viz.

As far as design goes, Obama has already won the presidency according to this New York Times article.

The New York Times has posted a slideshow by Ward Sutton, “Reading Tea Leaves and Campaign Logos,” analyzing the posters and bumper stickers of presidential candidates.

Last month I posted a link to Slate’s photo-essay on functional architecture. That essay emphasized the trend in architecture toward functional buildings over flashy—and often impractical—works like those Frank Gehry is known for.

Now, MIT is suing Gehry for his design of the Stata center, pictured above.

The school asserts that the center, completed in spring 2004, has persistent leaks, drainage problems and mold growing on its brick exterior. It says accumulations of snow and ice have fallen dangerously from window boxes and other areas of its roofs, blocking emergency exits and causing damage.

I just saw a talk given by Katherine Hayles here at UT. Hayles is arguing that literary criticism is missing something when it ignores the material aspects of a text. She calls for a new form of literary criticism that she terms media-specific analysis. This form of criticism views the material aspects of a text as contributing as much to the meaning of a text as the text itself. She showed two examples of electronic texts that make visual arguments at the same time that they make textual arguments.

Slate has posted a slide show featuring functional architecture, emphasizing the function and versatility of buildings over Gehry-esque flashiness. This article from Good Magazine makes a similar point.

This week the Village Voice reported that Anthropolgie is joining the legion of designers suing Forever 21, the chain that (re)produces trendy looks for the masses (read: their clothes are really cheap). Anna Sui campaigned against the store during Fashion Week (she handed out t shirts with the store's owners on a "wanted" poster) and Diane Von Furstenberg is lobbying Congress to "improve" copyright law when it comes to fashion.

“A Soviet Poster A Day” serves up images of Soviet propaganda posters with commentary. This site would be a great resource for anyone studying propagandistic images. Here’s an entry on the Five Year Plan: