Unexpected Connections was a conference hosted by Imprint and MAEKAN which happened November 7, 2018 in Long Beach, California. In this episode, Eugene and Charis discuss what went well, what could be improved on, and what lessons they’ve learned. Unexpected connections are the simplest way of describing creativity. In its most basic form, it’s pattern recognition, and at its most complex, it’s a tangled web that humans have become surprisingly great at deconstructing. The conference brought together people from disparate walks of life to speak in conversation with each other on stage. Speakers included John Maeda, Julia Huang, John C Jay, Jason Mayden, Jun Cha, Jennifer Ferro, Lindsay Jang, David Choe, James Bailey, Charis Poon, Eugene Kan, Jeff Staple, Karen Okonkwo, Madeleine Brand, Helen Zia, and Kenya Hara.

Links

https://unexpectedconnectionsevent.com

https://www.instagram.com/unexpectedconnections

https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/unexpectedconlb

What is MAEKAN?

MAEKAN is a membership-based publication and community focused on the sights and sounds of creative culture. We're about learning, participating, and connecting with a global community on a deeper level that social media just doesn't provide. We’re defining the future of creative culture.

We don't have all the answers, but our curiosity ensures we never stop looking.

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Charis expresses interest in a McKinsey study that analyzed copious amounts of data over the past 5 years to determine what impact design decisions have on business performance. Eugene wants to talk about the algorithm IBM and Symrise, a major fragrance company, developed specifically for making new fragrances.

00:13:23 Design impact study

00:27:30 AI-created scents

Links:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90255363/this-mckinsey-study-of-300-companies-reveals-what-every-business-needs-to-know-about-design-for-2019

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/24/18019918/ibm-artificial-intelligence-perfume-symrise-philyra

What is MAEKAN?

MAEKAN is a membership-based publication and community focused on the sights and sounds of creative culture. We're about learning, participating, and connecting with a global community on a deeper level that social media just doesn't provide. We’re defining the future of creative culture.

We don't have all the answers, but our curiosity ensures we never stop looking.

Sign-Up Today

If you've enjoyed this story from the archives and want to see what else MAEKAN has to offer, sign-up for your membership at MAEKAN.com. You'll unlock all of our stories, be given exclusive member-only-access to our Slack community, and have the opportunity to participate in our monthly digital panel discussions.

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Eugene is interested in considering whether the new full version of Adobe Photoshop on the iPad with cloud syncing capabilities might change the ways people create. Charis wants to talk about the Chinese art market and how what it looks like on the surface isn’t a good indicator of what’s really happening.

00:23:19 Photoshop on the iPad

00:35:05 The Chinese art market

Links:

https://www.dpreview.com/news/0367513073/a-fully-featured-photoshop-is-finally-coming-to-the-ipad

https://news.artnet.com/market/5-biggest-myths-chinese-art-market-1371619

What is MAEKAN?

MAEKAN is a membership-based publication and community focused on the sights and sounds of creative culture. We're about learning, participating, and connecting with a global community on a deeper level that social media just doesn't provide. We’re defining the future of creative culture.

We don't have all the answers, but our curiosity ensures we never stop looking.

Sign-Up Today

If you've enjoyed this story from the archives and want to see what else MAEKAN has to offer, sign-up for your membership at MAEKAN.com. You'll unlock all of our stories, be given exclusive member-only-access to our Slack community, and have the opportunity to participate in our monthly digital panel discussions.

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This week Eugene looks into the current state of fashion as described by 36 industry people in an article published by Elle. He and Charis dive into the perception of fashion as a superficial area of interest and discuss the possibilities of fashion with regards to identity and depth. Charis describes the competitions being organized by African governments that award money to entrepreneurs. These competitions are intended to encourage business innovation and to create jobs.

00:12:40 Fixing fashion

00:26:30 Money for entrepreneurs

Links:

https://www.elle.com/fashion/a23568834/how-to-fix-fashion

https://qz.com/africa/1327833/kenya-is-following-nigeria-in-running-a-massive-business-plan-competition

What is MAEKAN?

MAEKAN is a membership-based publication and community focused on the sights and sounds of creative culture. We're about learning, participating, and connecting with a global community on a deeper level that social media just doesn't provide. We’re defining the future of creative culture.

We don't have all the answers, but our curiosity ensures we never stop looking.

Sign-Up Today

If you've enjoyed this story from the archives and want to see what else MAEKAN has to offer, sign-up for your membership at MAEKAN.com. You'll unlock all of our stories, be given exclusive member-only-access to our Slack community, and have the opportunity to participate in our monthly digital panel discussions.

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Eugene is interested in talking about the efforts of Low-Tech Magazine to reduce the energy use required to access their content by building a low-tech, self-hosted, and solar-powered website for themselves. Charis comes to the podcast wanting to talk about Banksy trolling (or possibly being in complicity with) the art world by orchestrating the self-destruction of his painting right after it had been sold at auction by Sotheyby’s for $1.4 million USD.

00:12:40 Low-tech websites

00:26:30 Self-destructing Banksy

Links:

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/how-to-build-a-lowtech-website

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/arts/design/uk-banksy-painting-sothebys.html

What is MAEKAN?

MAEKAN is a membership-based publication and community focused on the sights and sounds of creative culture. We're about learning, participating, and connecting with a global community on a deeper level that social media just doesn't provide. We’re defining the future of creative culture.

We don't have all the answers, but our curiosity ensures we never stop looking.

Sign-Up Today

If you've enjoyed this story from the archives and want to see what else MAEKAN has to offer, sign-up for your membership at MAEKAN.com. You'll unlock all of our stories, be given exclusive member-only-access to our Slack community, and have the opportunity to participate in our monthly digital panel discussions.

