There was a time when my sister, cousin and I spent hours playing our Nintendo Super Mario Brothers. It was innocent fun: no killing, no stabbing, no blood. The only violence we inflicted in this virtual realm was squashing mobile mushrooms. Those were the wholesome days.
Photographer Robbie Cooper recorded children of today’s generation during their video game sessions to capture the intensity of their interaction with the “worlds that aren’t real.” And intense they are. Exclaiming, “How do you like bullets?” or “Come back here, let me stab you” or “Ha ha, you gonna get knifed,” these kids are truly immersed in the moment. A boy below, lost in his world, stares at the screen without blinking, filling his eyes with tears. . . We’ve definitely come a long way from collecting golden coins.
Didn’t have much time to explore, but apparently, Zune has created a forum where artists could share their ideas and present their work.
But that’s not the point of this post… Check out the ad that drives to this site! Both gross and poetic, this piece was created by Sibling Rivalry, “two very well experienced, self proclaimed viral advertising professionals.” (via www.thedenveregotist.com)
This fall marks my last (if all goes well) semester at grad school. But before my classmates and I rejoice, we’re tasked to write and defend a monster of a final project. Which of course, in my anxiety-driven mind, has given me numerous reasons to procrastinate and focus on something trivial.
Apart from reading people’s status updates on Facebook (Monica is crossing her fingers for tomorrow!!; Nicole is breathless…; Ellen is chillin; Naomi is going to vote and get a free vibrator, etc), I’ve been obsessed with iTunes’ Genius.
When I had an intense need to find THE album that would help me concentrate on my paper, Genius never failed and introduced me to pretty awesome artists. I’ve been banging out my paper page by page while grooving to Quantic, Little People, Tosca, and Urbs, all thanks to Genius. I love it how with this type of technology it’s so much easier to shape your own music taste and expand your music horizons. Now, where was I with my project….
Remember the guys who did a backwards runway show? The same guys who designed an upside down champaign bottle? Well, this fall, Viktor & Rolf gave us another reason to marvel over their creative deviance.
During Paris fashion week, the Dutch designer duo forwent producing a real fashion show and instead created their own virtual runway with one and only Shalom Harlow. A viewer is almost fooled into thinking that this is simply a stomping army of homogenous, yet gorgeous, models who happen to look like the supermodel. Whether you like the collection or not, this “one girl one runway” concept still carries their signature wink.
MoMA’s current exhibit, Looking at Music, explores the work of pioneering multidisciplinary artists who combined their craft with music and new media/technology. Parallel to the exhibit, there are screenings of art films which center around music and music videos directed by artists.
One of the featured pieces is this video directed by Andy Warhol for some ’80s band. It’s quite raunchy and totally awesome:
Documenting performance art can be tricky. Although the piece is meant for the moment in which it’s taking place, an artist needs to preserve that fleeting moment for archival purposes (for the benefit of all art lovers, i think). Until now, performance art has been documented in photos, videos, catalogs, and viewers’ memories. However, in our Internet day and age, art “archiving” is taking place in the blogosphere.
Take Robyn Okrant, for example, a performance artist and writer who is living a year of her life according to Oprah. Her everyday decisions are made based on what Oprah tells her viewers to do on her show and in her magazines. Okrant then writes about her life on her blog: living Oprah. It’s quite funny, yet disturbing how what she’s doing as an art experiment is actually what some Oprah followers do with full sincerity and intent.
A while back I took a class in stage design where we had to bring Oedopus to life with a few sticks and a couple of meters of fabric. That was a turning point where I realized that what’s behind the performers can completely enhance/alter viewing experience. I’ve seen some gorgeous minimalist and elaborate sets out there. However, with interactive technology, the Builders Association takes stage design–and theater–to another level.
Their performances incorporate technology in a way that it not only becomes an experiential background, but helps define the essence of the play and becomes another character. They are touring this fall and are coming to BAM in November–I’d be curious to check them out.
