information aesthetics

Your question reminded me of William Gibson's 'Spook Country' - allthough it's GPS based vr art in the book. Doesn't sound too improbable, does it?

I actually thought of your blog when I saw that movie opener, so kudos to you.

wow. that is a very nice compliment indeed, billyg. even better than the recent inclusion of infosthetics in this cnn blog list...

I've been a fan of MK12's work for years now and what was done in this opening sequence was done with the usual excellence I'd expect from MK12.

On the other hand I think this is a perfect example of how graphics can distract from, rather than enhance, the information they're meant to further illustrate.

Close your eyes and listen and that opening sequence is painfully boring. The only reason I sat through it was to watch MK12's work. So I suppose in this case the distraction is welcome.

Thomas, that's a rather odd comment. Cinema is primarily a visual medium, and this opening sequence is telling a story visually--letting you see through the character's eyes. Closing your eyes misses the whole point.

But like billyg, infosthetics also ran through my mind when I watched this a few months ago :)

I always wonder what they type in for all this text. Sometimes you see a word or two, but often it's 10 full pages of tiny, unreadable text showing up for a split second.

Do they really type actual information or is it totally meaningless Blindtext?

Folks at MK12 seems to be doing a decent job indeed.

for those interested, the DVD has a special 17-min feature about the infographics in this movie. it contains several interviews, many more (deleted) scenes and stills.

euphrosyne:

You're right. That was an odd comment. What I should have said is watch this opening sequence without all of MK12's nice work. It's tedious and not very entertaining. The story and narration isn't all that good. MK12's infographics make it interesting but not because they work to enhance the information presented by the narrator, (as much of the added graphics are illegible or are designs that suggest meaning but are really vacant of any), but rather because they themselves are more interesting than the story. They're essentially distracting us from the tedium of the opening sequence.

Again, I love MK12's work and I think this is a fine job of entertaining with animation. I just don't think they actually enhance the narration as infographics should strive to do. Given what they had to work with, perhaps that was an impossible task.

I was meaning to catch this movie while it was on the cinema. Now I definitely want to, especially given the visual style and the two tracks by Spoon. I'm pretty sure the tune behind the opening sequence was from The Way We Get By. Great band.

I read last year that the New Zealand tourism board are investgating augmented reality systems for there historic sites.

I believe the concept is a head up display system displayed onto windows so you can over look say an old war site it will play through the history of the battle or whatever, display rich info, animations, etc...

No idea if it will pan out but it will be awesome if they do it.

Funny, I watched the visuals with the sound turned off, and all I could think was "My god, what a load of chartjunk."

If this technology ever becomes real, I will support making Edward Tufte our Dictator For Life. We'll need him.