QR codes rule!

QR Cloud Project by Golfstrommen

I for one, am a great fan of QR codes - I think they're a really interesting and interactive way of connecting with your consumers and encouraging more online/digital interaction. In Japan, they're a big thing, featured almost everywhere, from magazines to shop windows to product aisles in supermarkets - it's a quick way for consumers to get more information on a product and to receive exclusive deals/coupons. It's also a way to track who your consumer is - though slightly bordering on privacy issues, I think QR codes should be embraced more in today's marketing world. Using it across different media platforms and channels will be interesting and maybe even using it for branding purposes as this company has started doing: an application that allows you to barcode your online profile and identity as a branding tool!

http://jumpscan.com/

Anyway, you can only imagine my excitement when Golfstrommen came up with the idea of using QR codes as a new way to disseminate art! Genius! I love the idea of making art consumable like products - in today's byte-sized and snappy culture, taking the time out to really enjoy and savor the arts is a luxury. So, having the ability to access art while you're on the go and having stored into a digital database for later viewing is a great way to go about promoting the arts to a wider audience! Imagine having QR codes at museums, where you can download a thumbnail of your favorite artwork with a quick discussion about the work, all on your phone! two thumbs up!

For more information on the project, visit http://golfstromen.nl/work/qr-cloud-project/

One-step closer to a cyborg universe

flicflex concept from chris woebken on Vimeo.

Flicflex by Chris Woebken

Taking the concept of the ipad and Kindle one step further, Chris Woebken came up with a concept for the future of flexible displays and interactions: "...'opening a letter, unfolding it and feeling the texture of the paper is a very tactile experience compared to receiving an e-mail. on top of the content itself, the behavior and micro-interactions adds a level of engagement to the medium.’ using this physical approach, he designed a series of interface gestures that take advantage of motion sensors and flexible displays."

It's one step closer towards a cyborgian future where the digital is so intertwined and co-opted into our everyday 'tangible' experiences. Imagine owning one of these bad boys - you won't ever need to carry around a book/laptop/notebook - just sync it up and you have instant digital access and yet somehow retain a 'virtual' sense of tangibility with the 'real' world... but who are we kidding? Eons from now, kids will be toting these flexible screens around and will never have had the satisfaction of feeling paper between their fingers and enjoying that little moment when you rip off a page from your favorite magazine and feeling the paper grain as you fold it and put it into your 'scrapbook'.

Call me old school, hey, maybe even a little nostalgic...but i worry about the day when books are no longer printed and i won't get the joy of looking at my ever-expanding bookshelves cos it's all stored digitally in these nifty little devices..

Hi-Lo Art and Life

Takashi Murakami @ Versailles

Japanese pop artist extraordinaire recently has an exhibition at the ostentatiously glamorous Versailles in France. The result? A kitschy mix of high culture and 'low' popular culture that pretty much defines the age we live in today. It's almost akin to the latest fashion trends, of mixing 'high-brow' pieces such as tweed jackets or pearls to a casual item like jeans and a tank. It's exciting, fresh and sooooo Murakami! AND.. it's like Jeff Koons, but cuter and squishy! (yes... i said squishy...how intellectual of me)

great balls of (fire) and light!

I like balls... yes i do...

I especially like them when they're all strung up and lit up in a spectrum of pretty colors! (what on earth were you thinking?!)






check out Mark Reigelman's outdoor installation at the cleveland museum of art just in time for their summer solstice event. Entitled "White Cloud", the installation features 100 eight-foot weather balloons strung up to resemble clouds and come nightfall, colors are projected onto them so they look like pretty marbles!