Apologies for my lengthy blogging hiatus. During the past few weeks, I’ve been happily congregating with my family in my Motherland, Mongolia. As always, my soul is rejuvenated and my batteries are recharged. And as always, I rediscovered my country’s beauty.
Having lived in the States for almost a decade and having witnessed the “green movement” craze; I forgot that the purest forms of eco-conscious, sustainable living has always been a part of everyday life in deeply rural parts of Mongolia. And when I say eco-conscious, I’m not talking about demonstratively stuffing walls with jeans and repurposing a surfing board as a coffee table to call it “earth-friendly.”
What I was reminded during my trip to Bayan Ulgii, a western province of Mongolia, was how it is possible to lead a life that is in balance with surrounding nature and is waste free, where each household item has a function(s), where virtually everything is recycled and reused, and how it can take very little to be happy.
Solar panels kept electricity going at night.
These wall ornaments were embroidered with thread from old sweaters.
Free roaming husbandry, anyone?
From the tip of its horn to the bottom of its hind hoof, everything on this goat serves a purpose.
A sheep about to fulfill one of its many purposes…yum.
In case you were wondering how teens in Mongolia used to roll in the nineties (and a few decades before that)…some used to cohort in apartment building stairwell cases to play guitar and sing songs dubbed the “Ortsnii Duu” aka “Stairwell Songs.” In fact, that’s how I learned to play guitar–banging chords from la to me to sol to do, belting out, “Writing my love letter on a sheet of paper made in USSR.”
Lyrics were awesomely raw and heartfelt, chord progressions totally rudimentary. There were no songbooks with lyrics and notes; yet, like an ancient oral tradition, Stairwell Songs were passed down in the streets of Ulaanbaatar from generation to the next.
Similarly, b-boying has been an urban (Bronx, to be exact) ritual bequeathed from one b-boy to another. But with growing popularity of dance shows on TV, TiVo, and peeps using youtube, passing down the knowledge of street moves has changed with technology.
Take MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew, which took street dancing to a whole new level. On their site, moves are broken down, replayed, and taught. Not to mention gazillions of tutorials on youtube, like this one, where each element is deconstructed in slow motion. So, if next time you see me on a dance floor busting out freak nasty or sponge bob, do know that my youtube has been getting a lot of action.
Watch & learn…Winners of America’s Best Dance Crew, JabbawockeeZ:
Apparently, melancholic love stories written by Japanese girls on their cellphones are all the rage. According to the NYTimes, five out of ten 2007 best-selling fiction books in Japan were cellphone novels.
What’s interesting is that the phenomenon didn’t happen as a result of an intense need to appropriate technology into a creative outlet, but instead, the technology was what sparked the itch to write.
From NYT: “It’s not that they had a desire to write and that the cellphone happened to be there,” said Chiaki Ishihara, an expert in Japanese literature at Waseda University who has studied cellphone novels. “Instead, in the course of exchanging e-mail, this tool called the cellphone instilled in them a desire to write.”
Structurally, the novels are written in short sentences that form tight paragraphs, which nicely fit on phone screens. There’s also a lot of dialogue with spaces in between the lines, which are used to communicate that the characters are deep in thought.
Here’s an excerpt from the wildly popular “To Love You Again,” written by 22-year old Satomi Nakamura (who busted a blood vessel in her pinky finger from hardcore texting):
Kin Kon Kan Kon (sound of school bell ringing)
(space)
The school bell rang
(space)
“Sigh. We’re missing class”
(space)
She said with an annoyed expression.
Chiming in on the discussion of democratization of fashion shows, Stefano Pilati, creative director at Yves Saint Laurent, chose to show his 2008 Fall/Winter menswear collection as a triptych LCD projection. Featuring Simon Woods, the star of HBO’s Rome, the presentation is captivatingly eery and seamlessly (and unpretentiously) incorporates the clothes as part of its plotless sequence.
Pilati elaborates on use of technology in lieu of the traditional catwalk in his interview with Wallpaper Magazine.
