99% Invisible

Monday on 99% Invisible...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:14:00 -0800

A mystery guest leads our own Sam Greenspan on an unsanctioned, exploratory mission through the depths of the US Capitol Building.

“I have this habit of walking into any door that’s unlocked…You start poking around, going into doors…you find the coolest things…”

Episode 47- US Postal Service Stamps (Press Play...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:26:00 -0800

Episode 47- US Postal Service Stamps

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Somebody might be able to do a great painting that’s 20 x 30 inches, but you take that down to 1 x 1.5 inches, and it’s a challenge to make it work.

-Ethel Kessler, Art Director for USPS Stamp Services

Stamps design takes, on average, a year to a year and a half, from conception to execution. Unfortunately, most of the stamps we encounter on a day-to-day basis are the rather predictable flag, bell, and love stamps, but there are some really fantastic commemorative stamps, which are supremely functional and affordable tiny works of art.

To determine what should go on a US stamp, the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee combs through nearly 50,000 suggestions per year offered by the general public. Once the subjects are chosen and approved by the Postmaster General, they are assigned to a handful of art directors to be designed.

There are loads guidelines to help stamp subject selection, but one of the big rules recently changed. In 2012, the first living person will be commemorated on an official USPS stamp.

If you were the Postmaster General, whom would you pick? This is a question that comment sections are made for!

Julie Shapiro, Artistic Director of the Third Coast International Audio Festival, produced this episode. Julie spoke with Terry McCaffrey, the retired manager of stamp development for the USPS Stamp Services Office, and Ethel Kessler, an Art Director who’s been working with Stamp Services for over 15 years.

Episode 46- Vulcanite Dentures, or When Patent Violators Strike...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:54:31 -0800

Episode 46- Vulcanite Dentures, or When Patent Violators Strike Back

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(Above: Vulcanite dentures with gold inlay, ca. 1880)

Before the 1850s, dentures were made out of very hard, very painful and very expensive material, like gold or ivory. They were a luxury item. The invention of Vulcanite hard rubber changed everything. It was moldable, it could be precisely fitted, and it was relatively cheap. Everyone began making dentures with Vulcanite bases. But in 1864, a long disputed patent application, originally filed in 1852, was awarded and then acquired by the Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Company. It was an outfit created to collect fees, or very often, sue dentists who already used vulcanite, and there were plenty of dentists to go after.

The person in charge of pursuing the violators was Josiah Bacon, the treasurer of the Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Company. The patent was enforced with extreme prejudice, despite the protestations of the US dental profession.

To quote the secretary of the Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Company, Ernest Caduc: “Many dentists…relying upon the secret nature of the business, prefer to steal this property rather than buy it…”

It all came to a head on Easter Sunday in 1879. A Vulcanite denture patent violating dentist named Samuel Chalfant went to settle his business with his pursuer, Josiah Bacon, in his San Francisco hotel room. Chalfant brought a gun.

A print version of this story originally appeared in the fanzine Murder Can Be Fun by John Marr.

Notes:

This American Life #441: “When Patents Attack!”

Episode 45- Beauty Pill’s Immersive Ideal (Press Play...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:05:00 -0800

Episode 45- Beauty Pill’s Immersive Ideal

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(Above: Chad Clark under the “Abbey Road” window. Photo credit: Jon Pack)

Beauty Pill is band I really like from Washington DC. They have released two EPs (The Cigarette Girl From the Future and You Are Right to be Afraid) and their last album, The Unsustainable Lifestyle, came out in 2004.

In the interim, the singer/guitarist/producer for Beauty Pill, Chad Clark, got very sick and nearly died. That can be enough to make anyone stop making music, but in Clark’s case, he continued to make music, but he just never felt the need to release a record or play live. His music was just for him and his friends, and that was OK.

But a strange confluence of opportunity, desire and architecture knocked Beauty Pill out of their unforced exile. The curators at a new multimedia art center called Artisphere invited Chad Clark to come in and do something musical in the space. While they were showing him around, he saw the angled, 2nd floor window overlooking the Black Box Theater and it reminded him of the window in Abbey Road Studio 2, made famous by The Beatles. Months later, the Black Box Theater was transformed into a very public recording studio, capturing the sounds and energy of the band, onlookers and guests over the course of a couple weeks.

