Decathlon: Event 2 Results!

Deadline for Event #5: Tuesday 5/5, 9 pm PDT.

Winners of the Visual Category!

Well, the jury has convened and made some tough decisions! The jury did not in fact see eye to eye down the line, so the actual final rankings are, as you would hope, a more or less consensus opinion. Big ol' thanks, incidentally, to co-jurist Ann Piper, artist extrordinare and professor of painting at a Pennsylvania liberal arts college for lending her time and expertise to this enterprise. She put my OWN entry, which I slipped into her stack and actually thought was kind of funny, almost in last place, but I'm sure that won't cause any permanent, festering rift of resentment between us. The old shrew.



Tied For Fifth!

You will immediately see that many of the entries are too complex to show up well in Blogger images. Over the next few months, I will put some of them up as posts in their own right, with more detailed images and explanation.

You certainly can't fully appreciate Eversaved's entry, for instance, from this small image. PACKED with content, it is a flowchart showing every possible permutation of a modern, technology-aided relationship. It is very funny. Also, the artist points out that she bought glitter pens just for this assignment, which at least half of the judges found very moving. You will eventually see more of Dr. Saved's Legit Social Scientific Analyses of Technology in Relation(ship)s (Kind of)!




Judge Piper, who has never even met Mrs.5000, found Veggieland5000 "Hilarious"! So did I, in that it is all about me! Me me me! But it's also a pretty sophisticated Venn diagram-cum-allegorical map, with some general applicability to the ways that many men and women negotiate the politics of the daily meal. Nevertheless, stung by last year's accusations of impropriety in the judging, I recused myself from initial judgement of Veggieland5000 and then docked it a little for being idiosyncratic. Nevertheless, it has totally earned its place in the parade, and is another one I'll put in its own post down the road.



Fourth!

In fourth spot, and again difficult to make sense of at this scale, is Missy's allegorical map of Medius Cultura and the surrounding Mare Artium. I am personally smitten, not just because it is an allegorical map, by its overall mood and take on the theme. The text is key to understanding the whole, so again, this is one we will look at in more detail in a future episode.




Third Place!

The judges loved the simple, funny, xkcd-esque presentation of Rebel's treatment of that eternal modern paradox: when you are drunk enough to send that kind of message, you are also too drunk to make sure your phone is sending it to the right person. Choose Carefully reminds us that Nokia and nookie are not always one and the same.Second Place!

With what one judge called "My kind of diagram," gl.'s Looking For Love makes that point that technology's impact on love and relationships is... maybe not so much. Clean craftsmanship, finely tuned visual balance, and the ability to support multiple interpretations add to the overall awesomeness.


And the Winner of Event Two!

Professor Piper called it "perfect." I called it "awesome." d calls it Technology is Killing Us. And here it is:

If you can't read the text, it goes like this:

A = email
B = instant message
C = cell phone
D = text message
E = saying hi more than once a day

F = what happens when you step away from the computer.

Epilogue:

Many entries were received, but few could be chosen (although all earned Decathlon points, natch). Some were awesome works in and of themselves, but didn't relate clearly enough to the given topics to be given full marks. A few were so highly contextual as to lose impact with the outside judge. What I'm saying here is, if you submitted an entry, you rock! Automatically! Understood? Good.