The result is an engaging art film with a creepy looking dude, who still manages to look hot…in a weird kind of way:
I have to confess, I am a sucker for bad reality TV and domestic arts. And yes, the two go together hand in hand: I crocheted this trippy doily while watchingA Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, season 1.
Imagine my astonishment, when I saw this marvelous music video created with 723 individually KNITTED (!) frames. The band is a Canadian duo named Tricot Machine (which stands for “knitting machine,” for those linguistically challenged).
Though a knitting machine was involved (it would have been even more badass if they were actually hand-knit), the creation process still sounds arduous. According to David Valiquette who produced the video:
“We actually shot our characters on green screen to start with. Then we edited, keyed and composited in AE to add the other elements like snow and stadium. We then outputed 723 jpeg of the clip to our knitter that used them as templates for the knits. The knitting technique is actually called in french “Tricot machine”, hence the band’s name!” [source]
I loved reading this article in New York Magazine’s LOOK issue discussing a commentary written by the NYTimes‘ fashion critic Cathryn Horyn who is bothered by the idea that in this day and age of instant information flow runway shows are still being produced for the eyes of select few.
“Why not let the Internet’s instantaneousness be a virtue, a good new business practice? Why can’t editors, retailers, and critics watch the shows on their own time, from the comfort of their Wi-Fi-enabled couches? End the celebrity scrum, the painfully long waits, the jet lag, and the excessive carbon footprint.”
Although NY Mag’s writer Janet Ozzard agrees with Horyn’s approach to democratizing fashion through instant online access, she still would like to hold on to the magic of being part of the excitement.
And who can blame her? Just imagine witnessing Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel mary-go-round runway show in person as opposed to seeing it online:
Or seeing the giant Chanel jacket set with your own eyes (and feeling totally dwarfed and insignificant):
And if fashion shows were to move to the internet, would designers be motivated to produce grand-scale productions such as this?
Caption for photo below from New York Look: In Person: Alexander McQueen’s fall show, left, was a spine-tingler for the few hundred who saw it live. On Screen: Hussein Chalayan’s elegant spring-summer video, right, is there for anyone sitting in front of a computer. (Photo: Chris Moore/Catwalking/Getty Images)
When was the last time you fell asleep to a bedtime story? Though it’s been ages for me, I still can hear my grandpa’s warm and gentle voice reading Mongolian fairy tales and lulling me to sleep.
For all those wanting to regress back to that cozy place, artist Susana Mendes Silva offered a bedtime story read through SKYPE (an internet phone service). Her performance piece required the following: participants sent her an email with date, time and if they wanted to hear their story in English or Portuguese. At the time of story-telling, participants were instructed to listen via skype headphones hooked up to their computer, in the dark and preferably in bed. The artist would then read the story for up to 30 minutes.
What’s amazing about this concept is the amount of trust required to take place between listeners and the artist. Although technology offers complete anonymity and distance during this performance, by allowing a stranger into an intimate moment listeners are placing themselves into a vulnerable state–fully trusting that nothing shady can ever happen.
Here’s another example of wearable technology which interacts with human body and surrounding environment. Just like the Smart Second Skin Dress, these dresses are made from high tech materials enabling sensory interaction and prediction of the wearer’s emotional state. This project is designed as part of Phillips’ initiative, Design Probes, which is dedicated ”‘to track[ing] trends and developments that may ultimately evolve into mainstream issues that have a significant impact on business.” Though I find the idea of wearable technology interesting, I have to admit that what I’ve seen so far seems impractical and gimmicky. But then again, wearing this ridiculously impractical speaker vest can either make you the life of the dance floor or the butt of all jokes…
Don’t wear this at your wedding if you’re having doubts–everyone will know.