They called the project Immersive Ideal.

(Above: The fully immersed Beauty Pill. Photo credit: Nestor Diaz)

WORLD WIDE WEB PREMIERE! Beauty Pill was gracious enough to let us post one of the finished songs from the Immersive Ideal session. The first sound you hear in “Afrikaner Barista” is a metal dogbowl, spinning on Chad’s kitchen floor. This is a recurring texture in the new music. The dogbowl appears in many different forms, often digitally treated to be unrecognizable. “I’m kind of proud of this,” says Chad.

Beauty Pill finished their experiment in hyper-public music making last summer. Now, they’re putting their entire process—and final product—on display in the very same space where they made their new album. Through Sunday, Jan 22, the Artisphere’s Black Box Theatre is full of images, sounds, and other multimedia wonders in a user-controlled environment. It might very well be the most thoroughly documented presentation of a band’s creative process, ever.

Sam’s note:

As a former DC resident, I know that Washingtonians can be loathe to hang out outside the city proper—especially if it’s to go somewhere in Northern Virginia. But think of it this way: Metro’ing down to Rosslyn takes less time than trying to find parking in Adams Morgan. And this is worth it.

(Above: The control room “window” brought in by Devin Ocampo. Photo credit: Nestor Diaz)

Other Notes:

“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” You guys know this quote, right? There’s some debate in house. (I contend the joy garnered by those who recognize offsets the mild confusion experienced by those who don’t.)
Beauty Pill member Devin Ocampo (also of the awesome Medications and Faraquet (R.I.P.)) provided one of the more talked about aspects of the Artisphere “studio” design. He constructed a wood frame “window” in the lower theater space to separate the musicians from the engineer, referencing the control room glass window that would normally be there.
I almost named my first radio program “Smart Went Crazy,” which was the name of Chad Clark’s band before Beauty Pill.

(Above: Chad with guitar. Photo credit: Jon Pack)

Episode 44- The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (Press Play Above) Download,...

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:09:00 -0800

Episode 44- The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

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The Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis became most famous at the moment of its demise. The thirty-three high-rise towers built in the 1950’s were supposed to solve the impending population crisis in inner city St. Louis. It was supposed to save the urban poor from the indignities of the downtown slums that lacked natural light, water and fresh air. And for a short while, it worked. It was a housing marvel.

But when conditions started to decline, everything got very bad, very fast.

It got so bad, only two decades after it was built; the housing authority blew it up. The image of the first Pruitt-Igoe controlled implosion circled the globe.

The implosion footage became the unassailable proof that Modernist architecture and federal housing just didn’t work.

Chad Freidrichs is the director of the new documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth and in the film he examines all the reasons people cite for the demise of Pruitt-Igoe.

In this episode of 99% Invisible, we focus on the popular idea that the architecture was to blame.

Trailer for The Pruitt-Igoe Myth:

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is distributed by First Run Features and is screening at the IFC Center in New York City starting January 20, 2012 and will roll out across the country to coincide with the 40 year anniversary of the implosion in March 2012.

Aerial view of the massive thirty-three building project:

Notes:

The Pruitt-Igoe architect, Minoru Yamasaki, has the great misfortune of having another one of his designs forever remembered at the moment of its destruction.

99% Invisible featured on How Sound

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:59:03 -0800

Rob Rosenthal does a really fantastic program called How Sound (nee Saltcast) about the “backstory to great radio storytelling” and I am this week’s guest. If you want to make radio stories like mine, (or Ira, or Joe Richman, or The Kitchen Sisters) go download & listen to all of Rob’s episodes. Each episode is a fascinating DVD commentary/master class for public radio stories. I love it. Subscribe!

Rob has also taught most of the best young producers in the field and is currently running the Transom Story Workshop. Want to go from 0-60 in eight weeks? Go learn how to make radio right with Rob Rosenthal.

Episode 43- The Accidental Music of Imperfect Escalators (Press...