Similarly, Light Play an urban installation by Michael Levine and KPMB for the Luminato Festival in Toronto back in 2008, has taken the whole concept of lighted chinese lanterns to a whole new level.. absolutely gorgeous!!!

spiderman's lair

'tape installation' is a site specific installation by croation design collective, foruse/numen. showcased at the DMY international design festival in Berlin, the entire installation is yes, made entirely out of tape -700 rolls of adhesive tape no less. the collective has descrived their work as 'parasitic' and reminiscent of UFOs - i just think it looks like spiderman's lair.

here's a little note on the construction process: the tendons of multiple layers of transparent adhesive tape were firstly stretched in between the constructions. the following continuous wrapping of tendons resulted in a complex, amorphous surface through a process similar to the growth of organic forms.

definitely do check out their website to see the rest of their tape installations (particularly love the viennese piece) : http://www.foruse.info

dirrrty money

'Cashback' by vincent jacquier is an interactive installation that shows how one can alter the perception of an object by allowing it to express a virtual content directly linked to its physical aspect. here users are asked to take out a banknote from their wallets and re-evaluate its innocence. Once placed on the cashback glass, the note seeks to reveal its true twisted nature as a stripper appears and begins her provocative dance move. The higher the note's value, the more 'content' you get. Different sides of the banknote also dictate what kind of stripper you get (male or female).

While i totally see the artist's intention in the work, i just like the fact that the piece reminds me of all the times i've wanted to see a strip show and give the dancers some of my dollar bills! haha! seriously though, i like how the work questions the nature of currency and money and it's implicit 'whorish-ness' for lack of a better/more intellectual term.

body con art

and you thought you had body image issues....

Korean artist Bohyun Yoon created 'Mirror costume' as a means to interrogate reality and to integrate that with the everyday experience of contemporary society. It plays with the idea of perception, what is real and what is not.

I personally think it reflects more on the idea of self-perception, on our own delusions about self and how we perceive ourselves may not actually be reality at all. So the question is, is what i see in the mirror the real me? or am i made to believe it as a result of society's reflection on my psyche? (this is me after having watched 'inception' which is a brilliant movie btw)

for more information about the artist: http://www.bohyunyoon.com

phantom chair

'i’ve chosen to represent this shape as slices, similar to an mri scan in order to make visible
its complex 3 dimensional geometry. the chair is metaphorically and physically carved out
of a sliced box '

Re-configuring and re-casting the classic Panton chair into a silent phantom, Australian architect Chris Bosse has created a stunning piece of work that recalls the work of futurist art. The frantic lines gives the chair a sexy silhouette and almost looks like it was created out of light.

Part of the re-loved exhibition at the powerhouse museum, sydney

Color me bad!

Softlab studios has designed a fabulous installation at the Bridge Gallery in NYC entitled "Chromatex.me". Printed on high gloss paper and held together by paper clips (?!) the installation will transform the gallery into a virtual color tunnel/vortex. I can just imagine how great it'll be...it's like walking into a real life visualization of a 3-d vortex drawing.

full story here

floating presence

Created by Spanish designers Luzinterruptus, Floating Presence is the last of a series of public light interventions featuring 80 lit beings inhabiting the rivers in the eastern mountains of la mancha.

both surreal and creepy, the installation almost seem like traces of a journey through the town and brings to mind the idea of death and how spirits travel across the river to the underworld... for a pop cultural reference, think of the scenes in 'clash of the titans' where Perseus and gang head down to the underworld to look for Medusa.

full story here

sharpie liquid pencil

Hark! i hear angels singing! harps playing!

The geniuses at Sharpie just created the Sharpie Liquid Pencil that writes like a pen, erases like a pencil and stays permanent after three days...and get this... no need to change the lead at all! hallelujah for developments in writing instruments!! and to think just years ago, the 'pen eraser' was the coolest invention in my mind.

tripped out dance floor ?!

Currently on view at CACSA, aussie artist Sam Songailo's media centre is one trippy, neo-glo project that reminds me of J.T's music video for "Rock your body" (ok, it's a little bit of a far stretch, but you know what I mean)... anyway, I love the acid colors and the intricate patterning detail!!




Just for comparison purposes... and also an excuse for me to giggle at his hawtness ;)

it's all a matter of perspective

brilliant typography work/installation by joseph egan + hunter thomson.





http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/11093/joseph-egan-hunter-thomson-anamorphic-typography.html



which also brings to mind the work of Felice Varini - I love the play on perspectives and interactivity between the viewer and the work.


the last piece by varini was done in Singapore as part of the Singapore Biennial in '08? coolness! props to my peeps!!

