Shot in the back of the head

Shot In The Back Of The Head from Moby on Vimeo.

Moby has teamed up with director/producer David Lynch; best known for Elephant Man, Mulholand Drive, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks etc to produce this very quirky animation.

Big Bambu

Named so after the infamous Cheech and Chong Album, this extraordinary two year undertaking by the Starn brothers has to be seen to be believed. Using (currently 2000) bamboo poles the artists and their team of assistants have assembled a continuously morphing structure that moves, envelopes and evolves along the length of their enormous studio. The entire process which involves deconstructing the trailing edge and reconstructing the leading edge, is documented, and the resulting photographic montage will show an image of a construction that never existed in its exhibited state.
See the first part of the interview with the artists at
http://vernissage.tv/blog/2009/04/09/mike-doug-starn-big-bambu-talk-part-12/
and see more at
http://www.starnstudio.com/

Oasis

OASIS (HD) - sand from yunsil heo on Vimeo.

A surface covered with black sand turns into a pool full of life when people grab and remove a handful of sand away. In this micro-world, virtual creatures are born, live and perish.They recognize their spatial boundaries and obstacles of living and respond to peoples' touch in various ways.
A real-time computer vision engine has been developed to interpret the physical status of diverse materials of the installation. The program populates creatures with various characteristics and controls their behaviors in real-time. A swarm intelligence has been implemented to simulate the flocking behaviors of the creatures and their life-like motions.

'Oasis I' used various natural materials: sand, pebbles, water & leaves.
The major interaction people can enjoy with is shaping a pond and watching creatures staying in it. People enjoyed shaping complicated territories, making canals between large ponds or trapping creatues in small areas. Also, creatures are designed to avoid pebbles that people placed inside the pond area and get surprised when people make a loud noise by dropping pebbles.

American Streamlined Design

A time warp exhibition of the best of classic product design from the Wolfsonian Museum.

My Secret Heart

A taster video of the debut launch of this amazing operatic performance which took place at the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday 3rd December 2008.

My Secret Heart is a new commission by Streetwise Opera (www.streetwiseopera.org) of a music and film installation written by electronic composer and Warp artist Mira Calix, video artists Flat-e and sound designer Dave Sheppard.
The have worked with around 80-100 Streetwise performers from across the UK to create a unique work that will be shown around the world.
The new piece is inspired by the Allegris 17th-century choral work Miserere Mei, a piece so protected by the Vatican that they put an embargo on it. Mira Calix and Flat-e have used the theme of secrecy to explore movements and singing with Streetwise's participants to create this new century-leaping work.
The installation will also tour to galleries and festivals across the world through 2009.
For more visit http://mysecretheart.co.uk

Road Movie

Looking for an interesting approach to collaborative work for your students?......

Frieze Film 2008: Road Movie is a four-part film created by artists and film-makers that was produced on YouTube. An experiment in film-making, the final result was a film made in an entirely new way: the first multi-authored fractal film assembled by the artists and curator out of the sum of the submitted parts.

Inspired by Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel The Road, the project used the road as a leitmotif for a non-linear journey through the post-apocalyptic landscape.

Delicate Boundaries

Just when you thought code based art couldn't get any closer to the edge; check out the following from Christine Sugrue. 'Delicate Boundaries' is an interactive work where small bug like lights move out from the computer screen onto the bodies of the viewer.


Delicate Boundaries from csugrue on Vimeo.

The State of Play

Although a little off topic, I found this quite an extraordinary viewing experience. It's essentially centered around a recent initiative focused on music education in Britain. Some very salient points are made that could apply to a number of educational scenarios. Once again with Ken Robinson center stage.

Wayne Martin Belger

While many pinhole cameras are simple boxes, Wayne Martin Belger, artist, machinist and photographer, designs and manufactures pinhole cameras that are functional photographic instruments, created with a specific subject in mind and at the same time are sculptured works of art.

Belger is a man who knows his own heart and who intends to express that knowledge regardless of outside commentary. Swimming against the powerful stream of popular notions, he brings his personal visions to reality.

He states on his website http://boyofblue.com, “The creation of a camera comes from my desire to relate to a subject. When I choose a subject I spend time studying it. Then I start visualizing how I would like a photo of the subject to look. When that’s figured out, I start on the camera stage of the project by collecting parts, artifacts and relics that relate to the subject.”

Some of the materials that go into the creation of his cameras may include, “…aluminum, titanium, copper, brass, bronze, steel, silver, gold, mercury, wood, acrylic, glass, horn, ivory, bone, human bone, human skulls, human organs, formaldehyde, HIV+ blood… all designed to be the sacred bridge of a communion offering between myself and the subject.”...........

Double Exposure

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types…

Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."