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:48:00 -0800

Episode 43- The Accidental Music of Imperfect Escalators

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“There’s a secret jazz seeping from Washington’s aging Metro escalators - those anemic metal walkways that fill our transit system…they honk and bleat and squawk…why are you still wearing those earbuds?”

-Chris Richards, “Move along with the soundtrack of Metro’s screechy, wailing escalators” The Washington Post, 01/14/11

Ever since the industrial revolution, when it became possible for products to be designed just once and then mass produced, it has been the slight imperfections and wear introduced by human use that has transformed a quality mass produced product into a thing we love. Your worn blue jeans, your grandmothers iron skillet, the initial design determined their quality, but it’s their imperfections that make them comfortable, that make them lovable, that make them yours.

And if you think that a “slightly broken” escalator can’t be lovable, then our own Sam Greenspan would like to introduce you to Chris Richards. Chris Richards is a music critic for the Washington Post, and after years of ignoring the wailing and screeching of the much maligned, often broken escalators in the DC Metro, he began to hear them in a new way. He began to hear them as music.

Notes:

This story was adapted from one Sam Greenspan produced for his podcast, Whisper Cities, which tells stories of overlooked places and the people who find them.
The designer of the first DC Metro stations was Harry Weese. Weese’s “Jailhouse Skyscraper” in downtown Chicago was profiled in 99% Invisible #26 by Dan Weissmann. The Metro ceilings may be brutalism at its best.

If you don’t get the “Culs-de-sac” joke, listen to this episode.
Radio producers Alex Van Oss and Charles Maynes also created their own Ballad of the DC Metro for Podstantsiya, a Moscow-based podcast and audio collective. (The site in in Russian, but the radio feature is in English.)

Also:

THANKS, RADIOLAB! For a brief shining moment, 99% Invisible was the #2 podcast on iTunes, and #1 in both the Arts and Design categories. Thank you so much for checking out the show. If you’re new here, never fear, you did not miss a thing! All the past episodes are available for download and are great (you know, as a body of work, some are better than others). You can subscribe in iTunes or here is the RSS feed if you use another podcast catching device.

If you appreciated Radiolab telling you about the show, do us a huge favor and tell everyone you know to listen and subscribe. If the response that Jad and Robert have gotten is any indication, they will thank you for it!

Finally:

Let’s hear it! What’s your favorite sound that you know other people hear as just noise? Please leave a comment below.

Radiolab presents 99% Invisible

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:46:00 -0800

I’m totally honored to be on Radiolab this week! Jad and Robert are presenting three full, uncut episodes of 99% Invisible along with an interview with yours truly.

Here are the original entries to each of the stories Radiolab featured:

Sounds of the Artificial World

Nikko: Concrete Commando
(Hear the original Nikko radio piece by Stephanie Foo for Snap Judgment. Buy Delfin Vigil’s zine describing his years long Nikko quest.)

The Feltron Annual Report

If you’re new here, welcome! I hope you enjoy the show. All the past episodes are available for download and are equally great (and short and evergreen). You can subscribe in iTunes or here is the RSS feed if you use another podcast catching device.

If you have any problem there, you can also listen and download everything on my Soundcloud page.

I need to give a big shout out to my home station KALW, to the American Institute of Architects | San Francisco, and the greatest sponsor in the world, LUNAR. If you like the show, they are the ones to thank.

Thanks again for stopping by.

-roman

Episode 42- Recognizably Anonymous (Press Play Above) Download,...

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:15:00 -0800

Episode 42- Recognizably Anonymous

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Anonymous is not group. It is not an organization. Rob Walker describes Anonymous as a “loosely affiliated and ever-changing band of individuals who… have been variously described as hackers, hacktivists, free-expression zealots, Internet troublemakers, and assorted combinations thereof.”

But when Anonymous came up against the Church of Scientiology, a small, non-hierarchical collection of Anons decided to take the disparate phrases, images and ideas circling around the 4Chan.org /b/ message board (where Anonymous has its roots) and combine them into a very engaging and effective “brand identity” (For lack of a better word. Is there a better word? I’d love to hear it. -rm).

