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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.

28 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. Is it surprising... by Mavic'A · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...if you're featured on the Windows XP CD?

  2. A cheap publicity stunt by zecg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A publicity stunt and a cheap one, at that. Someone is beginning to realize that the really important channels of information on the Internet are controlled by nerds and so washed-out artists are starting to jump on the fad train.

    This "DVD", it is obvious, is a cheap and quick way to get his name in the papers, if not to make a few bucks. The symbols that are described (such as Dolly the sheep enclosed on a PowerPoint page in quotation marks) sound... well, again, cheap.

    --
    .i lu doi ringos.star. xu do puku'aroroi dunli dopecaku leni virnu li'u
    1. Re:A cheap publicity stunt by NoData · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I doubt it. Byrne's pretty much an icon in art music, he just doesn't need cheap publicity. I think he's just wacky and quirky.

      And if there's anyone who's a "nerd" in music, it's Byrne. The new wave art rockers of the 80s were the nerds of music. Of his contemporaries, he's third in nerdiness only to maybe Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo or Thomas Dolby (She Binded Me With Science), who went on to form an interactive music software company in the 90s.

  3. 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'

  4. Re:Powerpoint and Linux by edalytical · · Score: 3, Informative

    Impress

    --
    Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
  5. 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.
  6. Re:Whats wrong with that generation ? RTFA by NoData · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm not going to comment on the quality of Byrne's post-modern art here, but he's definitely not a fanboy for Powerpoint. From the article:

    The book includes mostly lucid musings on how PowerPoint has ushered in "the end of reason," with pictures of bar charts gone hideously astray, fields of curved arrows that point at nothing, disturbing close-ups of wax hands and eyebrows, and a photo of Dolly the cloned sheep enclosed by punctuation brackets.

    Plus, I think he's just having a bit of a laugh on the conformist business world. It's, you know, satire:

    Byrne...said the compilation wasn't meant as a "serious statement about anything."

  7. Re:Powerpoint and Linux by spoonist · · Score: 4, Informative

    Impress

    KPresenter

    Keynote

    Any others out there?

  8. All You Young Guys Don't Get It by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Marketing here is wa-a-a-a-y more insidious than you think. Back in the Day, when I was awakening in pools of someone else's vomit curbside in front of CBGB's to the encore strains of "Pscho Killer.... Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa... Better run run run run Run Away!" David Byrne was der shizznitz... or whatever ridiculous phrase has replaced the ridiculous phrase "da bomb" in modern parlance.

    20-somethings don't make decisions regarding what presentation software is loaded across an enterprise; we 40-somethings have that dubious honor. And all we hear these days is how Powerpoint is, well, so 1996, and un-cool. Who better to convince us otherwise? The lead singer from ColdPlay (am I spelling that correctly?)? No, young man,it's the guy in the big white suit who defined counterculture 'art' way back when the current generation of marketing "grown-ups" were actually artistic.

    Funny thing is, I kinda remember how, back in the early '90s, marketing campaigns similarly co-copted Andy Warhol imagery to "artistically connect with" a previous generation who now found themselves in Brooks Brothers suits. I thought that was bogus then, but I think using Byrne is clever. Thanks, Slashdot, for pointing out how I've become what I once loathed.

    All of which brings the lyrics to a Byrne song crashing home to me here on a Sunday morning as the children quietly watch a Strawberry Shortcake video in the next room:

    " And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
    And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
    And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?...

    "And you may ask yourself
    What is that beautiful house?
    And you may ask yourself
    Where does that highway go?
    And you may ask yourself
    Am I right?...Am I wrong?
    And you may tell yourself
    MY GOD!...WHAT HAVE I DONE?"

  9. 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.

    1. Re:And in related news ... by NortWind · · Score: 3, Informative

      I miss Frank Zappa. His speech to Congress was a classic. Check it out.

  10. Re:Whats wrong with that generation ? by chillmost · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well now, you make it sound like K&D produced the intro just for Apple which is not true. The song was licensed for use by Apple. It was originally released in 98 on "The K&D Sessions." The title escapes me right now but itself is probably a remix of something from someone, blah, blah, blah.

    --

    --Residential Interior Design

  11. Re:Why not Coka Cola, Daimler Benz and Microsoft? by NoData · · Score: 3, Interesting


    Three words:

    Warhol..Campbell's Soup.

    It's called "pop art." It's commentary. Not my favorite, but there it is.

  12. its been already done, last year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting


    Jemma at

    http://www.prate.com
    (well known in net-art circles)

    has done a few projects as .ppt the medium chosen is part of the artistic statement

  13. Tufte is for Masses Byrne for Classes by leoaugust · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Tufte is for the Masses, and Brnes for a thin Slice of the Masses (the Classes) -

    1. What Tufte is saying (and I did attend one of his Seminars which was impressive more for the breath of his examples rather than the depth of his analysis) is meant for the masses - majority of the people who are going to be making presentations.
    2. What Byrne is saying is mainly for a thin slice of the masses (the classes) who can overcome the limitations of the tool to create something really "interesting."
    3. To put it bluntly, when a hundred kids are allowed to play Guitars, 99 of them should follow Tufte, and only one should follow Byrne - because 99 are not going to make careers as rock stars while one of them may. Only 1 out of 100 will learn to overcome the limitations imposed by the 6 strings and frets to create something that shall move audiences - the rest won't be able to do so.

