The German graffiti artist DAIM doesn't just bomb walls -- he creates graphics, illustrations, commissions, and exhibits in galleries around the world. He started at 17 "...just going out and doing some stuff." After his parents and teachers found out he was doing graffiti art, they gave him a wall at a youth club and at school so that he wasn't getting into trouble with the authorities. It wasn't long after that that he was able to start using his spray can to make a living.
Australian artist Ron Mueck creates realistic, amazingly detailed sculptures of people but uses scale to add a whole new twist to the way we look at them. He's had an interesting career, first as a model maker and a puppeteer, even working on the film Labrynth. He created his own company in London making hyper-realistic props and animatronics that tended to be viewed from one vantage point before moving to fine art.
Following up on yesterday's post about artist William Lamson, who we featured on this week's episode, I got the inside scoop on the inspiration for the banana mask from William himself:
how did I come up with banana mask... well, the piece is about frustration. Like the desire to hit yourself in face if you are frustrated with yourself, but you dont actually do it, because you like your face, so instead, you blow up bananas on your surrogate face.
Sounds like we could all use a banana mask once and awhile. Thanks William.
William Lamson created a 6 minute long video called Think Globally, Act Locally in which he exploded a bunch of bananas on a mask attached to his face. We featured pieces of this video on an earlier episode of the show without our realizing the wonderful array of work he has on his site. Luckily we found it!
It's easy to dismiss Chinese artist Liu Bolin's work as "camouflage art" because, well, that's the title of this particular series. I can say "look how cool -- they painted people to match their surroundings! Wow, that must have taken a long time." That would be missing the point. At least for me.
Yes. At first glance, you can't help but be in awe of the precision and attention to detail and the astounding amount of patience an artist must have to complete a series like the one shown here. At second glance... at a longer glance... things get more complex.
Margot Quan Knight is able to achieve an amazingly wide range of reactions in her photographs. At once I'm amused, intrigued, repulsed, and just a tad bit titillated. It's no easy feat to conjure up that many emotions from a viewer. Not to mention that she gets us past the fact that these are all works of digital manipulation, which is so easily a ruinous distraction. Generally her work is fascinating and possesses great depth, and much of it makes me wonder about the story behind the photos.
Plenty more after the jump.
The amazing sculptures of Jeremy Mayer are all made from old typewriter parts. Talk about an endless supply of material! In our new media world, this is a beautiful way to re-use material and create fascinating art.
This week's FU is given out by none other than Doug Bresler, independent animator and creator of Doogtoons. One of his most well-known works is his animated music video for Weird Al Yankovic, Trapped in the Drive-Thru, which has gotten almost five million views on YouTube alone.
Beijing artist Li Wei has gained quite a following on the web with his seemingly impossible photographs. Many of them depict the artist in a precarious or life-threatening situation, and they are accomplished by an unsettling combination of performance art and photography. Sometimes the artist is indeed in a very dangerous situation, suspended by wires from great heights.
On today's show we mentioned FaceYourManga.com, which is sweeping the internets by storm. Half my Twitter friends are discernible only by their new cartoon mug. As sickeningly cute as they might be, it IS fun to build your own manga avatar. The process is just like building your Mii on the Wii.
Check out what the EPIC FU crew looks like in manga form, above. Top row, from left to right: Steve, Zadi, and Rick. Second row: Annie and Sarah, Third row: Daniel, MIX members, and Mike.
Frank Warren is the soft spoken man behind one of the most popular blogs on the Internet: PostSecret. Most people already know about the intimate project where people anonymously send in their secrets on beautifully crafted postcards. Frank created the project as an art installation before taking it to the web. As founder and curator, Frank receives hundreds of postcards from all over the world.
La Catterdrale Vegetale (The Cathedral Grove) by Guiliano Mauri
Arborsculpture is pretty fascinating stuff. Wikipedia defines it as follows:
Arborsculpture is the art and technique of growing and shaping trunks of trees and other woody plants. By grafting, bending and pruning the woody trunks and or branches are grown into shapes either ornamental or useful.
This past Tuesday on EPIC FU we featured Marius Watz as our artist of the week. I don't remember exactly how I came across the impressive work that was exhibited as part of the 5 Days Off festival in Amsterdam, but I'm sure it caught my attention because of the brilliant melding between art and technology.
Watz, a Norweigian artist, had been working on a project called Generator.x, investigating computational models of creation. An exhibit titled "Generator.x 2.0: Beyond the Screen" brought together artists and architects to contribute their own creations to his project. These works used audio analysis and custom-created software to take audio data and map it to fabrication processes such as rapid-prototyping. In essence, we get to see what sound "looks" like.
