Posts tagged art

Floppy Portraits I don’t have any but if I did have floppy disks, and if I did have talent, and if I did have a creative bent that brought the idea to mind, I’d make floppy disk portraits like those created by Nick Gentry. But I don’t. So instead, head over to Colossal for more floppy disk portraits and a short video about Gentry and his work.

Floppy Portraits

I don’t have any but if I did have floppy disks, and if I did have talent, and if I did have a creative bent that brought the idea to mind, I’d make floppy disk portraits like those created by Nick Gentry.

But I don’t.

So instead, head over to Colossal for more floppy disk portraits and a short video about Gentry and his work.

flavorpill: The World’s Strangest Cameras FJP: And to think I was in the market for a newfangled SLR — Michael.

flavorpill:

The World’s Strangest Cameras

FJP: And to think I was in the market for a newfangled SLR — Michael.

China Says no to Artist’s Self-Surveillance On Tuesday, Ai Weiwei, a Chinese artist and activist, set up five surveillance cameras in his studio and streamed the footage to Weiweicam.com. The goal was to let friends and fans know how we was doing on the one year anniversary of his last arrest. It was also to let authorities check in on him. Via the Guardian: “It is the exact day, one year ago, that I went missing for 81 days. All my family and friends and everyone who cared were wondering where this guy was. So on the anniversary I think people may have worries. It’s a gift to them: I’m here and you can see me,” he said… …”This is also a gift to public security because they follow me, tap my phone and do what is necessary to get ‘secrets’ from me. I don’t have secrets,” Ai said, poiting out there were now 15 surveillance cameras within a 100m stretch of road outside his home, making it the most-watched area of Beijing. Today, Weiweicam.com is down after authorities objected to the live feed. “There was no clear explanation, but there was no clear explanation of why I was detained for 81 days, so it would be ridiculous to ask them,” Ai tells the Guardian. “When I turned the cameras on myself and on to my privacy — which is exactly what they did to me when I was in detention — they got scared and didn’t know how to handle it.” Image: Marble Surveillance Camera, by Ai Weiwei. The 2010 sculpture mocks the 15 surveillance cameras outside his home. Via Minimal Exposition.

China Says no to Artist’s Self-Surveillance

On Tuesday, Ai Weiwei, a Chinese artist and activist, set up five surveillance cameras in his studio and streamed the footage to Weiweicam.com. The goal was to let friends and fans know how we was doing on the one year anniversary of his last arrest.

It was also to let authorities check in on him.

Via the Guardian:

“It is the exact day, one year ago, that I went missing for 81 days. All my family and friends and everyone who cared were wondering where this guy was. So on the anniversary I think people may have worries. It’s a gift to them: I’m here and you can see me,” he said…

…”This is also a gift to public security because they follow me, tap my phone and do what is necessary to get ‘secrets’ from me. I don’t have secrets,” Ai said, poiting out there were now 15 surveillance cameras within a 100m stretch of road outside his home, making it the most-watched area of Beijing.

Today, Weiweicam.com is down after authorities objected to the live feed.

“There was no clear explanation, but there was no clear explanation of why I was detained for 81 days, so it would be ridiculous to ask them,” Ai tells the Guardian. “When I turned the cameras on myself and on to my privacy — which is exactly what they did to me when I was in detention — they got scared and didn’t know how to handle it.”

Image: Marble Surveillance Camera, by Ai Weiwei. The 2010 sculpture mocks the 15 surveillance cameras outside his home. Via Minimal Exposition.

Holy Texts

Meg Hitchcock creates collages using thousands of letters cut out from books both sacred (eg., the Torah) and profane (eg., The Satanic Verses),

Via Meg Hitchcock:

In my text drawings I deconstruct the word of God by cutting letters from sacred writings and rearranging them to form a passage from another holy book. I may cut letters from the Bible and reassemble them as a passage from the Koran, or use letters cut from the Torah to recreate an ancient Tantric text. The individual letters are glued to the paper in a continuous line of type, without spaces or punctuation, in order to discourage a literal reading of the text. By bringing together the sacred writings of diverse traditions, I create a visual tapestry of inspired writings, all pointing beyond specifics to the universal need for connection with something greater than oneself.

The labor-intensive aspect of my work is a meditation practice as well as a personal form of devotion. My long history in evangelical Christianity formed my core beliefs about God and transcendence, and continues to influence my creative work. I no longer follow a traditional spiritual path, and vehemently eschew all religious leanings. However, I have great respect for an individual’s spiritual beliefs and experiences, and my work is a celebration of that sacred experience.

H/T: Collossal (Click through for more images).

(Google) Art Project!

