for your amusement

As I was surfing the World-Wide-Web this afternoon, I found a pretty entertaining website; it's photos of "one of more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion."  I suggest you scope it out:


http://www.sleeveface.com/

for your amusement

Best Defense Against Rain and Villains

I have decided now that I live in rainy London I must prepare myself for this dismal landscape on these bleak winter days.  To prepare myself properly, I've chosen to arm myself with nothing other than an umbrella that looks like an ancient Japanese weapon...

Let me present to you, ladies and gentlemen (future water warriors), the Samurai Umbrella.  It is available online and will guarantee keeping you dry and suggest to passersby that yes, they type of heat you pack is in fact of the sword variety.  
In a city where any number of crazy, unhinged characters are walking around with bags and trench coats concealing all manner of smart-phones and weaponry, you'll be taking the high road: you umbrella merely resembles a sword! You'll set out in the morning with it slung over your shoulder, bandolier-style, a sheathed enigma of questionable purpose.  As you charge forward toward your impending merger discussion, you'll strike fear into the hearts of villains (and small children), prompt attention from customer service representatives and you lads may compel admiring glances from damsels in distress.  This, again, is because they think you have a sword...


As a note of caution, I don't suggest you actually put your brolly (as we call it in England) to nefarious uses -- this is London afterall and sometimes the other guy really does have a sword...
But let's see him stay dry with that! HA!

Best Defense Against Rain and Villains

a welsh eco-home

Oh my goodness, look at this amazing hobbit house--and it's for real. A Welsh man built it himself, along with his father-in-law, and now he lives there with his wife and two little sons. And it only cost about £60/sqm excluding labour which is ridiculously cheap for a new home.  What a magical place to grow up! (Can you imagine ordering a pizza there?!) The father made a website which has in-depth descriptions of how he  built it, plans, ideas, etc. for his low impact woodland home! :)

a welsh eco-home

Home!

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.  I LOVE this.

Home!

dancing boxes

Box Animation from Jordan Clarke on Vimeo.

dancing boxes

how to help

It's heart-wrenching to read about the current situation in Haiti. Here are some easy links to help out. It takes just a few clicks!:

Mercy Corps

Red Cross

OR  just text "90999" and a donation of $10 will be given to the Red Cross and charged to your cell phone bill.

xx

how to help

Lingering Whispers

For who can wonder that man should feel a vague belief in tales of disembodied spirits wandering through those places which they once dearly affected, when he himself, scarcely less separated from his old world than they, is for ever lingering upon past emotions and bygone times, and hovering, the ghost of his former self, about the places and people that warmed his heart of old? [Charles Dickens]

Does self expression flourish under pressure? Is creativity at it’s most acute in times of social, political and financial crises? More than anything do the Arts provide hope during periods of extreme difficulty?

The Great Depression in the 1930’s saw Hollywood enter its Golden Age, a period many still describe as the Imperial Era of cinema. On the eve of WWII in 1939 MGM created Gone with the Wind, still one of the most successful films of all time. The Wizard of Oz, released the same year, became one of the most famous moving pictures ever made and Judy Garland’s rendition of Over the Rainbow has been voted the greatest American movie song of all time by the American Film Institute. Extravagant colour and elaborate sets delighted millions, timeless in their invention and splendour while the music, choreography and elaborate costumes of this period all became instant classics, both on celluloid and stage.

So now, while the financial world alleges we are once again in the midst of a grave depression, could art once more succeed and exceed beyond all limits, providing a platform where all channels of creativity might flourish, stimulate and inspire?

With this in mind, Lingering Whispers has been born. An exhibition comprising over 30 international artists hunting for alternative ways of expression during this crisis. Art and fashion will merge into one, both stage and catwalk, conscious and subconscious combined where imagination will be celebrated and the pigeonholed eliminated. Contemporary artists, poets, performers, fashion designers and photographers will unite in sharing their unspoken vanities, intoxicating fantasies, illusions, longings, dreams and desires. Lingering Whispers is about experiencing, not inert viewing. Art as a stage rather than four blank gallery walls. A glamorous, exquisite alternative to darkness and gloom.

Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high, there’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby…

Curated by Predrag Pajdic and produced by Virginie Puertolas-Syn with:

Dom Agius, Errikos Andreu, Barney Ashton, Milijana Babic, Joachim Baldauf, Stefania Bonatelli, Wren Britton, Carolyn Cowan, Fran Dileo, Devin Elijah, Manuel Estevez, Roberto Foddai, Al Giga, Frances Goodman, Christophe Haleb, Katharina Hesse, Daniel Holfeld, Kobi Israel, Pascale Lafay, Scooter Laforge, Emiliano Lazzarotto, Mark Mander, Tupac Martir, Katarina Mootich, Maflohé Passedouet, Petra Reimann, Ricci/Forte, Yvonne De Rosa, Mauro Santucci, Erick Soler, Tapio Snellman, Wolfgang Stiller, Christopher Stribley, Jannis Tsipoulanis & Cyrille Weiner.

