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David Byrne Subverts PowerPoint

Posted by timothy on from the office-cowboy dept.

NoData writes "The AP is reporting that David Byrne, visionary musician and frontman for 80s New Wave art band 'Talking Heads,' has turned Powerpoint into a visual art medium in a (satiric) DVD/Book combo. Says Byrne in the article: 'The genius of it is that it was designed for any idiot to use.'" Shades of Edward Tufte ("PowerPoint Makes You Dumb"), as the article points out. The book is published by high-end German publisher Steidl.

9 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. OMG!! by borgdows · · Score: 1, Funny

    turning Powerpoint into a visual art medium...

    this man is EVIL!!!

  2. Powerpoint as visual art medium by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Next up, stacking old PCs as sculpture, tiling your bathroom with old purple 486s (and having in-tile heating to boot!), and the new video from Justin Timberlake, featuring MSWord and 'Dancing Clippy'

  3. ugh... by mOoZik · · Score: 0, Funny

    His bad music wasn't enough. Apparently, he wants to get every single person on Earth to hate him with this poor attempt at sarcasm.

    --
    A blog like any other.
  4. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! by The+Cydonian · · Score: 4, Funny
    From the article:-
    One of the Internet's inventors, Vint Cerf, gets laughs from audiences by quipping, "Power corrupts and PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
    Oh boy. :-D
    --
    More than mere navel gazing.
  5. And in related news ... by value_added · · Score: 5, Funny

    A quick search on Google will tell you that Snoop Dog and Microsoft Word yields 4,810 hits, David Bowie and Excel yields 10,500 hits, and Madonna and Flash yields a whopping 217,000 (compare that with only 203,000 hits for Britney Spears and Flash).

    Oddly enough, a search Frank Zappa and Filemaker Pro yielded a measly 396 hits (possibly he's not doing much work lately), though Marilyn Manson and ASP Server Side Scripting did return almost twice that number at 694 hits.

    So you see it's not just artists from the 80's who are into new technology.

    Discuss amongst yourselves.

  6. CLippy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Does Clippy help you read to book if there is a big word that's hard to understand?

    I like clippy.

  7. Scientists discover Warhol's missing TROFF art by rs79 · · Score: 3, Funny

    ''Dateline - New York - Archeologists today discovered some previously unknown DECTapes containing some "TROFF" files created by Andy Warhol. TROFF is a early predecessor to Miscrosoft Word...''

    Pardon me while I giggle uncontrollably.

    --
    Need Mercedes parts ?
  8. songs go kind of like powerpoint by scrytch · · Score: 5, Funny
    I mean, think about it. One by one, bullet points appear:

    • Watch Out
    • You might get what you're after
    • COOL baby
    • Strange but not a stranger


    (Switch to new slide, each word appears one by one with a .3 second delay)

    I'm
    An
    Ordinary
    Guy

    (Fly in from the sides, gigantic font in word art)

    Burning Down The House
    --
    I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
  9. See also by jcupitt65 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Brian Millar's excellent Executive summary of Hamlet in Powerpoint. It includes a handy SWOT analysis of the Danish royal family.

    He's also got a PDF version.