Let’s get Photo Synth-ical, Synth-ical
Since Blaise Aguera y Arcas first presented a demo of Photosynth at a TED conference back in 2007, I've been salivating at the opportunity to play with the technology.
A couple weeks ago, when Tommy and Ashley came out from NY, I took the opportunity to grab my camera and get a couple shots in.
Bonus: Try to find the first image in this blog post in the photosynth walkthrough.
The intersection of art and commercialism
A lot of fashion retailers are partnering with designers and artists to promote their brand. Nike has partnered with experimental theater director, Robert Wilson (whose art has appeared in the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Opera of New York, and the Centre Pompidou) to create video portraits for Nike store retail displays.
While not for all companies, I feel that this is a refreshing injection of perspective into a brand. While in Japan, K learned that Chanel's mobile art container. Chanel partnered with famed architect Zaha Hadid to create and curate an multi-media experience. The traveling exhibit launched in HK, made a pit stop in Harajuku, and will end in Paris. Luckily for us, the rush line was pretty short and we were able to get into the exhibit.
Upon entering the container, you're directed to sit down and wait while the all-black-outfitted workers set you up with a personalized mp3 audio guide. A melange of music, voice-overs, and sound effects direct you through the container, telling you to stand-up, look-up, and walk to the next exhibit. Controlling your movements allowed each of us to experience a personal connection with the narrator and art. The 20 different pieces reflected their impressions of chanel, handbags, and leather. I was surprised how edgy some of the content was.
The container lands in New York between October 20 and Nov 9. To read more about visiting it while in NY, check out the NY Times article here.
Gorillaz goes Monkey
Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl and Gorillaz) and Damon Albarn (Blur and Gorillaz) are at it again. This time, they've collaborated to bring one of my favorite childhood stories to life.
The ad is inspired the Ming Dynasty book Journey to the West (???), which one of the Four Great Classic Novels (????). As a kid, I was fascinated with mythology and lore. Beyond reading all I could about the Greek mythology, my dad went Chinese on me and bought vividly colored books about Monkey King's escapades to India during the Táng dynasty in order to obtain Buddhist religious texts called sutras. In fact, I built a tiny diorama based on the Monkey King's escapades. If only we had digital cameras back then. Oh, the craft I could expose you to.
Through time, I've seen permuations of the character crop up all over the place:
- Cartoon
- Musical
- TV Miniseries
- 2006 National Book Awards Winner: American Born Chinese
OK, enough talk, check out the clip via BBC's Olympic site here.
The Art of Cleaning
Speaking of corporations and their PR marketing campaigns. Green Works, a Clorox Company and maker of "natural cleaners," worked with Paul "Moose" Curtis on a graffiti art project.
Using Green Works products, created "reverse graffiti" by cleaning dirt off walls.
Like my last post, I'm on the fence. Conceptually, I like what the idea of "reverse graffiti," and its ephemeral qualities, and I'm a big fan of the director, Doug Pray (Scratch, and Infamy).
It's just...
I'm just not sure how to feel when street art goes corporate.
Source: Blogthousand!
Street Art Globalization
Brooklyn Science (Nihongo Style)
The past few weeks I was back in DC working at my company's headquarters. Over the Memorial Day weekend, I went up to NY to visit K. Sunday morning, we went to go check out the much talked about Brooklyn Flea.
What does one do at the Brooklyn flea? EAT! After waiting for just about an hour for Popusa's from Red Hook, we browsed the wares at the flea market. I gotta admit, I am a self-acknowledged geek. I bought a t-shrit--the print below. Can you guess what it is? It's taken from a Japanese science textbook for children:
If you guessed anthropomorphized water, you were right! To see more of Kari's work check out her etsy site.
Nano Phone, by Nokia
Nokia and the University of Cambridge's Nanoscience Centre is showcasing a nano-technology-based concept phone at the upcoming "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
- Flex and stretch shape
- Self-cleaning surfaces
- Transparent electronics
- Solar charging
- Ability to wrap around your wrist
I was always a big fan of snap on bracelets. We could be seeing a resurgence. Too bad the phone is seven years out.
Thanks core77 for the lead.
rorrim kcalb
I've previously blogged about the awesome site Arcade Fire put together some time ago, and it looks like they're at it again. To promote their latest single, "Black Mirror," they've launched a completely new site.
The Melvillesque story invites you to add or strip down the core layers of the songs. Whether its taking out the drums or voices, it's another multimedia extravaganza.
Korean is for design
In a recent FT article, Tatiana Boncompagni, predicts that Korean or Korean-Americans may be the future of fashion. In the recent Gen Art Fresh Faces catwalk, four of the eight designers were of Korean heritage. In fact, 29 percent of the student population enrolled in The New School for Design at Parsons are Korean. The article goes into profiling prominent and up-and-coming Korean fashion designers.
Why Korean, not other emerging arts countries like China? Well, according to Grace Sun:
I was born in Korea but I conduct business in China a lot and I’ve realised that Chinese culture is very much focused on food and culinary experiences. Koreans focus more on appearances and therefore fashion is a bigger part of the culture.
Yes, I do love my food.
What’s the deal with helvetica?
So I recently watched Helvetica on my laptop (I love streaming movies from netflix). It's a documentary about the ubiquitious font type we all come to know. After watching the film, I couldn't stop seeing the font type screaming into my face. It's like when K pointed out the arrow in FedEx (in Helvetica, btw)--that's all that I could see.
I started to look at fonts a different way when I visited the Design Museum London back in 2006. Not only did I get to see the original Times New Roman font, but they also had an exhibit on redesign of the Guardian. Then and there I learned that fonts can help you convey meaning--like a well laid soundtrack in a film.
To that end, I was really excited to check out the film...The Chicagoist and a lot of the reviews went crazy over the film... It went broke box office records at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago... But honestly, I don't see what the fuss is all about
Don't get me wrong, it's a solid film--the structure and composition of the documentary explored not only the history of the sans-serif font, but it carefully showed the cyclical nature of society's embrace and rebellion against ideas and philosophies--but it didn't rattle me to the core like I expected. A great documentary reveals and changes your frame of thinking as the story develops. This film tried to give you all sides of the story, but didn't lead the viewer to discover the paradigm shift but rather told us another point of view.
Rating:(3/5)