BlogUs

1000 years of Play

2008-06-11T10:13:00.002+01:00

Tom Dixon’s 1000 Years of Play, shown as part of Reconstruction #3, The Artists Playground, at Sudeley Castle. The collection includes five pieces of outdoor furniture, including this swing chair. A stunning piece of design influenced by industrial form and mechanism, this piece is made from 30mm flame cut steal.
Superb!!

On show from 1 June — 31 October 2008. Leading international artists and designers involved in the exhibition include Jeppe Hein, Carsten Höller, Zaha Hadid and Lawrence Weiner

There is something in the microwave

2008-06-05T10:29:00.002+01:00

Droga5 just released this viral for Net10.

I want to be there

2008-06-03T10:47:00.002+01:00

It's funny how we construct mental images and then we see them.
Well I have seen this image lots of times, and then again today for the first time. Designed by parisian architect Imaad Rahmouni, located somewhere on the French coast

Mac loyalty or fine guerilla marketing?

2008-06-01T21:43:00.004+01:00

The question is raised around an enigmatic music video of a song entitled Again and Again on Guerilla Communication's blog.

Nostalgia #2 - Pique the chillipepper

2008-06-01T13:27:00.002+01:00

Pique, mascot for the 1986 football world cup in Mexico.

Ceci n'est pas un stade

2008-06-01T12:59:00.006+01:00

With the Olympics round the corner a lot of gadgetry is already available.
These speakers are made for use with MP3, iPods, or latops, with a design inspired by the Olympic National Stadium. They connect with a USB cable or AC adapter and each have an output power of 2W.
Surely Herzog & de Meuron will love it.

Paintthatshitgold.com

2008-05-16T17:02:00.002+01:00

'It’s simple. Enter a URL into the GOLD BAR and you can tag any site on the web. After you’re finished, submit your design into our GALLERY where others can rate your masterpiece. What are you waiting for? Paint that shit gold.'

Ads of the World...

2008-05-16T16:55:00.000+01:00

Agency: Smith Roberts Creative Communications, Toronto
Creative Director: Tony Miller
Art Director: Greg Kouts
Copywriter: Matt Hubbard
Photographer: Daniel Ehrenworth

Blogus is back from New York

2008-04-28T13:52:00.009+01:00

Chinatown

Rothko, Museum of Modern Art

Bryant Park

Takeshi Murakami, Brooklyn Museum

RouxRoux from Brooklyn

Sugar Lounge

Night walk

.. Brooklyn

Swayzak - Smile And Receive (Apparat Remix)

2008-04-17T15:33:00.001+01:00

Wacky Japanese widget

2008-04-17T14:56:00.003+01:00

It shows the time, and the blossoms fall when you scroll over them. Sweet.

More here: http://www.bitstep.jp/blogparts/gallery/

Beijing Airport unveiled

2008-04-13T19:27:00.007+01:00

Norman Foster's Beijing airport launched early this month, ahead of the Olympics.

'The world’s largest and most advanced airport building - not only technologically, but also in terms of passenger experience, operational efficiency and sustainability (...) A symbol of place, its soaring aerodynamic roof and dragon-like form celebrates the thrill of flight and evokes traditional Chinese colours and symbols'.

More renderings on Foster + Partners website.

The Rave Generator

2008-04-04T13:04:00.004+01:00

Simple interaction, hours of old skool fun!
thanks Zoe.
Check it out on www.ravegenerator.com/

Look at what they did to Kylie

2008-04-04T13:00:00.003+01:00

Nostalgia*1: Diabologum

2008-04-03T11:58:00.002+01:00

La maman et la putain, Diabologum
Uploaded by mudar1488

Tune by Great French band from the nineties, Diabologum
Footage from Jean Eustache's cult movie "La maman et la putain"

Google Bible

2008-03-19T23:26:00.003Z

Moses Parting the Red Sea, from God’s Eye View, a series of scenes from the Bible re-imagined via Google Earth.
All works by The Glue Society.
Found on the Creative Review blog.

Behind every plastic bag, a poem

2008-03-15T10:40:00.007Z

Laura Braun's hand-made book "dalston polaroids"( edition of 25) is a record of the streets of Dalston, innit, East London. Discarted crap is everywhere, and Laura can see beauty in all this junk. If only the local authorities knew.

dalston polaroids is available in selected bookshops in London:The Photographers’ Gallery Bookshop in Covent Garden, Claire de Rouen Books on Charing Cross Road and The Bookart Bookshop on Pitfield Street near Old Street tube station.
Each have a few copies in stock.
www.laurabraun.net

Skateboard stems

2008-03-15T01:00:00.004Z

By Emil Kozak, on ffffound. There's lots of great designs on his website.

Hyderabad

2008-03-06T10:20:00.009Z

Katherine has just been to Hyderabad in India for work. Besides the UBS building and the Microsoft fortress, she took a look at life in the city and brought back nice shots.

2057 - The City of the Future

2008-03-05T13:42:00.002Z

What scientists and technology developers have accomplish and plan to have accomplished by 2057. Hosted by Michio Kaku.

Watch the video here | digg story

Journée sociale pour bonhomme 42-347

2008-02-24T16:36:00.004Z

www.leprogrammedujour.com

Fin Brown's Concert à Emporter

2008-02-09T18:09:00.000Z

FINDLAY BROWN - NOBODY CARED
by lablogotheque

Frosty mood

2008-02-02T11:41:00.000Z

Winter walks near Motovun, Croatia, by Bosnian photographer Vanda Vucicevic.

Sifferent yet diffimilar

2008-02-02T11:01:00.000Z

Biomechanical work by artificial limb designer and hobbyist robotics engineer stroke artist Christopher Conte. His robotic objects are fully articulated and he makes them from scratch, assembling antique parts and seeing what comes together.
More here and on his website .

Coat drive

2008-01-24T17:31:00.000Z

JWT New York had the idea to paint a giant man on one of their building's wall to entice people to donate coats to the homeless people of New York. They put hooks on the upper body, and there, look, lots of coats were hung to keep him warm, actually four times more than expected.