Google’s Art Project is a growing, interactive collection of some 30,000 images taken from participating museums  around the world.

Launched in April 2011, the site now includes a social layer built with Google+. For example, visitors can create their own galleries and then use Hangouts to talk about and share the works with others.

Images are hi-res with a few works captured with “gigapixel” technology allowing viewers to zoom in on the art’s finer details.

Participating institutions range from New York’s Museum of Modern Art to Lima’s Museo de Arte de Lima to Delhi’s National Museum with 40 other countries in between.

Images: Pages from a Qur’an in Hijazi. Unknown, Arabia, late 7th Century. Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar.

Zero Dólar. Cildo Meireles, Brazil, 1978 - 1984. Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.

Cyclists. Jiri Naceradsky, Czech Republic, 1971. Museum Kampa.

H/T: Memeburn.

Shirin Neshat, Women of Allah Via the Metropolitan Museum of Art: This photograph forms part of Neshat’s Women of Allah series, created between 1993 and 1997 after the artist’s first trip to Iran after the Revolution. The aesthetic of these black-and-white photographs, in which women (the artist and others) appear in veils (chadors), often bearing firearms, mimics newspaper clippings she gathered that depicted the involvement of women in the Iran-Iraq War. Neshat used these images to comment on the violence of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, after which she was barred from entering the country, and later on post-Revolution society in Iran. Historically, the role of women in Iran is fraught with repression and restriction. Thus, feminist poetry was an important source of inspiration for Neshat’s series of photographs. The verses handwritten on the photographs reinforce Neshat’s feminist beliefs (she often quotes the poet Furugh Farrukhzad) and also engage with images of violence. Image: Via Tradition and Modernity in flux: Visual Binaries in Contemporary Iranian Photography.

Shirin Neshat, Women of Allah

Via the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

This photograph forms part of Neshat’s Women of Allah series, created between 1993 and 1997 after the artist’s first trip to Iran after the Revolution. The aesthetic of these black-and-white photographs, in which women (the artist and others) appear in veils (chadors), often bearing firearms, mimics newspaper clippings she gathered that depicted the involvement of women in the Iran-Iraq War. Neshat used these images to comment on the violence of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, after which she was barred from entering the country, and later on post-Revolution society in Iran. Historically, the role of women in Iran is fraught with repression and restriction. Thus, feminist poetry was an important source of inspiration for Neshat’s series of photographs. The verses handwritten on the photographs reinforce Neshat’s feminist beliefs (she often quotes the poet Furugh Farrukhzad) and also engage with images of violence.

Image: Via Tradition and Modernity in flux: Visual Binaries in Contemporary Iranian Photography.

Designing the News

While at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Johnny Selman monitored the BBC and created a poster out of each day’s “most important” news. The result is BBCx360.

Via Imprint:

“The purpose of this project is to promote the awareness of global current events with the American public,” Selman wrote in the introduction to his website. “‘American citizens know little about current events in general and even less about overseas events’ according to The Washington Post in 2006.”

Shown here:

  • May 7, 2011 - Libya ‘scatters mines’ in Misrata
  • August 29, 2011 - Colombia’s long task to identify conflict victims
  • August 16, 2011 - Tibetan monk burns himself to death in China
  • April 23, 2011 - Syria protests: Security forces shoot at mourners
  • April 19, 2011 - India: Haryana widows battered to death

Visit BBCx360 to view this exceptional project.

Soup

While researching the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Mandy Barker began collecting sea junk of her own and had researchers send her trash they too were finding in the ocean.

The result: Soup, a series of narrative photo collages.

Via Design Boom:

For each still, individual pieces of plastic are photographed on a black background as well as in combination with other articles of a similar size. barker then overlays these images with one another, illustrating the smallest up to the largest items of trash, creating a feeling of depth and suspension in the final visual. the sequence of the photographs reveal a narrative which begins with the initial attraction of plastics to sea creatures, their attempted ingestion, ending with their ultimate death represented through ‘soup: ruinous remembrance’.

Images: Selected photo collages from Soup, by Mandy Barker.

Click any to embiggen.

Everything is a Remix: The Matrix

Kirby Ferguson, a New York-based filmmaker, and friends have been working on a four-part video series called Everything is a Remix.