Prism Liquid

Canon's neoreal installation at the Milan design week is simply amazing.. the structure reminds me of a glacier and the projections look like the reflections and refractions of light on water/ice. wow...the calibration of the projection must have been intense....

Designed by Akihisa Hirata and Kyota Takahashi:

"...the space is structured as a polyhedron, which glows in various prism-like colors. the lights flicker and move just as if water was flowing, changing their shape several times. two opposite concepts - static and dynamic, concrete and abstract, input and output - coexist in one world. the polyhedral screens are arranged in a sprial that is connected three-dimensionally, in which a world of new images comes to life through the colorful lights created by takahashi which are projected onto the larger-than-life construction (almost 6 m high, 8 m wide, 40 m deep) by akihisa hirata. the technical details behind the installation are possible through canon digital imaging technologies. the images which are seen have been taken with a digital single lens reflex camera and are projected in many colors, through 21 projectors on several polyhedral screens."

full story here

creepy dolls...Mark Ryden

Continuing on my fascination with all things creepy and slightly morbid, California artist Mark Ryden creates completely surreal and yet peculiar paintings of little doll-like girls.

They kinda remind me of the freaky Blythe Dolls and a bit of Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland

When Prada met Yang...

Chinese video artist Yang Fudong recently did a video for Prada's 2010 Spring/Summer Collection. It's part film noir, part In The Mood for Love and part cheesy fashion video. It also reminds me of "Kung Fu Hustle" and "Lust: Caution" due to the same sets that were used in all 3 pieces.

Dr. Loon would say this is PoMo - just look at the collapsing of time and space - the conflation of different periods of Chinese culture and dress, fused with the globalizing world of fashion; finally putting this in the perpetual presence and eliminating historical fact/lineage.

ah yes.... his teachings still run deep within this brain of mine.

With all that said, the video does have some stunning visuals and some rather poignant moments - though it can be a bit laboured at times with the deliberately long gazes and pregnant pauses...

random list of movies that i like...

i'm in the process of building up my DVD movie collection, so i figured i'd pen them down here as a catalog of sorts... it might also reveal more about my eclectic character!

1. Band of Brothers
2. Saving Private Ryan
3. Infernal Affairs
4. Sister Act 1 & 2
5. The Little Mermaid
6. 300
7. A Time to Kill
8. Becoming Jane
9. The Devil wears Prada
10. SATC (the series and movie)
11. Family Guy
12. Center Stage
13. Pride and Prejudice
14. Tropic Thunder
15. The Sound of Music
16. Breakfast at Tiffany's

pass the paper bag please...

In the event that you got slightly queasy from looking at creepy people, let me lend you a helping hand and pass you a paper bag...(sorry for the lame joke)

not just any paper bag, but one that has been meticulously handled to form a 3D miniature of a tree that hangs delicately from the roof of the paper bag. From McDonald's to Tiffany's to any form of paper product, Japanese artist Yuken Teruya creates minute pieces of work that resemble shadow theatre and speaks very much of a Japanese aesthetic of intricate handiwork

more creepy people...

Today seems to be "celebrate creepy people day" on my blog... I've always had a fascination with the slighty macabre and bizarre and these sculptures by Kevin Francis Gray pretty much fit the bill. Saw them at this year's Armory show and I thought they were part kitsch, part glamour and part relic. Some of the works remind me of Bernini's Ecstasy sculptures and yet they look like they ought to belong in Michael Jackson's private art collection, or some cheesy Texan oil millionaire's souped up trailer trash mansion. Contradictory for sure, but beautiful to look at for sure... Kevin's work can be found at Goff + Rosenthal in NYC.





In other creepy people news - Evan Penny - the artist who never fails to make me giddy... not out of awe but because he works play so much with perspective that it makes my eyes go wonky. I first saw his work at a bank's gallery in NYC...i had an argument with my friend cos we couldn't figure out if the sculptures were deliberately skewed to reflect the different angles from different viewpoints or if the windows had some special film that skewed the perspective of the sculptures when you moved... eitherway.. it was unnerving and mesmerizing like watching a train wreck.. nevermind the fact that i was thisclose to fainting, i had to continue looking.