optimist prime
we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the starsArchive for art
A sweet tweet…
For those that want to make their Twitter just mean that little bit more, a brilliant site where you can request a Tweet on paper to be sent to the friend of your choice. A nice take on the impermanent and impersonal.
Posterboy – New York’s answer to the Shoreditch Decapitator…
There’s something really appealing about the mash-up of broadcast and outdoor media for artistic/social commentary purposes – it often brings out some painful truths. From old-school audio-pirates like Douglas Kahn (who I was lucky enough to have as a lecturer at uni for a semester) and Negativeland to current street art, I love the way it plays with the true value of advertising and the media. And they’re always hidden – are these artists who create something beautiful/funny/poignant/political, using what our industry creates as raw materials, operating in secret because of the threat of big business and the brands ‘we’ represent? Surely if we’re helping brands become more real, believable, genuinely useful and honest then this kind of expression is quite beautiful, and not at all scary? (Or maybe that’s just my art-school roots talking, but Iove the idea of someone mashing up our work).
I haven’t seen anything from my beloved Shoreditch Decapitator for a while now, but Posterboy is just brilliant – and with maybe a slightly broader repertoire.
You can check out his Flickr page here.Or watch his video: Posterboy on the NYC subway.
Living data
The intersection of data and representation is an rich area soaked in wonderfully tactile, beautiful visual and visceral experimentation… but these data sculptures, based on the moods of the artist Martin Kim Luge’s online friends, just hit the sweet spot for me.
Entitled Weeping Willow (l) and Rose of Jericho(r), they scrobble the mood tags on social network portals such as facebook, and “communicate in some level the presence of the others‘ mental state without direct contact.”
The Rose of Jericho “reads the mood adjective at the friends myspace-account in realtime from the internet. The adjective is compared against a database to map a numerical value to the emotion. This value defines the duration of the water pump controlled by a microcontroller, which is irrigating the Rose of Jericho. The higher the value the more water is arriving to the plant.”
“Every branch of the Weeping Willow stands for an online friend symbolically and the slope of a single branch is communicating their happiness or sadness. In other words: the happier the friend, the higher the branch will grow. If the branch hangs, it might be a high time to phone or visit him or her. Once a week the branches are sent to the user by post, and the recipient can put together a new tree to the growing forest himself. The branches are cut as construction set by laser-cutting and is sent by post to the user (and…) with a cup of coffee every Sunday you put the branches to the weeping willow together. Carefully you break the botton and the branches from the wooden board. Every branch is individually labelled and has a unique slot in the bottom plate. There is a clear assignment of friend and you can see easily the developing of moods. As weeks go by, a growing forest of weeping willows are collated, manifesting the collective state of one‘s social network.”
Wow. I want one.
NOTE: Apologies for so much paraphrasing, but its such a poetic idea that the artist’s own words do it great justice, and thanks for one of my favourite blogs, infosthetics, for the heads up.
The Revolution Continues…
And I finally get to experience it at the “new” Saatchi gallery in Chelsea. What a great spot! The exhibition is well worth a look – it doesn’t include some of my favourites like Wu Wei (who’s work I saw at the MCA many years ago) but has many brilliant pieces. More on it later!
Glug! London launches its Xmas exhibition with a bang!
The Glug! London event last night was brilliant.
Even better, Paul Rayment (wonderful glue illustrator) won with his neon video:
And old Lateral mate of mine Siaron Hughes came second with her gorgeous little book, where she interviewed her neighbours on what they wanted for Christmas. She’s currently working on a book about the dodgy chicken shops of London – watch this space!
Here are some pics of the event:
All I want for Xmas, Glug! London style
“More Notworking than Networking”, Glug! is a brilliant organisation set up by old glue compatriot Nick Clemant (he of the inexhaustable font collection).
I helped judge the inaugral Xmas competition, and never have I felt so dwarfed by the judging talent – Vaughan Oliver is just my absolute hero for his great work for The Pixies! So much more daunting than jusst having agency bods on the panel!
After finishing the judging only yesterday (over 150 entries!) I’m heading to the event tonight, where I’ll finally get to see the winners!
Fantastic illustrator – Serge Seidlitz
Wandering the Colombia Rd Christmas market tonight and dropped by Nelly Duff, heady with free mulled wine and cheap cava. Bought some great prints here for presents, but this one in particular made me fall in love all over again… Ilustrated by Serge Seidlitz and entitled “Heaven Sent, Hell Bent”.
D&AD eat your heart out! A real yellow pencil artist…
Jennifer Maestre is a South African artist who uses pencil stubs to create lush organic (and slightly fleshy and vaginal) sculptures. I’ve seen this kind of thing before, the technique isn’t new, but the finished pieces are stunning.
Pull out those latex gloves…
Because not since Andy Warhol’s beautifully hand-dyed medical corsets (and the goings on at Torture Garden) has being in hospital been so sexy. Thankyou Franchesca Lanzavecchia.
her tea and cupcake cane is pretty nifty too…
photos by Davide Farabegoli
Lucy McRae + Bart Hess: lucyandbart.
Are showing as part of the Futurotextiel show and research lab in Belgium at the end of the year (“where science, technology and arts, when applied to textiles, draws inspiration from the wildest dreams and invents today what was hoped for tomorrow”).
Lucy and Bart’s website is trés cool too – such a simple morphing device and so effective! Find their blog here.
The modification of the human form through prosthetics and textiles is a fascinating and deeply abject area, and reminds me of some of the lovely Monika T’s early works.
