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Steve Brown’s Drawings: “This drawing was made by Steve Brown, an artist who has a studio in the infamous Phil Mechanic Building of the River Arts District. Apparently he was undergoing an obsession with cowl necked sweaters when he made it.

This charcoal drawing of plastic kudzu was included in the Asheville Art Museum’s Make It New show.

I really like how he used it as a background for this photo.

Here is another example of the same idea.

Steve Brown“

(Via Art Seen Asheville.)

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF RACE BY PLAYMOBIL:

Kirsten D. sent us this link to a series of Playmobil families.  She notes how the families are all racially marked (using racial categories like ‘Asian’ and ’African’ instead of nationality categories like ‘Japanese’ and ‘Somalian’).  The ‘Mediterranean/Hispanic’ category also points to the social construction of race and the way in which social construction varies across cultures (Playmobil are made in Germany).

They families are also racially homogeneous.  In the world of Playmobil (at least how it is sold, though not necessarily how it is played with) there are no interracial families and, therefore, no bi- or multi-racial people.  In this way the toys reify racial categories and naturalize racial matching in relationships.

African/African American Family:

Mediterranean/Hispanic Family:

Asian Family:

Native American Family:

Notice also that all of the families are in contemporary clothes except for the Native American family.  Ethnicized groups are often represented in ‘native’ costume, but this is especially true for American Indians (at least in the U.S.).  It is as if, in the popular imagination, American Indians are extinct; as if there are no American Indians alive today walking around in Nikes (there are).

So, in the world of Playmobil, American Indians are, like Romans, a historical artifact:

Also, because it warrants pointing out, all the female and male children all have gender stereotypical toys.

(Via Sociological Images.)

100 faces:

(Via Chromatouch.)

Software Art for iPhone?: “

At a recent This happened, Simon Oliver (Hand Circus) demonstrated to us the process of creating his iPhone game Rolando. I will write about this more once have the video of the presentation online, but what is very clear is that as a gaming & entertainment platform it is really going to take off. Indie developers can now create applications themselves and sell via the app store direct to a large customer base. Unlike the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP that are closed development & no (official) publishing to ‘bedroom coders’.

I’ve discussed with many people the possibilities of the iPhone as a platform for delivering software art & interactive toys, created by artists & designers. This starts to ask many questions. Who would the target audience be? Would people pay for software art? Why do they buy it?

Something I’ve mentioned in the past about Toshio Iwai’s work for Nintendo DS… ‘Electroplankton is really like an archive of his previous artworks. The tiny creatures reminiscent of Music Insects. Two plankton Lumiloop & Luminaria being portable game versions of his installation Composition on the Table from 1999″.

This took Toshios work to the mass market. Most people bought it without knowing who the artist was, many people also bought it as they were fans of the artist and wanted the work in their pocket.

Also recently I bookmarked SRC, a japanese ‘creative label for screen media’. An interesting approach, like a record label..’Here we will produce, develop, and sell various interactive art / software / video-based projects’. Dropclock, by the talented Yugo Nakamura et al, is released as a free trial but $15 to buy.

So will the iPhone work as a platform for artists? Are you an artist or designer working on something? Leave your comments below.

Here are two people currently adapting their works to iPhone…

Golan Levin

Golan Levin created Yellowtail in 1998-2000. ‘an interactive software system for the gestural creation and performance of real-time abstract animation’. A former student of Golans, Lee Byron (in the photos above), is working on converting this artwork for the iPhone, this time with multi-touch input. Golan will be released via the app store soon for a small fee. Here is a work in progress video.

For the programming readers, Lee has put up a bit of interesting info about the development on his blog. Hopefully this will lead to a Processing or openFrameworks style coding environment for creating iPhone applications, thus easier entry points for developers.

Andreas Muller

Andreas Muller is also working on a port of his popular For All Seasons application. Photos here.

”

(Via Pixelsumo.)