Here, to demonstrate their point, they juxtapose scenes from the Matrix with films that it drew inspiration from. For example, as we move along the timeline:

  • 0:27 - Fist of Legend (1994)
  • 0:38 - Tai-Chi Master (Twin Dragons) (1993)
  • 0:44 - Fist of Legend (1994)
  • 0:48 - Tai-Chi Master (Twin Dragons) (1993)
  • 0:53 - Drunken Master (1978)

Click through for other influences that range from a Philip K. Dick speech (1:45) to Total Recall (2:30) to Alice in Wonderland (3:24).

utnereader:

Arrested Motion alerts us to TrustoCorp.’s latest project, one that pokes fun at our secret guilty pleasure—tabloid magazines. They’ve gone into magazine stands, bookstores and pharmacies throughout Hollywood, Manhattan, Williamsburg, LAX and JFK to drop copies of these little artistic interventions for the unsuspecting public. More info here …

FJP: 1, Gotta love culture jamming; 2, Must. Get. Copies. Now.

50 Years of Posters for Amnesty International

In an essay for an exhibition of the Amnesty posters, Steven Heller writes:

Limited in their collective ability to defeat repression, artists and designers are routinely frustrated by the retaliatory strength of their oppressors. Contrary to an idealistic belief that poignant prose and powerful picture can help thwart or unmask injustice, art and design is easily censored by well-oiled dictatorial machines – of which there are always far too many in the world at any given time.

Yet despite the harsh reality of political struggle, it is a mistake to underestimate the power of subversive images to trigger unrest - or unease. A truly startling and strident poster advocating social justice and freedom, for example, can potentially leave an indelible mark on the eye and mind. While this ability to influence may not wrest freedom from those who are committed to withholding it, polemical imagery is an essential means to foment dissent.

For 50 years some of the most resonant images against tyranny imposed by those ever-present unyielding ideologies and relentless theologies have been created for Amnesty International.

Exhibit Catalog (PDF).

Metropolis II by Chris Burden

Chris Burden spent four years re-creating the urban landscape with Metropolis II, a model city with 1,200 cars passing through it.

Via Singularity Hub:

Information may be the fuel of the modern city, but traffic is its blood. Chris Burden’s massive model Metropolis II pays respects to the never ending flow of urban autos by circulating 1200 hundred die-cast cars through its 18 lanes. Burden estimates that the sculpture moves 100,000 toy cars through its tracks every hour! Metropolis II is Hot Wheels writ large, and it is awesome. Coming this Fall to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)…

My can’t-connect-this-to-journalism-but-need-to-post-FJP-Tumble-of-the-Day post. — Michael

Art teaches us many things. Today, the history of nuclear bomb testing throughout the world.

In ”1945-1998” Isao Hashimoto creates an audio-visual map of 2,053 global nuclear tests.

Run Time: 14:16 with things getting particularly hairy as we head into the 60s (the 4 minute mark).

The Last Newspaper The New Museum in New York City is presenting an exhibition “inspired by the ways artists approach the news and respond to the stories and images that command the headlines.” The exhibition will animate the Museum with signature artworks and a constant flow of information-gathering and processing undertaken by organizations and artist groups that have been invited to inhabit offices within the museum’s galleries. The Exhibition runs through January 9, 2011. Bonus Points ScribeLabs filmmaker Alexandra Lerman worked with Philadelphia’s Slought Foundation to create The Perpetual Peace Project, a documentary exploring Immanual Kant’s foundational essay of the same name. The documentary is part of the Last Newspaper exhibition. A talk will be given Thursday, December 16 to discuss the work and will include: 5:30pm: Gregg Lambert, Syracuse University, on “The Conspiracy of Peace” 6:30pm: Eduardo Cadava, Princeton University, on “War is Peace” and “Peace Commodity” 7:30pm: Emily Apter, New York University, on “The word ‘peace’ is an Untranslatable” Image: Hans Haacke, News, 1969/2008. RSS newsfeed, paper, and printer, dimensions variable.

The Last Newspaper

The New Museum in New York City is presenting an exhibition “inspired by the ways artists approach the news and respond to the stories and images that command the headlines.”

The exhibition will animate the Museum with signature artworks and a constant flow of information-gathering and processing undertaken by organizations and artist groups that have been invited to inhabit offices within the museum’s galleries.

The Exhibition runs through January 9, 2011.

Bonus Points

ScribeLabs filmmaker Alexandra Lerman worked with Philadelphia’s Slought Foundation to create The Perpetual Peace Project, a documentary exploring Immanual Kant’s foundational essay of the same name.

The documentary is part of the Last Newspaper exhibition. A talk will be given Thursday, December 16 to discuss the work and will include:

  • 5:30pm: Gregg Lambert, Syracuse University, on “The Conspiracy of Peace”
  • 6:30pm: Eduardo Cadava, Princeton University, on “War is Peace” and “Peace Commodity”
  • 7:30pm: Emily Apter, New York University, on “The word ‘peace’ is an Untranslatable”

Image: Hans Haacke, News, 1969/2008. RSS newsfeed, paper, and printer, dimensions variable.

newmuseum.org