Calling All Geeks to GOOD's Design Hackathon

Geeks unite! For one whole weekend in March, designers, developers and makers of all kinds are being summoned to participate in the Design Hackathon sponsored by GOOD and hosted by Parsons in NYC. The challenge is to combine technology and social innovation to "design the ideal tool that empowers the average New Yorker every hour of the day. From the moment we wake to the minute we fall asleep, how can people practice and maximize good citizenship in 24 hours?" 

Sound puzzling? GOOD gives you some ideas to get the wheels turning. They're looking for ideas that promote meaningful connections, efficient transportation, clever consumption, educational reform, cleaner environments and smart economies. Groups will check in Friday and "chill with GOOD" at City Tavern that night, work all day Saturday and then present their ideas to a panel of judges on the third day. Winners will be selected in three categories, Most innovative, Best use of social and Best use of location. 

Meanwhile: Looking to take an idea from paper to production? Check out 3rd Ward's latest class on learning Rhino 2, a cutting edge software program provides all the commands and power to accurately model and document your designs, ready to integrate into CAD drawings, renderings, laser cutting, 3D printing, prototyping, CNC milling and other manufacturing processes.

Design Hackathon takes place from Friday, March 2 - Sunday, March 4.

-- Perrin Drumm

Chronicled Dissolution: 365 Days In The Life Of A New York City Bicycle

We've all seen those sad, abandoned bicycle frames still chained to a street sign or bike rack. Wheels, seat, handle bars and chain, all gone—everything pilfered, leaving just a lonely rusting triangle of metal. It's hard to imagine that what remains was once a fully-equipped bike that someone pedaled around the city.

Though this video from Red Peak Branding can give you an idea of how a bicycle arrives in such a state. On January 1, 2011 the design firm chained a bike with bells, basket, lights, a water bottle and more on a street in Soho and took a photo of it each day of the year. The bike seems to survive a little over 200 days without too much damage or theft, but its state deteriorates pretty quickly after the basket vanishes on day 212. By day 231 its seat is gone, by day 242 it has lost its rear wheel rack, and around day 251 someone walks off with the front wheel. The rest of the bike vanishes forever on day 270, leaving you with a bit of existential ennui as other bikes come and go for the remainder of the year.

If you'd like to follow the bike's sad demise in real time, Red Peak also created a daily calendar out of their photos. We hope the bicycles in NYC's Bike Share program, which is scheduled to launch this summer, fair better than this poor maroon ride:

-- John Ruscher

Your Daily Insight as told by Janis Joplin

Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got. There is no yesterday, no tomorrow, it's all the same day.

See Murakami's "Ego" on Display (and Fashion Your Reaction at 3rd Ward)

Murakami's most recent exhibition, "Ego," comes on the heels of two major retrospectives at MoCA and Versailles, both extremely well attended shows, as we're sure this next one will be--even if fans have to travel all the way to Doha, Qatar to see it. There are many familiar faces in his bright and shiny anime wonderland (or nightmare, depending on who you ask); the flowerballs, mushrooms and bunny-suited characters are back, appearing both in 3D and in Murakami's signature superflat paintings. 

Those looking to see something new won't have to search hard as a 328-foot-long painting wraps around three walls of the exhibition space. It's apparently a response to the recent natural disasters that have hit Japan, which explains its size as well as its other monstrous qualities. But before you feast your eyes on three walls of an acid trip gone wrong, you have to make your way around Murakami's gigantic ass--no joke. A 20-foot-tall inflatable self-portrait "greets" visitors as they enter. According to Murakami, the exhibition is "a dialogue with one's own ego," a conversation that seems to have soured over the years. 

For those who think they can take on Murakami's expansive paintings and gigantic (inflatable) "Ego," just so happens we've got one or two classes for that. A handful of painting classes are still open as well as the ever-instantly-filled-up "Inflatable Sculpture" class.

We've got a feeling you might have a healthier relationship with your "Ego" then good ol' Murakami. Why not find out?

-- Perrin Drumm

Catherine Kirkpatrick Profiles 30 Contemporary Women Photographers For Women's History Month

March is Women's History Month, and we're looking forward to a great project that one of 3rd Ward's own members will be unveiling throughout the month. Catherine Kirkpatrick will be presenting 30 by 30, a daily series of conversations with thirty contemporary women photographers about other women photographers who inspire them--hosted on the Professional Women Photographers website.

