Access Denied

I will never understand nor agree on banning any website...
If they think that students at JU are stupid | too political | perverts | hormones driven | or what ever... they can censor words and monitor their access just for the sake of respecting the academic institution they belong to.
But banning a whole website that contain more good than bad... it is completely nonsense...
first they banned youtube... and now flickr!!! FLICKR???!!!!

I hope they will not reach ikbis... then I'm doomed...

Textures of Amman

The city once again has cast its spell on me...
I walk aimlessly yet not lost... the colors, shapes and contents of each frame changes as I experience Amman once again as a stranger who is wondering if she has reached home...

[...archive] 24/4.... when memories collide...

translation:
"In the cold days / in winter / when the sidewalk is a lake / and the street is drowned / this girl has come / from her old house to await him.
He who had told her to wait / but he has gone away / and forgotten / and she withers away / in winter."

lyrics and translation courtesy of the lavent
more about the picture here...

[...upon] Claymation | On Love...

For a course I give titled [Computer Design 2] I gave my students a quick introduction to stop motion. Using low tech cameras [webcams] and only for around 8 hours of work, they had to do an animation about love.
As always they amazed me of how much they can do with so little given to them.
Of course the toys they used are their own childhood toys... and everything else was done by them.
Enjoy!


Eternal Passion | Dina Khayyat and Sama Saba


Seed of Love | Diran Malatjalian and Hanada Khatibyeh


Meet Devlin White | Ala Tabaa and Hala Abu Mizar

The Narratives* | 12

12

I was sitting next to her... when she was staring at the black house...
Cleansing her own sorrows...
Little I knew of her sufferings...

Then she just looked up to the heavens and said it from her heart..
intensely... honestly...
"I forgive you my dear one... I forgive you in this life and in the hereafter"...

One cold tear rolled down...

Salvation...

Forgiveness is Divine...

Forgiving is human...
It is an activity that once you commit yourself to... will do for the rest of your life...


* The Narratives: stories, events, and scenes that happen[ed] inside and around my head…

[...upon 3D design] Structure and Skin

I gave my 3D design students a project titled [structure and skin]. They had to select a natural form and then abstract it into a structure and a skin. They had to play around with notions related to soft and hard, feminine and masculine, the essence of the natural form they chose... the forms they came up with are quite interesting and some of them had some good concepts... that went beyond the natural form into issues related to women in Arab culture, women vs. men, freedom, balance, mass production, instincts of survival and so on...
They had no functional restrains. the exercise was more related to sculpture than typical 3D design.
Here are their work....

A dinosaur | Rajae Twal


A tooth | Farah Abu Zannad


A nest | Tariq Abu Rahmeh


A beehive | Lama Hudhud


A black hole | Nirmeen Hanada


A penguin | Raed Mansoor


A cow | Abeer Bakrijian


A scorpion | Ala Hammad


A giraffe | Nadeem Thbian


A ladybug | Amr Othman


A snail | Juliet Khalil


A turtle | Farah Abadi


A sky | Hanada Khatyiebeh


An apple | Rasha Jaa'fri


A mole | Fatin Dbeit


An octopus | Mohammed Esbitani


A tree | Hiba Abdallat


A grasshopper | Adnan Bawzeer


A jellyfish | Aseel Hamza

هو... قدير

"وهو على كل شيء قدير"
تتسارع الهموم من حولنا... تضيق الدروب و يذهب النور عنا... تخرج الأمور من نطاق سيطرتنا... و يغدو الانسان وحيدا و ضعيفا... و لكن يبقى "هو" وحده القدير على تغيير الموازيين... على بعث النور و على ايقاظ الحب في قلوبنا... "هو " وحده اللطيف في كل امر يقضيه... وحده "هو" عندما لا يبقى و لا يجدي غيره "هو"...

[and it is He Who hath power over all things.]
A sentence so often repeated in the Holy Quran and the known supplications...
a beautiful meaning... that can give hope to the troubled heart...
No matter what comes your way... no matter how hard things get...
No matter what you try so strongly to get... or to avoid... it is He... who has the power... and He only can make it for you... when all else abandon you...
it is He... the Most Loving... the Most Powerful... the Most Gracious...
it is He... and He I choose to believe in...

recycling bicycles

I just loved these design by Bike Furniture Design. They recycle parts of bicycles to create furniture. I like how the language of bicycles are still there in terms of lightness, movement and rotation...
I think you can order them on line from their website...
These are my favorite samples... but check their full list...

Visual Haiku

I'm obsessed with Haiku... there is something so platonically beautiful about them. The way they are so minimal yet contain so much within is something enchanting for me.
[visual haiku] is becoming a typical exercise that I give to my students where I gave each student randomly a haiku and ask them to visualize it.

And here are some samples from my Computer Design 1 students at JU....

Dana Qabani

Mira Awwad

Dina Nagur

Kamel Abu Yihia

Dina Khoury

Ala Taba'a

Rana Moalem

Miss House…

Yesterday… She was watching the tiny show freaks trapped inside her grey box…

She got herself tied with one poor freak whose heart is an empty house…

Today… the show freaks got big and out of the box… roaming around her campus…

And the same show continued…. Only this time… she was the one to be the house…

on the religion of Love...

My place is placeless, my trace is traceless,

no body, no soul, I am from the soul of souls.

I have chased out duality, lived the two worlds as one.

One I seek, one I know, one I see, one I call.

He is the first, he is the last, he is the outer, he is the inner.

Beyond "He" and "He is" I know no other.

I am drunk from the cup of love, the two worlds have escaped me.

I have no concern but carouse and rapture.

If one day in my life I spend a moment without you

from that hour and that time I would repent my life.

If one day I am given a moment in solitude with you

I will trample the two worlds underfoot and dance forever

Jalaluddin Rumi


* For you who seek the religion of Love... I thank you for reminding me once again!

Macedonia

Today I overheard something on the news that made me search more about it to discover another piece of news that you wonder whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the world we live in!
The story is that Macedonia [a Former Republic of Yugoslavia] wants to join the NATO... But Greece said no... because of Macedonia's name!
I don't believe in countries and obsessives attachments to man-made names...
It's all a play of the puppeteers... so when will people stop being puppets?

I'm half Macedonian... so my mum tells the true nature of that area of Europe when she answers the simple question of "where are you from?"...
once she says... I'm Macedonian... after all... her family are originally from there...
once she says... I'm Greek... because her family comes much further in history for the Greek part and her family's name is Greek...
once she says... I'm Hungarian... because with her family they have spent all their lives in Hungary after the war pushed immigrants to this neighboring country...

and once she even said she is from Czech Republic... well she was born there!!!

And let me not say anything about being Yugoslavian until 1990s...

When will those who put themselves in charge and make decisions on people's behalf realize that life is much too precious to be full of **** about what is ours and what is theirs...