The over-the-top, ominous voice of Anonymous was established in an online video and manifesto directed at the Church of Scientology:

The Anonymous logo is comprised of a headless man in a suit, with a question mark where the head should be, juxtaposed against a UN flag. All of these elements are freely interchangeable and can combine with other Anonymous imagery (see top illustration). According to Walker, the logo is “a cleverly subversive, and ironic, appropriation and exploitation of paranoia about Big Brother-style faceless power.”

And then there’s the mask. Appropriated from the graphic novel and movie “V for Vendetta,” the V mask (designed by comic book artist David Lloyd) has become the de facto public face of Anonymous, and it serves as such a powerful image that it has skipped over into other street protests like the Occupy Wall Street movement. Alan Moore, the author of V for Vendetta, has expressed his support of demonstrators exploiting the theatrical qualities of the V image in street protest.

In this episode, Rob Walker explores the origins of the meme-like images in the Anonymous “visual brand” and explains why these icons so powerfully define a phenomenon that eschews definition.

This piece was produced by me and Rob Walker based on his article “Recognizably Anonymous” in Slate.

Sam ID's himself, others wish to remain Anonymous

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:55:00 -0800

Greetings 99th Percentile! My name is Sam Greenspan (Ed note: See photo, center background. Not really.), and I’m the new guy helping out with the show. I’ll be contributing to the blog, occasionally telling stories on the show, and pulling all kinds of levers and knobs behind the scenes.

Roman is hard at work putting together this Friday’s episode—the story of how the Anonymous movement came to be known by the Guy Fawkes mask. (And trust me, it’s not what you think.)

To tide you over til then, check out this story that Carrie Kahn reported for NPR earlier this week about the Occupy movement’s use of the “people’s mic.” Even though the people’s mic was born out of a need—loudspeakers were banned in Zucotti Park—the Occupy protestors are finding that this call-and-response form of decision-making has become emblematic of their ideals.

What stories have you heard in the news that deal with design? Let us know!

Episode 41- The Human-Human Interface (Press Play...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:31:00 -0800

Episode 41- The Human-Human Interface

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Above: Paola Antonelli’s favorite piece from Talk to Me: Sputniko!’s “Menstruation Machine” that communicates the feelings and discomfort of menstruation to a non-menstruating person (e.g. a man).

“There’s a whole universe in every single object that becomes even bigger when put in relationship with a person.” – Paolo Antonelli

Paola Antonelli is the Senior Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art. Her most recent blockbuster show, Talk to Me, explored the communication between people and objects: from chairs that talk to subway kiosks.

It’s pretty easy to get overwhelmed and frustrated by all the human-object interactions in the modern world. I’ve never used a “coin return” button on a vending machine that worked and there is interesting criticism of the increasingly common “pictures under glass” type of interface on the iPhone and iPad.

But as Paola Antonelli explains to producer Benjamen Walker (from Too Much Information), the evolution of communication design is pointing to a world that minimizes human-object interfaces and leaves us to free to focus on real human habits and needs.

Above: Episode #41 producer Benjamen Walker compares “UBIK” tattoos with Jonathan Lethem.

My benefactors at LUNAR are so cool. I swear I would say that...

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:07:27 -0800

My benefactors at LUNAR are so cool. I swear I would say that even if they weren’t supporting the show.

Episode 40- Billy Possum (Press Play Above) Download, Embed,...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 09:58:00 -0800

Episode 40- Billy Possum

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(Above: Teddy Bear exits the scene to make way for Billy Possum)

It’s totally unfair. Hydrox cookies came out four years before the introduction of Oreos, but Hydrox could never shake the image that it was a cheap knock-off, an also-ran. As a consumer product, it’s completely out of your hands if you’re deemed a mighty Transformer, or a loathsome Gobot.

Sometimes it doesn’t make any sense at all.

But sometimes it does.

