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07.06.17

Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | Audio

Episode 60: Everyman and Ariane

“A stick, a stone, the end of the road…” is how the song Águas de Março (The Waters of March) begins. For the 2014 Alliance Graphique Internationale conference in Brazil, Michael took Antonio Carlos Jobim’s list-like lyrics, did a Google Image Search, and put the first result on a poster:

What the song is about is the beauty of everyday life — you know, that just these boring things that surround us is what life and existence is all about — and it was an attempt to hijack the boring character of Google Image Search to generate a similarly quotidian attitude about the world.

The Atlantic's James Fallows rounded up some favorite versions of Águas de Março a couple of years ago, including one in Slovenian, a paean to Trader Joe's, and this long instrumental:

Also mentioned:

Autostraddle, 75 Lesbian Ken Dolls Ranked by Lesbianism
Elle, All the Ken Dolls You Will Meet in Your Lifetime
Michael and Jessica discuss the Barbie revamp on Episode 27 of The Observatory
Weekend Edition, Diversifying Stock Photography
Tonl
Facebox
Ariane: The Overexposed Stock Image Model
McMansion Hell
99% Invisible, McMansion Hell: The Devil Is in the Details
Electronic Freedom Foundation, McMansion Hell Responds to Zillow's Unfounded Legal Claims
InspiroBot

More from Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand

Episode 127: Fear and Longing
Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters; Hrishi Hirway and Mike Errico; The Quiz Broadcast; Shakespeare and Co. Project

Episode 126: Screens and Dreams
Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration; Unorthodox; My Brilliant Friend; The Affair; Anil Dash on the dangers of social media; Anna Wiener on Silicon Valley; quarantine dreams

Episode 125: Zoom Aesthetics
Zoom aesthetics and COVID-19; Kyle Chayka on minimalism; Deborah Berke on shared spaces; Jessica Salfia’s poem “The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining”; Megan O’Grady on artistic recluses

Episode 124: That Thing You Do
Making art and design during the COVID-19 pandemic; Christoph Niemann and Daniella Zalcman; Adam Schlesinger; spec scripts for Larry David

Episode 123: Closing Doors, Opening Doors
Looking at COVID=19: Flattening the curve, Washington Post designers Harry Stevens on visualizing social distancing, Alissa Walker on how dots are people, Stephen Sondheim at 90

Jobs | December 21