The Art That Looks Like Other Art (Is It Wrong?) Work by well-regarded Seattle artists appears uncomfortably similar to that of other artists. Idea plagiarism? What's wrong and what's right in terms of originality and art is a matter of serious debate. If no one did anything wrong, then how can a work of art be tainted? Which is worse, theft or ignorance? The Stranger .
The Underground Theatre Of Belarus Their performances are forbidden by Belarus's restrictive regime, which controls every aspect of life in the country, in a manner that has barely changed since the days when it was part of the Soviet Union. So the Free Theatre has to keep one step ahead of the authorities. The Guardian.
Suicide As A Piece Of Art A woman named Jane started a blog and said whe was going to kill herself in 90 days. She got a web following. Turns out, the blog is a kind of "art" project... "It was meant for me and (what I ignorantly thought would be) a small number of people who might find it on BlogSpot. Gawker.
EU Thinks About Turbocharging Musician Royalties The European Union proposes extending musicians royalties for 95 years as in the U.S., up from 50 years, under a plan to avoid cutting off income for artists as they retire. Bloomberg.
Museum of Moving Image paused for upgrade A massive renovation of the Museum of the Moving Image will shutter the New York facility for an extended period. YAHOO
Brown and Putin withdraw their patronage as Russian loan show opens "President Putin and Prime Minister Brown have withdrawn as patrons of the Royal Academy (RA) exhibition which opened last month." The Art Newspaper
The Gemeentemuseum Presents Picasso in The Hague Covering The Artist's Entire Career "If anyone deserves to be called the ‘artist of the twentieth century’, that man is Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973). The forthcoming exhibition Picasso in The Hague covers his entire career and reveals his untiring urge to experiment. The works on show will include not only oil paintings, but sculpture, drawings, prints and ceramics." ART DAILY
Venus banned from London's underworld "London Underground decides image of unclothed Venus is likely to offend commuters" GUARDIAN.
Movable Art - Not In Canada The Canadian government proposes to end a service that transports art beten museums across the country. Museums worry that traveling exhibitions will be dramatically curtailed. National Post.
Fighting Back Against Britain's Ugly Statues From the beaches of southern England to the thoroughfares of London, the fightback against 'bad' public sculpture in the UK has begun. In recent years an unprecedented number of tasteless statues (with the rare exception, such as works by Antony Gormley) have appeared across the country. The Art Newspaper.
Educational Television? Doesn't Exist Aric Sigman says that all TV is bad for young kids. The phrase 'educational television' was, of course, invented by people who make television. To me it's an oxymoron. The Globe & Mail.
American Group Says Canadian Copyright Laws Lacking Canada has taken no meaningful steps toward modernizing its copyright law to meet the minimum global standards of the WIPO internet treaties, which it signed more than a decade ago. .CBC .
Violinist Trips On Stage and Wrecks His Stradivarius Leaving the stage at London's Barbican, violinist David Garrett, 26, one of the UK's foremost young concert performers, had an accident that every world-class musician must dread: he tripped and landed on his violin. The Independent .
Virtually Dance "Understanding that people are often almost more fascinated in how dancers work and how choreography gets made than they are in the finished product, Misnomer.org has already tried a new approach to posting videos of its work online." Voice
Virtual Mayhem, Destruction - An Art Form? "For my money, what makes games unique among all other forms of entertainment is that they allow us to experiment with insanely dangerous physics. Games are only arena of modern life in which otherwise responsible adults are permitted to smash expensive things all to hell, purely for the sheer joy of it." Wired
Publisher To Begin Giving Away Free Books HarperCollins has decided to beging offering free electronic editions of some of its books on its Web site. The New York Times
Where US Presidential Candidates Stand On The Arts The arts aren't an issue in this year's election, and it's even difficult to find out what the candidates' positions are. But here's a helpful guide... DancerUniverse
Dramatic Swiss Art Robbery Nets Van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas, Monet Four paintings by Van Gogh, Cézanne, Degas and Monet worth an estimated SFR180m (£84m) have been stolen from a museum in Switzerland in what police today described as a "spectacular art robbery". The Guardian
Obama Beats Clintons To Win Grammy Obama "beat both former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter to win best spoken word album for his audio version of his book The Audacity Of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream." Houston Chronicle
Leading Pakistani Artist Murdered Ismail Gulgee, one of Pakistan's most senior and internationally renowned artists, was discovered brutally murdered along with his wife Zareen and a maid in their house in Karachi. The Art Newspaper
Lit Stars Sign Up To Write 15-Minute Operas "Out go the big budgets, lengthy run times and large venues. But in come the stars from the world of literature and music, who have been asked to produce 15-minute operas which will sit beside each other at sold-out shows in small theatres in Glasgow and Edinburgh early next month." The Independent (UK)
What's Holding Back Canadian Movies? "Without subsidies or quotas, what's the incentive for theatres to show an unknown Canadian film instead of a Hollywood movie with more obvious box office potential? They'll say 'We can play a blockbuster with no advertising, no work, do nothing and everyone will come, or we can take your stupid Canadian movie and no one's going to come.' " The Globe & Mail (Canada)
When Everyone's A Writer... Creative writing as an area of study is booming in Australia ... Australian universities now offer more than 70 of these courses. There are numerous mature-age students willing to pay universities $100-plus an hour to sit in a postgraduate writing class. But "the creative writing boom throws up striking paradoxes." The Australian
Is The Art Market Immune From The Recession? The financial markets ae in turmoil. But "most areas of the market seem to be immune from the anxieties that have been taking hold of the outside world." International Herald Tribune
Argentina Looks To Build On Film Success Argentine cinema has carved out a niche at arthouses, taken fest kudos and plied styles like minimalism and comic bathos with taste... But now returns are narrowing as costs rise for studio time, wages and promotion. Debate is raging within the industry over how best to keep Argentina competitive in a Hollywood-dominated world. Variety.
