Patti Smith, songwriter, singer, poet, writer, and generally wise punk lady, has a few words of wisdom for young artists and creatives. I find her perspective refreshing: you are only as good as your name, and that asset is your currency. Couldn’t agree more. Thanks for sharing, Patti.
-Ben
Justin hinted today about that long-rumored new music, which comes something like 85 years too late. (No more movies for a while? It’s okay; you tried that.) What I love about this announcement—which neglected to offer any hint of actual music, rumored as of last night—is that he explains himself. Not that he needed to. It was classy and in touch, which a lot of other pop entertainers are not. Good move.
I understand where he’s coming from. If you can afford the time to sit on yourself and let your creation speak to you, then you should only produce when it makes sense. If you can’t, like most of us down here in Realityville, we must produce what we must, when we must. Still, not bad that we get to at all.
Listening to inanimate things—not to mention YOUR ART! WACKY!—talk to you sounds like a bunch of malarkey, I know. It sounds like you’re a crazy person who talks to his hands when your mittens are on. I don’t know where that example came from, but I suppose it’s just hypothetical, okay!?
I know that when I feel myself talking to myself, I follow it. Even if it takes me to moody caverns or dimly lit recording studios. I just go for it. Sometimes it’s a brighter spot, where your work is illuminated so strongly you cannot cannot cannot will not shove it in a drawer or journal. Sometimes your work tells you when it’s ready. And that’s when it’s the best, I think. Because it’s ready.
Watch Justin’s quick vid about “the ready” above. After that, jump onto this creative manifesto from Alan Watts that’s circulated your WIFI for a while. Both videos came to my attention today. Coincidence? I dunno. But I gotta make something. See you later.
-Ben
French photographer Laurent Chehere, once known for his award-winning commercial ad work for heavyweights like Audi and Nike, left advertising after a change of heart. Hoping to pursue more personal passions with his work, he travelled the world, documenting it in stops across Asia, South America, and everywhere in between. Along the way, “Flying Houses” was born, a whimsical collection of buildings removed from both their backdrop and grounding. It’s a fantastical effort of isolating the uniqueness of these buildings that may, more often than not, get lost in the shuffle of a brighter skyline or tidier facade.
See more of Chehere’s work here.
- Maggie
Dieter Rams looks back on his career in this short documentary from publisher Gestalten. Released a while back in conjunction with the publication of Less is More, it’s a nice compliment to the immense Rams collection. Always a nice treat to refresh one’s self on Ram’s Ten Principles for Good Design (which Patrick posted about earlier in the year after a trip to SFMOMA).
Elsewhere, a quick related (though old-ish) read: Dieter Rams, Jonathan Ives and the evolution of Apple design.
- Maggie
From “We Don’t Work - We Play,” a recent German typography exhibition. See more here.
- Maggie
Attention party people! (Attention slightly more solitary people who like to create electronic music in the quiet of their own homes!):
DYSKOGRAF is a graphic disk reader. Each disc is created by visitors to the installation by way of felt tip pens provided for their use. The mechanism then reads the disk, translating the drawing into a musical sequence.
The installation is above all a tool, which allows the creation of musical sequences in an intuitive way. The notion of a loop, closely linked to electronic music, is represented here by the cycle of the disk. The disk passes indefinitely in front of a camera fixed onto an arm. This substitution for the needle converts the drawing into sound by way of a specific application program (software). Through this system, the sequential ordering of music is learnt in a playful way, at the same time creating a unique object, souvenir of the musical composition.
The numeric world is a world of binary choice. The object of DYSKOGRAF is to give room again for accidents in numeric creation, accidents that often favour creativity.
- Maggie
Shantanu Starick is a young Australian photographer paying his way around the globe solely by use of his trade. In exchange for food, transportation, and a place to sleep, Starick offers his photography and editing skills to any subject in need of a close up. The result, then, is Pixel Trade, the lovely site where Starick catalogs the products of his photo-couch-surfing endeavor. Take a look; Starick has quite a beautiful, clever system going over there.