Agency: JWT, New York
ECD: Kash Sree
Copyriter: Scott Bell, Kash Sree
Art Director: Christina De La Cruz
Artist: Julie Rutigliano

lineman

2008-01-23T18:55:00.000Z

British artist Paul Fryer has created a large scale installation commissioned for the Guido Costa Projects gallery in Turin. In Loving Memory is born out of Paul Fryer's research into the origins of technology and the labyrinths of science. The elements used to construct the artwork are stainless steel, wax, Plexiglas, human hair, Tesla coils, computer, light system.

The work is inspired by an event which made news at the end of the 19th century. A Western Union lineman, John Feeks, employed alongside others to hang the thousands of kilometres of wire connecting one building to another and providing the city of New York with electricity and information was accidentally electrocuted and his corpse dangled for hours in a tangle of wires above the Manhattan streets, to the horror of thousands of onlookers. His fate became symbol of the perils of technological progress.

More on we-make-money-not-art.com

The Fourth Plinth

2008-01-23T00:45:00.000Z

What do you think about having high-profile contemporary art in public spaces in London, such as on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square?

Public art is part of art, part of life, part of society and part of democracy.
Now, the interesting thing, the plinth project on Trafalgar square. I would love Jeremy Deller's The Spoils of War (Memorial for an unknown civilian) to be on the plinth (picture above). I think it would be seen and 'heard', I think it's needed and missing and this piece feels exactly like this: filling a hole. As soon as I imagine it up there, it becomes very obvious to me. Synthesizing many things at once, this piece would make our consciousness manifest.

‘It is not an artwork, but the remains of a vehicle that has been destroyed in an attack on civilians in Iraq’ says Jeremy Deller.

Right. The other pleasing proposal (below) to see on Trafalgar square is Bob & Roberta Smith Faîtes L’Art, pas La Guerre (Make Art, Not War), powered by the sun and the wind. It's all positivity, feel good plinth artwork. So?
Join this exciting debate here.

NEW PURE EVIL

2008-01-15T20:53:00.001Z

NO FUTURE FOR THE POLAR BEARS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE

PSYCHO PENGUINS

I like the current bestiary theme.
You can find out about him and his work on his website, and buy it on Beautiful Crime and Stella Dore, which both showcase art work that 'transcends traditional perceptions of the classic graffiti style'.

And here he is in his evil rabbit suit. He lives in London and recently had a show at 798Space, a great contemporary art complex in Beijing.

Le Sale Boulot

2008-01-13T16:55:00.000Z

'Le sale boulot' ('dirty work') is the theme of Vladinir Cruells' artistic research. Like a metaphore for contemporary society, the ambiguous phrase suggests a complex take on reality. Concerned with the details that make up history, his work aims to make us think differently about our surroundings, tracing the path of a dissident memory.

All images from the series 'Encombrants et autres monstres'(2007)

Talent from Holland

2008-01-13T16:33:00.000Z

Grown on the body

Exploded view

'Lucy and Bart is a collaboration between Lucy McRae and Bart Hess described as an instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and body. Explosive_high impact_suggestive photography, with no specific intention, other than to make and metabolise.'
More here.

Dripping Colour

David Lynch on product placement

2008-01-12T23:06:00.000Z

David Lynch on watching movies on your iPhone

2008-01-12T11:40:00.000Z

My favourite chair

2008-01-08T21:42:00.000Z

The Flag Halyard Chair, by Hans Wegner (1950)

Because "Hans J. Wegner was the carpenter who conceived the design on the basis of how a creative craftsman with good practical sense would go about the task."

More on the elegantly named highbrowfurniture.com, where the chair is going for a mere $11275.
Damn.

Not my favourite chair

2008-01-08T15:40:00.000Z

But still, it's good. Well illustrated by the words of Richard Artschwager, found in the China Chair Exhibition's catalogue introduction:

“Art is useless; furniture is useful. If you sit your ass on it, it’s a chair, if you walk around and look at it it’s art …In fact, the more layers of meaning, the better.”

This particular chair entitled Jabba the Hug (fibreglass) is by Chinese artist Xiang Jing. Long live Chinese contemporary art and design! It is so good.

more here.

Happy new year!

2008-01-01T16:28:00.000Z

Laura has been photographing cars in London with her phone. "It's just for fun" she says.
Here's a selection.

See Laura's work on her site.

blog art

2007-12-16T20:02:00.000Z

Japanese architect and photographer Kazuhiko Kawahara (aka Palla) has been using his blog, Pallalink.net to better his art.

“In 2002, Palla began digitally manipulating urban snapshots and posting them on his blog, Pallalink.net. This led to a little ad hoc crowdsourcing: Site visitors left remarks and suggestions that Palla channeled into his art. "Thanks to everyone's comments," he says, "the quality of my work has gotten better."

More here.

American smile

2007-11-22T13:42:00.000Z

Michael Bierut, one of the partners at Pentagram New York contributes an image to The American Idea, a special section in the 150th anniversary issue of The Atlantic.

Well Done

2007-11-19T21:57:00.000Z

Food company Podravka's new annual report has to be baked before it can be read.
Designed by Croatian creative agency Bruketa & Zinick, its blank pages printed with thermo-reactive ink reveal text and images after being cooked for 25 minutes.

In the words of the designers:
" Well done created by Bruketa & Zinic is the new annual report for Podravka, the biggest food company in South-East Europe. It consists of two parts:
a big book containing numbers and a report of an independent auditor
a small booklet that is inserted inside the big one that contains the very heart of Podravka as a brand: great Podravka’s recipes.
To be able to cook like Podravka you need to be a precise cook. That is why the small Podravka booklet is printed in invisible, thermo-reactive ink. To be able to reveal Podravka’s secrets you need to cover the small booklet in aluminium foil and bake it at 100 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes.
If you are not precise, the booklet will burn, just as any overcooked meal. If you have successfully baked your sample of the annual report, the empty pages will become filled with text, and the illustrations with empty plates filled with food."

Dezeen Magazine says Bruketa & Zinic have designed seven annual reports for Podravka, which have won numerous awards worldwide.

Assassin's Creed game of the year?

2007-11-17T17:00:00.000Z

A post from JB, Ubisoft, Paris

... Likely to be the most beautiful one, at least. The new Ubisoft release came out last week on Xbox360.
Here is a 10 mn video review .