Naxos Net Gamble Pays Off Classical music's scrappiest record label proved to be its most prescient when the internet revolution came upon the world. What put Naxos ahead of the game, and what did founder Klaus Heymann see in the industry that convinced him to make a huge online push when he did? The Guardian.
The Strange Cultural Populism Of Variety Shows There was a time when high- and middle-brow culture coexisted on television, in the form of wildly popular variety shows that showcased everything from dancing poodles to orchestras to The Beatles. Those shows mirrored and even led a mass pop culture that was more populist than what we have today. City Beat.
Are We Over Renzo Piano? Forget the Bilbao Effect. It's not Frank Gehry who has ridden the U.S. museum-building boom, it's Renzo Piano." Piano's new addition to the LA County Museum of Art opens to the public next week, and James Russell says that the architect's work is all starting to look the same, and what used to seem innovative now just seems repetitive. Bloomberg.
Time Running Out For Oscars? Academy Award organisers have said they are 'running out of time' in the search for a deal to avoid the Oscars being hit by the Hollywood writers' strike, even as the guild prepares to present a tentative deal to its members this weekend. BBC.
Spanish Mayor Proposes Paying Kids To Read They would get one Euro for each hour reading. "A recent European Commission study showed 31 per cent of Spain's students were leaving school early. Spanish students were also some of the worst at reading in Europe, with 21 per cent of 15-year-olds having difficulties, compared with the European Union average of 19.8 per cent." The Globe & Mail
It's A Hit! (And You'll Get Your Money Back In As Soon As Three Years!) "If a show with a cultlike following, stellar reviews, a not insurmountable $1 million capitalization cost -- and after some adjustments, a $50,000 weekly running cost -- couldn't turn a profit, then what could?" The New York Times
Music Under The Influence - Drugs, Booze, Everywhere There's a shocker! A new study "calculated that Americans from ages 15 to 18 listening to 2.4 hours of music a day hear 84 references to substances daily and more than 30,000 annually. About two-thirds of the references put drugs, alcohol and tobacco in a positive light by associating them with sex, partying and humor." The New York Times
Want To Save Money? Die "It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars." Wired
Writers' Strike May Have Long-Term Impact On Post-Production "Insiders calculate that the number of post industry members who have lost their jobs or been put on hiatus is in the thousands. That figure includes great numbers of freelance workers such as editors, assistants and post coordinators as well as staffers at postproduction facilities." Yahoo
Bush Proposes "Zeroing Out" Public Broadcasting Funding The Bush administration wants to hack federal funding for public broadcasting by more than 50% and possibly zero out the budget in as little as two years. Variety
Perhaps He's Referring To Ocean's Thirteen "George Clooney, one of Hollywood's most bankable stars who earns up to £15 million a movie, has taken a swipe at the film industry, saying he believes the golden age of cinema is dead... Clooney places the glory years of cinema firmly between 1964 and 1976 when he says studios produced almost a masterpiece a month." The Telegraph
How Pixar Became A Standard Bearer Pixar is well known for having changed animation forever, by hiring the top talent in the business and spending lavishly on the best technology money could buy. Of course, relying on computers inevitably means dealing with their obsolescence, which often comes astonishingly quickly. The Independent (UK)
Audiences Stunned To Find Sweeney Todd A Musical "Nowhere does the [movie trailer] mention the fact that Sweeney Todd is a musical. In fact, it goes out of its way to conceal the fact that the movie is entirely sung, save for a few snippets of dialogue... Stung at paying to see a collection of tortuously constructed Stephen Sondheim tunes when they were expecting a gory Gothic thriller, a fair proportion of cinema audiences has been walking out of Sweeney Todd." The Guardian (UK)
Gallery Sues To Get Warhol Back "An Andy Warhol painting stolen from a Manhattan art gallery a decade ago has resurfaced at Christie's auction house, and on Tuesday the gallery sued to have it returned. The painting, one of Warhol's Dollar Sign portraits that was created in 1981, is worth at least $100,000." MSNBC
Dutch Plan To Float Above Global Warming Effects The inevitable rise in sea level that comes with climate change is going to make it increasingly difficult to control flooding in low-lying Holland. But instead of cursing their fate, architects are designing a new Holland that will float on water, and the Dutch government seems willing to try out the scheme. NPR.