Motion-Extraction-Reanimation Series, a difference perspective on film classics: “
New York based artist Kurt Ralske is a master of visual image manipulation. With his project ‘Motion-Extraction-Reanimation Series‘, the artist reassembles material from various commercial movies such as Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Alphaville’ (1965) and isolates, processes, and animates only the motion content. Ralske treats motion in the films as an “object or surface” where alternate perspectives of a scene are presented simultaneously to produce often ghostly-like images. In particular, the actor’s motions while doing simple actions like drinking coffee are transformed into kinetic surfaces and volumes with dynamic architectural qualities. Although it might be difficult to actually make sense of the narrative progression in these clips, the effect produced is a hypnotic homage to the original filmmaker’s vision.
Jonah Brucker Cohen

(Via Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism.)

SpamWar: The Captcha Lie:

I am a fierce opponent of Captchas from the day they have emerged because I understood from day one there is no solution to the spam problem that involves more barriers and more walls - walls never work over the long term. I also believed that if a human can solve a captcha then a computer can too at one point down the road - as so many other spam fighting systems that were sold to the masses as ‘the perfect solution’ have been tricked. Also I hate captchas myself and recently some of them have become undecipherable even for a human. Some want you to even learn some code to decipher it - something I am not willing to do when I just want to post a quick comment or such. Captchas are one step to take the bidirectional out of the internet.

But all that is mood when there is a huge industry that earns its money solving captchas with human power instead of machine power - and that is apparently already happening in India. For $1,50 you get 1000 human solved captchas - that is a lot for a little. If someone wants to flood a captcha ’secured’ site with spam - and I believe captcha secured sites do not have more barriers as they are captcha believers - then then for $150 they get 100000 accounts - that is probably something that makes them a profit (as the 3% rule of spam states - thats 3000 people buying some overprices viagra or fake rolex watches).

Matt Mullenweg founding developer of wordpress has phrased it greatly:

‘Ultimately Captchas are useless for spam because they’re designed to tell you if someone is ‘human’ or not, but not whether something is spam or not. Just because something came from a real human being doesn’t mean it isn’t spam….’

Read the full article at zdnet its highly interesting.

(Via Life as an Artificial Lifeform.)

A few amazing finds, and a very subjective text:

Magnus von Plessen, Felicity

It is hard for me to imagine a live performance that would have (that I would find to have) the density of some visual art. Yes, I distinguish those quite clearly, mainly by the dilating of senses I experience when watching most performance, as if there was no way of just getting to the point, or points, or of just hitting me with whatever they have. ‘Just’. There is justice in this just, a sense of the right measure, like an object where the proportions feel right. I simply cannot recall a single performance I have seen where the proportions just felt right. It seems time and a live body introduce elements that are somehow completely out of the scope of my spectator experience.
Compare the best you’ve seen on stage to this:

The above images, by the astonishing Tim Hawkinson, are more than powerful: they range from publicity-like to classical sculpture to highly conceptual (the last one is a self-portrait mapping of all the area the artist sees on his own body, the picture before is a Balloon Self-Portrait, a blown-up mold of the artist), and yet each of them seems complete.
Or see these, by Huma Bhabha:


How are we to compete with the perfection of something that is? Another language, you will say. Another state of presence. And yet, the choice of what to lay my eyes on remains. And diversity is no argument, when time after time what is live seems to be disappointing, less thrilling, less surprising, exciting, fresh and bold than what remains there not waiting for the sight. But then again, it is also less exciting than film, which seems only to live when seen!
Indeed, it is perfectly useless to speak of the spectator’s responsibility in all this, when the spectator admits he is not up to it and instead choses something less desperate, even as it may be darker and, at least on the surface, less active.
(Both poor quality reproductions are by Magnus von Plessen)
And yet, after having written all this, I still feel that live art somehow retains an incredible potential. Not because it is live, at least in the sense of having live people in front of you, but rather, in the sense of it being an event, and so, something that remains unexpected, but also unfinished, incomplete, and fragile in its egomaniacal form (’look at me!’). I’m still not sure where this is heading, it remains confused, but it might have something to do with the amazing phenomenon of enjoying something while it is bad, enjoying it because you appreciate it as an event, enjoying the fact that you are in the privileged position of

PS: Here is a picture dedicated to the effort of some colleagues from a theater project that has been on these days:
(The picture is by Amy Stein. I believe the title is Domesticated.)