On the show this week we highlighted surrealist/fantasy painter and illustrator Ryohei Hase from Tokyo, Japan. He created works for book covers, the web, games, and magazine, and he exhibits his paintings regularly in Tokyo. More of his work after the jump.
In the spirit of Comic-Con 2008, this week's artist of the week is Paul Duffield, a newcomer to the comics world. I found him through the online comic FreakAngels, where he and writer Warren Ellis shaped a future steampunk universe about a group of telepaths who brought about the apocalypse. For Duffield it was a major score to work with an established writer like Warren Ellis on his first major project, and for fans we get to enjoy all twenty episodes of the comic online for free.
The works of Alexey Titarenko hang in many museums around the world, but thanks to the web we get to see them whenever we want, and we get a chance to experience the painterly and haunting photographs from his Black & White Magic of St. Petersburg series. More images after the jump.
Our Artist of the Week this week is The Me Nobody Knows, otherwise known as TMNK. His work is reminiscent of Jean Michel Basquiat -- except his styling is completely fresh. He takes his surrounding experiences and translates them on canvas, resulting in a body of work which is personal, rich, authentic, narrative and slightly melancholy.
There is more to my community than violence and drugs. There's beauty, and there's culture, and there are talented positive people, just like "me," that nobody knows.
This week we're really digging Munk One's work. If you haven't yet heard of Munk One, you may have seen his band artwork for artists like Smashing Pumpkins, Korn, My Chemical Romance and many others. He's a contemporary American illustrator and fine artist based out of California. Since 2003 he's been exhibiting his work in galleries and shows no sign of stopping any time soon.
Known as Balakov on Flickr, Mike Stimpson recreates some of the most famous photos in our culture in Lego form.
I take quite a lot of Lego pictures.
I love messing about with macro lighting.
Strobist.com taught me everything I know.
This week we're shining the light on MIX member Matt, who signs on every day from McComb, MS, USA.
Papercraft DIY time! Tubbypaws, a blog of happy art, created a template to build your own paper ceiling cat. Print, cut, fold, glue, and tape it to your ceiling- presto, an instant feeling of eerieness. There's even a Lucifer Cat edition. If you make one, be sure to post a picture with your new friend on MIX. (sent in by Justine, thanks!)
Rick found this great set of images created by London illustrator Linzie Hunter a while back, and I've kept it in my Google notebook for a long time hoping to find a way to work it into the show. Rather than wait, it's such a cool project that I figured I'd blog about it. Spam one-liners!
More pics after the jump...
This week's Artist of the Week is Anton Raphael Miriello, or Mr. A.R.M., the founder of The Secret Society of Odd Acquisition. A collector of all things odd and unusual, Mr. A.R.M.'s custom collection is nothing short of mesmerizing.
James Houston is a student at the Glasgow School of Art in the visual communication program. As he writes on the Vimeo page for the video above, this is his final project before graduating. Quite a way to go out, James.
Smashing Magazine has done an amazing job collecting an incredible variety of pixel art in this blog post. The sheer variety and creativity of these artists is inspiring. There's something about pixel art that is so basic and familiar, and, yes, comforting to me. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I grew up on pixel art on the computers and video game systems of my youth.
More pics after the jump.
[via smashing magazine]
Check out this awesome Iron Man sketch by MIX member madd sketch! Dammit, we have the most talented fans!
Imagine a wall of digital media that uses ZERO energy. That's the claim of the GreenPIX project, which is set to roll out in Beijing for the Olympic Games. It's supposed to be dedicated to digital art, but if it's a successful rollout there are certainly tons of commercial applications. For example, these could be great alternatives to energy-sucking ad billboards.
From the GreenPIX website:
GreenPix is a groundbreaking project applying sustainable and digital media technology to the curtain wall of Xicui entertainment complex in Beijing, near the site of the 2008 Olympic Games. Featuring the largest color LED display worldwide and the first photovoltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China, the building performs as a self-sufficient organic system, harvesting solar energy by day and using it to illuminate the screen after dark, mirroring a day’s climatic cycle
The Media Wall will provide the city of Beijing with its first venue dedicated to digital media art, while offering the most radical example of sustainable technology applied to an entire building’s envelope to date. The building will open to the public in May 2008, with a specially commissioned program of video installations and live performances by artists from China, Europe and the US.
More pics after the jump.
[via technabob]
Flickr user Joe D! refaces U.S. bills to resemble pop culture icons in his collection: Refacing Government Tender. Aside from the humorous aspect of the refacing -- the project makes you think about the real value of paper money -- an important question nowadays as we watch the value of the U.S. dollar plummet.
As a side note, I wonder what would happen if he tried to spend his art. Would merchants would accept the bills? Legal tender is legal tender, although I'm not versed in the legality of "refacing" currency.
