After seeing a video of his BMW commercial, I had to write a post dedicated to Theo Jansen. A Dutch kinetic sculptor, Theo Jansen has taken a scientific approach to his art form, which relies on engineering and the evolution of design. The complexity of his creations is immense, and with so many movable parts it is almost inconceivable that they could be powered by the wind. The videos are amazing in themselves. Wired has written a very good article.
The month of August has been filled with great outdoor concerts in New York and I was lucky enough to get tickets to a few of them. There really is nothing like hearing music on a clear summer night. The first was summer stage in central park with The National headlining. Plants and Animals, the first opening band, played as the sun was setting and the small gated arena started filling with people. The three guys in the band were all wearing large sunglasses and wailing away. In all of their songs the lead singer would scream into the mic, and by the end of the set, he definitely lost his voice. The second opening band was Yeasayer which was really the most interesting. They had a great eclectic sound that mixed dark british post-punk with psychedelic, middle eastern, and southern rhythms. Then, The National came on and played an amazing set. At first it seemed like they had a problem with the sound and the deep vocals of the lead singer were blown out, but it was quickly fixed. I had seen them open for The Arcade Fire and they only played a few songs off of their album Alligator. At summer stage, they played songs from all their albums and were much more animated. The lead singer smashed a small rhythm instrument and went into the crowd at one point. They also had a small horn section which enhanced the songs.
The second concert was The Black Keys at McCarren Pool in Brooklyn (which is a convenient 15 minute walk from my apartment). There were also two opening bands; the first being Love As Laughter. Apparently, another band was supposed to play, but they couldn’t at the last minute, so Love as Laughter was the replacement. I had seen them before in small venues, but I thought they were amazing at the pool. They really rocked out, and by the end of their set people around me were blown away. The next opening band, Tapes ‘n Tapes, was not nearly as good. They started with a few disjointed fast and loud songs and then played a few others that could have been someone else entirely. I was not impressed. After a little waiting, The Black Keys finally came on and were insane. The drum kit was setup on a platform on the front edge of the stage, so the crowd could really see the drummer pounding away. I couldn’t believe the sound they put out with only two people, but it was like a bomb hit they had so much energy. They played all the classics from previous albums and even translated a few from their new album, Attack and Release, sans keyboard effects. I thought the live interpretations were even better than the ones with the keyboard on the album. Overall, this was by far the best of the concerts I saw in August.
The last one was Wilco, also at McCarren Pool, which was pretty good. I had been wanting to see Wilco play since collage when I was really into them. I don’t think there was an opening band, though there could have been because I was a little late getting there. Wilco played almost 30 songs (a good mix from different albums) with two encores which I couldn’t believe. One of the funniest parts of the concert was when they got the crowd clapping to the beat of one song and somehow it got modified from the traditional clap clap to clap-clap, clap. They played so many songs, I thought it was almost too much. Overall, it was a good concert, but in my opinion not as powerful as The Black Keys or even The National concerts. This could be that my tastes have changed, or maybe it was that the crowd was entirely different at the Wilco show.
There is definitely some sort of organic science to an amazing concert, but I’m not going to attempt an elaborate analysis. I was definitely lucky to be able to experience these live concerts, because in New York the rule is: if you really want to see something, there are at least 20,000 other people thinking the same thing. (Also, scalpers aka. TicketMaster are trying to make as much money as they can off that thought). Cheers!
A trip through the galleries of Chelsea is an adventure and an escape from the large overcrowded museums of the city. There is more diversity in the small gallery. You can see Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings next to the work of an unknown artist’s renderings of the relationship between bread and butter. Everything is for sale and for twenty thousand dollars you could take it home with you. I was most impressed with the sculptures of Robert Therrien at the Gagosian Gallery. A small closet with 888 red objects, stacks of giant pots and pans, and a towering card table with huge fold-out chairs were particularly interesting. Each small exhibit always give me the feeling that I’m inside a micro-universe that the artist has created and Therrien’s giant objects heightened that sense. In this alternate world we entered the land of giants.
Recently, I have been experimenting with the idea that a business card should be something more. It will now be thought of not only a means of communicating important contact information, but also something even more personal. An unspoken form of communication that will force the recipient to create meaning.
The card I am envisioning as a shell or container for a found object or material. This found object within the card functions almost as a non sequitur because there is no apparent connection between it and the shell. The personal information (shell) represents the giver, and the object (found material), after it is discovered, work together to create a different meaning all together. For instance, if the shell appears to be a very formal business card with small type and embossed monograms, the receiver forms an initial impression. Later, when they realize that inside the card is a cut-out magazine clipping of Flava Flav’s gold tooth they would form an altogether different meaning or persona.
As this is an ongoing experiment, I will be updating this post in the next few days.
I have recently become addicted to the work of fiction writer T. Coraghessan Boyle after reading his novel “Drop City” and the collection of stories “Tooth and Claw”. You can hear him read Tobias Wolff’s short story “Bullet in the Brain” and read a short story he has written for the New Yorker entitled “The Lie”.
Since the first computer games there have been building games/simulations that encourage and reward creativity. The early great simulations like Railroad Tycoon and Sim City to the strategy games like Civilization, Master of Orion and X-Com were pioneers in defining what a game could be. The next logical step in the epic game promises to be Will Wright’s Spore which is set to be released in September. Essentially, it allows the player to assume the God-like role of creating and evolving creatures. It is also a tool for creating 3-D rendered and animated creatures with ease. Another, profound aspect of the game is how it integrates user-generated content from other players universes together to create a richer experience. I’m not sure if I’ve seen social networking/sharing so deeply rooted in a game concept before. This also raises the question, when does Spore eclipse being a game and turn into something else entirely? The stages of this epic defying game seems to be directly influenced by the documentary film powers of ten. It begins in the tide-pool phase where your creature grows as it accumulates points for surviving and finding food. Eventually, your creature crawls on the land, and as it evolves further, mates and establishes a tribe. The tribe over time will then expand into a civilization which will then travel into space. Along the way the player can customize and evolve the creature and the structures it creates. The creature creator demo is scheduled to be released in June. Here is a video of a creature being created and an up to date fan site.
Created by Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville in 1959, the dream machine (dreamachine) is essentially a flickering light that pulses at 8-10 times a second. The original dream machine was created as a cylinder with slits sitting on top of a turn table. A light was housed inside and the slits were cut precisely to produce the right flickering effect. Against closed eyelids, the flicker causes the brain to submerge into a dream like state and produces an interesting effect of patterns and imagery. As with all flickering lights, it can cause photosensitive epilepsy in certain people. Check out the online dreamachine and how to build one yourself. There is also a documentary!
Recently at a gallery crawl in Chelsea, I witnessed an exhibit by the korean artist Hyungkoo Lee of the skeletons of animated characters. The first ones I recognized were the distinct duck-like bones of Huey, Dewey and Lewey fully restored in a dinosauresque display. There were also the remains of the Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote along with Tom and Jerry. The thing that I found most interesting was the way that they were displayed and the story that was created by the mood of the gallery space. The walls were all black and the rooms were dark, except for the spot lights illuminating the sculptures. On a far wall hung a large sketch of mouse skull with an outline showing two very familiar round ears. In the back there was a viewing area where you could see the working area/excavation and preservation of these long lost creatures. The supposed scientists have created a family tree to track the known species of Homo Animatus. Who knows what creatures will be rediscovered, long after we have forgotten… these once famous characters from our childhood. Check out http://www.hyungkoolee.net/
graphic designer
Brooklyn, New York