1 curator; 1 producer; 35 international artists, designers, photographers, performers; 1 exhibition; 5 events; 1 website; 200  full colour pages catalogue; 150 photographs; 5 video installations; 1 light spectacle, 5 3D installations; 5 live performances; spectacular venue; parties, glamour, fashion, jewellery, champagne, magic, dreams… lingering whispers…

Images: © Daniel Holfeld, All That Openeth The Womb Is Mine, 2010
a selection from the photographic series commissioned for Lingering Whispers

Text: © Predrag Padjic for the Pandorian

Lingering Whispers
06 May – 06 June 2010
Opening reception on the 6 May 2010 from 6.30pm
Crypt, St Pancras Church
London NW1 2BA, United Kingdom

Lingering Whispers

Why they do what they do...?!

Worth a listen...

Why they do what they do...?!

Anselm Reyle: Acid Mother's Temple at Kunsthalle Tübingen

If you are in Germany...2 days left to see ANSELM REYLE at Kunsthalle Tübingen !


Under the scintillating title "Acid Mother's Temple", the Kunsthalle Tübingen announces a comprehensive exhibition of the internationally successful artist Anselm Reyle. Reyle, who was born in Tübingen in 1970 and now lives in Berlin, has transformed the halls of the Museum on the Philosophenweg into a psychedelic meta-artwork.
The works of Anselm Reyle creates in his Berlin atelier have long found their way into influential collections and outstanding museums throughout the world. Now Reyle, a Professor at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg, is paying a visit to Tübingen where in 1970 he was born into the milieu of the student movement. While an exhibition of his lately works is currently being shown at the Gagosian Gallery in New York, the Kunsthalle Tübingen is now displaying an extensive collection of his work. The mesmerizing title of the exhibition, "Acid Mother's Temple", already foreshadows that visitors will be treated to more than just a line up of artwork.

Anselm Reyle: Acid Mother's Temple at Kunsthalle Tübingen

get some music in your life today:

play with this...
A collaborative music and spoken word project allows any viewer to play video/audio samples simultaneously. Amazingly the soundtracks work together and using the youtube volume controls you can actual mix them in real time. 


http://wwww.inbflat.net/

get some music in your life today:

Nick Veasey!

Nick Veasey's show at Maddox Arts (52 Brook's Mews LONDON W1K 4ED) is extended until this Saturday the 9th! Go check out his work - its very cool.  This is his first UK Gallery solo exhibition and combines new and recent works as well as celebrating the publication of X-Ray, a full-length catalogue of his work to date.  He did a bunch of special commissions for the gallery space, correlating the work with specific areas of the gallery space, which explore several intriguing areas. 


Philosophically speaking....Veasey's ideas might be connected to the ideas of Lucretius who gave an account of the Universe in terms of atomic physics in his book 'On the Nature of the Universe'; in the beginning of book four, Lucretius expanded on the forms, effigies, membranes and films. These visible films, membranes and shadows of objects, Lucretius believed, have no real existence set apart and separate from the solids and perish instantly when withdrawn. Lucretius concluded: ‘All nature as it is in itself, consists of two things: there are bodies and there is void in which these bodies are and through which they move’. I think it is at this point - this statement - where the two connect, as Veasey recreates visually that liminal void in which things seem to be trapped..

Veasey uses equipment designed to investigate for cancer and search for bombs to create art of outstanding beauty and complexity.  The work is produced in a challenging and dangerous environment where he often uses high levels of radiation to capture these ethereal compositions. Fifteen years experimentation with X-ray has created a rare talent to peel open objects to reveal startling layers of wonder .  The invisible becomes visible. By revealing what goes on inside and stripping away familiar surface detailing, Veasey’s works make us question the basic values of form and function. These X ray's by Nick Veasey challenge our discernment regarding a number of issues such as exactitude, physicality, beauty and sublimity. But, perhaps the final pursuit in Veasey’s images departs - or concludes - from the assumption that our complex material reality cannot be described by standard visual conventions.

 

Nick Veasey!

death star

A star primed to explode in a BLAST that could wipe out the Earth was revealed by astronomers yesterday!!!! (photo above via NASA)
It will self-destruct in an explosion called a supernova with the force of 20 billion billion billion megatons of TNT.

New studies show the star, called T Pyxidis, is much closer than previously thought at 3,260 light-years away - a short hop in galactic terms.
They said the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite has shown them that T Pyxidis is really two stars, one called a white dwarf that is sucking in gas and steadily growing. When it reaches a critical mass it will blow itself to pieces.

It will become as bright as all the other stars in the galaxy put together and shine like a beacon halfway across the universe.

The experts said the Hubble space telescope has photographed the star gearing up for its big bang with a series of smaller blasts or "burps", called novas. These explosions came regularly about every 20 years from 1890 - but stopped after 1967. So the next blast is nearly 20 years overdue, said scientists Edward M Sion, Patrick Godon and Timothy McClain at the American Astronomical Society in Washington. Robin Scagell, vice-president of the UK's Society for Popular Astronomy, said last night: "The star may certainly became a supernova soon - but soon could still be a long way off so don't have nightmares." PHEW!

There are some really rad photos online; and read the Scientific American Article HERE

death star