10mns too long? Go straight to 4''30' on the timeline to see the character climbing, his hands and feet naturally adapting to surfaces, and some roof to roof free running.

CIA borrows logo from Ghostbusters

2007-11-17T00:27:00.000Z

“A CIA 'Terrorist Busters' logo has been outed for its similarity to one used by the 1984 comedy film 'Ghostbusters', starring Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd.
The US intelligence agency's logo uses the international red sign for forbidden as used in the 'Ghostbusters' logo but instead of a ghost there is a terrorist, dressed in black and holding up an AK47.
The logo has been in use by the CIA's counter-terrorism office in Langley, Virginia, for six years but only recently came to wider consciousness with much scorn from bloggers on the internet.
Some questioned why the terrorist is black while the ghost is white. Some wondered why taxpayers' money had been spent on designing the logo and others simply thought it must be a joke.
The intelligence agency said that the logo was not intended to offend anyone and was designed to reflect "the determination and spirit of those who were working tirelessly to overcome what we still know today to be a truly dangerous threat".
It also said that the symbol was not designed to represent any specific terrorist group or individual.”
Clearly not just a joke, check out the CIA's website .

Via Brand Republic.

Seen on a bridge in Amsterdam

2007-11-16T17:09:00.000Z

...In october this year.
Via the Wooster Collective.

brinkmobile

2007-11-16T16:56:00.000Z

The idea behind the brinkmobile is to occupy public spaces, and inhabit them with parties, video talk shows, art events, film and media.
There are two identical brinkmobiles and a third will hopefully be built soon.
These beautiful vintage machines have a lot of appeal, so people like to come inside, where cameras record everything that’s going on.

Check out the company’s website , and their niche market DVD company .

Recognise that little Prada store?

Yuck

2007-11-16T16:22:00.000Z

Details here.

...which makes me think

2007-10-24T15:41:00.000+01:00

I saw the Adidas logo being used quite cleverly on this ad, one of the winners of the Campaign poster awards.

Agency: McCann Erickson Manchester
Client: Scottsdale Sports/Adidas
Title: Rain
Art Director: Dave Price and Richard Irving
Copywriter: Neil Lancaster and Gerard Edmondson

Electrolux Ads

2007-10-24T15:25:00.000+01:00

Seen those ads from Electrolux's "Get rid of foot odor"campaign ?

Advertising Agency: Fischer America Communications Total, Sao Paulo, Brazil Creative Directors: Jader Rossetto, Flavio Casarotti Copywriters: Ricardo Big Passos, Gustavo Diehl Photographer: Lucio Cunha

LSD - The Beyond Within [Part1 of 9]

2007-10-22T17:29:00.000+01:00

A recommended favorite from the other half of the blogus, not to be missed!
The other chapters are on YouTube.

Brand new gun

2007-10-22T17:14:00.000+01:00

Any taker for an AK-47 fully customized ala Hello Kitty style?
A bargain at $1072.95.
Go to their site, add one to your cart, and see what happens.

Neon Bible experience

2007-10-21T13:50:00.000+01:00

A great interactive video for the Arcade Fire directed and coded by Vincent Morriset.

Running from camera

2007-10-20T15:42:00.000+01:00

Here is an interesting blog/project from Dutch-land! It's called 'Running for camera' and it does not require much explanation! Go and have a look at the blog here.

Concerts à Emporter

2007-10-20T11:40:00.000+01:00

Have you watched any of the take-away shows from La Blogothèque? Here are a couple, just to tease. The first one is Elvis Perkins singing While you were sleeping. The second is Grizzly Bear singing The Knife a capella. And there are so many more. All directed by Vincent Moon.

#66.1 - Elvis Perkins - While you were sleeping
Uploaded by lablogotheque

#10.4 - Grizzly bear - The Knife
Uploaded by lablogotheque

Distillation

2007-09-08T17:48:00.000+01:00

Thomas Doyle’s little sculptures…

Via Who Killed Bambie, again.

Truck Crash

2007-09-08T17:28:00.000+01:00

This is Big Rig Jig, a sculpture seen at this year’s Burning Man to represent the precariousness and danger of the oil economy. Maybe it’s still there, in the Black Rock Desert.

Here is an extract from the Wired article:

“Mike Ross, a New York sculpture artist, and a rotating crew of four to 16 friends, built the piece in an Oakland, California. (…)
Ross had conceived the project before hearing of Burning Man's "Green Man" theme this year. He and his crew repurposed decommissioned trucks they found while driving around the San Francisco Bay Area. "We drove the trucks right into the warehouse and started chopping them to pieces." (…) "When people stand under it and see a big truck hovering over you, it should give a sense of danger and fear and that something is wrong."

I want this T shirt

2007-09-08T17:04:00.000+01:00

Link.

More iStuff

2007-09-08T15:35:00.000+01:00

Core 77 reports on iDrink. I leave it as I found it:
“igiveup.
isickofwordsbegginingwithi.
ineedabeer.
In line with such sentiments, the clever guys over at Sonic Design whipped up the "idrink" for a splash of relief from the hype.
idrink2that.”

Romanticism died in New York in 1979. Or did it?

2007-08-20T21:14:00.000+01:00

On Sunday I saw this series of photographs at the Panic Attack! Exhibition at the Barbican in London. The set is called Arthur Rimbaud in New York (1978-1979), by David Wojnarowicz, and consists in a series of twenty-four black-and-white gelatin silver prints showing a friend of the artist wearing a mask of Rimbaud, photographed in a variety of sordid New York settings.

The following text is an extract from an essay by David Kuspit, which can be found here, on the Queer Cultural Center website:

“Wojnarowicz’s identification with Rimbaud is clear, and there is a startling resemblance between their lives, and even their art. (…)
Wojnarowicz was born in 1954, exactly a century after Rimbaud, and died in 1992, living one year longer than Rimbaud, who died in 1891. Both were the products of broken homes and abusive parents; both ran away from provincial homes to the big city; both traveled widely; both were gay. Both needed a loving relationship with an idealized father figure and artistic mentor to stimulate and support their own art—Paul Verlaine in the case of Rimbaud, the photographer Peter Hujar in Wojnarowicz’s case—and both were violent personal- ties—Rimbaud eventually shot Verlaine, and death and destruction run rampant in Wojnarowicz’s imagery.”

