American Madness

Check out the photoshp contest here. Need I say more!?

Today’s Art edition is composed of some videos and photography.

ImprovEverywhere is a group that has done some fun things around NYC, like ‘Freezing’ in Grand Central (which was later copied on an episode ofLaw & Order: SVU). Their latest project, called ‘Human Mirror,’ took 8 sets of twins and created a mirror effect on the 6 train.

They also recently created a ‘wave’ of flashes across the Brooklyn Bridge to celebrate its 125th birthday. The idea sounds great, though personally I found the video a little underwhelming.

Steve Schofield is not a performance artist, but a photographer. While he has some great pictures of boxers and dancers, what got me to his site in the first place was a series entitled “Land of the Free.” The folks in these photos are people who dress up for their obsession. There are Trekkies, Cowboys & Indians, Sith Lords, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and even Elvis. Instead of the usual shots of these folks in convention centers or online for movies, they were all photographed in their homes. I’d say it is worth checking out. (more…)

If you haven’t yet heard (though I am not sure how you could have missed it), Iran released pictures of a missile test they just conducted. The image they released was plastered all over newspapers world wide and showed 4 missiles taking flight simultaneously. The picture came from Agence France-Presse who said that they got the picture from Sepah News, they happen to be the media wing (or maybe propaganda wing) of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. There is something a bit menacing about the image of four missiles heading skyward in a successful test… That is until you study the picture a bit more.

It turns out that the missile, 3rd from the left was Photoshopped in. the dust cloud under the missile comes from the right hand side, the missile it self is identical to the one on the left hand side (the NY Times had a little fun with Photoshop themselves highlighting this). Now the question being raised is: Who is responsible for this? (more…)

I am not a huge fan of Fox News, I feel that, for the most part, it is exploitive and uses scare tactics rather then actual journalism to get its point across. Fortunately I can get my news from about 200 other channels so I am not stuck listening to them blather on pushing their right wing agenda for Rupert Murdoch.

Unfortunately I catch little tidbits from and about Fox News that just get me all riled up. I hesitated to write up this most recent one since as the old saying goes “All news is good news” and folks might turn on Fox News or click on the website based on what I wrote (which is why I am leaving off any links to their website), but then there is the part of me who wants people to know about how ridiculous they actually are.

MediaMatters caught Fox recently in a segment they did on “Fox & Friends,” Fox News’ morning show. The hosts of the show were bad mouthing the New York Times, specifically reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe, claiming that despite all the good press Fox News has been getting recently, the NY Times was out to get them, writing a ‘hit piece’ on the “ominous trend” in Fox News’ ratings. They even went as far as showing Reddicliffe holding a leash of a Photoshopped poodle with the face of Steinberg. (more…)

Calling it ‘art’ is a bit of a cheat I guess. I mean, is it really art if it is just a picture taken from a satellite doing its job? There is no eye for the artistic behind the taking of these pictures and it just so happens that some one was smart enough to put the pretty ones together.

None the less, the pictures are pretty striking with some amazing colors so I figured I’d toss them up here for all to see. From EnvironmentalGraffiti we get the “30 Most Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth.” These photos are all from 2000, when NASA went through over 400,000 pictures snapped by the satellite Landsat 7 and chose what they felt were the most beautiful for display at the Library of Congress.

Are they art? Maybe not, but they sure are pretty. You can see the other 29 here. You can even download them to use as desktop wallpaper.

Picture this-

Public Access TV meets Acid Trip (is that redundant?) meets Pee-Wees Playhouse meets Cooking Show and you start to get an idea of what to expect from Food Party.

As they explain it in the about section:

Food Party is a (would-be) TV cooking show with a spicy saigon kitchen-witch as your hostess, a cast of unruly puppets as culinary advisors, and a cavalcade of hip-hop/sports world celebrities as surprise dinner guests. Shot on location in a technicolor cardboard kitchen, each episode will instruct you on how to prepare wild gourmet multi-course meals with ingredients you probably have on hand in your kitchen already, such as pretzel rods, cheese puffs, eggs, sugar, secret ingredients, and pizza. After all, you never know who might show up for dinner.

Trust me, that doesn’t do it justice, just check out the trailer (above), the teaser (below) and then pop over to the website/blog to learn more. This is totally my type of cooking show! (more…)

Today’s installment of art comes from Jerusalem and Seattle.

First up we have some older work by Desiree Palmen. Between 1999 and 2006 Palmen worked with fabrics and paint to make jumpsuits that camouflaged nicely with their surroundings (if you are standing in a certain place that is). For fans of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, the idea seems similar to the “Mimetic Polycarbon” jump suit worn by the Panther Moderns,* except these don’t change with their environment. The jumpsuits are all painted with some consideration given to the way the individual will stand (or sit) and have a realistic look to them. Makes me wonder what they look like in real life. It is interesting to see the jumpsuits mixed with some of the older parts of Jerusalem (like in “Old City Suit“). There is even text to some of the projects (located on the main page) that discusses some of the ideas behind them.

Next up** we have the work of Chris Jordan. His work is billed at “Photographic Arts,” which seems like a questionable name for a medium until you start to look at his pictures, and I mean really look at them. His most recent project is called “Running the Numbers” and spans from 2006 to 2008. (more…)

Living at home with your parents is a very powerful contraception.

- British politician David Willetts quoted in the NYTimes’ very interesting story on the declining birthrate of Europe.

I had some major problems with the article, because author Russell Shorto asserts that the U.S. birthrate is higher than Europe’s due to more equality in home tasks (Daddy Day Care), but ignores the fact that we’re really not having that many kids when exempting the Hispanic birth rate. He also really doesn’t take issue with the true economics of childbirth or related changes in family structure (i.e., the death of the extended family and the consumerist push for self-sufficiency). One of my friends is an Albanian who is expecting to have many children. Her family is more like a tribe in which her myriad relatives help each other out, meaning she’ll more or less — as I understand it — never have to pay for daycare. She and her husband aren’t facing a new mortgage, she’s moving in with his family. I wonder if we’ll head back to big clans now that the nuclear family has proven wasteful and decadent.

Shorto also doesn’t really explore intellect/education as a predictor (or non predictor) of average childbirth rates. I’d bet that more highly educated individuals tend to have fewer children so that they can pay for them all (especially when paying means paying for their higher education costs as well). Meanwhile, developed countries have lost manufacturing and the good jobs that go with it, affecting the other side of the educational gamut.

This wonderfully blasphemous Newsweek piece about how parenthood makes people miserable, has some decent stats on the rising cost of “you looked so damned sexy, I couldn’t hold back”: (more…)