I {heart} Powerpoint
David Byrne is actually still doing stuff? A friend just clued me in that he's got a presentation going on December 4th to talk about his book "Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information", a coffee-table book of art (comes with a DVD, too) all done from within Microsoft's Powerpoint. Kind of a neat idea, but I wasn't too impressed when I actually saw it, but it was still kinda cool.
I get so much crap for liking this guy- I guess it's sort of a Michael Jackson thing. Yeah they might not be doing a whole lot now, but in their prime? I'm not ashamed to admit I own "Thriller" or "Off the Wall", and I'm sure as hell not going to be ashamed to own everything the Talking Heads ever did, and David Byrne was key to making the Talking Heads what they were. He pushed the lyrics, pushed the boundaries of the music video genre (Burning down the house is still one of my fav videos of all time, but perhaps I'm just dating myself)... there was a reason this guy was on the cover of Time.
But since then, I just haven't really been able to get into where's going. He's always had the follow-through to season up whatever idea he was trying to convey artistically, which I haven't seen in his albums since he's been solo. Haven't really seen it here either, even though of course I still buy them (and Bowie's... Jackson is too weird now even for me to buy his stuff).
I get what he's saying... that Powerpoint sort of encourages this drab, cookie cutter mentality where all the millions of presentations done with it look suspiciously homogenized. If you actually did these things day in & day out (as some people do) you'd prolly never want to see another bullet point in your life, or swipe transformation. No creativity, even though really you're using a creative tool that just happens to happens to encourage herd mentality.
Pretty standard Warhol-esque pop-art, which is cool, and a kind of a neat idea. I guess I just don't get the follow-through, as well, the art created isn't all that great, and doesn't make you go "That's Powerpoint?!?!". I dunno, perhaps if he'd found a way to incorporate the cookie-cutter designs into something else I'd enjoy it more. Still, if you're in LA, it'd prolly be a damn cool presentation.
Posted by drunkenbatmanNovember 30, 2003, at 12:14 AM