Venice Biennale Snaps

2007-08-14T22:33:00.000+01:00

A good overview of the artists of this year’s Venice Art Biennale is up on design boom .

Three quick ones just to tease!

In the italian pavilion in the giardini venue, a room lined with vast new paintings by sigmar polke, made of glistening, alchemical resin on some kind of transparent support, so that the stretcher bars are half-visible.

Tomer Ganihar took photos in an Israeli hospital in which detailed mannequins of men, women and children maimed by war and terror are used to train doctors and medics. They embody both the memories and the prediction of violence (text from the catalog).

And Chen Zen!

The group exhibition is called "Think with the Senses - Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense" curated by Robert Storr, and it’s open until November 21st.

Prada Marfa

2007-08-05T17:54:00.000+01:00

Here is some 2 year old news!
Perched on the side of the road, 40 miles away from Marfa, Texas, (home of the Chinati Foundation , Donald Judd’s museum, a town of 2,500 residents) is Prada Marfa (2005), a permanent sculpture by Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset.

Amidst the tumbleweeds, in the very landscape where Giant was shot stands this exact replica of a typical Prada boutique - displaying accessories from Miuccia Prada’s fall 2005 collection. And it will always be closed.

What would the occasional dehydrated driver think?
All that is reported is a few days after the private view, the words “Dumb” and “DumDum” were spray-painted on two of its outside walls, and six purses and fourteen right-foot pumps were stolen.

Earlier in 2005 the Berlin based artists had installed an ‘80s-era subway station in the basement of the Bohen Foundation in New York’s meatpacking district.
It was called End Station.

“The team was inspired by the Foundation’s existing architecture, as well as by memories of a year spent in New York. “When you’re away, you remember things a little bit different from what they actually are,” says Elmgreen. “The safety lines at the edge of the platform are normally yellow; here they’re white. It’s how we remember them.” There is also garbage from distinct periods—a discarded Tab can, a newspaper dating from the beginning of the AIDS crisis, an anti-Giuliani sticker. Otherwise, the graffiti is neatly scripted, the pillars have a crisp coat of fresh paint, and there’s not a rat in sight.”
From New York Art

Who killed Bambi

2007-07-17T19:54:00.000+01:00

‘A dangerous criminal gang is riding the net. They act in the dark, exploring the most sinister places, in search for the bloody heart of talent and creativity. Their favourite victims are banality, conformism, lack of humor and good will at any cost.’

Who killed bambi is a great blog with a great name: they throw more blood at your face every day, by means of illustration, installation, music, photography, sculpture, video and other ‘stuff’.
Let’s hope they don’t get caught.

Bernardí Roig Exercises in Levitation
Bronze, Fire, Fabric, Propane Gas, Silver Leaf, Cable

Nature Little Helpers, by Patricia Piccinini

Taxidermy art by Les Deux Garcons

Innere Unverborgenheit, by Nadine Rennert

Shary Boyle’s porcelain dolls…

Call from the Footclapping Apes

2007-07-17T19:37:00.000+01:00

Let’s break the silence on the Blogus with some music! Our friends the Footclapping Apes are a band from Paris, and they are calling for some feedback on their stuff.
You can listen to a few tracks on their myspace page , and watch a video of their first gig here .
, and indeed add comments to this post, they will get it. And that goes for those who have seen the gig… tell us how it was!
I personally really like 'Utmost Zen', although I am not sure the live version does justice to it (at least in the video, I was not at the gig!), because there is noise, and some kind of feeling to it I can grasp. Zen, mmh...

They are doing their next gig in Paris in October, date to be confirmed.

Tony Alleyne

2007-05-28T21:06:00.000+01:00

Tony Alleyne, 54, is a Star Trek fan who turned his flat into a replica of a Star Trek ship. He sold it on the 16th of May for a massive £425,000.
Alleyne spent two years and £30,000 turning his one-bed studio flat in Hinckley, Leicestershire, into a detailed copy of the starship Voyager's flight deck. He put his flat up for sale on eBay a month ago with a guide price of £130,000 - £50,000.
He originally themed his one-bed home on Captain Kirk’s famous Enterprise spaceship and tried to sell it for £1.25MILLION, but could not find a buyer. He then updated it to a replica of the later Voyager version.
The winning bid was made by a millionaire Birmingham businessman.

The flat is fully equipped with LCARS, Ops units, voice activated lighting, back-lit panelling, various lighting effects, Transporter Pads and a full scale Transporter Control Console with built in sound effects.

Alleyne started work on the flat two years ago after his marriage broke down.
Last February he filed for bankruptcy but despite going bankrupt, he refit the flat using income support payments.

The kitchen.

Ever seen this?

2007-05-28T20:18:00.000+01:00

This diamond mine is in Mirny, Eastern Siberia. It is 525m deep and 1200m in diameter. The world's largest diamond mine, but not the the largest man-made excavation on earth, which is apparently Bingham Canyon copper mine, Utah, US (805m deep and 4000m in diameter).
What is striking with the Mirny mine is the difference in scale with the city standing at the edge of the pit. The surrounding air zone is closed for helicopters after a few accidents when they were 'sucked in' by downward air flow.

The red arrow points to a giant truck called a ‘Bellaz’.

Here is a picture of a Bellaz.

Free Tibet

2007-05-13T16:15:00.000+01:00

Here are some pictures I took early this month in Xiahe, China (Labrang in Tibetan). A small village-monastery located in the southwest of Gansu province, this place is home to the largest number of monks outside of Tibet Autonomous Region. It is one of the six great monasteries of the Geluk (Yellow Hat) school of Tibetan Buddhism, of which the Dalai Lama is a member.
The portraits are of villagers from the surrounding Sangke grassland. I’d like to send them the pictures, but I am not sure how often the postman delivers mail there. Any idea?

Cunts are still ruling the world

2007-05-13T15:06:00.000+01:00

A friend sent me those lyrics the other day. It's an angry, blunt and timely song. I worked out it is on the last Jarvis Cocker album, Jarvis. Good old Jarvis.