    Byrne does does talk about the limitations of Powerpoint

    • "It communicates within certain limited parameters really well and very easily. The genius of it is that it was designed for any idiot to use. I learned it in a few hours, and that's the idea." ...
    • "Software constraints are only confining if you use them for what they're intended to be used for," Byrne said in a phone interview.
    • "PowerPoint may not be of any use for you in a presentation, but it may liberate you in another way, an artistic way. Who knows."

    But Byrne is an 'artist" and has been able to "overcome the limitations" in his own whimsical way. Most of what he does would not work in 99 % of the typical presentations.

    Again, from the article ... and while reading it just imagine how many people could do then and then "sell" the shit ...

    • The book includes mostly lucid musings on how PowerPoint has ushered in "the end of reason," with pictures of bar charts gone hideously astray, fields of curved arrows that point at nothing, disturbing close-ups of wax hands and eyebrows, and a photo of Dolly the cloned sheep enclosed by punctuation brackets.
    • The 20-minute DVD, encased in the navy blue hardback cover, features the same abstractions in motion. Byrne wrote most of the music. How many people giving typical presentations can write "music"
    • The overall tone of this compilation is somewhat like a sales pitch - whimsical and upbeat. Many people have to go for years to School to learn how to make a "sales pitch."

    So, what I am trying to say is that Powerpoint has many many (some Terrible) limitations. Byrne has learnt to overcome some of them in a whimsical and creative way. His "artistic" talent is not present in most of the people making presentations. (I did write earlier on /. about Art and Overcoming limitations here)

    So, most of the people should not follow his example or philosophy. And, to draw general conclusions from one odd data point (outlier) about the nature of data is pretty naive. On the Bell curve, he would be on one end of a tail ....

    What Tufte is saying holds for the masses. What Byrne represents is for a thin slice (the classes) and the masses should not read too much into it.

    --
    To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies ...
  14. Re:Powerpoint and Linux by Gumshoe · · Score: 2, Informative

    Prosper

  15. old news by SteelRat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    see the wired article from about two months ago.

    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt1.ht ml

  16. What are the alternatives? by bwdunn · · Score: 2

    I have used PowerPoint upteen times over my career as I occassionally speak on Computer Security issues from general to specific audiences. I have always been forced to use PowerPoint simply because there seems to be nothing better out there at the moment. I have looked at KPresenter , Prosper, OpenOffice's Impress, and maybe one or two others. I love Keynote's features and gloss, but the expense of buying a very powerful 15" Powerbook to get it to work smoothly is somewhat of an obstacle to me. I'd love to have it, but I need it to run smoothly, and I'm not sure I can justify a $2000 expense for something I do about once a quarter.

    Seriously guys - is there something out there I don't know about? I hate to open PowerPoint, but there doesn't seem to be anything even close to it right now. We have one Mac for checking web sites (G3 iBook), and otherwise run Linux and WinXP. I'd prefer to avoid WinXP if at all possible!

    Suggestions? I'll look at ANY alternatives to PowerPoint!

  17. Gettysburg Address PowerPoint by ty_kramer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Here's the famous, early take on PowerPoint being bad.

  18. 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 ?
  19. PowerSpeak by sjames · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Powerpoint is newspeak for presentations. That is, because of it's dumbed down simplicity, making simple things effortless and everything else nearly impossible, it constrains what may be said. At the same time, by being so easy to use, it lulls the user into a sense that it is powerful and expressive to the point that they don't realize what it is that they can't say with it.

    Byrne is a linguist who finds himself in a world that speaks only newspeak. He is examining the logical limits of it's expressivity to determine what it absolutely can't say at all.

    It's an artistic challenge to express as much as possible in an artificially limited medium. It's a new take on a common theme in art.

    To reduce all of that to 'Byrne has become a Powerpoint fanboy' is to completely miss the point.

    Powerpoint is an ideal tool for modern sales technique in that it allows the user to say absolutely nothing but make it sound like a good thing.

  20. I've seen his PowerPoint presentations by smitty45 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    and they are hilarious, well done, and much different from what anyone would think of as a PowerPoint presentation.

    For those people who have only read the article, his "presentations" (if you can call them that) are cooler than I doubt any Microsoft or Apple could put together.

    Smarten up, folks...forget the medium, it's his content that is genius.

  21. 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.
  22. Content vs Medium by jamesl · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Saying PowerPoint is bad because people give mindless presentations with it is like saying newspapers are bad because all you've read is the National Enquirer

  23. 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.

  24. Excel subverted to run pacman by baywulf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://www.geocities.jp/nchikada/pac/

  25. I don't think you get it. by mlc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The point is not that PowerPoint qua software is bad, and that we should seek clones of it to do the same job. Rather, the point is that PowerPoint-style presentations are (usually) stupid and stupifying, regardless of the software used to create them. Do the places in which you give lectures have a whiteboard? Or select some other means of giving a convincing presentation.

  26. both sort of right by TooLazyToLogon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Microsoft spokesman Simon Marks wouldn't comment on whether PowerPoint has debased society but said in an e-mail, "PowerPoint continues to evolve to make it easier for customers to present their information in the style that best suits the content and the audience."

    So PowerPoint doesn't make you stupid. It just makes it easier to show how stupid you are. Used by a genius and the result is art. Used by the average Joe and the result inspires books like "PowerPoint Makes You Dumb". Both Byrne and Tufte are almost right. Their mistake was they focused on the tool not the user.