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Interesting delivery in my Inbox today! Pixels of Fury competition. Read all about it below. If you’re a crazy talented pixel pusher, this may be right up your alley. OR, you may know someone, feel free to pass it along.

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We’ve already told you about some of the great things we have planned for our Pixels of Fury design competition this year. Last month, we brought the Fury to Adobe MAX in LA, and now we’re doing it again during HOW Design Live and SF Design Week! Better yet, we want you to be a part of it! If you’re a designer in the Bay Area (or will just be in town), we’d love to have you apply to be a contestant.

Pixels of Fury is the perfect opportunity to show off your design skills under pressure. With just 20 minutes to create a poster from scratch in front of a live audience, the pressure is on to see whose inspiration shines brightest. Of course, you’ll have the whole Shutterstock library at your disposal — used wisely, it can help you earn the coveted Furious Pixel trophy.

Interested in participating? Check out the video below of the contestants from last month’s event, look at our wrap-up of the Fury in 2012, and then email us at pixelsoffury@shutterstock.com with your contact info and a link to your portfolio.

~ Text Source: Shutterstock blog

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Imagine a game “African-American or not”? What about “Irish or not”? These game titles sound a bit strange, don’t they? I’ll share a story with you. It’ll be short. One of the most offensive things I’ve ever heard said to me was at my first corporate job at a real estate firm (right out of college). One of the engineering managers said, “Hey Louisa”. I turned around and said, “It’s Dorothy”. He replied, “Oh, whatever, you all look the same”.

Really?

That incident was 12 years ago and as much as I would like to think things have changed. They haven’t. I’m not upset (anymore). Rather, it makes me wonder how I perceive my culture and ethnicity. Or, how do I see other people of color? Last weekend, my dear friend and her partner took me to the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) showing of XXX Shorts, which is not what you think (X=10. X + X + X = 30. 2012 commemorates 30 years of SFIAAFF!). Each film included thoughtful and provocative interpretations and meditations on various traditions and issues across various Asian cultures.

Subsequently, I perused the Center for Asian American Media site and had to look through the Interactive projects (I’m always looking at what designers have created to supplement an event). It’s rather common for festivals and art fairs to create interactive apps for patrons and supporters. Typically, the governing or founding organization develop these tools for android and iPhones so the viewer is connected to the entire event regardless of the end user’s location. Theoretically, these projects serve as a way to build consciousness and awareness around race and gender. I ended up downloading the game application, “Filipino or Not“. Initially, I had mixed emotions (only because I had never played a guessing game regarding this specific issue – guessing someone’s ethnicity!).  Playing the game, I learned a few facts about Filipinos and Filipino-Americans in the media. The goal of the game is stated clearly within the application. Despite my initial feelings of ignorance (my first score was 8/10, apparently, the average score is 7/10) after my first game, I’m sure the game designers’ intention was merely to enhance our knowledge and awareness. However, a friend’s thought was that it increases racial profiling and stereotypes, which can be true depending on one’s experiences. I’d like to think, at the end of the game, that the player is reminded to NOT judge people based on their appearances. Or, does the game actually do more harm than good?

Curious? Feel free to download and let me know what you think. Here are some questions for you…

What do you think of these types of games? Have you every played one? What ways have you learned about your culture and ethnicity? How does interactive design and technology help or hinder our understanding of race and gender?

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Something that always troubles me – and it has troubled me for as long as I can remember – is this idea of misinformation that causes people to do bad things. We can go back to World War II, we can look at the 1990s and the Balkan Wars. Emotionally, these drive me very much, this idea of how the Balkans split apart. I’m very interested in that time. And then look at America post 9/11 with this whole anti-Muslim movement and this complete misinformation. And it’s not necessarily because somebody thought, “I’m going to be evil and go out and lie.” They really believe what they are saying, and the people listening to them want to believe what they’re hearing. So this idea that the Quran is all about terror and violence makes me go like, “Wait. Look at the Old Testament. Look at Deuteronomy. It says you can stone your wife.” Our religious texts in the Western world are extremely violent, as well.

~ Excerpt from the Substratum Series Interview with Wesley Grubbs, Founder of Pitch Interactive

Take a look at Pitch Interactive data visualization of the Bible and the Quran here.

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I’m a huge fan of Packard Jennings. He created yet another amazing project emblematic of our time – Destructables. Please click on the image below and check out the site. A wonderful resource for creative dissent!!!

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Talk to Me: The Design and Communication between People and Objects

An incredible exhibition of new media and interactive art at the New York Museum of Modern Art. I took an insane amount of photos but wanted to share the pieces that stood out. All of the works were impressive but this would be a ridiculously long post. Please feel free to comment and/or ask questions start a dialogue. Enjoy!!!

SMSlingshot, 2009 ~ Team: Christian Zollner, Patrick Tobias Fischer, Thilo Hoffmann, Sebastian Piatza, and VR/Urban

SMSlingshot was made from the following: high-frequency radio, Arduino board, laser, batteries, plywood, and ash wood. The SMSlingshot marries a traditional weapon with text-messaging technology, projecting digital information onto building facades and other surfaces and turning them into public screens. The battery-powered device is a wooden slingshot with a display screen, keypad, and laser. Users type text messages and then release the slingshot to “blast” them onto nearby surfaces, where they appear within a splash of color and linger as long as the writers decide: at the same instant, the text is transmitted globally via Twitter. For the designers, the SMSlingshot is a tool for reclaiming and occupying increasingly commercialized urban space.

~ Text Source: New York MoMA Exhibition Plaque text

Engaging work by Jaakko Tuomivaara

Hide & See by artist, Jaakko Tuomivaara

A constantly ringing phone doesn’t delight anyone – especially when you have guests around. A discreet cue showing incoming calls and their relative importance gives you the chance to ignore anything that can wait and make your excuses when something can’t.

Every call shows up as a dot, with the red dots around the lips reserved for important numbers. This way the owner of the piece can quickly decode both the number and relative importance of the calls.

~ Text Source: Artist Site (Please click on the image above to learn more about Hide & See and other works by Tuomivaara)

Growing up Catholic, this piece absolutely intrigued me...

Prayer Companion (2010) is made from Photopolymer resin, dot-matrix, display, and printed circuit board. The piece was created by Interaction Research Studio at Goldsmiths – University of London.

Prayer Companion alerts the nine Poor Clare nuns cloistered at a monastery in York, England, to issues that need their prayers. The nuns, whose everyday lives have changed little since medieval times, take vows of enclosure, and presently their connections to the outside world are occasional and limited. Designed to be understated and unobtrusive, the Prayer Companion – the nuns call it “Goldie” – sits on a table in a well-traveled hallway, scrolling a ticker tape of current issues sourced from RSS news feeds, social networking sites, and blog entries aggregated by the website We Feel Fine (which compiles the emotions of anonymous strangers who have posted the words “I feel” or “I am feeling”). The nuns report that Prayer Companion “has been valuable in keeping (our) prayers pertinent”.

~ Text Source: New York MoMA Exhibition Plaque

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Click on the image above to learn more about Occupy Design ~ Image Source: Occupy Design