Well did you hear, there’s a natural order.
Those most deserving will end up with the most.
That the cream cannot help but always rise up to the top,
Well I say: shit floats.
If you thought things had changed,
Friend you’d better think again,
Bluntly put in the fewest of words:
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world.

Now the working classes are obsolete,
They are surplus to societies needs,
So let ‘em all kill each other,
And get it made overseas.
That’s the word don’t you know,
From the guys thats running the show,
Let's be perfectly clear boys and girls:
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world.

Oh, feed your children on crayfish and lobster tails,
Find a school near the top of the league,
In theory I respect your right to exist,
I will kill ya if you move in next to me,
Ah it stinks, yeah it sucks, it’s anthropologically unjust,
But the takings are up by a third, Oh So...
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world.

Our free market is perfectly natural,
Do you think that I’m some kind of dummy?
It’s the ideal way to order the world,
Fuck the morals, does it make any money?
And if you don’t like it? Then leave...
Or use your right to protest on the street,
Yeah, use your rights but don’t imagine that it’s heard, Oh no, no...
Not whilst cunts are still running the world
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world.

Droog Climate

2007-05-13T14:43:00.000+01:00

Droog design is currently holding a competition on the theme of climate change.
The call for entries asks for concepts ranging from ideas about food, heating, music, literature, fashion, architecture...anything you like in any form you wish.
The 10 best design proposals will be published on the Droog website; the public will be invited to choose one favourite and vote for an overall winner.

Deadline for participation is June 30, 2007.
to find our more details visit the droog design website

Designers visuals for your desktop, free to download

2007-04-11T20:56:00.000+01:00

From Claire in Paris

Fed up with XP’s green hill? Embarrassed about exhibiting ‘another baby’s face’ in the office? Feel like a new landscape every Monday morning?
Check out desktopography.net, a user-friendly Web 2.0 site, where you can pick from 3 collections exhibited online.

Shame no credit to the mysterious ‘selected designers’ appear anywhere, but hey, this all about YOU.

Collaborative online dance mashups

2007-04-09T12:31:00.000+01:00

Chris Elam’s New York based dance company, Misnomer Dance Theater just launched a video remix contest.

Misnomer uploaded one of their dance videos to the video editing site Jumpcut and users can create their own mashup (mix) by editing the video and adding their own audio and video clips.

Here's a screenshot of the editing options for Jumpcut:

All submitted posts will be reviewed and favorites will be put up on the Misnomer site to be voted upon and viewed. On July 1st the top 5 will be selected and will be awarded with free performance tickets, backstage passes, etc.

This initiative is part of a larger project by Brett Gaylor - a user-generated collaborative documentary. Online video editing software Jumpcut made this project possible to execute.

In his manifesto, Brett says:
The traditional approach to creating films, especially documentary films, is flawed. A single perspective cannot hope to capture the nuance of an evolving cultural debate. Sure, Point of View is important. But “The Ecstasy of Influence”, the participatory nature of digital creativity, begs us to create media that invites input from its audience.

Hometown Baghdad

2007-03-25T17:05:00.000+01:00

Hometown Baghdad is a web documentary series about life in Baghdad.
The first three episodes of this co-production between NY-based Chat the Planet and a group of Iraqi filmmakers in Baghdad were released on Monday, March 19th, on the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq.

The series is intended to show the world what their lives are like today and be apolitical.

Also, check out Alive in Baghdad, a weekly video blog that shows the occupation through the voices of Iraqis. Through the work of a team of Americans and Iraqi correspondents on the ground Alive in Baghdad brings testimonies from individual Iraqis, footage of daily life in Iraq, and short news segments from Iraq.

New Evil Artwork

2007-03-25T16:46:00.000+01:00

Here is some recent artwork by Pure Evil! You can buy his prints from Beautiful Crime, and from his own website.

“The Apocalyptic Anthropomorphism of the Pure Evil Bunny was spawned in San Francisco and was first spotted in London around the turn of the millennium along with other characters in the So Fuzzy Crew, infamous for writing ''WAR IS SO LAST CENTURY'' LARGE under a bridge in the East End. Pure Evil and the S.F.C. are the aliases of one man. His pop gothic artwork is inspired by death metal , rock zombies and home studio vampires everywhere. His work can be seen in cities worldwide.”
From beautifulcrime.com

Free Man, you will always cherish the sea!

2007-03-25T16:31:00.000+01:00

Here is my review of View from the Shore, by London-based choreographer Jacky Lansley.

Premiered in Truro, with the support of the Hall of Cornwall, Jacky Lansley’s View from the Shore was later shown in the Clore Studio at London’s Royal Opera House.
Inspired by years of visiting Cornwall and the coastal Lizard area, the choreography is bold and abstract beyond its apparent simplicity. Dance is used as a tool to embody the mysteries of the sea and engage in a wider discourse on the themes of landscape, environment, community, and the translation of the experience of being on the ocean’s shore into a theatrical event.

Accompanied live by Lindsay cooper’s Concerto for Sopranino Saxophone, a group of five dancers of different ages and genders move in front of a projected wavy ocean, working through timeless gestures reminiscent of the freedom at sea, the waves and rocks of the coast, the seamen’s chores and community life. This symbolic choreography partly emerged from the creative process and partly from Lansley’s own psychology. The sea has been very present in her life, through her repeated visits to Cornwall but also crucially through her father’s tale of his life-defining experience in the Atlantic ocean during WW2, where he had to survive two weeks in the cold with a couple of other men after their ship was torpedoed.
Not unlike an abstract painting, the piece calls upon feelings that take over the desire to decipher and articulate conscious meaning.

The second part, Anamule Dance, is based and named after some 1930s recordings of Jazz legend Jelly Roll Morton, playing piano and talking. The evocative nature of his voice arranged by composer Jonathan Eato, restores the colours and accents of community life in New Orleans, split between hard work and leisure. The choreography celebrates an attitude to life through its anecdotal quality and wealth of details, a sense of optimism despite living on the bread line.
This evocation of a bygone New Orleans is haunted by recent images of the city swept by Hurricane Katrina, showing survivors in their inundated homes, putting on the same brave face despite the odds;

Linking both parts of the performance is the desire to position oneself on the contours of an edge, where dancers and audience alike can physically reflect on a flow of feelings. The varied group of people onstage reminds us of the social and political role that dance can have in bringing people together. Confronted with the engulfing presence of the sea, the only outlet here is the political and emotional force of the community.

