fotofest beijing
Posted on | December 27, 2007 | No Comments
not really recent but nevertheless interesting. some of the images have a truth and reality to it you don’t find that often anymore. in october 2006, fotofest international partnered with hewlett packard china and a team of chinese photographers and businessmen to sponsor an event bringing together 278 contemporary chinese photographers and 35 influential professionals from the professional and art photography world in europe, north america, china and australia – meeting place fotofest beijing 2006 (MPFB2006).
MBFB2006 was an unprecedented event in china. it was designed to open up new opportunities for contemporary chinese photography. it was the first time a large number of contemporary photographers in china were able to show their work to such a broad-based group of important international curators, commercial gallery owners, photography festival directors, editors, representatives of photo agencies, educators, and director/curators of artist spaces.
photographers came to beijing from all over china. some were long-time professionals and others were recent graduates of chinese art and film schools. for four days, the international reviewers met with chinese photographers on a one-to-one basis, looked at their work and shared professional knowledge. the range of photography presented was remarkably broad, from classical black and white documentary to conceptual color works.
room/building tetris
Posted on | December 21, 2007 | No Comments
i love when people have strange and surprising ideas like these. the videos with people “playing” room or building tetris is quite cool. either way, electronically or manually controlled, it’s fun.
santa’s ghetto
Posted on | December 10, 2007 | No Comments
interesting art project in israel, check out the website. “bethlehem is one of the most contentious places on earth. perched at the edge of the judaen desert at the intersection of europe, asia and africa in the state of palestine it was governed by the british following the collapse of the ottoman empire. after world war II the united nations voted to partition the region into two states - one jewish, one arab and there’s been fighting ever since.it’s obviously not the job of a loose collection of idiot doodlers to tell you what’s right or wrong about this situation, so you’re advised to do further reading yourself (this month’s national geographic has an excellent article all about Bethlehem).
we would like to make it very clear “santa’s ghetto” is not allied to ANY race, creed, religion, political organization or lobby group. as an organisation the only thing we’ll say on behalf of our artists is that we don’t speak on behalf of our artists. this show simply offers the ink-stained hand of friendship to ordinary people in an extraordinary situation.every shekel made in the store will be used on local projects for children and young people. not one cent will go to any political groups, governmental institutions or, in fact, any grown-ups at all. salaam.”
you
Posted on | November 29, 2007 | No Comments
“urs fischer has reduced gavin brown’s enterprise to a hole in the ground, and it is one of the most splendid things to have happened in a new york gallery in a while. experientially rich, buzzing with energy and entropy, crammed with chaos and contradiction, and topped off with the saga of subversion that is central both to the history of the empty-gallery-as-a-work-of-art but also to the gavin brown experience itself, this work is brimming with meaning and mojo. It was also a herculean project.
a 38-foot-by-30-foot crater, eight feet deep, extends almost to the walls of the gallery, surrounded by a fourteen-inch ledge of concrete floor. A sign at the door cautions, THE INSTALLATION IS PHYSICALLY DANGEROUS AND INHERENTLY INVOLVES THE RISK OF SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH; intrepid viewers can, all the same, inch their way around the hole. fischer’s pit is titled “you”, and it took ten days to build, costing around $250,000 of brown’s money (heaven only knows what his landlord thought of it.). the gallery’s ground-level garage doors facilitated the jackhammering and removal of the concrete floor and the use of a backhoe to excavate tons of dirt and debris, after which a crew closed off the space with immaculate white walls.
there’s also a cramped antechamber, superfluous but well executed: a smaller reproduction of the main gallery, down to the air ducts and electrical outlets, it’s sort of a mini-me you. ducking through its pint-size entrance is like going though a door in alice’s adventures in wonderland. you have to crouch as you enter and watch where you step in preparation for the more precarious and thrilling main event beyond.”