(Via New Art.)

La la la: “
Fragment of Amelia, a film by Edouard Lock and La la la Human Steps.

Another chapter of the film is here.”

(Via New Art.)

Bright Idea Shade:

Bright Idea Shade from Michael Mandiberg on Vimeo.

 The Bright Idea Shade is a project of the Eyebeam OpenLab, by Sustainability Action Group members Michael Mandiberg and Steve Lambert, with Simon Jolly, Peter Duyan, and Oscar Torres.
We are converting all of our silver tipped incandescent bulbs into CFL
bulbs (as they burn out.) The problem is a bare CFL bulb gives off
harsh light that sometimes prevents people from making the change. So
we set about designing a lampshade for the bulbs. We started with the Universal Polygon Lampshade
and made it fit a CFL bulb, built it out of heat resistant photo
diffuser material (found a diffuser material that could be laser cut,
and built a laser cutter template.)

• See the Instructable
• video on youtube
• Check out the images on flickr

Steal this idea:

The Bright Idea Shade is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Our goal is to get these kits into the hands of decision makers at
retailers and manufacturers like Target, Walmart, Kmart, Ikea, Home
Depot, Bed Bath And Beyond, etc. We have no interest in doing the long
term manufacture & distribution of this project. We are not
business people. The promise of the CC-BY license is that it can go out
in the world and be reproduce by others who have much better
distribution channels and manufacturing expertise.

Originally posted by Michael Mandiberg from Michael Mandiberg’s blog, ReBlogged by Addie Wagenknecht on Aug 19, 2008 at 11:13 PM

(Via Eyebeam reBlog.)

2 videos found by chance: “Star, by Alexander Reyna

Metalosis Maligna, by Floris Kaayk
“

(Via New Art.)

Guerrillas looking for Budapest museum director: “

The site claims:

Position Summary

Museum Director

Director I, Full Time

Monday - Friday, 9:00am - 6:00pm

Hiring Range & Group: 2-4.000 EUR / Month

Closing Date: Open Until Closed

The Ludwig Museum Budapest (LUMÚ) is one of the major Hungarian Museums and exhibition spaces, and holds the most important collection of modern art in Hungary. (…)

Our aim is to create an alternative platform for applicants in order to emphasize the opportunities which lie in this position in order to put LUMÚ on the global map with an internationally recognizable program.

If you wish to apply please send your application (concept) as told below. We do not evaluate but only post all applications on this website.
We hope all decision makers will consider all information collected on this page and will be influenced by your ideas and concepts. We hope they might consider the applicants for the official call. There have been precedents in Hungary where the highest positions have been hijacked by public initiatives in the midst of political status quo. We believe that if you are a sound applicant, you can become the director through public support.

Basically, here is a beautiful case: a group of people really passionate about contemporary art want to have a good museum. So they try to be active. They see that the formal way of solving the issue seems impossible. So they take matters in their own hands, and they announce a pseudo-contest. You can send your candidature, but - and this is the brilliant part - they will not judge it. They will limit themselves to showing those in charge that you exist. And, hopefully, those in charge will take you into consideration when looking for the right person.

Sounds impressive. Guerrillas fighting for justice. Guerrillas who don’t want to take over, only think out-of-the-box to try and open minds. After all, if there are competent, interesting candidates out there, why not present them?
A few things worry me slightly: 1) As of today, there is still no candidature online. People don’t take it seriously? Possibly. Or maybe, they are not ready to take the risk of becoming associated to something that seems quite a rebellious initiative (after all, it does suggest the Museum has a good chance of receiving the director the politicians will nominate, no questions asked)? 2) What can the real force of such an initiative be? Doesn’t it remind you of the rallies that have been so popular these days, say, against the invasion of Iraq? The guerrilla tactics seem more like an interesting phenomenon than an actual force.
Now, the real question might be, what is the strength of this particular utopia?
I hope it does raise the issue of a fair selection. And even if a director is nominated from among the friends and relatives of the Right People, they will have to stand up to the challenge of being compared to the other candidates. The unofficial ones.
What better place to start this sort of initiative than a museum of modern art?
Now, this only works if competent people do send in their proposals. And impress the heck out of everyone.