"The photographers range from photojournalists to fine art, fashion and portrait photographers, from age 26 to 99," Kirkpatrick tells us. A new segment will run each day on the PWP blog starting March 1.

"It grew out of a conversation with a museum publications director about how women of the Photo League were much less documented than their male counterparts," says Kirkpatrick. "And working in the Professional Women Photographers' archives I saw how much photography has changed in the past few decades. Opportunities we take for granted now didn't exist 30 to 40 years ago, both for women photographers and for photography as a fine art. So there was a need to acknowledge change, yet honor the pioneering women photographers who came before and were often overlooked."

Kirkpatrick is an accomplished photographer in her own right, and you can check some of her photographs after the jump. "I'm currently working on a portfolio of images using a Diana Camera plastic lens on a Canon 5D," she says. "It's a wonderful blend of high and low tech. The digital SLR provides a large, 16-bit file, and the plastic lens slurs the colors and warps the image in unexpected ways. Since you can't control everything, you have to relax, let go and have fun! Sometimes wonderful images result."

Photographers Gigi Stoll and Flo Fox, who are featured in Kirkpatrick's 30 By 30 series.Photoshelter named Kirkpatrick's article Sgt. Pepper Uncovered, on pioneering women photographers and policewomen in the 1970s, one of their Best Photography Blog Posts of 2011. Her image Train Coming (check it out below) also received an honorable mention in the PWP International Open Call, which was juried by renowned photography Mary Ellen Mark. You can find more of Kirkpatrick's photography and art on her website and more of her writing on Photospire.org.

Train Coming by Catherine Kirkpatrick Overpass by Catherine Kirkpatrick

Clouds by Catherine Kirkpatrick

-- John Ruscher

Your Daily Insight as told by Amelia Earhart

The most difficult thing is the decision to act--the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

Kickstarter Pick: The Hundred Story House

Traveling, miniature, movable libraries aren't a new thing, but they are a wonderful thing, acting as both a mobile book lender and a friendly reminder to put down your phone and pick up a book (because, sadly folks, playing Words With Friends doesn't count as a literary pursuit.) The latest mobile library is Brooklyn's Hundred Story House, a "piece of interactive public art" modeled after a Brooklyn brownstone that literally opens its window to lend you books, about a hundred of them. Or at least it will if it gets funded on Kickstarter by March 2nd. 

The project's founders are asking for $13,000 to build, insure and maintain The Hundred Book House, though we'd bet that most of the subsequent maintenance and costs associated with moving the house around to other Brooklyn parks will mostly be a labor of love. And be honest: How can you not support that?

-- Perrin Drumm

Mu Pan, Our Summer Open Call Winner, Finishes His Epic 'One Thousand and One Noon'

A detail of Mu Pan's One Thousand and One Noon

Last month we gave you an early peak at some of the amazing work that our Summer Open Call winner Mu Pan will be presenting in his March 23 solo show at 3rd Ward--including the first panel of his One Thousand and One Noon, an epic watercolor work that takes its title from One Thousand and One Nightsand High Noon. 

Pan has now finished that piece's other two panels, and...just...wow. There's really no way to adequately describe this astounding triptych, so we'll just let you explore some of its vast expanses, intense images and rich themes in the details below.

For more on Mu Pan, watch a video profile after the jump and check out this a recent interview by Japan Cinema. And, of course, mark those calendars for March 23—you truly don't want to miss this one.

-- John Ruscher

Your Daily Insight as told by Julia Child

Drama is very important in life: You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper

Infographic: How Photographers Actually Spend Their Time

If you've spent even 30 seconds hanging out on any social network in the past few days, chances are high you've bumped into a few different versions of a new Internet meme in which different professions are given the "What ______ think I do" treatment. For instance, here are ones about graphic designers and directors, the latter of which seems to have started the trend. There's also one about photographers, but since we're much bigger fans of fascinating, informative charts than crudely designed jpegs, we'd like to share the chart below, which compares how people think shutterbugs spend their time with the actual nitty gritty specifics of a career in pro photography.

When we first came across the chart, we thought its numbers might fall into that infamous 73% of statistics that are made up on the spot, but after a little research we discovered that they are actually the results of a survey conducted by the International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers. Whether they shoot weddings or not, we think the chart provides a thought-provoking contrast between the realities of editing, office work and marketing and the preconception of photographers as leading lives of endless glamour, traveling and creativity.

Next time you're out at an event and spot that photog snapping away on her DSLR, you can still be jealous, but don't forget the other hard work that goes on after the party is over.

-- John Ruscher