The other day I posted an old school video of Terry Gilliam showing how he created those amazing Monty python animations. Then yesterday I read Khoi’s latest update on his fascinating creation mixel and what people are doing with it:
The idea is that you use scissors and traditional collage parts — magazines, photos, colored paper, etc. — to assemble your collage in the standard way — almost. Instead of gluing things down, Muxel asks you to instead photograph the final composition. You post your completed collage, then you mail the pieces off to the next user, who does the same, and so on and so on. The project just kicked off, but the results already look terrific.
Mixel’s great fun to use, but it’s this connection to others and the social dimension which really sells it for me. I love the idea of old technologies (mail, paper cut outs) are combining with new technologies (iPad, the Internet) in wild and wonderful ways.
There’s just something so wonderfully non-tech about all this. Just create something simple, take a photo of it and send it on to someone you know. It takes me back (not that far, really) to the days of layer tennis. This, I think, is as though layer tennis went back to high school and hung out with friends on a street corner. No more fancy software tricks, blends and photoshop filters. Just paper and scissors and I love it.
