle. L'événement a été conçu et réalisé avec le concours de Michel Laprise et de Jean-François Bouchard du Cirque du Soleil, du metteur en scène Bruce Rodgers, du directeur de création de Madonna, Jamie King, du designer d'éclairage Al Gurdon, du réalisateur de télévision Hamish Hamilton, ainsi que de la NFL. www.momentfactory.com

The Super Bowl is were great advertising campaigns are launched, networks recoup the money they’ve lost during the year becuase of diminishing audiences and massive halftime spectacles are presented. Here is a rare and in-depth behind the scenes at this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, which was seen by more people than the game itself. 

For Moment Factory, the challenge was considerable: Create an enhanced, immersive visual environment around Madonna throughout a 12-minute, five-song performance. With unique concepts designed to evoke the emotions of each individual song, the game-plan was not only to enthrall those in attendance, but also convey the same live energy and excitement for the many millions participating in the televised experience. With the collaboration of Cirque du Soleil’s Michel Laprise and Jean-François Bouchard, set designer Bruce Rodgers, Madonna creative director Jamie King, lighting designer Al Gurdon, TV director Hamish Hamilton and the NFL, Moment Factory made the grid-iron appear to come alive.

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.