The piece is to be performed again later this year, date and location tbc.

© Estelle Ricoux 2007

Toilet wall, Barden's Boudoir, London Feb07

2007-03-11T20:48:00.000Z

Mohuan Shouji

2007-03-11T18:52:00.000Z

Chinese central government network CCTV is launching a new fantasy drama inspired by SMS technology.
The story, written by Chris Chaplin, is fresh from Beijing:

"Imagine Superman, Monkey King, time travel, martial arts and state-of-the-art technology all rolled into one. Sorry for that mental image, but this is what Mohuan Shouji (or "Magic Cellphone") promises when it hits the small screen in November. This "modern" fantasy television drama series brings up a concept that human beings can actually be transported through SMS (we have heard rumors that Shanghai officials and mobile phone service providers are actually planning on launching this functionality ... by 2010, the magical year when all of our dreams will come true).
The story (plot in Chinese) starts when a cellphone robot travels through a time tunnel — the Bund Tourist Tunnel? — and arrives in ancient times, where she meets characters from Chinese mythology such as Monkey King. Then she is brought back to 2006 and looks for her owner. The owner, the lead role in the show, gained supernatural powers from the cellphone, naturally, and began a mission to save the world. We want some of whatever the creators of this show were smoking.
Mohuan Shouji is brought to you by well-known CCTV producer Li Gongda and billed as the first ever fantasy TV series in China (because all of the other Chinese shows featuring people who fly around and perform kung fu and sorcery are based on fact). The cast includes famous Taiwanese actor Jiao Enjun, young Chinese actor Cui Lin, who played lead role in Beijing Bicycle, and famous TV host Chen Qian. We actually first learned of Mohuan Shouji via this thread on tianya.cn

Apparently 99% of the readers’ first reaction was, “Yuck! How could CCTV produce such a cheesy show?” Our reaction: Haven't these people watched CCTV before? We're pretty sure at least one of those Cs stands for "cheesy."

Asparagus: A Horticultural Ballet

2007-03-11T18:45:00.000Z

A recent show I wish I had gone to see! Unfortunately the performance was a one off, but the gallery-based exhibition is on at the Showroom in London until 15 April:

Asparagus: A Horticultural Ballet is a live performance piece inspired by rumour and myth. In the late 1970s, while still a student, Waw Pierogi, later of an obscure New Jersey minimal synth band xex, composed the interdisciplinary Asparagus: A Horticultural Ballet. No documentation of the piece exists, but Pil and Galia Kollectiv have become fascinated by this work, alongside another lost work, Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet. The Kollectivs’ desire is not to recreate either, but rather they are intrigued by the possibilities of making a new work through the collision of ideas left behind by former art movements and other cultural phenomena. For them
unrealised, forgotten and failed revolutions are as much a legacy of modernism as the utopian belief in progress that we have inherited.

Originally from Jerusalem, Israel, Pil and Galia Kollectiv moved to London to study on the Goldsmiths MA course. The couple work collaboratively as
artists, writers, independent curators and lecturers

Les Georges Leningrad are Montréal’s preeminent art-punks, blending dub, disco, post-punk and no-wave to create an aesthetic form that demolishes the lines between music presentation and promotion.

The Showroom, 44 Bonner Road, London E2
For further information go to the gallery’s website

Face2Face

2007-03-04T13:56:00.000Z

The Face2Face project consists in making portraits of Palestinians and Israelis doing the same job and to post them face to face, in huge formats, in unavoidable places, on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides. The photos are taken with a 28mm lens 10cms away from the subject, to ‘catch the breath’ of the person who is photographed.

From the website:

‘These people look the same; they speak almost the same language, like twin brothers raised in different families.
A religious covered woman has her twin sister on the other side. A farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher, has his twin brother in front of him. And he his endlessly fighting with him.
It's obvious, but they don't see that.
We must put them face to face. They will realize.
Our wish is that, at last, everyone laughs and thinks when he sees the portrait of the other alongside his own portrait.’

This art project is not sponsored by any institution or brand.

C'est pas la chute qui compte...

2007-02-24T18:46:00.000Z

As the French presidential candidates fiercely fight for their right, here is a bit of social photography by French artist Denis Darzac. To keep us inspired..

"When the social elevator is broken you have to know how to bounce. Between the take off and the fall, the man parachuted in the city learns to control his trajectory.
To the rough concrete of the buildings, he opposes the elasticity of his body and his desires. This gravitation exercice requires discipline, even if it's not the one we've learned in classrooms. After the riots of last autumn, the photograph Denis Darzacq realized 16 of those perilous shots, that says the turbulences and the life in precarious balance."
(Natacha Wolinski in Beaux-Arts magazine juin 2006)

See more of Denis Darzac’s portfolio.

Surfrider

2007-02-24T18:32:00.000Z

Great ads from the Brazilian department of Surfrider, a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world's oceans, waves and beaches for all people, through conservation, activism, research and education.
The ads shows the circular course as a result of human behaviour.

‘Everything that the human being makes has a consequence. For he himself and the world.’ (Agency Script)

Delicate situations

2007-02-24T18:14:00.000Z

From Gabrielle, film maker in London

Delicate situations is an art exhibition curated by Joe Schneider that only exists online.
Gabrielle’s video, The Billie Melo Show is part of it!

Delicate Situations is a year-long exhibition, lasting from 15th January 2007 to 15th January 2008, bringing together art work by simply posting it on a blog. By providing no specific venue for the work it exposes not only the vulnerability of a finished art object but also the often vulnerable circumstances of the production of art work.

Watch more of Gabrielle’s work here.

Separated by the Sea

2007-02-24T17:05:00.000Z

Here is something I have been waiting for: Findlay Brown's first solo album is out!
I saw his previous band Boedekka play a few times in venues around East London a few years back and their folky, evil psychedelia was a slap in the face of many other dull sounding local bands. The guy has carried on making his own music and had a few songs on myspace, which were great. Finally his album Separated by the Sea is released on the label Peacefrog.
Here is what the reviews say:
'His ambitious music is intimate, bare, and sensitive. Vitally it’s also courageous, triumphant, challenging and otherworldly. Emotionally-driven, psychedelic, spiked with wit, blessed with a cidery traditionalism and foiled with subtle, yet contrastingly modern, production from Simian’s Simon Lord, Findlay’s work is truly a blend of acoustic pop and ‘alternative folk’.
Visit Fin's website
Watch him play Top of the Pops on his myspace page
And of course get the cd from Amazon.

