About Us
Scamper.com is the portfolio of Jeff Robinson, master designer, raconteur, sometime thaumaturge, and general bon vivant. But rather than attempt to tickle your ears with florid accounts of his exploits, we’ll rely on two excerpts to help illuminate the person.
We’ll start with the beginning of Mr. Robinson’s keynote at the international Ars Grafica Convention, which took place in Milan several decades ago, when he was just 12 years old. His belly full of righteous fire, he began the following speech before the attendant crowd, only to be cut short by a sudden eruption of bacchanalia.
“Silence, fools! I am here to deliver this simple message. You, my brothers and sisters, shall not impede my creative domination. I intend to crush my opposition like a righteous juggernaut, restricted by nothing but my own caprice. The unyeilding thrum of my tireless engines shall propel me effortlessly through those who would seek to deter me from my inevitable triumph. To the lost, to the weak, to the misguided, I do understand you. To embrace your insignificance is a terrible inevitability, as you find that your raison d’etre is inconsequential. I also understand that you operate under whatever psychological constructs are necessary to perpetuate your own delusions of what is safe and right. I do not judge you, but balance my natural revulsion a wary compassion.
“This is my only burden-”
(Many thanks go to Tulley Straub who rescued these speech notes from the pyre beneath Mr. Robinson’s effigy in the main convention hall.)
And second, a short excerpt from Mr. Robinson’s personal journal.
December 5, 2001
...so, in the midst of my fever dream, the question is born: what is my purpose? I suppose that rabid, brutal, almost orgasmic creativity is key to the rich adventure that is my life. But if I learned one thing during my days as a Tibetan monk — just before my pioneering work in cybernetics with the orphans of war-torn Zambia where, in an unprecedented display of scientific prowess, I was able to redefine the state of the art in tactical defense by surgically altering toddlers, thus creating a fleet of cherubic warheads — it’s that humility is best appreciated by those who are stunned enough by the reality of my presence to be receptive to it.April 9, 2006
I’ve been offered a position with a tiny band of subversives at Technorati. Having worked previously in video, sound, virtual worlds, advertising, and surveillance, it seems most fitting. Shall I fling pixels in a clever but arbitrary fashion in the naive hope of eventually realizing some kind of artistic validation? Unknown. I have done it all, of course, but I have not done it all well. Still, it is the passion with which one conducts oneself that matters, and not the skill. My neurosurgeon told me this, and I have remembered it… on and off… ever since.