[Photo credit: Pixel Trade / Shantanu Starick]
- Maggie
![For $20, Israeli inventor Izhar Gafni hopes to change the world - or at least the way it carries itself. While other engineers concentrate on solar power and streamlined budget airlines, Ganfi is getting at personal transportation from a “more green/less frills” sort of angle: a recyclable cardboard bicycle.
Speaking to several Israeli engineers about his idea, Gafni became familiar with the inevitable response: “It’s impossible.” And yet, several years later, Gafni has done it. Through an exhaustive process of trial and error, the inventor learned he could increase the weight bearing capabilities of pulp cardboard threefold by employing the principles of traditional Japanese origami.
The frame is then treated with a mix of coating materials for a fire and water proof exterior, while the tires are constructed from the recycled rubber of old car tires, making them difficult to puncture, according to the inventor. And even if the low-maintenance bike (which is built to hold up to 485 lbs) wears down, its low cost makes it easier to replace after a year or so of use. “So you buy one, use it for a year, and […] if it breaks, you can take it back to the factory and recycle it,” Gafni’s partner said. It is, after all, cardboard.
This is really fascinating, and could obviously make an enormous difference in cities with a large population unable to afford a more expensive traditional bike frame. And I would think it could be useful for university campuses as well, as a sort of super cheap bike fleet rental available for green campus transport. I’m curious to see how well the bike frame does hold up, or if there are any consequences to it’s light weight - it’s 10 pounds lighter than the typical 20 pound bike frame. Would that cause problems for a rider on a windy day?
Would you ride a cardboard bike? If it holds up, I definitely would!
See the story in video here.
- Maggie
[Photo credit: Baz Ratner / Reuters]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mc3htfXf1U1qiwo8xo1_1280.jpg)
For $20, Israeli inventor Izhar Gafni hopes to change the world - or at least the way it carries itself. While other engineers concentrate on solar power and streamlined budget airlines, Ganfi is getting at personal transportation from a “more green/less frills” sort of angle: a recyclable cardboard bicycle.
Speaking to several Israeli engineers about his idea, Gafni became familiar with the inevitable response: “It’s impossible.” And yet, several years later, Gafni has done it. Through an exhaustive process of trial and error, the inventor learned he could increase the weight bearing capabilities of pulp cardboard threefold by employing the principles of traditional Japanese origami.
The frame is then treated with a mix of coating materials for a fire and water proof exterior, while the tires are constructed from the recycled rubber of old car tires, making them difficult to puncture, according to the inventor. And even if the low-maintenance bike (which is built to hold up to 485 lbs) wears down, its low cost makes it easier to replace after a year or so of use. “So you buy one, use it for a year, and […] if it breaks, you can take it back to the factory and recycle it,” Gafni’s partner said. It is, after all, cardboard.
This is really fascinating, and could obviously make an enormous difference in cities with a large population unable to afford a more expensive traditional bike frame. And I would think it could be useful for university campuses as well, as a sort of super cheap bike fleet rental available for green campus transport. I’m curious to see how well the bike frame does hold up, or if there are any consequences to it’s light weight - it’s 10 pounds lighter than the typical 20 pound bike frame. Would that cause problems for a rider on a windy day?
Would you ride a cardboard bike? If it holds up, I definitely would!
See the story in video here.
- Maggie
[Photo credit: Baz Ratner / Reuters]
What’s up, science? A group of biologist have begun to study patterns in algae data through music. It’s nothing wildly practical, but it’s nonetheless super nerdy cool:
Larsen and his colleagues created different compositions to represent different aspects of their data. For example, the tune “Bloom” illustrates how some algae species bloom occasionally, becoming much more abundant for short periods of time.
“The melody is the abundance of microbial species - low notes correspond to lower abundances, and high notes correspond to higher abundances,” Larsen told LiveScience. “Chord progression is taken from physical parameters — day length, chlorophyll concentration in the water. When we combine those two, we select a note in the chosen octave that is in harmony with the chord that associates with the physical parameters.”