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This week Charis discusses the landscape of video games and how many more new games have come into being over the past four years. How has this affected the video game industry and what does the future of it look like? Eugene wants to talk about an opinion piece written by Tim Wu that praises the pursuit of mediocrity in certain areas of life and the practice of having hobbies.

00:12:28 Indiepocalypse

00:28:38 Hobbies and mediocrity

Links:

https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/28/17911372/there-are-too-many-video-games-what-now-indiepocalypse

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/in-praise-of-mediocrity.html

What is MAEKAN?

MAEKAN is a membership-based publication and community focused on the sights and sounds of creative culture. We're about learning, participating, and connecting with a global community on a deeper level that social media just doesn't provide. We’re defining the future of creative culture.

We don't have all the answers, but our curiosity ensures we never stop looking.

Sign-Up Today

If you've enjoyed this story from the archives and want to see what else MAEKAN has to offer, sign-up for your membership at MAEKAN.com. You'll unlock all of our stories, be given exclusive member-only-access to our Slack community, and have the opportunity to participate in our monthly digital panel discussions.

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Eugene brings up the subject of the OSTRICH PILLOW HOOD Kickstarter as a way to talk about the use of products to perform individual pursuit of well-being. Charis discusses a report titled "The Diminishing Marginal Value of Aesthetics" published by Subpixel at length as a way to talk about visual culture and the challenges creators face.

00:20:00 Performative well-being

00:27:25 Diminishing marginal value of aesthetics

Links:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studio-banana/ostrich-pillow-hood-shape-shifting-for-focus-and-c

https://subpixel.space/entries/diminishing-marginal-aesthetic-value/

What is MAEKAN?

MAEKAN is a membership-based publication and community focused on the sights and sounds of creative culture. We're about learning, participating, and connecting with a global community on a deeper level that social media just doesn't provide. We’re defining the future of creative culture. We don't have all the answers, but our curiosity ensures we never stop looking.

MAEKAN.

Eugene and Charis discuss what "authenticity" means. They take a look at authenticity in food culture specifically and then expand on the subject to look at authenticity more broadly. Charis and Eugene also discuss the social credit system being adopted in China and the implications of it on real people.

00:11:49 Authentically What?

00:26:00 China's social credit system

Links:

https://www.thecleaverquarterly.com/stories/hybridized-chinese-food

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278

What is MAEKAN?

MAEKAN is a membership-based publication and community focused on the sights and sounds of creative culture. We're about learning, participating, and connecting with a global community on a deeper level that social media just doesn't provide. We’re defining the future of creative culture.

We don't have all the answers, but our curiosity ensures we never stop looking.

Sign-Up Today

If you've enjoyed this story from the archives and want to see what else MAEKAN has to offer, sign-up for your membership at MAEKAN.com. You'll unlock all of our stories, be given exclusive member-only-access to our Slack community, and have the opportunity to participate in our monthly digital panel discussions.

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Another long intro in part because Charis is moving to London. Feel free to skip ahead to the middle point of this episode when Eugene discusses the importance of analytical media in connection to an op-ed written by Lawrence Ware about The Source magazine. Charis' topic this week is about the online museum called Conserve the Sound which carefully catalogs images and audio snippets of analog items. This topic leads into a larger discussion about what is conceptually lost when new technology replaces older items.

00:19:22 Analytical media

00:31:24 Conserve the Sound

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/opinion/what-the-source-taught-me.html

https://www.conservethesound.de/en/

What is MAEKAN?

MAEKAN is a membership-based publication and community focused on the sights and sounds of creative culture. We're about learning, participating, and connecting with a global community on a deeper level that social media just doesn't provide. We’re defining the future of creative culture.

We don't have all the answers, but our curiosity ensures we never stop looking.

Sign-Up Today

If you've enjoyed this story from the archives and want to see what else MAEKAN has to offer, sign-up for your membership at MAEKAN.com. You'll unlock all of our stories, be given exclusive member-only-access to our Slack community, and have the opportunity to participate in our monthly digital panel discussions.

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An eventful week of news leads to an eventful (and long) series of discussions. This episode covers three things that happened: The Outline’s most recent round of layoffs leads to a freelancer boycott of the publication, The New Yorker announces Steve Bannon as a speaker at their upcoming Festival and then rescinds their invite after Twitter outrage, and Colin Kaepernick is revealed as the face of the 30th Anniversary “Just Do It” Nike campaign.

00:03:11 Recent The Outline layoffs

00:16:48 Steve Bannon uninvited from The New Yorker Festival

00:26:00 Colin Kaepernick in 30th Anniversary Nike Campaign

Links:

https://observer.com/2018/09/media-layoffs-the-outline-freelancers-study-hall/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/opinion/bannon-new-yorker-festival-remnick.html

https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/09/04/the-open-future-festival-and-steve-bannon

https://qz.com/1378192/a-nike-boycott-over-colin-kaepernick-is-unlikely-to-hurt-the-swoosh/

https://youtu.be/Fq2CvmgoO7I

What is MAEKAN?

MAEKAN is a membership-based publication and community focused on the sights and sounds of creative culture. We're about learning, participating, and connecting with a global community on a deeper level that social media just doesn't provide. We’re defining the future of creative culture.

We don't have all the answers, but our curiosity ensures we never stop looking.

Sign-Up Today

If you've enjoyed this story from the archives and want to see what else MAEKAN has to offer, sign-up for your membership at MAEKAN.com. You'll unlock all of our stories, be given exclusive member-only-access to our Slack community, and have the opportunity to participate in our monthly digital panel discussions.

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