(from nymag.com)
henk hofstra
Posted on | November 24, 2007 | No Comments
henk hofstra is an in netherlands born (1952) and based artist. only 17 years old he left home and went to the art academy artibus in utrecht. most of his art, usually paintings, is figurative showing cows, landscapes, flowers and portraits.
a different kind of work he has done is the “blue road” installation – a 1000-meter long and 8-meter wide stretch of road in drachten (holland), painted now bright blue like a stream of water with text on it reading: water is life.
joshua davis
Posted on | November 16, 2007 | No Comments
joshua davis is a design troublemaker. “a lot of printers ask me how I created my work,” he says mischievously. “because technically, it’s not actually possible.”davis creates electronically generated graphic compositions of almost unimaginable complexity and individuality. equally at home with print and electronic media, he builds his own Flash-based programs to combine and recombine colors borrowed from nature with forms that include organic shapes, text elements, and other symbols.
an image from Davis’s “tropism” exhibition, inspired by a 1908 book of floral dissections, at the Espeis Gallery in Brooklyn, NY
a generative composition created for BMW, based on forms found on the Z4 coupe
florence & johann
Posted on | November 10, 2007 | No Comments
florence tétier and johann besse are a lausanne, switzerland based graphic design, photography and illsutration team (not a couple) which finished studies in 2006, graduating from ECAL – an in 1821 founded fine and applied art school, now officially university of art and design.
the two have an interesting mix of disciplines and work on their site. often combining different media to create its own style. i’d describe it as somwhere between psychedelic introverted and forward agressive.
graffiti research labratory
Posted on | November 6, 2007 | No Comments
“Both Roth and Powderly relish telling companies no, and like to point out that most companies are too lazy to look on the site and make the devices themselves, preferring to give up and move on when GRL gives them the finger. Occasionally advertisers do co-opt the ideas, as evinced when the throwie technology was appropriated for a street-level marketing campaign to promote the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, resulting in the ridiculous, so-called ‘Boston Terror Hoax.’ GRL rolled their eyes when clueless reporters started calling, assuming they had anything to do with it.
Their L.A.S.E.R. Tag and Mobile Broadcast Unit is a far more interesting project for them and they’ve begun to make it available gratis to various arts organizations and community groups. The LASER Tag is basically a camera, computer, and projector, mounted on the MBS. The camera tracks the light of a laser pointer you use to ‘write’ with on whatever surface it’s pointed at and the writing is projected as the movements are processed. Throw some high-end speakers on the back and you have a moveable graffiti party, art exhibition, or whatever you want. It can also be used for showing films, slides, or multi-media performances.
Roth and Powderly hope that by making their project available to the public new uses will be discovered.” (from dazzeddigital)
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=DKbtTPYZEig]
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=1vc0WK6DF7A]
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=V8002QvjOPo]
christophe huet
Posted on | November 3, 2007 | No Comments
amazing pieces, amazing retouching. christophe’s website – making of section – allows you to follow the steps revealing where he departed and arrived. going through the list of photographers he works with explains why the paris based retoucher and pixel artist is one of the best of his guild.
electronic music art - reacTable
Posted on | October 29, 2007 | No Comments
the reacTable is an electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible userinterface that has been developed within the music technology group at the universitat pompeu fabra in barcelona, spain by sergi jordà, martin kaltenbrunner, günter geiger and marcos alonso.
the reacTable is a round translucent table, used in a darkened room, and appears as a backlit display. by placing blocks called tangibles on the table, and interfacing with the visual display via the tangibles or fingertips, a virtual modular synthesizer is operated, creating music or sound effects.
(source: wikipedia) thanks for the hint kabe!
how it works:
what it does:
floria sigismondi
Posted on | October 24, 2007 | No Comments
floria sigismondi’s work is marked by creating hyper-surreal worlds. as a multi-disciplinarian she works as artist, photographer and director producing hallucinatory pieces often combining paintings, photography, video and early film aesthetics to dark poetic plays.
writings on design and culture
Posted on | October 24, 2007 | No Comments
interesting website with writings on design and culture. it takes some time (as always if you have to read) to go through and get into their website but there is some good stuff on there. useful links and recommendations, need to get used to the first impression of text overload but once that settled it’s fun.
richard may
Posted on | October 24, 2007 | No Comments
richard may, co-founder of wyld stallyons, pixelsurgeon and black convoy is an artist, illustrator and designer who has published editorial work for clients such as time, ray gun, wired, vogue and many more as well as commercial work for nordstrom, waterstones and the french car manufacturer peugeot. he also did numerous exhibitions showing is art work. think his unique and expressive style, mixing graphical 2d and photo 3d elements, is great. while most of his work is not “loud” and busy at all there is quite a bit of depth in his work that you need time to explore all details in it.