When I was 12 years old, I saw a performance by Japanese wunderkinds who were students at the Yamaha Music School and were on a tour in Ulaanbaatar. I watched the show with an open-mouthed awe; I had nothing on these kids with my one-fingered rendition of “Chopsticks.” Since then, I never dared to touch a piano, but developed a deep respect for Yamaha’s commitment to foster musical creativity. (If you think I’m exaggerating these kids’ abilities, let this 3-year old put your musical skills to shame.)
Which brings me to the point of this post. Yamaha’s new digital musical instrument, TENORI-ON, was launched this spring, and it’s totally awesome. Designed by media artist Toshio Iwai, this touch screen instrument has 16×16 matrix of LED switches, which visualize musical gestures. “Intuitive design” may be an overused phrase these days; but in this case, TENORI-ON is totally on to something with its visual and intutive interpretation of music-making.
Read PingMag’s interview with TENORI-ON’s developer Yu Nishibori here.
Thanks to Create Digital Music (a forum for musicians using technology), I stumbled upon something called “audio responsive visual” where music is interpreted through programming language, or what is also known Processing. In this video, artist/designer/programmer Robert Hodgin’s (Flight404) visualizes “Lovely Head” a song by British group Goldfrapp. You’ll see that his interpretive code not only accentuates the song’s beat, pitch and loudness but also incorporates its lyrics–apparently, a challenging task to achieve in Processing. Don’t know about you, but I couldn’t stop watching this mesmerizing piece…
My poet husband (shameless promotional plugs here and here) went to a reading at the Bowery Poetry Club this Saturday and came back bearing gifts in form of cultgear blogging material. Flarf is an avant-garde poetry movement in which poets mine the internet for random words and phrases which are pieced together into poems. Some technically savvy poets created their own Google poem generators. For example, at this site I typed in “why” and clicked on “generate poem.” Here’s what came back:
“why”
Google Poem generated on Wed Apr 30, 2008
do one
all in the
tutorial
still for
Don why
example
space
I
the
in
get
disagree determine ….. the the
If we get that far, I can find out if we agree on why it’s good.
Hmmm, conceptually Flarf is an interesting reflection on the internet as our collective database for words and ideas. But artistic randomness, in my opinion, works well when the intent is controlled. Whereas in this case, both control and intent are missing…
Two weekends ago, I had the best Sunday afternoon with my relapeeps. After a nice brunch, my cousins and I went to the Brooklyn Art Museum to check out Takashi Murakami’s fabulous retrospective. When seen in bits and pieces, his art may seem superficial and infantile, flat and cartoonie. But when more than ninety works are placed under one roof and one has a chance to review Murakami’s career span, suddenly, it’s obvious that his work speaks volumes beyond its cute surface. Not only is it deeply rooted in traditional Japanese painting techniques but is also a shrewd commentary on superficial, consumerist society.
Kaikai & Kiki
To stick to my technology angle, here’s a hilarious robot kid Inochi who goes to school with normal kids and lives through embarrassing pre-adolescent moments.
This dance solo was performed at The Kitchen a few months ago, and I’m quite sad to have missed it. Glow is a performance piece that combines interactive video technology and contemporary dance. An infrared camera follows a dancer on the floor and sends real time signals to a computer. The computer runs algorithms which generate digital landscapes that envelope the dancer’s body. The result is a powerful optical illusion of space and confinement. And as viewers, we’re able to trace the profound tension between body and space.
My dear mother–a lady to the core, herself a daughter of another genuine lady–has always wanted me to stand and sit upright (a must for any lady in the making). I’m sad to report that her lady-making business with me is still a work in progress…However, there’s hope with this interactive underwear, Ergoskin, designed by Talia Elena Radford Cryns. Whenever the wearer slouches (as I am right at this moment), tiny sensors which are woven into the fabric send ergonomic signals to the skin to move the body into ideal posture. The concept received Austria’s National Design Award in the student work category. Until Ergoskin is actually produced, I’m gonna have to rely on one of these.
