Flik'r Slideshows

Almost done with reframing my startup article.

In the meantime,I just wanted to mention how cool the Flik'r slideshows are. If you get a chance to see this slideshow, it's probably worth the two minutes it takes to see it. Chantal Foster, the main editor at "Duke City Fix" cityblog took an urban hike--covering 12 miles in 8 hours. She took pictures of whatever she thought was interesting (mostly back alley stuff). She walked from approximately where I used to live to the downtown and back. I used to ride my bike down the main streets (definitely the gentrified and more neatly-coiffed side of things), but I still used to see these rougher edges peeking out. There are two really great things about Flik'r slideshows in general, and this one in particular.

1.) These pics give you a sense of movement that mirrors a journey through space. Stories manifesting in time, space, and affect. I am not doing much work in this area (and I know several of you readers are), but I find it really useful to make visible the pleasure and commonality of this kind of work. The analysis is much tougher, but I think it is useful to demonstrate just how human and useful our objects/subjects of study can be. This stuff is important enough to study, not because it is so alien, but precisely because the surprise is so central to what we do as humans.
2.) I love the juxtapositions that these kinds of rhetorics enable. Having a guy working on an old farm truck in front of his obviously-expensive townhouse, or having an F-150 sticking out of the garage of a lime-green live-work loft apartment is rich with meaning that might take pages to describe. Long textual exposition is certainly possible (and often wonderful), but I like the small bites that these kinds of slideshows enable. Sort of like theoretical tapas.