Conqu is available and syncs across across all major software platforms.
Earlier this year I wrote a series of blog posts describing some of the software I was incorporating into my daily routine (including Evernote, Prezi, and Pinterest) to move to a more "paperless" work flow. Now that I have had a few months to experiment, I am finding that the transition has been far less difficult than anticipated. Still, of all my paper habits, the toughest to adopt to a paperless mode has been my ever-present "To-Do" list. In the past, this list was established as part of my weekly agenda/journal. For years, I purchased a yearly agenda with a "week at a glance" format and I affixed those larger sized yellow lined post-it notes to create lists of tasks that had to be completed on a daily and weekly basis. Every few days I would move uncompleted tasks to a new post-it and keep a running track of the list by moving it between my paper agenda and a small notebook that I would carry between home and work. This routine, which I adopted in the final years of my undergraduate degree, had served me very well and I did not know if I would be able to adopt this habit in a paperless form.
Conqu essentially takes something like this and makes it manageable
After trying out a number of applications, I have finally found one outstanding program that has met all of my needs in the to-do list department-- enter Conqu. I first began using Conqu when I downloaded the free app to my tablet and began playing around with its very basic and easy-to-use features. What immediately set Conqu apart from other task organizers I have tried is its elegant design and very straight-forward and intuitive approach to how we actually construct, edit, and rearrange lists. As the demo video below explains, the program allows users to create tasks and then set various features such as due dates, priority status, and relation to other tasks in a few simple moves. You can also correlate tasks into larger projects and tag them into groups (i.e. I use blue tags for work tasks and green tags for personal tasks). There is also a feature that allows you to put ideas/tasks on the "Backburner" for future assignment. I love this feature for when an idea pops into my mind of something I have to get done but I do not yet know when to assign a timeline to it.
Once you have played around with Conqu for a while (it can be downloaded to Apple, Android, Blackberry and PC/Mac devices), you can purchase the option to sync your tasks across all of your devices. This was where I really saw the power of this program. For example, I can manage and tick-off to-do items while on the go say on my tablet and then know when I go to work or come home and open my computer, that change will immediately be reflected when I check the program. Used in connection with Google Calendar, Conqu allows me to keep an updated schedule and list of tasks wherever I go. Try it out and see for yourself, especially if you are like me and feel lost without your lists!
P.S. I do still carry one small Moleskine notebook with me for quick scribbles and brainstorms on the fly, but I am essentially organizing and syncing all of my daily activities/lists/notes via my phone, tablet, and home/office computers.
Love him or leave him-- Hennessy Youngman explains difficult art concepts to the social media generation.
Image courtesy: Wikipedia
When I first started my blog a year and a half ago, I was
looking to add some value to my lectures, especially those that dealt with more
challenging or even potentially controversial topics. Just this past week, I
finally arrived at one of those threshold moments in a modern/contemporary art
lecture that deals with the subject of performance art. I had learned from past
years introducing this material that the road to this particular lecture has to be paved
with a great deal of relevant context and information about the
reasons/rationale for such a hard-to-understand approach to art. For many students, the idea of the
dematerialization of the art object is already a difficult enough concept to
grasp—so adding the body as medium to that mix often leads to unpredictable reactions.
I also endeavour to provide the requisite warnings that some of the material
will be graphic and involve the necessary elements that make performance art push
the boundaries of the intimate, sexual, psychological dimensions of the body. As in most years, there are a handful of
students who walk out on this lecture, concluding that the their definition of
art has been severely transgressed by the projects I discuss (usually some
combination of the Gutai, Carolee Schneemann, Adrian Piper, Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Orlan, and of course Marina Abramovic who I have made no secret of admiring in several
blog posts).
Ironically enough (or not—I have a feeling this is no
coincidence), I stumbled across one of the more recent videos posted by
Hennessy Youngman on his “Art Thoughtz” series focused on defining and explaining
performance art (check it out below). For those of you unfamiliar with Youngman,
he is a persona created and performed by Brooklyn based artist Jayson Musson
and his “Art Thoughtz” exist as a YouTube series while his lectures have also
been performed in a number of academic/artistic venues (including the Museum of Contemporary Art
in Chicago—see that performance also embedded below). He came to my attention around the same time I
started my blog and I began posting his monologues, along with a number of my
students who also found his work online, on the blog’s Facebook page as a kind
of reflective subtext and running dialogue to the ideas I raised in my lecture
and were discussed in seminars. After watching this most recent video, I
decided to share it here on the main blog in an effort to reach those students who still “don’t
get” how and why performance art is. I also offer it up in the spirit of adding
value and some humour to a lecture that sometimes gets sidelined by the
discomfort of having to consider a new idea that challenges established beliefs
about the art as process/practice. If nothing else, it is a great mind-bending example
of a performance artist performing the task of describing performance (say that
ten times fast). Enjoy or be offended—but be prepared to be challenged.