A Week Of Free Arts? At first glance, this seems like an excellent idea. After all, Labour's decision to drop museum entry charges 10 years ago was a sign that thinking about culture was shifting. And schemes such as Nicholas Hytner's £10 season at the National have made for bigger, broader audiences. But is a week of free events really the best way to give every member of society access to the arts? The Guardian.
Hemingway's Only Play Gets An Off-Broadway Try The story of why "The Fifth Column" has been neglected is a complicated one, involving several mishaps, an inept Hollywood screenwriter, and a 1940 Broadway production of a bastardized version of the play. New York Sun .
Record $847 Million Of Art Offered On Auction This Week The total includes record estimates for Impressionist art this week: 89 million pounds for Christie's today, 82 million pounds for Sotheby's tomorrow and 72 million pounds for Christie's contemporary art on Wednesday. Bloomberg.
Hurky Jerky - How Language Evolves Language evolves in sudden leaps, according to a statistical study of three major language groups. The finding challenges the slow-and-steady model held by many linguists and matches evidence that genetic evolution follows a similar path. New Scientist.
When Pop Culture Supports The Arts Why not sell tickets to rock concerts and use the proceeds to underwrite the classical end of your business? It makes sense on paper, and it's worked before." And yet, "regional symphony orchestras and theater companies are increasingly finding themselves squeezed off the stages of performing-arts centers by high-grossing Broadway road shows. The Wall Street Journal.
Writers' Strike May Soon Be Over Hollywood's striking writers and major studios [have] reached the broad outlines of a new employment contract, resolving key sticking points over how much writers should be paid for work that is distributed over the Internet... A final contract could be presented to the Writers Guild of America's board as early as Friday. Los Angeles Times .
Interactive Theatre (Whether You Want It To Be Or Not) Interactive theater places theater-goers in the middle of things, at times making them performers. The imaginary wall is broken down in this type of work, and the audience has a different experience of what is happening.But what if the audience doesn't agree to being part of the procedings? Chicago Tribune.
Turning Foreclosure Into Artistic Expression Foreclosures are the dark side of the American dream. And, just as many works of art depict the joys of homeownership after long striving... others have depicted with equal vigor the pain of losing those homes -- and losing them because of fast-talking salesmen who peddled not snake oil, but adjustable-rate mortgages. Chicago Tribune.
From The Battlefield To The Stage Author George Packer, who wrote a well-regarded non-fiction book on the American invasion of Iraq, has now written a play based on the tragic stories of ordinary Iraqis who agreed to serve as translators for the Americans and paid dearly for it. "It was the struggles of the Iraqis that stayed with Mr. Packer after the journalism was done, and what prompted him to bring 'Betrayed' to the stage." The New York Times.
Oscar Gets Arty Oscar-nominated films are often small, dark and unintended for mass audiences. They're about art, after all, not commerce. But that's especially true of this year's crop, which has little mainstream buzz and among the lowest box-office totals in recent years. Toronto Star.
Experts Work To Restore "World's First Oil Paintings" A group of Japanese, European and American scientists are collaborating to restore damaged murals in caves in the Bamiyan Valley, famous for its two gigantic statues of the Buddha that were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. The Daily Star.
