Pico Iyer at TEDGlobal 2013, echoing Annie Dillard’s eloquent meditation on presence vs. productivity.
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We live today not in the digital, not in the physical, but in the kind of minestrone that our mind makes of the two.
MoMA’s Paola Antonelli, mastermind of Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects, at a recent TED salon titled “Design Is Everywhere.”
This is how humor works: It’s a conflict of synergies — we mashup these things that don’t belong together that temporarily exist in out minds.
A TED salon curated by Helen Walters, titled “Design Is Everywhere,” New Yorker cartoons editor Bob Mankoff illustrates his theory of humor with his most famous cartoon, which juxtaposes the syntax of politeness with the content of rudeness.
He also notes that the magazine calls cartoons “idea drawings” because an idea drawing “it requires thinking on behalf of cartoonish and thinking on behalf of reader to make it work.”
For more illustrative epitomes in action, see The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs.
There’s this myth that designers aspire to be artists. No — designers aspire to be really great designers.
Paola Antonelli, MoMA’s Senior Curator of Architecture and Design, echoes Bruno Munari at a recent TED salon titled “Design Is Everywhere.”
Antonelli’s most recent book, Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects, based on her MoMA exhibition of the same name, is fantastic.
An animated look at what literature’s most famous hero archetypes teach us.
From parenting to dating, an illustrated explanation of conditioned human responses and how we behave like Pavlovian dogs. Also see what the genius of dogs reveals about human intelligence.
How power is divided in the American government – an animated explanation from TED. Also see British vs. American government, explained in vintage infographics.
Stirring TED talk by Leslie Morgan Steiner, author of Crazy Love, on why domestic violence victims don’t leave and the psychological trap disguised as love that keeps the vicious cycle going.
Lawrence Lessig on fixing America’s broken political system. There is also the companion TEDBook Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It.
“Sometimes, isolation – whether chosen or forced – can be the best thing that happens to people.”
The upside of isolated civilizations, animated.
Famous creators like Ernest Hemingway, Apple co-creator Steve “Woz” Wozniak and painter Agnes Martin have also advocated for the benefits of being alone.
“Take one memory, explore it like a new land.”
How to become a slam poet in 5 steps, wonderfully animated. Complement with how to enjoy poetry.
From planting seeds to the internet – how innovations in farming and growing our own food civilized society. Also see how Thomas Jefferson pioneered urban farming.
The story of the Boston Tea Party – including how the actual “tea” part came to be – animated.
Physician and writer Abraham Verghese on why the human hand might be our best technology. In fact, it likely is.
How Mendel’s pea plants helped us understand genetics. Also explained in a single vintage illustration. Complement with why we are all related.