(via)
”

(Via New Art.)

Manifesta: the Chernobyl’d Matrioska: ”

A Matrioska suffering from acute radiation sickness.

Jaime Pitarch. Chernobyl (2007). Lime tree wood, aniline, oil, varnish

A work by Jaime Pitarch for The Rest of Now, an exhibition which runs until November 2 in an ex-aluminium factory in Bolzano, Italy, as part of the Manifesta Biennale.

”

(Via we make money not art.)

Top 10 Killer Photoshop Combo Moves: “

Tom Giannattasio of Smashing Magazine asks, ‘Is time kickin’ your ass?’ and offers his Top 10 Killer Photoshop Combo Moves to help you defend yourself! Unfortunately, in spite of its accompanying graphic depicting a MacBook Pro, the article assumes you’re using Photoshop CS3 on Windows. If you mentally replace ‘Ctrl’ with ‘Command’ and ‘Alt’ with ‘Option,’ you should be fine.

These tips should help keyboard shortcut fanatics save even more time. If you have any trouble getting any of these to work, please feel free to comment.

[ Via twitt(url)y ]

”

(Via Clippings.)

Anita Jain’s Marrying Anita: ”

“

(Via 3quarksdaily.)

Originally from Pruned on August 25, 2008, 8:24pm

Constant Dullaart’s series “YouTube as Subject” plays with the image of the arrow-in-a-square button that appears in an embedded YouTube video. When clicked, Dullaart’s videos retain their initial black backgrounds, but the arrow-buttons remain, plummeting, strobing, trembling, or turning into a mini-disco light show. In true YouTube spirit, Ben Coonley recently posted his own series as response, this time appropriating the spinning wheel of dots that eager viewers need to sit through as a video loads—in keeping with his longstanding interest in media breakdowns and frustrations. Coonley’s dot-wheel now drifts off into the distance, accelerates rotation, and (betraying Coonley’s Providence-scene roots) expands into a psychedelic black-and-white OpArt swirl. Better not put off watching Dullaart and Coonley’s ‘tubed conversation, however. Cory Arcangel’s Blue Tube, made only last year, has quickly become near-obsolete. Back then, YouTube embedded a logo bug in the corner of its videos, and Blue Tube simply turned that logo blue. Now, however, after its host site’s redesign, it doesn’t always function in quite the right way. Who knows how long our friends arrow-button and spinning-wheel-thingy will last? - Ed Halter

Image: Constant Dullaart, “YouTube Disco” from the series “YouTube as Subject”, 2008

Originally from Rhizome.org on August 25, 2008, 6:00am

Originally from 3quarksdaily on August 24, 2008, 11:00pm

I found this collection of vintage ads at the Mail online:

When I was copying the website link, I noticed that this story was in the “Femail” section. There’s the homepage, of course, and then there’s “News,” “Sport,” “TV&Showbiz,” “Health,” “Science&Tech,” etc. etc., and then there’s “Femail,” the section targeted at women. It seems to be mostly fashion with some mother-daughter stories of various types. I wish sometime I’d see a magazine (or magazine section) aimed at women that didn’t see “women’s issues” and science/technology/news/sport/etc. as completely different topics.

I did like this story about elephants doing math, though.

Originally by gwen from Sociological Images on August 25, 2008, 10:06am

left: The Oramic Machine
right: Daphne Oram in 1962
A lesser known but important contributor in the field of ‘drawn’ electronic music is British composer Daphne Oram who worked at the legendary BBC Radiophonic workshop in the late 1950’s. Oram dreamed of making a machine that directly translated graphical notation into sound and this dream came to [...]

Originally by paul from dataisnature.com on August 25, 2008, 11:06am

A

Originally by chromatouch from Chromatouch on April 30, 2008, 8:10am