Bacterial theme music! The song starting at :45 feels like it could be the theme to a single camera sitcom - something involving a loveably hapless algae schlub as he navigates the salty waters of life and love. Talgaevision gold.
- Maggie
LAW (“Lives and Works”) is a bi-annual magazine hailing from Brighton, UK. A ”portrayal of the beautiful everyday,” LAW sees style everywhere.
Our preliminary concern is documenting the overlooked and giving people a sense of belonging and recognition that perhaps they wouldn’t normally receive but in no way, shape, or form less deserve. Style tribes who may not be at the forefront of fashion but have a very particular aesthetic in their own right.
We are interested in making fashion accessible by challenging perceptions that it’s an elitist world and showing that it surrounds us all. We hope to appeal to butchers and builders, everyday boys who wouldn’t mind reading a fashion magazine, if only they could appreciate and relate to the content.
The second (hand-numbered) issue of LAW has just been released. Check it out here, or take a look at the very handsome blog LAW curates over at Brutus.
- Maggie
Here’s an alternative to today’s rain clouds: the weather installation by London’s Random International allows one to experience the beauty of rain on his or her own (drier) terms. Installed at the Curve in the Barbican Centre of London, the Rain Room employs a 100 sq. meter grate overhead to shower a continuous stream of rainfall and mist over the exhibit. Sensors then detect the weight and footsteps of the audience, directing the falling water away from the person’s immediate space - a “carefully choreographed downpour that responds to [one’s] movements and presence.”
That looks and sounds absolutely beautiful. Still, in defense of today’s gray weather and wild wind, I suppose there is something to be said for the thrill of walking outside today and possibly being gusted far upstate. You know, swoosh right over the Canadian border like some swoopy non-passport carrying thing, wander the great Northern unknown. Will you ever find your way back? Who knows. It’s the quiet sort of life, punctuated only by the occasional gentle thrill of a tree gnome or Mary Kate Olsen encounter in the otherwise vast empty expanse of your new home, the great boreal forest biome.
- Maggie
CLOUD is a large-scale interactive installation by Caitlind r.c. Brown for Nuit Blanche Calgary. Created from steel, metal pull-strings, and 5,000+ light bulbs (both illuminated and burnt out) CLOUD asks the viewer to participate by experiencing the work first hand – standing beneath the structure and pulling lights on and off, creating the flickering aesthetic of an electrical cloud.
See more on CLOUD here.
- Maggie
Oil on canvas, oil on loose change. Jacqueline Lou Skaggs has created several tiny masterpieces in her “Tondi Observations” collection, miniature oil paintings made on old Lincoln pennies. ‘Tondi’ refers to a classic circular form of art, though, admittedly, they’re typically much larger than the head of a coin.
From Skaggs:
Initially these coins were going to be spent- nestled with other coins in an exchange of goods. Or tossed back to the sidewalks from whence they came. Nice thoughts. However, these works remain hoarded as art rather than currency or discarded, valueless copper.
The artist uses pennies, the most common and ubiquitous coin, to explore the “binding ideologies that define our family, religious, social and political worlds.” An interesting paradox presents itself here, as Skaggs’ act of art increases the coin’s original value exponentially, while systematically destroying its technical face value as a piece of currency.
See more of Skaggs’ work on her website, here.
- Maggie
Buffalo’s grain silos, beautifully lit and exalted for all of this creative city to see. City of Night organizer Dana Saylor, and I’m sure an army of volunteers, has a lot to be proud of.
You can read and watch more about what City of Night was, but all you have to see are these images of light, color, vision and creativity. This event was successful because of all the art, vendors and activism, but more importantly, because it literally shed light on what we have to work with, and what we can create with it.
Good work, all around. Let’s do it again. Where else?
-Ben
“No matter what anybody says about me, I can write something that can make someone that hates me the most, have to really respect or love the song.”
Serious passion.
- Patrick Simons