Sonic Youth in Beijing --> April 2007

2007-02-17T11:45:00.000Z

From Vincent, in Beijing

Believe it or not but the legendary Wham led by our friend G. Michael was the first western band ever to play in China, or at least so goes the rumor. That was somewhere during the mid-80s and it sheds new light on the ground rooting influence of this band over the last part of the 20th century. This basically means that mainland Chinese have been getting the best of western culture ever since alongside with Starbucks, Mc Donalds and Bon Jovi (who is coming this year to Beijing as well... I might go just for a laugh, if that is fun, or maybe not). Anyway, things are changing and the ever growing Chinese alternative music scene gets a reward with the annoucement of the first concert of Sonic Youth in Beijing on April 25th at StarLive! This is just the tip of the Iceberg and a lot more is happening throughout China and especially in Beijing on the alternative music scene. We'll keep you informed !!
If by any chance you happen to be in BJ these days, check D22 bar for a taste of the local scene.

Starlive :
79 Hepingli Xijie third floor of Club Tango, at the southern entrance to Ditan

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 on X360 to be released soon!!!

2007-02-15T20:43:00.000Z

Some grawling news from JB, professional player in Paris:

It has been 1 year since I joined the game development team of Ubisoft Paris, to help create a sequel to Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (or GRAW as we fondly call it) on Microsoft’s X360. The game is now finished and we are waiting for the discs to be manufactured and put in stores (8th March if everything goes fine). You may even see some TV adds early March…

It is a tactical action game, with lots of shooting, running, flanking, driving tanks and helicopters and giving orders to squads of teammates. If you played GRAW1, you know how good it was (it got the Best Game of the Year awards for X360 in nearly every web site or magazine in the world).

GRAW2 is just better, bigger and nicer.

The story takes place in Mexico in 2014. You are an elite soldier in a mission to save the Mexican President… and your country, from a terrorist threat
(OK, OK, I know… we saw too many episodes of 24 ;-).
Come here for more information on the game.
You may even see my (tired) face in some blogs .

Here are a few pictures, to show you the kind of things we can do today (everything in the following pictures is displayed in 3D and in real time). Honestly, the graphical features presented here are among the absolute best in the video game industry (si, si !! ;-)

Over 50000 polygons for highly detailed character models.

Real-time smoke, fire and weather effects (rain, mist, wind)…

Advanced lightning techniques, that allow us to modify the day/night cycle in real time.

Big explosions and special effects

Our objective : to put you in the middle of war zone, with all its chaos, noise and stress!!

Watch some videos on gamespot.com .

The future of morphable models… or how to see Mona Lisa smile in 3D !!!

2007-02-15T20:22:00.000Z

More from JB:

Have a look at this 5 minutes video, demonstrating a probable breakthrough in face recognition programs. I got the info because this kind of techniques will probably be used in future video games…

It shows several things: first, how we can program the facial expression of 3D models. Second, how we can identify the features of a face from a simple 2D photos and turn it into a full 3D model !

The video is fantastic, with very simple technical explanations.
Two examples:

Have you ever seen La Joconde from this side??

The 2 images on the right were created using only the information contained in the image on the left!

Bunch of liars...

2007-02-09T14:22:00.000Z

Look at these things!! Two examples of the kind of rubbish news found of blogs... The first one is a level 1 one, (=very obviously not true...) The second one might be level 2 or even level 3 (=it made me doubt for a minute).

This is from www.gizmodo.com (parent blog of Nick Denton's million making www.gawker.com)
Obviously they published it as a joke. But they published it!! Along with the following little text:
"Sony expects to sell "hundreds" of these devices within the first year, effectively doubling their music player sales."

'Chanel Develops Durable, Low-Cost Perfume For Third World'
... found on www.core77.com, an industrial design blog.
It actually first popped up on the dubious www.theonion.com.
There was a fair amount of shocking details given as well:

PARIS—Fashion house and perfumer Chanel, famed for its iconic, $300-an-ounce No. 5 scent, announced that it has created a cost-efficient fragrance for the Third World, one specifically designed for the rigors of dry, dusty, less glamorous environments in the Southern Hemisphere.
Chanel chemist Robert Geneau, adding that organically musky, smoky, and earthy tones had been rejected because the scent's intended users most likely had too much musk, earth, and smoke in their lives already. "3rd has a bright, grassy base, like a fresh breeze after a rain—a very exotic scent for our target customer. There are also notes of cocoa, citrus, spices, and other things our customer sometimes raises and harvests for foreign export, but rarely gets to savor herself. Captivating, and for a fraction of the cost of high-end scents available in the West, 3rd is just the economic miracle developing nations need."

VD

2007-02-04T18:22:00.000Z

To celebrate the forthcoming consumerist retail fest that is Valentine’s Day, here is a couple of anti-Valentine e-cards sampled from a collection available on www.meish.org/vd/

“Yes, it's that special time of year when chocolate manufacturers and greetings card companies encourage you to demonstrate the extent of your fondness in cold, hard, cash (or the satin-covered equivalent) on February 14th.

Fuck that.”

From www.meish.org/vd/

Agaskodo Teliverek

2007-02-04T14:02:00.000Z

Friends of saturated guitars and noisy music may be interested in minimalist rock/electro band Agaskodo Teliverek (left image), a London-based Hungarian formation of two who played last night at London’s recently launched Hoxton Lab.

First half of Agaskodo Teliverek, Miklos "The Accountant" Kemecsi went from sorting out the finances for one of London's leading record labels to producing his own music. "Mr. Kemecsi likes to express his frustration with office life and contemporary sexual politics by mixing trashy jazz guitar leads with twisted electronic hard-rock jungle-bebop breakbeats and any vocals he can rope in his mad circle of friends to contribute." Producing his own music since 2003, the Accountant began his live performance career playing alongside Aphex Twin, Luke Vibert and Ceephax Acid Crew at one of Seed Records' famous Aldwych Tube Station parties.
The Accountant has been associating himself with fellow Hungarian Tamas "Karamazov" Szabo on guitar.
Agaskodo Teliverek means rearing stallions in Hungarian and as they famously announced "Yes, we are the Rearing Stallions!")

