![]() ![]() That’s the sort of goal we need to set for all cities if we are serious about enhancing and revitalizing urban life. Taking the next step, what if a city could boast 10 such neighborhoods? Then every resident would have access to outstanding public spaces within walking distance of their homes. These sites are not part of The New York Times on the Web, and The Times has no control over their content or availability..and if we created ten places in downtown Seattle as good as the revitalized Art Museum, then it would be a great district. Such a guide could turn the material here into a wonderful documentary, linear but exciting in its connections. "Powers of Ten," the film, is not interactive, but sweeps the viewer along in the hands of a This is exactly the sort of needless complexity it was the genius of the Eameses to cut through.Ĭharles, who died in 1977, and Ray, who lived until 1987, might have done something interesting with CD-ROM technology. Several "strands" titled space, time, tools, people, patterns and Eames give what little connections there are among the different pieces found on the disk. The narrating voice is that of Ray Eames, but nothing indicates when the clip was first shown. There are many wonderful pieces, like a short video that takes the viewer up a road, across a meadow and into the living room of the Eames house in Los Angeles, a landmark of construction from off-the-shelf The user is most likely to feel more like the fish than On screen, the organizing metaphor is an odd choice: a Japanese fish trap, a woven basket where the thematic strands of the information are represented by colored lines. A good interface should be self-contained. Set of printed instructions and set them beside the computer. The second warning sign is the injunction to unfold a complex The former requires rebooting the computer the latter violates basic conventions of compatibility since later versions of Quicktime won't work with the disk. The first warning sign of the interface difficulties comes in the form of a bright pink label warning Windows users (the disk runs on Mac as well) that they must set their monitors to 256 colors and must use Quicktime version There are clips from the Norton lectures as well as transcribed texts. The program slaps together portraits of thinkers on time and space, from Descartes to Einstein, and interviews with figures like an AustralianĪboriginal artist with bits of science and a history of the Eames work. Navigating the "Powers of Ten" disk, however, proved to be a challenge. It is a demonstration of the scales of physics - from star system to atom - that feels like a roller coaster Images moving closer to Earth every two seconds by an exponential power of 10, shows this strength at work. The strength of the Eameses was their ability to make a difficult concept tangible: they designed perspectives and insights as much as they designed chairs or multimedia displays. Together, they created some 88 short films and pioneering multiscreen and multipanel exhibitions. 15 to May 15, 2000.)Ĭharles Eames is best known for his furniture - the plywood chairs and chaise longue he did for the Herman Miller company.īut with Ray he was also a multimedia innovator. Run at New York's Cooper-Hewitt Museum from Feb. Lucia Dewey Eames, and grandson, Eames Demetrios, who direct the office today, the disk is filled with fascinating video clips of interviews with those who worked with the Eames Office in Venice, Calif., mini-movies theĬouple made as well as images and documents from their body of work.Īn Eames revival of sorts is in progress, keynoted by a show of the work of the Eameses, originally organized by Donald Albrecht for the Vitra Museum in Germany and opening on May 20 at the Library of Congress. Is based on a second version of "Powers of Ten," made in 1977.) Largely the work of their daughter, (The disk, which can be bought online at and Now the Eames Office, Pyramid Media and DATT Japan have produced a CD-ROM called Powers of Ten Interactive, dedicated to expanding on the ideas of the husband-wife design team of Charles and Ray Eames, the film's producers. ![]() Park and then into a carbon atom on his hand, the film lends the viewer nothing less than a sense of the proportions of the universe. Moving from galaxy to proton, zooming from the edges of the universe to the hand of a man lying on a picnic blanket in a Chicago ![]() The original version of his film "Powers of Ten" (1968), will never forget its impact. Hose of us who were lucky enough to be in the audience for the designer Charles Eames's 1970 Norton lectures at Harvard, where he showed (Pyramid Media $79.95 Windows 95 and 98, and Macintosh 7.1 and later.) ![]()
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