So, remember how I blogged about Absolut Vodka music machines that take your melody, which you enter on your computer, and improvise it on the spot? I just received an email with a video that plays my tune (a tune I used to bang on every piano that came across my path). It’s quite beautiful and still hard to comprehend its technical geniality (at least in my simple mortal mind) of how it was able to receive data from my computer and play it live.
If BBC considers you the next best contemporary artist after Matthew Barney, then everyone else ought to listen. After seeing her on coolhunting, I’ve been obsessively googling Saskia Olde Wolbers and reading tons of articles about her work.
Her videos are truly stunning. Her stories are intricate, poignant and intelligent. But what really amazed me was the fact that all her sets are made by hand. After watching the videos, it’s hard to imagine that whatever looks digitally rendered is created from scratch and takes years to build in some cases. Who knew that it takes a lot of human effort to look this techno!
I’m totally into my Nixon watch. It’s ever present on my wrist and never fails to please the crowd. Needless to say, my shoe addiction is not the only vice…Well, imagine how my greedy little heart started to palpitate when I saw these gorgeous watches featured on Yanco Design (the best online mag for latest design projects!). My materialistic spasm came to a sudden halt when I realized that these were only conceptual renderings…as in you-have-to-wait-till-2030. Rest assured, I’m ready to wait for these gems…
While having a major Saturday morning vegg out session, I stumbled upon an awesome documentary about legendary jazz musician Herbie Hancock. In Herbie Hancock Possibilities, cameras follow Herbie’s collaborative music making, as he jams with Stevie Wonder, Sting, John Mayer, Christian Aguilera, Paul Simon, John Patitucci, Annie Lennox, Joss Stone, Angelique Kidjo, Damien Rice, Raul Midon, Johnny Lang. Maybe it was my hormones or maybe it was the beautiful music, but I shed a tear or two.
However, my point is this. Herbie Hancock was one of the first musicians to merge new technology and music (who will ever forget Rockit?). But this video is my favorite. Herbie at his best, doing major music voodoo with his state of the art (by 1974 standards) synthesizer.
I am not really sure what these electronic bracelets actually do, but according to their creator, Leah Buechley a Ph.D. student in Computer Science, these sassy LED accessories function as “motion-sensing, communicating wearable displays. Each bracelet contains an accelerometer that senses wrist movement and a Bluetooth module for wireless communication. They can interact with laptops, PDAs and cell phones as well as each other and other wearables.” Whoa! Pretty high tech for my simple mortal mind…but pretty, without a doubt.
Watch a video demonstration on how these creations work here.
Though completely swept away by its beauty, I’m just a tad bothered by the blatant leap between art and commerce in Prada’s animated short, Trembled Blossoms. Conceived as wallpaper for Prada stores, this collaboration between 2×4 and illustrator James Jean was animated via motion-capture technology and latest animation techniques.
Totally gorgeous, I know…But the story of fantastical journey could have kept its magic by keeping the artistic gesture and commercialism far apart.
Architect and artist Maya Lin was only a senior in college when she won a national competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washingotn D.C. Her idea was simple, yet powerful and poetic: a reflective 246-foot granite wall etched with 58,000 names of fallen American soldiers. According to Wired Magazine, the wall is now online and interactive. Visitors can upload photos and share memories of their loved ones. With grief and healing moving into the virtual world, they open up new ways to mourn for victims of contemporary wars.
“There is no wrong way to approach the “Vietnam Veterans Memorial” as it makes no grand statements about politics or American ideals. Its sole proposition is that the cost of war is human life.” Art21, PBS
Eva and Franco Mattes, aka 0100101110101101.ORG, are performance artists whose main medium is technology. Using their Second Life avatars, they stage Synthetic Performanceswhich are reenactments of famous performance pieces from the past. Here, they reproduce Vito Acconci’s notorius Seedbed, performed in 1972, where he masturbated while nested under a ramp at the Sonnabend Gallery and harrassed expressed his sexual desires to unsuspecting gallery visitors.
Acconci spreading his seed in his 1972 performance
Seedbed reenacted in the 21st century through a Second Life Avatar
