Rob Pettit works in cell phones, but not the way that Verizon and Virgin work in cell phones. Cell phones are the foundation and material of his art, from drawings to paintings to sculpture like in the image above (see more here, here, and here).

I’m always fascinated when an artist decontextualizes objects or materials, using them to create something entirely separate from their original purpose. It’s particularly striking with Ron Pettit’s sculptures — the phones assume that less-popular definition of the word medium, that of the classic art substance, the hand-moldable, the non-digital. Each cell phone may have once been a person’s communication lifeline, an essential bundle of contacts and saved messages, and but now those people are long gone. Only building blocks remain, and it’s in their careful aggregation and arrangement (dare I say their networking?), that the flower-like, even star-like result takes shape.

Our online connections are enabled by tools that exist in digital spaces and lines of code, things that you won’t see on a gallery floor like Pettit’s cell phones. But the comparison works on other levels - are you sculpting your online life, or are its enabling services sculpting you? Are you in control of the context or are they? Instead of noise and fads, there’s art to be had for those who take care, do their own molding, and only work in media that’s truly suitable.

Technorati tags: mobile, Pettit, art, sculpture, cell phone, networking, medium

My colleague Biff’s recent post It’s Not What You Wear, It’s What You Share called out YouTube’s naked vlogging meme for what it really was - a distracting, empty ploy for attention. I couldn’t agree more, which is why I was particularly struck by the New York Times Magazine’s Rachel Dretzin-directed series of videos called Naked. Each of the 10 videos feature a middle- to senior-aged person talking quite bluntly, often graphically, always emotionally about “what sex is like when you’re old enough to know better.” The celebration of honesty and vulnerability on display is a true form of nakedness, and it’s all about what’s being conveyed - amount of clothing be damned! (via Tilzy.tv)

Technorati tags: NYTimes, Dretzin, sex, honesty, vulnerability, Naked Vlog Campaign, Youtube

Christian Payne aka Documentally, was trying to stay offline while on holiday with his family in Canada. From what you can read here, he was having trouble.

I love that term - ’schizomedia’. I searched for it on Google, and from what I can see, Christian’s the first to use it in the context of connectedness…or being ‘always on’. Wikipedia hasn’t got a lot to say about it either…I bet it will soon.

It refers to the polarisation that an ‘always on’ way of life can create when it’s in opposition with a more naturally paced, face to face, personal existence.

When, if ever I experience some kind of convergence, I think a little part of me will have to be trimmed away as I assimilate the two lives I lead.

We’re different things to different people, as well as at different times. Imagine Ken Dodd in church. Actually don’t do that. Imagine you at work and you at the family dinner table. I bet there’s a difference. Talking to hundreds of people on Twitter would probably change a little bit if one of those hundreds was someone really close to you…someone previously not of that world.

It’s not just Christian who’s feeling the strain of offline vs. online (there’s got to be a better way of putting it than that). Last month Libby Davy pointed me in the direction of 52 Nights Unplugged.

Ultimately, I think we can learn from the old old subject of work/life balance. Only now, work is life and life is work for many lucky people, and the internet is a key part in many people’s life’s work. So it’s not so simple as going home and unplugging the phone.

We’re always in beta.
We’re learning all the time.
When to be on or offline.

MMMMMMMM MMMMM. That’s what I thought when I first found out about this great cafe in Philadelphia. And it’s what I’m thinking now writing this.

From the Naked Chocolate Cafe website:

“As the name implies, we use the finest chocolates and purest ingredients in making our products, locally sourced whenever possible and always fresh!”

Now that’s naked. I want some, and I want some now!!!

Update: So it turns out that in my chocolate desiring haste I forgot that Colin has already written about the Naked Chocolate Cafe. You can read his (much more insightful) post here.

I love mixtapes, but I hardly get or make them anymore. That’s ok. I’m happy with Cd-r compilations, they’re easier to import into iTunes so I can listen to them anywhere. I guess it’s the aesthetic I miss…and the care and attention that goes into a tape.

Mixtapes were an amazing way to communicate and share with other people about what it is you liked, and through that, your identity. Apart from peer to peer sharing of mp3s, I think the new generation of music lovers may miss out on this much more personal form of sharing music.