Perfect spring weekend spent enjoying the sunshine, strolling the seawall, catching up on some great books, and dreaming of post-semester summer plans. What could top that? Later tonight, Mad Men premiere! It is amazing what a difference one weekend and an appearance by the sun can make. Enjoy and check out some of favourite tweets from the past week:
Authorities censor Art Dubai in advance of a visit by
members of the emirate’s ruling family
Good old fashioned Saturday morning cartoon
The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher
Learning Forever
Love it, then critique it: 3 subversive Mad Men remixes
to ring in Sunday's premiere
One tweet, 10,000 followers: Dissident artist Ai Weiwei
slips, briefly, through China censor
New Yorkers may enjoy this, a new app highlighting all of
the different artwork on display in the subway system
An Avantgardistic Instinct for Relevances: Intellectuals
and their Public, Jürgen Habermas
Ai Weiwei risks his personal security and future to speak out to the CBC about human
rights abuses in China and the conditions surrounding his current house arrest in Beijing.
image courtesy of galleristny.com
It has been nearly one year since Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei was arrested in China after a series of escalating episodes that resulted in the contemporary artist's 81 day detainment and silencing by the Beijing authority. Currently under house arrest and under close scrutiny by the local police who track his every move, it has become nearly impossible for Ai to operate in the same capacity that saw his rise in prominence and importance within the global art community. Significantly, he has been forbidden from utilizing social media and speaking with foreign journalists-- activities he has continued to undertake as a way of keeping in communication with supporters beyond China. He has also been savvy in keeping up with his art practice (see my recent blog post here), finding ways to collaborate and maintain his active presence in the world of contemporary art.
In his first major North American interview since his detainment, Ai Weiwei takes on a considerable risk to himself and his family to discuss his situation and keep the conversation going about human rights abuses in China today. In the CBC interview with the art and culture program Q, he discusses the difficulties he has faced both mentally and physically during his long detainment, the question of whether he sees any aspect of his current condition as a form of performance art, and his decision to continue residing in China even after his current situation is resolved. He also warns Western politicians about the short-sighted approach and "bad message" that is sent to the Chinese authority by ignoring human rights abuses while continuing to build economic ties with China. He singles out Canada for this violation and persuasively speaks about the mixed message that is received in Chinese society with respect to the need for social change when so much is ignored by the West when it comes to the internal conditions in the country. Sadly, Ai does not believe that power will shift any time soon within China, but he does believe that external pressure and the consciousness raising through the conditions of his arrest will help others come to recognize the true face of the current Beijing authority. In terms of art's power to affect social change, Ai maintains that it is through collective efforts and "ordinary people's passion" that such transformation is possible.
Surrealist cartography of Manhattan by artist Jennifer Maravillas.
Discoverd her projects via Twitter link this week, check it out in my list below.
More than a week without a blog post—I know. Let’s just say
that something had to give this month. Publishing deadlines, more grading,
administrative duties (along with my regular teaching schedule) have made up
the bulk of my days lately and I am looking forward to a bit more time now that
I have a number of these items off my to-do list. On a happy note, I was
invited to New York to present a paper on new media art by conference
organizers of the Critical Themes in Media Studies Conference at the New School.
It will be an amazing opportunity to meet other researchers working in the
ever-expanding field of new media theory and history. As a result, I now have a
trip to NYC in mid-April to look forward to and can check out and report back
on a couple of the exhibitions I had suggested at the beginning of the year on
my 2012 list (notably #2, #4 and #6). I hear it is already springtime on
the East Coast—it cannot come soon enough here. While we wait out here in
Vancouver, I wish you all a Happy St. Patrick’s Day weekend and invite you to
check out some of my favourite tweets from the past week:
Maps have never looked so good - Surrealist Cartography
by Jennifer Maravillas
Why art will not suffer death by digital
Want students to succeed? A new study says the best
approach is to let them fail:
Why today is the most exciting time to be working on the
internet
Video games enter realm of art in Smithsonian show
The Cinema of Transgression: 16 films made on NYC's Lower
East Side in the early 80s:
Can we say we’ve read a book if we haven’t finished it?
Sometimes enough is enough, Tim Parks argues
