Caroline McCarthy of Google insights wrote this piece regarding HTML5

“Blending ‘traditional’ HTML with functionalities once reserved for more advanced languages like XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it’s thrilled the digital world with its potential: Plugin-free video players; local storage and caching; and lightning-fast load times eliminating lag. Best of all, HTML5 can be carried over to smartphone browsers, too, meaning that you may no longer need to develop an arsenal of apps for different platforms. More complex species of videos, games, and interactive experiences can now come straight to the browser – no downloading required. For developers, marketers, and users alike, this is big news.”

Roger McNamee spoke at the Paley Center back in July 2011. What struck me about Roger’s talk were his thought on HTML5 and this will not solely be a programming problem, but a creativity problem. Whomever figures it out in a major way is going to win big time per McNamme.

“HTML5 allows you to treat a web page with an entire new canvas. HTML5 is blank sheet of paper and creativity rules again.” - Roger McNamee Watch the full video here. 

Steve Wozniack said: “Write the book yourself, don’t be crude, be an artists.” He’s the guy that helped Steve Jobs program the software that Apple’s success was built off of.  Might be worth considering this art philosophy by one the more  ground-breaking programmers Silicon Valley has ever seen.

Says Tom Uglow, a London-based lead in the Google Creative Lab. “HTML5 has created a sense of optimism that is uplifting for designers and developers alike. That’s a positive for the internet, and, more importantly, for the user. It doesn’t matter too much as long as it drives the web forward.”

These sentiments align with what Mark Zuckerberg told Robert Scoble at the tail-end of 2010. Zuckerberg said, “the web moving towards HTML5, which is nothing but a good thing for everyone online.”

Clearly, HTML5 is something worth paying attention to and there seems to be a big opportunity here, from a business standpoint, from a design standpoint, from an original creativity standpoint, ultimately, an artistic standpoint.

Lately some fantastic examples of the HTML5 design capabilities have been popping up. Artists and brands making use of the code to create real cool user-experiences and visual aesthetics that are so clean and accessible. Check them out below.

Hobo Tales
Brief but cute story in the vein of a children’s book online.

Edits Quarterly
Awesome stab at what a magazine can look like online. A great mix of editorial and visuals here. Something gritty yet beautiful at the same time.

Frank Chimero
Brilliant designer, speaker, and teacher outlines a little story about design and our jobs to create a better future.

Inception Story Overview
This smart chap out of the UK name Matt Dempsey created this great explanation of the Chris Nolan film, Inception. Too cool.

Nike Jumpman
Nike has jumped on board and this Nike Jumpman site is S I C K!

Audi
Audi takes selling cars online to a whole new level.

If you want to check out a hardcore education on how you can utilize HTML5 then see HTML5 Rocks 

Tom Morton of Euro RSCG put together great presentation, “Poets and Quants: How Brand People Can Learn to Love Big Data.”

Check it out below.

Tom’s presentation confirms a hunch that’s been brewing in my mind the past year or so.

Engineers won’t be the only people to breakdown the magic behind the data. Other experts who are more like writers and artists will play a role. Different specialties will serve different purposes around the data.

You might be able to grab all the data in the world but it won’t amount to any value unless there are people involve to make sense of the data. This might seem like straightforward, obvious logic, but you’d be surprised by the limitations of the ego’s of smart people.

Recently at Tedx, Jer Thorp, data artist in residence at New York Times said:

[We need] an inclusion in this dialogue from artists, from
poets, from writers — from people who can bring a human element into this discussion. Because I believe that this world of data is going to be transformative to us. – By Bringing the human elements to the data, I believe we can take it to tremendous places.”

Data is creative. Storytellers needed.

Data is all the hype because the magic of the intelligence of data are insights. Behind the insights are the opportunities for innovation, which possibly translates to new revenue streams for big business. Some are calling data, “the new oil.” See a McKinsey write up on the opportunities for big business here.

Very interesting opportunities for artist of all kinds to play in a new, emerging sandbox of big data, visualization, and storytelling. Great opportunities to optimize and make our businesses, cities, lifestyle, products, communities more vibrant, efficient, and effective. Very, very exciting times. The future is here. 

Aaron Koblin is a freaking G and that stands for gangster. Not in the Tony Soprano way – in the creative artist-I’m-pioneering-some-new-shit type of way.

From Vice’s The Creators Project:

Creator Aaron Koblin heads up the Data Arts Team at the Google Creative Lab and he’s been behind some of the most exciting and innovative online projects of recent times.

His collaborations with director Chris Milk have given the world the browser-based music video The Wilderness Downtown, the collective, evolving tribute to Johnny Cash, The Johnny Cash Project, and the dynamic, surreal interactive film 3 Dreams of Black created for the song “Black” off Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi’s album ROME.

His artwork takes data and digital technologies and creates experiences that are completely unexpected and personal, while also tapping into the sociality of art. His early experimentations in crowdsourced art are inventive and inspiring, using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk as a platform for harnessing the art hive mind of the web. This enabled people to tap into their creativity in an unfamiliar way while also allowing Koblin to experience the creative processes of others.

Coca Cola – 125th Year Exhibition from Antilop on Vimeo.

This is some next level art and experience – immersion is the word that comes to mind. The future is here.

The Istanbul shop, Antilop, created this 90 square meter – 270 degree immersive projection system for Coca-Cola. This is so gangster. 

First Girl Talk, creates this mash up album (his 5th), called All Day.

The album is a mashup of classic 80s tunes with great hip-hop lyrics OR vice versa. Girl Talk has received critical acclaim for popularizing a new form of art.

So consider this point of view on the entire phenomenon.

Gregg Gillis (Girl Talk) takes the music of many great artists and their collaborators. He puts them together in ways we never really could imagine, thus creating a new musical art form. It’s almost like the Wisdom of Music Artist Crowds.

Enter a few artistic people who were inspired and decide to shoot a dancing film to the soundtrack of All Day. The film is called Girl Walk // All Day.

The star of the film is Anne Marsen. She is simply amazing. Her performance is everything right about dance, art, and the human spirit. She perfectly captures the essence of the fun and joy of free form dance.

Now this film will be watched by thousands, and will inspire what? Perhaps this is the creative-trickle-down-effect? Great artists make great songs and beats. Greg makes a new art form by mashing up their great songs and beats. Another group of people get inspired and make a film to Greg’s creation.

Pretty awesome if you take a moment to stand back and think about all of the creativity and passion and direct and in-direct collaboration of these artistic people within the entire picture. We are truly connected in so many ways.

By the way, I haven’t been able to stop playing Girl Talk on the iPod and dancing in these NYC streets ever since seeing the film a few weeks back. Sure everyone looks at me like I’m crazy, but I can’t help it, I just have to ‘go ahead and let it out.’

Spike Jonze: Mourir Auprès de Toi on Nowness.com.

The celebrated filmmaker and designer Olympia Le-Tan Co-create a tale to ‘Pierce the Heart.’  Take a few minutes and enjoy this inspiring dose of creative storytelling.  

Click here to learn more.