This is the tale of two toys with two very different fates. The Teddy Bear, named after the charismatic president Theodore Roosevelt, was a sensation in the early twentieth century. It even displaced baby dolls as the top toy in all of the United States, but no one thought it would last. The burgeoning mass-market toy industry thought the bear was a novelty that would die out once Teddy Roosevelt left office in 1909. So the powers that be went on the search for the next cuddly companion that America’s children would adore. It was completely logical that they looked at the next president for inspiration, Roosevelt’s handpicked successor, William Howard Taft. In 1909, the toy makers of America placed their bets on the Taft presidency’s answer to the Teddy Bear: the Billy Possum.

This story comes to us from the insanely talented Jon Mooallem. He first presented a version of this story at Pop-Up Magazine #5 in San Francisco (which I totally had tickets for, but was too sick to attend). Mooallem’s latest story for the New York Times Magazine is about the heroics of the Turtle People during the Gulf oil spill. He’s working on a book about people and animals for Penguin Press. He’s my favorite person to follow on twitter (@jmooallem) because he regularly posts strange animal facts that he comes across in his research. Like this:

or this:

(Below: The political cartoon that spawned the Teddy Bear craze)

Episode 39X- The Biography of 100,000 Square Feet (Press Play...

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:48:00 -0800

Episode 39X- The Biography of 100,000 Square Feet

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In the center of San Francisco, there is a plaza with no benches. Its central feature, at the entrance of the plaza, is a unique fountain that was designed by Lawrence Halprin in 1975. The water shoots out at various angles, from inside a sunken pit, filled with large granite slabs. It’s a design that kind of pulls you in and invites you to take the steps down to the water and climb in between the hulking stones. And that’s part of the problem.

In 2004, radio producer Ben Temchine, created a really fantastic documentary of UN Plaza, called “The Biography of 100,000 Square Feet” that first aired on my first radio program called Invisible Ink in May of 2004. (Yep another “invisible” show) The documentary really takes a hard look at UN Plaza when it was really at its worst and asks the question, is there a point where the good intentions and idealism of a design become so removed from reality, that it actually borders on negligence?

I was down at UN Plaza today (November 17, 2011), recording the fountain and taking pictures. The Arts Market was being set up and the water was flowing in the fountain, that was marred by a bit of trash circling in the eddies, but nothing too grotesque or unexpected. The yellow chain that cordoned off the fountain in 2004 is gone. And this morning, with the market being set up, I got a much stronger feel for the intention of the plaza than was evident when it was at its worst. But the big issues were still plain to see.

The Landscape Architect, Lawrence Halprin, who designed UN Plaza and is featured in the piece, died in 2009. If this is your first exposure to Halprin, I really recommend you look him up and check out his other work. He is absolutely revered in much of the landscape architecture community and the very principles of interactivity and engagement that worked to the detriment of UN Plaza, yielded stunningly successful results in other places. It’s worth exploring more of his legacy.

Episode 39- The Darth Vader Family Courthouse (Press Play...

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:30:00 -0700

Episode 39- The Darth Vader Family Courthouse

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(Photo: New York County Family Courthouse, 60 Lafayette Street, circa 1999. Copyright Dylan Stone.)

It’s hard to imagine a place where more desperate and depressing drama unfolds on a daily basis than a family courthouse- custody battles, abuse, divorce- and if you were to design a place to reflect and amplify that misery, not mitigate it, it’d probably take the form of the old New York County Family Courthouse in Lower Manhattan.

The original shiny black cube, built in 1975, was referred to as the “Darth Vader building” by court employees (presumably after 1977). The foreboding and intimidating structure was primarily criticized in relation to its function as a family courthouse, which should strive to inspire a feeling of trust, authority, and (one hopes) inclusion.

The building was remodeled in 2006. The bones are largely the same, but the shiny, black cladding is gone, replaced by a more conventional grey/beige. The problematic entrance to the building has been completely opened up, making ingress and egress a much less daunting proposition. To quote our 99% Invisible reporter this week, Brett Myers (a producer at Youth Radio), “walking into the building is no longer like being consumed by a beast.”

But a little something was lost in the facelift. The original building was definitely not boring and commanded your attention. I don’t know if the same can be said for the current design. Modern design principles and cultural preservation are not necessarily at loggerheads, but when they do come into conflict, it’s not always easy to answer which ideology should win.