philipp schilling / digital artists – part 1
Posted on | October 21, 2007 | No Comments
philipp schilling, a 19 year old german artist and creative mind uses mostly photoshop, freehand, illustrator, ableton live and photography sessions to combine real and fantastical worlds, artisitc and photographic elements to create his colorful and expressive visual pieces. still attending an art college he works freelance on the side and is the originator and editor of mcxu, a blog for digital design artists.
————————————
PHILIPP UNPLUGGED
————————————
WHERE DO YOU LIVE AND WORK RIGHT NOW?
at the moment i’m living in a town called plauen in
germany, i attend the advanced courses on collage
for design e.o. plauen.
DO YOU LISTEN TO MUSIC WHEN YOU WORK AND
IF SO TO WHAT?
oh yeah, i listen to music 24/7 without kidding, music
is a big part of my life so its clear that music has a
big influence on me and my work.
WHAT WOULD YOU DESCRIBE AS YOUR BEST SOURCE
OF INSPIRATION?
everything that is part of my live, things that i’m realy
affected by are for example the sega megadrive, daft
punk etc. but generaly a lot of technology and stuff that
i came in touch with in the 90′ies.
DO YOU HAVE A DREAM PROJECT YOU WOULD LIKE TO
REALIZE SOME DAY?
for sure, i wanne produce the covers for my own band
WHICH CLASSICAL ARTIST DO YOU ADMIRE MOST?
by far Salvador Dali
DO YOU REMEMBER YOU FIRST ART PIECE, WHAT
WAS IT?
no, i can’t 
but i guess it was something like a sun
and a guy painted with a simple pen on paper.
HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU SPEND IN AVERAGE ON AN
ART PIECE FROM THE FIRST THOUGHT TO A FINISHED
VERSION?
hmm, that depends from piece to piece but on average
i would say 8-9 hours.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE MOVIE?
cool movies are for example a german independet one
called “hotte im paradies” but also trashy stuff like death
proof and stuff like this know to please me
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU HAD ONLY 30 MINUTES LEFT
TO LIVE BEFORE A METEOR HITS THE EARTH?
totaly fall in panic? haha, nah i don’t know man - that
would be a shame. 
DO YOU BELIEVE IN EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL LIFE?
not until i see it with my own eyes. 
but i hope if it exists its funky!
THANKS.
————————————
fiat500 with art from tracey emin
Posted on | October 13, 2007 | No Comments
… “The Fiat 500 is the car that defined post-war, Continental style. So when the Italian car maker decided to follow in the tyre marks of the Volkwagen Beetle and the Mini by creating a new version for the 21st Century, they faced a challenge: just how do you do you make the ultimate in bijou chic even cooler?
The answer: get Britart phenomenon Tracey Emin to do a paint job on four of them. Emin has painted the cars as part of her mobile exhibition in London Frieze week. Emin examples aside, the Fiats will arrive in the UK in the New Year and the first of the new 500s are hitting the Continent’s roads now.
Tracy Emin used one of her customised versions of the car to drive to the Royal Academy of Art’s annual dinner, where she was guest of honour. The car, entitled You Go Around Me, featured a drawing of a kneeling, naked woman on the front door in the artist’s simple, signature style. Beneath the woman is the stem of a plant, that goes right around the exterior of the car, flowering just above the headlight.
“I really enjoyed working on the Fiat 500, which I refer to as the ‘mouse car’”, the artist said. Emin deliberately chose not to play up to the size of the car with saccharine drawings, instead opting for more shocking works, featuring naked figures in sexualised positions. “It was tempting to make them even more super-cute, but instead I decided to give them an edge”, said Emin.
The series is called “Drawings in Motion”, and the four painted cars will drive around central London from 9 October to 21 October, throughout the Frieze art fair. The chauffeur-driven artworks will also be available for art enthusiasts to flag down free of charge to travel between galleries.” …
published in “THE INDEPENDENT”, full article here.