A Computer Screen In Your Eye Researchers are working on contact lenses that could display information on it. The lenses could use the electronic lens as a cell-phone display, to see who is calling and to watch videos during a commute. MIT Technology Review
How Recordings Killed Music They have conditioned audiences to expect an inhuman degree of performance accuracy, comparable to what a recording studio's editing team can produce by patching together the best moments from multiple takes. Critics, meanwhile, judge performances by the degree of textual fidelity to the 'urtext' -- a score that tries to reproduce the composer's original intent. Wall Street Journal
Type The Sky Type The Sky is a font by German artist Lisa Reinermann, created from the negative space between buildings when photographed from below. "It began with the Q," she said. "I was in a kind of courtyard in Barcelona. I looked upward and saw houses, the blue sky and clouds. The more I looked, I saw that the houses formed a letter Q."
Blu Blu's wall paintings often show people in states of unrest--larger
beings eating smaller ones, being piled on top of one another
desperate to breathe, opening themselves up to reveal inner organs.
Despite this desperation, his images are full of humanity--while
managing to criticize an oppressive system and show compassion for its
people, they are a great gift to any community.
Wooden Mirror Comprised of 830 square gold-tone pine pieces (and accompanying motors), Daniel Rozin's wooden mirror functions by reading in footage from a small centrally mounted camera. The footage is then fed through a Mac which reads the intensity of the light and rotates the appropriate wooden pieces to relay the image. The result is an impressive real-time pixel-like animation of the shape and movements of anything that passes before the 'mirror'. For further details check out http://www.smoothware.com.
She Loves The Moon She Loves The Moon is a choose-your-own-adventure story, spraypainted onto the sidewalks of the Mission District in San Francisco. Starting at two different locations, this love story between a man and a woman comes together, and your choice of which path to follow decides whether their fate will be good or bad.
The Visual Thesaurus Developed as a tool for writers and teachers, The Visual Thesaurus makes searching for words more fun than other online dictionaries and thesauruses. When you enter a word, the options swing out and open
like tree branches, and allow you to keep clicking and watching this motion until the right inspiration comes along, about, around, well-nigh. Don't spend too much time though, or they will ask for your money.
EEEEE EEE EEEE Creating controversy in some literary circles due to his tendency to
ignore basic traditions (i.e. If your short story is already being
published in one magazine, don't keep sending it along to other
magazines and journals for them to also publish), Lin is bringing a
fresh voice to literature, finding inspiration in his own boredom.
His work can defy logic at times, ok most of the time, but once your
mind adjusts to his absurd worlds, you'll be shocked at how
comfortable and hilarious depression can be.
excerpts here: http://eeeee-eee-eeee-bed.blogspot.com
Antony Gormley Awarded the Turner Prize in 1994, Antony Gormley is one of the most celebrated artists working in the UK today. Although the collection of his new works include the familiar casts of his body that he has been exhibiting for 25 years, there are a few welcome surprises, namely 'Blind Light' - a fascinating and exceptionally inventive installation comprising of a semi-transparent glass chamber filled with a dense cloud of steam. The public are invited into the chamber whereupon they will partake in their own exploration of the human form as they see one another, or parts of one another, drift in and out of the steam.
Perhaps the most poignant facet of the piece is that it is a work that is not about seeing but about not seeing.
Faggot&Diamond Knitwear /Photography by Brett Lloyd Faggot&Diamond are Craig Lawrence and Liria Pristine, who met while studying Fashion Knitwear at Central Saint Martins, London. The knitwear duo consists of Lawrence as Faggot and Pristine as Diamond, and was born out of the boredom they both felt towards the conventional knitwear world.
They try to push the boundaries of knitwear to the point in which people may not even recognize the ancient craft, using the unexpected in their designs, be it wire, bin bags, or Christmas decorations. They mix materials to create fresh, innovative, and original textiles. Craig Lawrence is also working on the knitwear for Gareth Pugh and has done so for the past 5 seasons. Liria Pristine has recently graduated with her collection going on to the CSM Press Show '07. They are currently working on collections to be shown at their first Faggot and Diamond debut fashion event. The photos shown here have been taken by London-based photographer Brett Lloyd.
inadvertent art Tim Knowles is an artist who relinquishes his final artistic output to chance. He achieves this through the construction of elaborate devices that are then left to draw, whether by others inadvertent actions or simply by harnessing the wind to move a pen.
In the pieces detailed here Knowles continues his playful approach by using the movement generated during the delivery of a package through the post. The first is a package comprised of a pen fixed to a metal spring, whilst the second, is an intricately package digital camera with a spy hole capturing the journey. The pieces eventually become part of installations that explicitly detail the processes of how the art was made. See www.timknowles.co.uk for many more examples.
Light Graffiti The series of images below were accomplished using LED's, fireworks, glow-sticks
and time-lapse photography. Despite it being a relatively simple concept, the tools essentially offer a means by which to tag the non-solid space around the artist.