(Photo: The courthouse in 2008)

This is the forum thread started by Lofter1 on Wired New York referred to in the piece.

Here is Eugene Patron’s essay about his time as a paralegal in the New York Family Courthouse.

Laurie Johnston’s piece from 1977 New York Times about the Family Court.

Episode 38- The Sound of Sport (Press Play Above) Download,...

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:21:00 -0700

Episode 38- The Sound of Sport

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(cc photo by Josh Mazgelis)

If Dennis Baxter and Bill Whiston are doing their job right, you probably don’t notice that they’re doing their job. But they are so good at doing their job, that you probably don’t even know that their job exists at all. They are sound designers for televised sporting events. Their job is to draw the audience into the action and make sports sound as exciting as possible, and this doesn’t mean they put a bunch of microphones on the field. It sometimes means they fake it.

Peregrine Andrews produced this piece narrated by Dennis Baxter for Falling Tree Productions for BBC Radio4. It is an extract from a much longer, and really stunning doc called “The Sound of Sport.”

If you search the internet you may be able to find the full length version. Ahem.

Episode 37- The Steering Wheel (Press Play Above) Download,...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:37:00 -0700

Episode 37- The Steering Wheel

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(cc photo by Nate Steiner)

If I asked you to close your eyes and mimic the action of using one of the simple human interfaces of everyday life, you could probably do it. Without having a button to push, you could close your eyes and pretend push a button, and that action would accurately reflect the action of pushing a real button. The same goes for flipping a switch or turning a door knob. If you closed your eyes and faked the movement, it would sync up with its real world use.

Now if I asked you to do the same with a car’s steering wheel, you’d think you’d be able to describe steering accurately and mime the correct movements with your hands in the air, but you’d be wrong. Very, very wrong. You’d probably kill a bunch of imaginary people.

Our friends at Humans in Design, Tristan Cooke and Tom Nelson, bring us this story about how our brain knows how to steer without really knowing how to steer, and what that means for steering wheel design. They interviewed Dr. Steve Cloete, from The University of Queensland, who conducted the awesome blind driver studies.

prpd: KUOW’s Jeff Hansen, The Sound of Young America’s Jesse...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:22:18 -0700

prpd:

KUOW’s Jeff Hansen, The Sound of Young America’s Jesse Thorn and Roman Mars from 99% Invisible and PRX’s Public Radio Remix.

Thanks, The Atlantic Cities...

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:14:00 -0700

The awesome, alliterative Allison Arieff posted a short Q&A with me about the show over at the new The Atlantic Cities design page. Go read it!

Episode 36- Super Bon Bonn (Press Play Above) Download, Embed,...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 23:04:00 -0700

Episode 36- Super Bon Bonn

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(Above: The new residents of the former embassy of Iceland are putting their flagpole to good use and supporting their favorite football club. Photo cc: Claus Moser)

Cities are pretty robust organisms, they tend to survive even when put under tremendous stress and strain. Local industries rise and fall, people immigrate and emigrate, but most of these changes happen over decades. What happens to a city when its purpose is stripped away virtually overnight? Bonn was the quiet, unlikely capital of West Germany and then the newly unified Germany for 50 years, and then the Cold War ended and the seat of government was moved back to its historic home of Berlin. Ten years after the move, Bonn is finding its new identity and purpose, but hidden clues in the urban landscape remind us of the city it used to be.

Cyrus Farivar takes us on a tour of his neighborhood in what used to be the diplomatic quarter of Bonn with local historian and tour guide Michael Wenzel. Farivar is the science and technology editor at Deutsche Welle English and the author of The Internet of Elsewhere – about the history and effects of the Internet on different countries around the world.

Notes:

-Here is the Google Street View of the former French Embassy in Bonn.

-This is the recent New York Times article about the “Two Capital Cities” that was referenced in the piece.

-“Village-Class Capital : Bonn—It Rhymes With Yawn” from the LA Times, also referenced.

-“Super Bon Bon” by Soul Coughing.