That’s why I love Muxtape

It’s a way to upload mp3s and arrange into a tracklist. That done, send the URL to a friend and they’ve got a taylor made playlist they can listen to online or on their iPhone. You can also browse everyone else’s muxtape. I’ve already discovered about ten bands I’d never heard but really like, just from one person’s tape. That can’t be a bad thing.

There’s new features being added weekly, announced on the Muxtape Blog. There’s even a ‘Coverflow’ style app to download. Suave.

(Photo taken by jaquian)

Leisa Reichelt, creator of the wonderful phrase ‘Ambient Intimacy‘ has gone and done it again, this time with ‘Ambient Exposure’.

It’s another perfect way to describe what’s happening around the web in the social context, one something that keeps cropping up in conversation in person, as well as on blogs.

Basically, it comes down to who is listening:

…for very many of us, we have taken little care in managing and really understanding exactly *who* is on our contact list. As your friends or followers list becomes progressively larger, we are less able to remember exactly who is listening…

It’s something we’ve thought a lot about at Naked. A LOT. You are different things to different people, that’s a given, and it’s not a bad thing. Not a different PERSON, just a slightly different version of you. Maybe more censored, maybe more extrovert.

One of Leisa’s examples is perfect:

I don’t want to be twittering about procrastinating on a project when the client for whom I am working is ‘listening’.

Yet this is something you still have a desire to share.

At the end of the day “we may not *want* to have the same level of intimacy with some people as we do with others”. From my discussions today at Social Media Cafe in London a lot of people feel the same, and are underserved by the black and white options that they are given by the tools they use: open or closed.

It comes back to something I find myself saying more and more each week. Transparency doesn’t apply to people like it does business. We need privacy in order to be our truest selves. At least most of us do. True intimacy does not come from being guarded, it comes from letting your guard down, and feeling absolutely safe and comfortable doing so.

Technorati tags: Ambient Exposure, Ambient Intimacy, Leisa Reichelt, Open Messaging, transparency

Over 300,000 You Tube views in a week. That’s sure to get the attention of the mainstream media. I was immediately interested to see the reasons why, the thought behind, and where people would take it.

So far I can’t see anything worth talking about other than the fact that these vloggers haven’t got any clothes on.

Most of the videos I’ve watched that follow the call to action are people with bare shoulders having nothing to say other than how weird it feels to be naked, and then ‘tagging’ their favourite three vloggers to do the same. Which confirms something I’ve believed for a while, being naked is NOT about what you do or don’t wear, it’s about what you do or don’t SHARE. Apart from the fact that they’re naked, these vloggers aren’t sharing anything. In fact, they’re sharing less than they normally do in front of their webcams.

It’s called ‘The Naked Vlog Campaign’…but it’s not a campaign. It’s a game. The only thing it campaigns for is attention.

Technorati tags: Naked Vlog Campaign, You Tube, sharing, attention seeking

This wonderful story brought to you via Mario at Happy Pixels…

I heard about this at the end of last week. It’s made me realise how much freedom web 2.0 gives you to do anything really really quickly and get it out to the biggest audience possible (the world!)

Alice is seven. On the news, she witnessed the latest on Brenda Martin’s case, and troubles waiting two years in a Mexican prison for a trial for something for which she is not guilty.

This inspired her to write a song, record that song, create a blog, and upload that song to the blog. I have now much help Alice got in doing all this, but I don’t have to. The fact that it is done, and that it is there at all is inspiring enough.

Go here: http://alicesong.blogspot.com/.

Technorati tags: Alone In Mexico, Brenda Martin, Canada, Mexico, Alice, song

- Bertrand Russell via Russell Davies.

There isn’t a lot more one could add to that. Perfect.

Communities.
Social Media.
Blogging.
Communication.
Collaboration.
Expression.
Creativity.
Authenticity.

Hopefully, after over two hundred posts here on Naked Yak, you’ll get the idea that we’re all for these things here at Naked. One of the most passionate people I’ve met since we started has to be Libby Davy. Libby her suave and gentle husband Gra Sutherland have started their very own Ning community, an arm of the consultancy and teaching platform Authentic Blogging.

So if you’re into any of the above, go here, and join in the conversation. From the site:

“I think, you think, we create (better) together.”

Technorati tags: Authentic Blogging, Libby Davy, Ning, community, collaboration