The other act lined up was “extreme/exclusive/crazy-experimental/performance” Le Couteau Jaune (right image).

http://www.myspace.com/agaskodoteliverek
http://www.myspace.com/lecouteaujaune
http://www.myspace.com/hoxtonlab

Welcome to the EU

2007-01-29T21:48:00.000Z

A few snapshots sent by Rami ‘le tsigane’ Adwan, our envoy extraordinary in Bucarest, Romania. Here are his impressions on the situation there:

“This is what Romania looks like... it is not at the eve of its accessing the EU... it had become a full member when these pictures were taken.... wish me luck and... a short stay in this crazy country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

End of message.

LIDOS

2007-01-28T16:20:00.000Z

For "Lidos" Laura Braun photographed London's Lidos while they are out of use, during the winter.
The project was published in London Independent Photography Magazine Autumn/Winter 06 issue together with an interview by writer, artist and curator Deepa Naik.

Laura will talk about this project as well as about her project "Downtown" and some work in progress at London's Four Corner's Photoforum on Thursday 1 February.

More details about the event:
http://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk

To see more of Laura’s work:
www.laurabraun.net

Gen X–aternadad-grup thing

2007-01-28T16:06:00.000Z

Here is a post taken straight from Piers Fawkes’ excellent marketing-branding-anything-inspiring blog, www.psfk.com.
Couldn’t resist... There’s a couple of interesting new words to learn and it might speak to some of you:

“Most of you probably remember that New York Times Magazine article about Grups - thirty and forty somethings who refuse to grow up. That fundamental idea has been expanded upon in a new book by Neal Pollack, entitled Alternadad.

Leah McLaren of Globe and Mail has a somewhat more cynical assessment towards the whole Gen X–aternadad-grup thing, as well as the new book.

In his new book, Alternadad, American writer Neal Pollack explores a hipster's journey through fatherhood.

Like many Gen X hipster types, he spends most of the book desperately trying to avoid replicating the mundane middle-class family life of his childhood. Unlike his parents, he is determined to raise a "cool kid." Except that conventional life (or "corporate parenting culture," as he calls it) has clearly come home to roost. He's sitting watching The Wiggles with a two-year-old, after all. And while that's nice, there's nothing alternative about it.

After pages and pages of babble about the idiosyncrasies of the authors child, McLaren comes to the conclusion that:

Even more tedious than the cute-kid stories (which most of us have come to accept and tolerate) is the alternaparent stance of, "I'm a Dad now -- isn't that ironic?" No. It's not. I know you partied hard in your 20s. I know you made art your priority. I know you vowed to never sell out by owning a car or a house or any of that bourgeois crap. I can see how surprised you are by your own ability to do a 180 on this position and become the guy in the park with the baby jogger. But guess what? No one else is surprised. You are a mammal. Your job on this planet is to procreate. And no amount of rave-going or ecstasy-dropping was ever going to change that.”

Posted by Jeff Squires on January 23, 2007 on PSFK.com

The whole story:
http://nealpollack.com/

RED

2007-01-23T22:10:00.000Z

In the Face of History, the recent exhibition on European photography in the 20th century at the Barbican in London is now over! Here is a totally subjective focus on Boris Mikhailov, one of the exhibited artists :

Boris Mikhailov was born in1938 in Kharkov, Ukraine; He lives and works in Berlin.
Until 1986 in the Soviet-dominated Ukraine it was forbidden for photographers to make nudes or to take pictures in the city from a point higher than the second floor of a building. In 1996, after the KGB found his photographs of his naked wife, Boris Mikhailov lost his job as a mechanical engineer. He secured another job as a technical photographer, whilst beginning, in his spare time, to forge one of the most important bodies of conceptual/documentary photography of the late 20th century. Mikhailov exhibited in artist-friends’ apartments in his hometown of Kharkov until he was able to show internationally in the 1990s.

Red, 1968–75—in Russian, the word ‘red’ sounds like the word ‘beautiful’—is Mikhailov’s satirical response to Soviet occupation, and the saturation of Ukraine’s social landscape by the ‘ideological’ colour ‘red’. He set out to document every speck of red he found in the landscape—and he finds it in surprising places. Mikhailov commenced Red a year earlier than the American William Eggleston started work on his famous Guide, generally held in the West to be the first major work of colour photography. The fact that colour photography was an almost unheard of luxury in the Ukraine, added to the sheer danger of photographing in the street, makes Red an even more significant achievement.

Useful links:
www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=4340
www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/boris_mikhailov.htm

Photo: © Boris Mikhailov - Red, USSR, 1968-1975 (Detail) / Collection Fotomuseum Winterthur.

FAC 461

2007-01-23T21:18:00.000Z

Between 1978 and 1992, Factory was one of the most important record labels in Britain. It launched the careers of Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays, to name but a few; it opened the legendary Haçienda club and Dry bar; and it introduced to music the concept of high-quality, cutting-edge design. The visual languages developed alongside the music, by designers such as Peter Saville, Central Station Design and 8vo, are still widely recognized and imitated today.

The book documents the label’s entire visual legacy. Following a foreword from Factory's Tony Wilson, and an introduction that explores the label’s role in design, every item with one of the famous Factory inventory numbers is illustrated or listed, including album sleeves, singles, special editions, flyers, posters, stationery and architectural projects. Available on www.amazon.co.uk/

www.fac461.co.uk/
Containing background information and podcasts on Matthew Robertson's 2006 book

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_Records
The whole story

Anti-National Front demonstration in Second life

2007-01-18T22:45:00.000Z

Depuis que le parti d'extrême droite s'est installé un bureau virtuel, les placardages et mouvements de protestations se multiplient.

www.liberation.fr
vendredi 12 janvier 2007

Jumal Hofmann sunbathing in Second Life

2007-01-18T22:33:00.000Z

Relax man