Can’t see the video? Watch it here?
When I was in San Francisco, the folks at Google recorded a version of my Steal talk for their Authors at Google series.
TEDx Talk: Steal Like An Artist
When I was in Kansas City, the folks at TEDxKC had me give a 10-minute version of my Steal talk at the Nelson Atkins Museum after the TEDxChange simulcast. Watch below.
Can’t see the video? Watch it here?
Chalk talk and plain talk on the TV
Last week I had the new-to-me-and-slightly-surreal experience of being on three local TV shows — in Phoenix, they did something out of the ordinary: they asked me to draw! The producer found a room with a wall-sized chalkboard, and I talked about Steal Like An Artist while drawing some of the concepts in the book in chalk, and the team later edited the clip and sped up the tape to show me drawing. The effect is really cool:
SXSW 2012: Everything is a Remix, So Steal Like An Artist
Polaroid via The Impossible Year
At SXSW Saturday afternoon Kirby Ferguson and I showed clips from his video series Everything Is A Remix and then had a conversation about creativity, influence, and theft. I collected some of the tweets, photos, and other reactions, and there’s already a video online of the whole 55 minutes. (I think SXSW requested that video be taken down, but they have audio of the conversation online.)
Maybe best of all, a small army of visual note-takers were there sketching. Here are notes from Craighton Berman:
It was a helluva turnout — some folks couldn’t even get in and had to listen outside. (So sorry about that, y’all!)
Thanks so so much to everyone who showed up!
Reading Censored Mother Goose Rhymes at The Encyclopedia Show
Christopher Hitchens said that “the great thing about writing a book is that it brings you into contact with people whose opinions you should have canvassed before you ever pressed pen to paper. They write to you. They telephone you. They give you things to read that you should have read already. [Putting out a book is] a free education that goes on for a lifetime.”
Last month I got an email from Mike at The Encyclopedia Show Austin, telling me about Censored Mother Goose Rhymes—a charming little book featured in the Ransom Center’s excellent “Banned, Burned, Seized, and Censored” exhibit.
Published in 1929 by a writer and editor named Kenneth Banning, it was dedicated to “THE CENSORS who have taught us how to read naughty meanings into harmless words” and was supposed to be a demonstration “of the effect of censorship upon anything it touches.” If I’m not mistaken, it was even passed out to congressmen in the middle of the censorship debates.
It’s a very very funny book.
Anyways, Mike asked me if I’d do something with the book, and while I almost never read my poems publicly, I think this book is even better read aloud, so, with the help of my iPhone, I read a few at the show.
STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST AT THE ECONOMIST’S HUMAN POTENTIAL SUMMIT
A few weeks ago I gave a talk on Newspaper Blackout and Steal Like An Artist at The Economist’s Human Potential summit in New York City. They had an awesome tech staff, so we even managed to weave some of my live drawings from the conference into the talk. Enjoy!
MY TEDX TALK: REINVENTING POETRY
TEDxPennQuarter – Austin Kleon – Reinventing Poetry
Photo by Flickr user sexyfitsum
The TEDxPennQuarter folks asked me to give a 10-minute talk around the theme of “reinventing,” with the (not-at-all-lofty!) title, “Reinventing Poetry.”
It started out like almost everything I do: with doodling.
Here are doodles from my phone call with Kes Sampanthar, the organizer of the event:
Kes encouraged me to really think about my personal story and focus on the question, “What does it mean to be an artist today?” (No pressure!)
So I scrapped a lot of the ideas I had, and started thinking about story and process. The meat of the talk really started with my notes on this “Publishing 3.0” talk given by Richard Nash:
I used the flowchart above as a starting point for all of my slides. (See them on Flickr):
This wasn’t the best presentation I’ve ever given, but the process of sorting through all these ideas turned out to be way more valuable to me than a perfect performance. And as they say, why do anything if you can’t learn something from it?
Thanks to Kes and the TEDxPennQuarter folks, and thanks to my friends for showing me a good time in DC!
See also: my visual notes from the rest of the TEDxPennQuarter talks
NEWSPAPER BLACKOUT AT PECHAKUCHA NIGHT AUSTIN
Austin Kleon at PechaKucha Night Austin 07 from PechaKucha Night Austin on Vimeo.
Above is the video for my Newspaper Blackout Pecha Kucha presentation last month in Austin.
PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat”, it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.
It was incredibly difficult to time and plan out, and it’s probably the best presentation of my work that I’ve come up with. The audience was really amazing. Thanks to everyone who came, and thanks to Carla and Herman for inviting me.
Here are all my slides in one deck.
And here’s the 20-second time-lapse video that’s in the presentation: