By Rob Beschizza at 4:56 am Friday, May 25
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Jeffrey Stephenson made a beautiful Mondrian PC enclosure.
Mondrian is a fanless mini-ITX case design made from wood and hand-cut acrylic tiles. Fresh air is drawn into the case after passing through the exposed heatsink finning. An 80mm CPU fan is mounted under the heatsink and acts as a combo CPU/case fan.
Specific inspirations (including the famous Yves Saint Laurent dress) and a build report at the above link!
By Cory Doctorow at 1:00 pm Thursday, May 24
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Sculptor Jim Rosenau's "Reading Chair" is a 6" high piece made from volumes from an old Funk & Wagnall's and some blunt pencils. It's the perfect chair for a bookish gnome. I've featured Jim's work here before.
Reading Chair
(via Bookshelf)
By Matt Richardson at 2:21 pm Wednesday, May 23
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Visitors to the ITP spring show were greeted by a sign designed by Trent RohnerAs a graduate student at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, I’m constantly surrounded with astounding creativity from my fellow students, who come from a wide array of disciplines. I’m working among musicians, architects, archeologists, lawyers, designers, physicists, and much more. Our commonality is that we all want to use technology in creative ways.
Twice a year, ITP opens its doors to the public for a gallery-style showing of the best student work from the semester. It’s a chance for non-ITP’ers to get a small taste of our flavor of creativity and a feeling for what we’re all about. The ITP Spring Show wrapped last week and was a huge success. Before the show opened, I ran around the floor and took photos of a few projects that give a good idea of what the program is about.
I’m sure a rocking chair is not what you’d expect to see from a technology program. But Chairish, Annelie Berner’s rocking chair for two is the work product for a class called Design for Digital Fabrication. Using CAD software, Annelie went through many design and prototyping iterations. Eventually, she cut the design out of plywood with a computer-controlled (CNC) router. The pieces are held together with threaded rod and nuts to make a chair for sharing.
Read the rest
By Cory Doctorow at 4:19 pm Tuesday, May 22
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Netherlands artist Suzanne Jongmans has created a series of portraits in the style of the Dutch Masters, creating the costumes out of soft packing foam sheets. She needs to team up with the artist who creates 15th century Flemish self-portraits using airplane toilet tissue and seat-covers. Together, they will rule the atemporal world.
Referring to both vulnerability and impermanence, I am investigating the texture and feel of both the present and past. Since 2007 I have been working on the series 'foam sculptures': caps and collars, inspired by 16th and 17th century paintings, made from materials currently used for packaging and insulation. This is also an inferior material which is often discarded after use.
By using this material I make a reference to consumerism and the rapid circulation of materials. With these foam sculptures, but also an i-pod, a tattoo and a foot in plaster, we end up in the 21st century.
The portraits are a certain reference to Holbein, Clouet, Vermeer and Holland's Golden Age.
It is no coincidence. In fact, in the 16th and 17th century, laid the foundations for photography.
Call it the prehistory of photography. It appears that the artists have used photographic images, they could not yet capture. In fact, there was the phenomenon of photography so much earlier. This is an atavism of the Golden Age and the early days of the invention of photography.
I use the elements in the present as in the past, the objects in my work are used as symbols
of values. I mutate old costumes into new plastics and old masters in new photographic works.
By using time foreign materials, plastics and techno's, I am creating a time crux, a tension of time.
Suzanne Jongmans
(via Neatorama)
By Cory Doctorow at 3:01 pm Tuesday, May 22
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Artist Annie Vought produces remarkable pieces by carefully handwriting texts on huge sheets of paper and then painstakingly carving away all the non-inked parts with a very, very sharp knife.
I work primarily with cut paper and communication through writing. I believe handwritten records are fragments of individual histories– expressions of self that very much bring forth the truth of our inner lives. In the penmanship, word choice, and spelling the author is revealed in spite of him/herself. A letter is physical confirmation of who we were at the moment it was written, or all we have left of a person or a period of time. I also think a lot about the relationship between the public and the private, or more specifically about how the private side of ourselves can be made public. I want to be respectful of people, but I recognize that I’m actively exposing them through their written communications. But in the exposure is a vulnerability we all share. I’m interested in human relationships, overall— the ones we have with ourselves and others.
new cut paper messages by annie vought (Designboom)
Annie Vought (In the Make)
(via Colossal)
By Rob Beschizza at 8:01 am Tuesday, May 22
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Hilla Shamia creates beautiful, weird furniture by placing logs inside molds and filling them with molten aluminum: "The negative factor of burnt wood is transformed into aesthetic and emotional value by preservation of the natural form of the tree trunk, within explicit boundaries. The general, squared form intensifies the artificial feeling, and at the same time keeps the memory of the material." [via Design Milk]
By Cory Doctorow at 12:00 pm Monday, May 21
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Here's Neil Gaiman's commencement address to Philadelphia's University of the Arts, who awarded him an honorary doctorate. It's a wonderful talk on being an artist and pursuing a career in the arts.
I'm getting an honorary doctorate in Computer Science from the Open University next month, and I've been boiling my brain to come up with my own speech -- this has really raised the bar.
Gaiman addresses the graduating class
By Cory Doctorow at 10:00 am Monday, May 21
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A pair of Toronto neighbours, Elly Dowson and Christine Liber, set out to cover the coach-house doors in their laneway with awesome murals. This was in the context of an edict from Toronto's dipshit mayor, Rob Ford, who has instituted fines for property owners who don't remove graffiti from their premises. Dowson and Liber figured taggers would be less likely to go after murals, and that their project would also beautify their neighbourhood.
Elly and Christine delivered flyers along their street – they offered to paint resident’s garages with art. The service was offered free of charge, and the paint was generously donated by Maple Paints on St. Clair Avenue West. Responding to the flyer, residents who share the laneway between Kenwood Avenue and Wychwood Avenue began to grant permission to have their garages turned into ‘urban art’. Elly and Christine got to work.
Some of the art was created through stencils, some of the paintings were inspired by artists like Miro, Keith Haring and Mark Rothko, and some were original creations. Soon, the ‘urban art’ initiative started to gain momentum – with good weather on their side, Elly and Christine painted 21 garages in 21 days. Some of the residents had a ton of graffiti, and some had none at all – but everyone agreed that the art might be a great way to minimize future graffiti.
The Kenwood/Wychwood laneway has become a living art gallery. The new art quickly became a destination within the neighbourhood – there was a noticeable increase in foot and bicycle traffic, making for a safer laneway. The initiative not only galvanized the street, but the laneway became a source of pride and has helped build a sense of community.
Elly was once my babysitter -- this is so cool.
The Kenwood Lane Art Initiative: 21 Garages in 21 Days
Flickr slideshow
(via Torontoist, thanks Mom!)
By Sarina Frauenfelder at 6:30 pm Friday, May 18
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Last weekend I went to Shag the Store in Palm Springs, California. A variety of art pieces by Shag were for sale, along with paintings up for a charity auction by artists who painted live at Coachella. Handbags, art books, home décor, and other items were also being sold. It was fun to walk around and view the art. You should definitely check it out if you’re in Palm Springs! (See below for Shag swag giveaway details).
See photos and giveaway details
By Cory Doctorow at 11:18 am Friday, May 18
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Jeremy Mayer, the titan of typewriter-part sculptures, has sacrificed some more old beasts for a good cause, producing this wonderful 9"x12"x15" skull.
Skull I
(Thanks, Jeremy)
By Mark Frauenfelder at 10:54 am Friday, May 18
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Gweek podcast guest Kevin Mack and Snow Mack have an art opening this Saturday at the Barbara Mendes Gallery in Los Angeles. I love their work.
Snow was in the 25th Anniversary show of La Luz de Jesus in 2011. Her painting, "Cheesy Rider" is included in the book La Luz de Jesus 25, The Little Gallery That Could.
Kevin Mack is a pioneering Digital Artist and Academy Award winning Visual Effects Designer. He received the Oscar for his work on the film "What Dreams May Come."
Inspired by visions, dreams and imagination, Kevin uses a variety of digital tools and processes to create psychoactive objects of contemplation that dissolve traditional boundaries of medium, style and genre. Kevin's work is focused on philosophical, spiritual and scientific imponderables.
Kevin Mack and Snow Mack art show in LA
By Mark Frauenfelder at 10:45 am Friday, May 18
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The infamous art collective / brand, LA-GO has a show at Known Gallery in LA opening on May 26. It's called Legolize it, and features marijuana plants made from plastic hobby construction bricks.
By Rob Beschizza at 2:46 am Friday, May 18
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Jed Henry paints Nintendo heroes in Ukiyo-e style. Here's Link about to find out that arrows are futile against enenra. [via Gamovr]
By Mark Frauenfelder at 1:58 pm Wednesday, May 16
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Michael Simmons of Fretboard Journal says:
Today is the 59th anniversary of Django Reinhardt's death. To honor him, I posted images of a guitar that I had Robert Armstrong paint for me years ago. The top features Django in heaven, the back has a street scene of Django and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France (The fifth member is using the pissoir on the right) and the sides show various scenes from Django's life. (Yes, he did have a pet monkey.) When I first asked him if he would paint this guitar for me he said no. This was back in 1996 when people were painting their electric guitars with heavy metal images like skulls and devils and that’s what he thought I was asking for. But when I said I had a Selmer copy I wanted decorated with scenes from Django’s life he said, “Well, why didn’t you say so?’” It took Armstrong and me a few months to decide on the basic visual elements (finding a photo of an authentic Parisian pissoir proved to be particularly challenging) and then it took him about a year to finish the painting. The guitar is playable and still sounds pretty good but I don’t like to pick it for fear of damaging the paint. The guitar proved to be something of an inspiration to Armstrong and he has since gone on to produce a line of painted ukuleles.
Robert Armstrong's painted Django guitar
By Cory Doctorow at 11:00 am Tuesday, May 15
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Marc Jacobs's SoHo boutique was graffitied by Kidult, who painted ART in giant pink letters across the storefront. Jacobs had the graffiti photographed, removed, and printed on a t-shirt, which he offered for sale for $689, or "Signed by the artist, $680."
Earlier this week, on the night of the Met Ball, the Marc Jacobs boutique in SoHo was hit by French graffiti artist Kidult, who has famously vandalized Supreme, Hermes, and Louis Vuitton, among others. The hit? Kidult took a fire extinguisher filled with pink paint, and sprayed the word ART over the front of the store (seen above).
As a crew cleaned it up the next morning and Kidult took to Twitter to brag, Marc Jacobs and his canny reps turned the stunt on its head, capitalizing on the graffiti artist’s own work to the benefit of their own marketing: By Tweeting it out as “Art by Art Jacobs” and Instagramming an ‘artsy’ picture of it. Kidult, clearly on the scene, tried to make his presence known, but it was too late: Jacobs had won that one.
Update: Aaand now Wilfry is selling a $35 "meta-tee." (Thanks, Emily!)
Marc Jacobs vs. The Graffiti Artist, Round 2: When Jacobs Turns Vandalized Store Into $680 Shirt
(via Kottke)
