Archive for the ‘People’ CategoryWatch as Stella, age 4, criticizes a company’s design of a dinosaur toy. Of course kids always exhibit the most scrutiny when it comes to toy design, but the stereotype is that it’s often more through use (read: ramming cars together to check for durability) than rational, fact-based, criticism. It’s good to know little purists like Stella are out there, sifting through the noise – a Darwinist approach so that well thought out, quality toys might continue to rise to the surface. This is why we spent a lot of time over the last couple of years on our Gummylamps, making them as accurate to color and appearance as possible, so that we might pay proper homage to the classic image. We hope Stella would agree.
Artist Phil Hansen, skilled at creating art based on pop culture figures, illustrated this copy of a self portrait of Vincent Van Gogh. That may be commonplace on its face, but Hansen’s piece is comprised of over 1000 stories taken from conversations, videos, emails, Facebook and other web submissions – all relating to the theme, “something that shocked you or caused disbelief.” Here is a portion of the illustration at full zoom:
People’s responses varied from “when one of my good friends drowned in a lake” to “finding out that my sister and I did not have the same father.” He compiled the responses and, over 90 hours, drew all of them into the picture, which he then exhibited at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver Colorado. See the video of the making-of below. This is inspiring, not so much due to the aesthetic of the piece itself, but for the concept, the metaphor, the Web 2.0 of it. It highlights the importance of people’s stories being an integral part of a piece of art, a product, a pop figure, or just a human – a point in time. People have a need to broadcast these stories, in whatever medium. Hansen decided to shape them into this one. In theory, everything we create, own and do should have a story worth telling. These people have a multitude of stories that they may not have told otherwise. Now they have. We also appreciate that he chose to use Van Gogh, being that he’s one of our favorite Little Giants. [via Neatorama]
New York City’s Department of Transportation commissioned artist John Morse to design these 12 street signs as part of a program called “Curbside Haiku.” The signs are intended to raise awarenss of the “critical importance of shared responsibility among pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists in keeping New York City’s streets safe.” Many of the haiku are embedded in QR codes on the sign itself (because we need more reasons for people to stop walking in the middle of the sidewalk to do something on their phone). They’re located primarily around cultural institutions (like the Brooklyn Museum and MoMA) and public schools. The New York Times posted a story about them (written in haiku stanzas) and asked readers to submit their own sign suggestions, some of which are pretty clever. The signs are available from the Safe Streets Fund for $65 each or $100 for a set.
Our friend and soon-to-be-collaborator Mike Leavitt just wrapped up his excellent show, “Art Army Royalty,” at New York City’s Jonathan LeVine Gallery. To say it was a success would be a mild understatement, as Leavitt sold almost all of the 20-some original pieces he created for the occasion and received tons of press from the notoriously fickle and difficult-to-impress New York media community. One piece of noteworthy love was his placement atop New York Magazine’s infamous “Approval Matrix,” which each month designates different tangents of popular culture into four categories: despicable and highbrow, despicable and lowbrow, brilliant and highbrow and brilliant and lowbrow. (The second-to-last — top right — houses Mike and his Chuck Close action figure.) Congrats, Mike. I’m vicariously checking off appearing on the Approval Matrix from my bucket list. Wait, is that allowed? Social Media Propaganda Posters by Aaron Wood
Posted:
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
in Art, Design, Facebook, People, pop culture, posters, Stuff, The Internet
The other day Jason and I were walking back to the Jailbreak offices when we came across one of those chalkboard sidewalk signs that cafes and restaurants are so fond of these days. Living and working in Brooklyn we tend to pay nary attention to them, as they’re usually just advertisements for happy hour or $1 oysters, both things that we’re certainly interested in, but already know about because we Yelp everything before leaving our desks. Long story short, this sidewalk advert, which was in front of an unnamed “lounge” on Union St., was emblazoned from top to bottom with the colorful logos of various social media companies. It was ridiculous. Overdone. Completely unnecessary. All I want is an iced coffee and maybe a blueberry scone. I don’t need to interact with you on any website, let along multiple ones. We shared an exhausted glance, and as Jason asked, “What the hell is Gowalla?” I couldn’t help but feeling like all of this social media stuff seems at times like nothing more than 21st century propaganda. *** Timely then are these great social media propaganda posters by a guy called Aaron Wood. They’re available for $7.50 a pop on his Etsy page. Check out the entire set after the break. Spike Jonze directs another installment of The Continuingly Ill Adventures of the Beastie Boys, which find Action Figure versions of Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D fighting off a gaggle of (probably Eastern European) bad guys, with a little assistance from a Yeti and the singer Santigold. The Inception/Team America-inspired short acts as video support of the Beasties’ song, “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” off their excellent album, Hot Sauce Committee Part II. Also awesome is their insistence on calling the plastic Beasties “action figures” and not “toys.” We’ve been known to do that, too. Thanks, Mike Dolan!
Our friend, the multi-talented artist Mike Leavitt, points us toward the interesting work of artist and designer Kyle Bean, who built, among other things, this chicken out of eggshells for his piece titled, “What Came First.” Check out his Bean’s portfolio here. Street artist D*Face used skaters to paint a swimming pool by attaching spray cans to the underside of their boards and then clicking a remote control apparatus as they rode back and forth. (via Laughing Squid)
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