Coming across this amazing music video from OK GO, it makes me think that this would be a great winter activity for Brooklynites who don’t want to spent time outside freezing. Rube Goldberg Contest, winter 2011, anybody? We’ll sponsor it. P.S. This video is unbelievable. How they got the timing so perfect in one take, blows my mind.
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One wall in Paris. 5 years of graffiti. Whipped into a 3D animation by Serge Gainsbourg.
40 years after his sex symbolism, and he has still not lost his cool.
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There’s a Tim Burton retrospective at MoMA from the 22nd of November running aaaalllll the way to April 26th. As if there wouldn’t be enough people dying to go see it, Tim Burton created a 30-second video to be aired on TV and online, including a Burtonized MoMA logo. Since we all have to wait until March 2010 for his version of Alice in Wonderland, this retrospective should keep us satiated for the time being. Check out the Burton video below:
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Via MoMA/P.S.1’s sweet new blog
Schadenfreude
[shahd-n-froi-duh]/[ˈʃɑd
nˌfrɔɪdə]
n. Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.
1890–95; < German, equiv. to Schaden harm + Freude joy
Schopenhauer once said, “To feel envy is human, to savor schadenfreude is devilish.”
Except sometimes most of the time, because it’s hilarious. That’s why FAIL Blog has been so successful.
But the creator of FAIL Blog does have a sweeter side – now he’s created SUCCEED Blog, to counterbalance “HAHA that’s so messed up!” with “HAHA that’s so awesome!”
Endorsed by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, design and architecture studio mode:lina has created a sonic installation made of a hanging entanglement (in the shape of a cloud) of corrugated pipes, each serving as an amplifier that emits sounds accumulating around its actual position. This project was largely inspired by the concept of Audioarchitektura (Sonicarchitecture), which the studio describes as:
A utopian vision of a city that cannot be heard. An innovative system of sound emission, which isolates people from the unbearable audiosphere of crowded streets, traffic and all the noise that unnaturally has become an inseparable part of our life. Invisible Sonic-buildings, spread along the sidewalks, in parks and boulevards, emitting sound waves that drown out the city noise. Passer-by walking in their range are surrounded by the sound of hypnotic composition of Steve Reich’s concert, broadcasted live from the concert hall or a melody of raindrops falling on the tin roofs of urban buildings. Today this is a utopian technology, but Sonic Architecture is also a basis for discussion on acoustic ecology, city’s acoustic landscape and its impact on the inhabitants.
Having been born and raised in New York City, there is something deeply comforting to me about the incessant sound of honking cars, the click-clack of a businessperson against , and the hustle and bustle of a metropolis. Even at sleep-away camp in the mountains of Colorado, I would lie awake at night, unable to fall asleep because I was unsettled by the sound of nothingness (and a nearby creek), and longed for the sound of a car alarm. On rainy nights, the sound of raindrops falling down on our covered wagons (yes, wagons=bunks; 4 kids per wagon) sort of sufficed, but there’s still something so different about the sound of rain blanketing the city, when urbania is still audible but sounds miles away. What I needed in Colorado at age 12 was a couple of these mp3s of the many seemingly insignificant little sounds that make up the sound of a city:
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If you’re ever in Poland, the installation is on display at SPOT./ in Poznań.
There’s nothing wrong with opera. For singers, it’s the hardest genre to sing (even Beyoncé attempted to sing a few measures of “Habanera” from Carmen for a soda commercial a few years ago – and failed,) but if you can sing opera, you can sing anything; for composers, the sky’s the limit: Mozart threw in the highest note ever and the lowest note ever in The Magic Flute, and there’s no such thing as too extravagant – and the same goes for costume designers. Behind all the satin gloves, tuxedos, and white hair in the pompous crowd associated with it, a night at the opera can be hilarious, heartbreaking, and full of beautiful music.
That said – it’s a pleasure to see that The Knife, at the other extreme of music in the world of electronica, has composed an electro-opera as well as written the libretto for it (even Mozart didn’t write the words for his own operas.) Excerpt:
An intersection of the plain
by the bank of some great stream
the animal carcasses
and skeletons would be
entombed
Tomorrow in a year
tomorrow in a million years
Since it’s The Knife we’re talking about, it goes without saying that there must be some cool, eccentric catch to it all. Yes, well, the opera is about the world through the eyes of Darwin, in honor of the 150th birthday of the publication of On the Origin of Species. Differing from traditional operas that tend to have a 4 or so main characters on top of a chorus of 30, The Knife’s opera, Tomorrow, in a Year has 3 singers (only) and 6 dancers that perform to choreography by renowned Japanese modern dancer Hiroaki Umeda.
Tomorrow, in a Day will be residing at the Danish theatre Hotel Pro Forma, and will be touring in Switzerland, Germany, and France.
Here’s a video from the show, maybe it’ll even provoke you to take a trip to Europe:
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At long last, our Grado babies have come back home. Oh, how we missed you so!
Check it out, we got the whole lineup. We also have the GS1000i, RS1i, and RS2i headphones available for special order – because they really are just that special.
Some of you guys have been waiting a long time for these, and we love you for it. Here’s looking at you, kids.
by Ji Lee
A sadly accurate intimacy-meter in an age ruled by Twitter and Facebook, from the cunning designer of the Google Me Business Card.
Via Josh Spear
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UrbanScreen is a creative collective based in Bremen, Germany that specializes in projections on building façades – but what makes them so awesome is that they design their artwork for the specific building onto which it will be projected – so they really take the architecture of the building into account, and playfully customize the projections according to the building’s layout, resulting in an extremely cool augmented reality. Their latest feat is a projection on the Hamburg Kunsthalle:
The conception of this project consistently derives from its underlying architecture – the theoretic conception and visual pattern of the Hamburg Kunsthalle. The Basic idea of narration was to dissolve and break through the strict architecture of O. M. Ungers “Galerie der Gegenwart”. Resultant permeabilty of the solid facade uncovers different interpretations of conception, geometry and aesthetics expressed through graphics and movement. A situation of reflexivity evolves – describing the constitution and spacious perception of this location by means of the building itself.
Via we find wildness
This is probably the funniest thing I’ve seen all week, and it’s making me very sad that I don’t live on the L anymore (they gotta start doing the G train)! So here we have it: A Completely Ironic Service that only stands to lose money, but make you lots of friends. Awesome. Check the details after the jump.
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