American Madness

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.

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…)

Well, I have given up on trying to make this a weekly column, so it is becoming an occasional column.

I’ve come across 2 sets of photos in the last two days. One set is pretty interesting and the other set is pretty incredible, both are definitely worth checking out.

The first set of pictures makes it to us all the way from Chili where the Chaitan Volcano has been pretty active recently. During some recent activity there also happened to be a lighting storm that added some incredible effects to the erupting volcano. The Daily Mail has a whole set of the images here.

Our second set of pictures comes from an exhibition titled “The Other Night Sky” currently showing at the UC Berkeley Art Museum. The exhibition shows Trevor Paglen’s photographs of 189 spy satellites that officially do not exist. The title of the exhibition is a play on Galileo’s The Night Sky and offers commentary on how these ‘unofficial’ satellites would paint the sky to astronomers of yesterday. Paglen is also responsible for a book about patches from military black-ops groups that has some great images of the official patches for these groups.

For years, the Boston Globe says, naps have gotten a bad rap. But really they’re great, so they’ve produced a how-to guide: more evidence that some people are just too dumb to be lazy.

Click to enlarge:

So we are going a little light with the art today:

First up we have Martin Beckett, I cam across his work right around the same time I found the superhero stuff last week, but it just didn’t fit nicely so I have been holding off on posting it. Beckett is a UK photographer with some decent stuff, but the stuff to really check out are his 360 degree panoramas. The rest of the stuff is nice, but nothing too outstanding.

Following up Beckett we have more of an art related post then actual art (though, looking at the images that is debatable): Crayola Crayons*. (more…)

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.