We Make Money Not Art has a good interview with Riitta Ikonen, a new graduate from the Royal College of Art in London. ”My work is concerned with the performance of images, through photography and costume design. Certain items, usually small and insignificant, excite me to the point where I have to wear them and then document that process. The super- garments I make open up new experiences. In my costumes tremendous things happen - to me and to the people I work with.”
Burning Man, “an annual art event and temporary community based on radical self expression and self-reliance,” is about to take place again this year in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. In the meantime, John Curley is already out in the desert capturing the moments, people and atmosphere before it all begins.
PingMag has an interview with ZEVS, the French street artist whose street art and graffiti “distorts the logos” of corporate brands. “Visual kidnapping is like entering an interactive game: If the brand on the billboard kidnaps the attention of the public with the purpose of consumer demand, I reverse the situation and I kidnap the model on the poster and I demand a ransom of 500,000 Euros from the brand. This sum represents the symbolic price of an advertising campaign for the brand.”
Alice Wang‘s clever inventions put a new spin on sleep-related devices. With perfect sleep, instead of “setting when you want to wake up, this clock allows you to set how long you want to sleep.” With tyrant, the alarm clock “steals your mobile phone and randomly shuffles through your contact list and calls someone every three minutes after the desired wake up time.
In art school, I kept all my receipts for art supplies for several years in folders and boxes, thinking I would do something with them one day. Turn them into an art piece, attach them into a long paper trail documenting my consumption. Something. I love Kate Bingaman-Burt‘s solution: “I draw something that I purchase everyday. I also draw my credit card statements.” You can see her drawings at her Flickr collection or at her blog, Obsessive Consumption.
"The fabric for the Pixel Sofa has been picked up by Danish manufacturer Kvadrat, based off of a concept by Cristian Zuzunaga, a Royal College of Art graduate.” [via chiliCharlie at Stylehive]
As someone who once collected trash as art, and has an affinity for putting things into clear plastic containers, I loved Justin Gignac’s idea to sell cubes of New York city trash. Writes Justin: “I sell garbage. I scour New York City streets picking up trash. After filling bags with subway passes, Broadway tickets, and other NYC junk, I carefully arrange plastic cubes full of the stuff. Each box is unique and won’t leak or smell.” You can buy your own cube for $50 with free shipping anywhere. [via jamesyu at twitter]
From one of my favorite art toy companies, UNKL, comes Defcon SUG, “rising again to save the universe, and show them all that real men wear purple. Indeed!” SUG is 12” high and comes in a limited run of 500.
I’m not sure how the piece operates with a motor, but I like the stark boldness of Christian Robert-Tissot’s polystrene and acrylic installation, Void.
”La Chute” is a series by French photographer Denis Darzacq. Writes Natacha Wolinkski of the work: “"When the social elevator is broken you have to know how to bounce. Between the take off and the fall, the man parachuted in the city learns to control his trajectory.” It’s an interesting counterpoint to the photographs by William Hundley that we posted about earlier.
Robin Howie is a UK designer and artist exploring multiple themes of dialogue, space, boundaries, commercialization and communication. In the great tradition of Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger, Howie’s photo above transforms the public landscape into a conversation. See the series, A Dialogue With Public Space as well as his other work.
Jonathan Harris is one of my favorite artists. His latest project to launch is The Whale Hunt, in which he shares his visual experience - literally, the sequential view through his eyes. “Last May I spent ten days with a family of Inupiat Eskimos in Barrow, Alaska, during their annual spring whale hunt. I documented the entire experience with a plodding sequence of 3,214 photographs, beginning with the taxi ride to Newark airport, and ending with the butchering of the second whale, seven days later. The photographs were taken at five-minute intervals, even while sleeping (using a chronometer), establishing a constant ‘photographic heartbeat’. In moments of high adrenaline, this photographic heartbeat would quicken (to a maximum rate of 37 pictures in five minutes while the first whale was being cut up), mimicking the changing pace of my own heartbeat.”
William Lamson is an American artist whose work includes photography, video, sculpture and performance. In a recent interview, he writes: “My work addresses issues of masculinity, amateurism, science, play and the quixotic quest for personal heroism that accompanies these subjects. I am interested in the character of the amateur, the person who is motivated by love for the activity and a desire to achieve, but is limited by a lack of physical and technical expertise. Through the exploration of this character my work deals with human struggle and how we create meaning through it.”
Nicole Gastonguay taught herself how to crochet using Crocheting for Dummies. “Being Queen Dummy myself, I only know one stitch. This is what happens when I use it.”
From Kidrobot: “for all you fans of nesting toys comes The Visionaire Coloring Toy. This limited edition set contains 3 nesting figures, 4 sharpie markers and 2 sets of ears. It is produced in an edition of 1000, and 100% of the proceeds from sales benefits the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Now get creative!”
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