(via Super Punch)
Week in Review offers weekly hand-drawn images of the week's top news stories -- created by groups of local correspondents who gather at bars and talk about the stories that are important to them. The illustrations are informative, charming, and 100% unique. They offer a great deal of insight into the collective mindshare of participants.
Right now 4 editions are being generated from chapters around the world: Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Ireland, and Singapore. Unfortunately, those last 2 seem out of date.
This is why I love internet video. Multimedia artist Paul Slocum accumulated footage for this Full House homage over a period of 3 years and found actors across the globe (via Craigslist) to depict the classic confrontation between Joey and DJ.
Aside from the obvious humor of a corny scene being depicted over and over again, it's really quite interesting to see just how many ways it can play out.
(via A.V. Club)
In this week's show and campfire discussion, we talk about 90dayjane.com. The 90 Day Jane blog was only a few days old before it was taken down by its owner. See, the blog documented the final ninety days of Jane's life before she commits suicide. She didn't know how she was going to do it, only that she was going to do it, and she was taking us along for the ride.
Check out this amazing piece of billboard graffiti by AUGOR in LA at Melrose & Mansfield. Pay attention to the detail and integration with the original billboard art. PT Anderson should be proud.
More pics and info at LAist.
YouTube user Keshen8 recreated the official Dark Knight trailer (embedded after the jump) shot-for-shot using Legos. There's a higher quality version of the video on Stage 6.
Chip Whitehouse is a student at Indiana University getting a BFA in painting. Recently he's gotten into making speed painting videos, where he documents his painting process in generally under five minutes.
He uses ArtRage and a Wacom Intuos3 6x8 graphics tablet to make the art, screen captures the process with CamStudio and edits it all with Windows Movie Maker. He recently made one for us. It's really impressive to watch. Drop him a line and let him know what you think.
We featured Natasha Wescoat and her artwork on the show previously. She recently twittered that she had a new video up for her artist guide series about artist pet peeves. If you're an artist, or aspiring to be one, definitely check out her blog posts, art and videos at natashasartcandy.com. Good tips and good inspiration. Also, I hear her birthday is coming up. Happy birthday Natasha!
MIX member Tia is a really talented jewelery craftsperson. I remember seeing her stuff when she uploaded a bunch of photos to MIX when she first joined many months ago and thinking how lovely the stuff was. Check out a few pieces, and then go to her store and support independent artists and craftspeople!
I've been looking for a way to work this project into a show for the past 4 months, but since it hasn't happened, I wanted to post it on the blog because I think it's such a great project. Hope Larson is an art school student and created a "kiss book" that she intended to pass around to her classmates for them to illustrate. She writes:
It ceased to be a kiss book the moment it was passed to someone without my knowledge, which was disappointing, but it turned out well anyway.I think it's fantastic. Check out some pics below, and here's a link to her blog entry with more pics, and she has her own website, too.
We live in public trailer from RADAR on Vimeo.
I saw my friend Kenyatta twitter about this a few days ago, and just recently my other friend Jay was discussing it in the videoblogging group.
If you haven't seen it yet, definitely check out web entrepreneur/multi-media artist Josh Harris' trailer for his new documentary We Live In Public. It's a socio-political and artistic experiment that looks at what happens as we propel ourselves into lives that are on perpetual public display via the web. Eight years in the making, the million dollar project hooks up 32 web cams in a Manhattan loft that's set up bunker-style and records the lives of a 100 volunteer artists/guinea pigs while discussing the implications of the project as it d/evolves into madness. It asks the question: Will we survive in public?
We have some amazingly interesting friends. Take our friend Bre Pettis for instance... who else of all the people we know would laser the 2008 calendar right onto their thumbnail? No one we can think of - except for his friend Martin apparently.
I could see this being useful for a personal countdown... difficult to forget something when it's etched on your fingernails... And if not that, well, it's definitely a conversation starter. :)
One of our MIX members, Maiflowers, recently posted a really interesting topic for discussion:
Me and my brother went to an Art musium today (because were art freaks and have nothing better to do) and we came across a painting of a while canvass with three colored lines going down across it (Blue Black and Green.. I think). We were trying to think of meaning of it without looking at the little info card and we came up with compleat opposit meanings which were absolutly different from the card. Which brings me to my "Experiment"There is a meaning behind this (my meaning) but I want to you come up with you think it is. Ready. Set. Post.
Apparently, there are at least 56 different types of geeks, according to this illustration. Which type are you? If you don't find your type, Scott Johnson can create one for you! I vote for the videoblogging geek. :)
Recently joined MIX member bronx made has some great graf skills. Bronx is the birthplace of hip-hop and bombing, and both Zadi and I are from the Bronx originally, so we're glad to see bronx made on MIX. And check out the tattoo!
