- Violence and Identity #
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The National Identity Is Made Up piece in the New York Times reminded me of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s words in Freedom From the Known, Chapter 6:
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
We don’t need a new myth. Literal interpretations of persistent myths are what got us into so much trouble in the first place.
What we need is awareness and education to encourage skepticism and critical thinking from an early age.
Simon Griffee
Department of graphic design, art direction, and photography.
February 2018
- We Need Design That is Faster and Design That is Slower #
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Our news and information sites have succeeded so well, they are failing. We’ve designed them to be quickly scannable—at a glance, I take in the headline, the key visual, and the lead paragraph. But today’s news is anything but simple. The truth cannot be reduced to visual sound bytes. That’s how we got in this mess in the first place.
Via dei Fori Imperiali, Rome, Italy, July 2012
Don’t confuse love with abuse.
I remembered this picture after seeing this ad by Bianca Guimarães, Danilo Boer, and my childhood friend Marcos Kotlhar.
Lake Mareotis View Towards Temple of Sekhmet in Yamu, Egypt, Ptolemaic period (49–47 BC), February 2018
Assassin’s Creed Origins has quickly become one of my favorite games through the breathtaking realization of its world alone. It is visually and aurally — both sound effects and music — beautiful, a stunning technical and artistic achievement.
It is also lots of fun, and an educational “Discovery Tour” version is forthcoming, as are more street photos of this digital world as I explore it (the in-game photography-mode feature is a great idea which should become a standard in all 3D games.)
