Easy As Pie

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“This is the essence of how we come up with things. We make things that we are interested in. We make them taste good. Then we stand in front of our fridge, with the door open, just like you do at home when you’re trying to figure out what to make for dinner or eat for a midnight snack. We pick and pull out things we’ve been working on and see where we can merge ideas and flavors. We try to be intelligent about it. But most of the time, it’s a eureka moment that we didn’t know we were working toward.”

Christina Tosi, discussing her process for creating unexpected and delicious treats in Momofuku Milk Bar Cookbook. Here she is making the infamous, decadent, and appropiately named Crack Pie:

Are you addicted? Do you need treatment or an intervention? This video will not help. Learn how to make the legendary Crack Pie from Momofuku Milk Bar with Christina Tosi at home. http://www.brevilleusa.com/cooking/ovens/the-smart-oven-tm.html http://www.brevilleusa.com/food-preparation/mixers/stand-mixer.html Travel with Christina during her cookbook launch tour @tosiontour.com presented by Breville.

Remember, make things taste good. 

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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.

Animated GIFs: The Birth of a Medium - PBS Arts: Off Book

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GIFs are one of the oldest image formats used on the web. Throughout their history, they have served a huge variety of purposes, from functional to entertainment. Now, 25 years after the first GIF was created, they are experiencing an explosion of interest and innovation that is pushing them into the terrain of art.

Recently I shared the complete first series of PBS Arts: Off Book. They’ve returned with a second series and the first episode explores the history of the GIF. I have to admit I find the Cinemagraphs shown and the whole concept behind them to be clever visual art. 

GIFs are one of the oldest image formats used on the web. Throughout their history, they have served a huge variety of purposes, from functional to entertainment. Now, 25 years after the first GIF was created, they are experiencing an explosion of interest and innovation that is pushing them into the terrain of art. In this episode of Off Book, they chart their history, explore the hotbed of GIF creativity on Tumblr, and talk to two teams of GIF artists who are evolving the form into powerful new visual experiences.

Featuring:

Patrick Davison, MemeFactory
Topher Chris, Tumblr
Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader, Reed+Rader
Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg, Cinemagraphs
 

(via Off Book)

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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.

The Week's Links (3/11/12)

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All the links posted to Twitter, Facebook and Google+ this week: 

  • SXSW Interactive Live Streaming Eventsowl.li/9zflA
  • What Monkeys Teach Us about Assumptionsowl.li/9rrHl
  • Honeybees May Have Personality owl.li/9z496
  • Listen To Cake Topple Your Brain owl.li/9hYsI
  • Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years owl.li/9rrDt Equally awed and disgusted by this.
  • Absolutely loving the recently launched The Creativity Post. Check it out. owl.li/9yMmm
  • Band promotes album with posters you can listen to via tin cans. Fantastically lo-fi.owl.li/9rnGK
  • Drunken Insights owl.li/1hVcbD
  • Docracy - Community provided and curated free Legal Documents owl.li/9rnCL /via @swissmiss
  • Responsive Layouts, Responsively Wireframedowl.li/9rnyW Great experiment, looking forward to see how it grows.
  • In 15 Minutes Ira Glass Will Make You A Better Storyteller owl.li/9hYru
  • How We Will Read: Craig Mod owl.li/9qVFy
  • How We Will Read: Laura Miller and Maud Newton owl.li/9qVEz
  • How We Will Read: an interview with @stevenbjohnson from the @findings blogowl.li/9qVBn
  • Android Design - Elements and templates for download. owl.li/9qUb4
  • Constructal Law: A Design Theory of Everythingowl.li/1hTIMW
  • Ten life-changing ideas under research at UK universities owl.li/9oiHT
  • 10 Ways Quantum Physics Will Change the World owl.li/9o7OQ
  • The Enlightening Bridge Between Art And Workowl.li/9hYqo
  • Public APIs availability Status - uptime and down time owl.li/9lLOV Great resource.
  • Shaking up everyday rituals may be a way to stimulate innovative thinking. owl.li/9lLL3
  • What Do You See? http://owl.li/1hSbMY
  • How New York Pay Phones Became Guerrilla Libraries owl.li/9lLvL
  • Creativity Top 5: Week of March 5, 2012owl.li/1hR3ST
  • A Creative Buzz: A moderate level of noise prompts more-creative thought owl.li/9lLrM
  • The Most Beautiful Video Not Of This Worldowl.li/9hYpy
  • Creating Future-Ready Content owl.li/9lL8z
  • Storytelling (A TED Remix) Updated with Pixar’s Andrew Stanton 2012 talk. owl.li/9unds
  • Pixar Minimal Posters owl.li/9lKV0
  • 5 Minutes on The Verge: Nicholas Feltonowl.li/9rryQ
  • Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity and saying no: The Paul Holdengraber Show owl.li/1hQGgm
  • 5 of the World’s Best-Designed™ Newspapers – The Society for News Design owl.li/9lF4h
  • The strange but extremely valuable science of how pedestrians behave owl.li/9lEa2
  • In Theory Frequently Means Inaction.owl.li/9hYnT
  • Original Creators: Wassily Kandinskyowl.li/9lDDG
  • The Three Little Pigs As Breaking News [Updated] owl.li/9r6tl
  • Inspiration vs. Imitation by Jessica Hischeowl.li/9lCVD
  • Vulnerability (A Mini TED Remix) owl.li/1hP5iH
  • Reviving dance on Broadway owl.li/9s3Ov
  • TED 2012: 10 innovations that could help shape a better world owl.li/9rrlV
  • MoMA’s Julia Hoffmann on Why Branding’s Future Is In-house owl.li/9lCHD
  • Visionary Star Wars Artist Ralph McQuarrie Dies at 82 owl.li/9ryCf

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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.

Drunken Insights

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A brand-new study by scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago compared performance on insight puzzles between sober and drunk students. (They were aiming for real intoxication, giving students enough booze to achieve a blood alcohol level of 0.075.) Once the students achieved “peak intoxication” the scientists gave them a battery of word problems – they’re known as remote associate tests – that are often solved in a moment of insight. Here’s a sample problem. Your task is to find the one additional word that goes with the following triad of words:

Cracker Union Rabbit

In this case, the answer is “jack.” According to the data, drunk students solved more of these word problems in less time. They also were much more likely to perceive their solutions as the result of a sudden insight. And the differences were dramatic: The alcohol made subjects nearly 30 percent more likely to find the unexpected solution.

Once again, the explanation for this effect returns us to the benefits of not being able to pay attention. The stupor of alcohol, like the haze of the early morning, makes it harder for us to ignore those unlikely thoughts and remote associations that are such important elements of the imagination. So the next time you are in need of insight, avoid caffeine and concentration. Don’t chain yourself to your desk. Instead, set the alarm a few minutes early and wallow in your groggy thoughts. And if that doesn’t work, chug a beer.

via Why Being Sleepy and Drunk Are Great for Creativity by Jonah Lehrer, wired.com

 

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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.

Constructal Law: A Design Theory of Everything

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Over the last 16 years, the mechanical engineer Adrian Bejan, now a professor at Duke University, has been working on a theory for how the world works. It’s a theory of everything: how living creatures are shaped, how lava flows down mountains, how snowflakes form, how people organize our societies. It’s called the constructal law.

His new book Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organization shows how constructal law applies to power grids, the arteries and veins of our bodies, even the structures of corporations.

 

(via Studio 360)

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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.