The full effect of the momentary glow, flash and flicker of the light source is only realized upon viewing the time-laspe image. To a by-stander the artist appears only to move his arms frantically through the air, yet the result is an abstract method of tagging an otherwise inaccessible space.
Micro-Homes Until recently, camper vans, winnebagos, and towed caravans have provided the most practical means by which to take your home on the road. Fortunately recent trends have seen a proliferation in the re-thinking and re-designing of these practical albeit generally ugly products. A prime example is the joint project between the Technical University of Munich and the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
The team has managed to produce a compact, efficient, and lightweight dwelling that also looks pretty awesome. Using state-of-the-art technology the team are currently developing a mini-village based upon their stand alone piece as seen below. The units cost around 50,000 Euros.
Photo-Surgery Bobby Neel Adams photography deals with the transformation over time of the human body by aging and circumstance. His technique which he self describes as "photo-surgery" creates the unique works were he establishes fusion, a jump of time at the tear of two photographs of the same person, from different periods of time.
Somewhat disturbing but undeniably fascinating work
audible lights Jacques Dudon is a French composer and instrument builder. He is best known for a unique series of instruments that produce sound from patterns of light (a light source shines through painted glass discs; the resulting patterns of light are picked up by solar cells and converted into sound waves).
The key to the rich, complex sounds Dudon produces via this process is the variety of patterns on the discs. Since the early 70s, he has designed more than 500 precisely painted glass discs, each of which modifies light waves in a different way; combinations of these discs, rotating at different speeds, can turn light into almost any type of waveform. If one or more discs are moved by hand while the others rotate mechanically, the slightest motion of the performer's fingers can produce complex timbral changes, while the stable discs fix the waveform at any frequency.
Theo Jansen's new nature Armed with exceptional engineering knowledge and great artistic flare, kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen creates particularly complex and intricate pieces that are truly awe inspiring. His passion is the creation of a kind of artificial life typically involving man-made and industrial materials.
Georgia Russell In her latest work Scottish artist Georgia Russell explores the form and possibilities of paper (from books, music scores, maps, newspapers etc) as the medium for artistic expression. Using a scalpel, Russell meticulously slices the paper to produce pieces that are exceptionally delicate to the eye but undoubtedly not so pleasant to the touch.
tell me later Matt Sly's ridiculously simple web based application allows you to send emails to the future. Essentially the email you create is stored until the date you specify (minimum 30 day holding time), at which point it is sent out. Given the amount of emails web users send on a daily basis, your futureme.com message is likely forgotten until the date it arrives, at which point it reminds you of everything you failed to achieve, or for the lucky ones how far you have come in a given time.
Due to the success of the site a book will shortly be released containing some of the most poignant, funny and tragic emails submitted.
thinskinned Lilla LoCurto and Bill Outcault develop a process of examining and exploring the vulnerability and frailty of the human body. One of their scans is even database searchable via Cartesian coordinates as they literally create a map of the often distorted bodies. Their work includes a series large scale photographs, produced with the help of MIT funding, as well as animations culminating in sometimes fascinating, sometimes grotesque work that relentlessly forces the viewer to reassess our physical form.
web censors What do the following countries have in common: Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam? They have been identified by 'Reporters without Borders - For Press Freedon' as 'Internet Blackholes', essentially parts of the world where access to data via the web is censored. The non-profit project is to raise awareness not only of this censorship but to highlight the plight of imprisoned journalists and dissidents. The organizers main site details that "On 21 March 2006, 137 journalists and 60 cyberdissidents were still imprisoned simply for wanting to provide us with information.".
A similar site, www.greatfirewallofchina.org explores the same issue with an interactive element that offers their visitors the chance to test any website to see if it is blocked in China. Both projects highlight the censorship issue and provide spaces for discussions, well worth checking out.
invisibility cloak Here are a few items under development we came across that could bring you a few steps closer to your long awaited super hero status: liquid armor, digital camouflage, and gas powered boots.
Thanks to research at the University of Tokyo, an invisibility cloak is within reach, sort of. The idea behind the camouflage technology is the projection of the background image onto a masked object.
Developed in part by the U.S. Army Research Lab, liquid armor achieves its result through the temporary stiffening of the liquid during impact.
Although they sound and appear almost comical the gas powered boots, which could propel you up to 22mph, could have many real world applications for example rescue teams and police forces could quickly reach areas typically inaccessible to vehicles.
Next week septers, wands, and spell books currently being field tested in Slovakia.
