Animatus is an exhibition of reconstructions of 3D skeletons of classic cartoon characters, including Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry oder Donald Duck. A bit odd, but I like it.
above: Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote (source: hyungkoolee.net)
South Korean artist Hyungkoo Lee is exhibiting his Animatus show in the Natural History Museum Basel until the 31st August 2008.
The new Beijing Olympic Pictograms reminded me that there’s a load of really really nice images over at the Otl Aicher pool on flickr. Otl pictograms from the 72 munich olympics are the ones above obviously…
Having praised Mark Earl’s book, Herd, I thought it only right to check out his blog. Lucky I did too.
The image above is of my oyster card wallet… well, not mine but one like it. I always wondered who the artist was, as it was given away for free at random by TFL and the Arts Council (randomly allocating one artist over another). Mark talks about the power of the backstory in reference to Tim Mitchells‘ other works (see below) but I’ve always loved my oyster wallet (shell?) because of the non-story that it provides me with on long boring journeys.
Wow. Sky News has brought something rather “impressive” to light: The Olympics fireworks display was faked… Read the full article here, but here’s the bottom line:
“The global television audience of more than three billion people watched in amazement as a series of giant footprints outlined in fireworks proceeded through the night sky from Tiananmen Square to the Bird’s Nest stadium - except they were watching a computer animation.
Even the giant television screens within the stadium itself broadcast the fake images.
Stunned viewers thought they were watching the string of fireworks filmed from above by a helicopter, but in reality they were watching a 3D graphics sequence that took almost a year to produce. It even included a ‘camera shake’ to mimic the effect of filming from a helicopter…
…Organiser said that the footprint fireworks were there for real, but thought it unsafe to try to film them - so they recreated them instead.”
More photos of the ceremony can be found on Flickr.
If you like bikes as much as i do you’ll lose hours perusing the virtual museum that speedbicycles has created. Above are a few snapshots (by no means highlights, just a few grabs) of an ottusi pista, an Andy Hampsten eddy merckx special Motorola Alpe D’Huez racer, and a gitane aero racer… If you appreciate good design/typography/engineering you’ll enjoy this site. highly recommended.
“As a longtime supporter of, and innovator in, the bike community, PUMA is happy to present the I-Cycle Film Series produced by Daniel Leeb of Cinecyle Productions. This collection of short films is dedicated to exploring bike culture and its influencers.
Featuring today’s trailblazers of the two-wheeled community, this film series talks about the importance of biking and the impact this simple activity has on the world we live in. For the production of these films, we followed guys who look at their bikes as more than just a mode of transportation.
The advocates we pedaled alongside include: Matthew McGuinness, a cofounder of The 62, a Brooklyn-based art collective who started Re-Bicycle; George Bliss, the man behind New York’s Pedi-cabs; Brendt Barbur, founder of The Bicycle Film Festival; Matthew Modine, actor and founder of Bicycle-For-A-Day and finally, Antonio Bertone, PUMA’s CMO, who much like the men above, finds pure joy in cycling to work every morning. “
Getty Images - the leading supplier of stock images with an archive of 70 million still images and illustrations and more than 30,000 hours of stock film footage - has this intriguing website - Moodstream.
The website claims:
“Moodstream is a powerful brainstorming tool designed to help take you in inspiring, unexpected directions. Whether you want images, footage or audio, or just need a stream of fresh ideas, tweak the Moodstream sliders to bring a whole new creative palette straight to you…”
I am not so sure about the site’s ability to get the creative juices flowing, with its irratic changes in music and bewildering settings which appear to change very little - but it is worth a visit, even if only for some short glimpses of some of their outstanding photography and footage.
There are loads of pop-up or guerilla stores (Commes Des Garcon’s being the most consistent, and Prada’s being the most impractical) but Ikea have made a pop up apartment in Union Square NYC.
For all of you fans of advertising: there is a bunch of resources cataloguing old, and somewhat creepy adverts, especially the “Demonic Tots” gallery on Plan59 (museum of mid century illustration) is worthy of note. Found in Mom’s basement is a rolling blog, regularily updated with new (read old) adverts, and with a lot of archived material.
A lot of these ads are brought together here, some funny, some odd, some just plain wrong (like the Union Carbide India advert, with the catchy line “a hand in things to come”, later responsible for the worst industrial accident in history - Bhopal 1984).
The rain did little to dampen the crowd’s spirits at last year’s highly successful Smithfield nocturne event (organised by Rapha & Condor), which returns to the market this coming weekend, with a revised programme of events. This year will see a depart from the courier race in favour of a roller race (provided by Rollapaluza i’d expect). A full timetable can be found at the Smithfield Nocturne website.
The elite race should be great this year, we expect to see the Rapha Condor Recycling team out in force, as well as everybody’s favourite Barloworld rider, and rising star Geraint Thomas. “It will be great to return to London as it’s not often we get the opportunity to race there,” he commented. “The Nocturne is obviously a different prospect to the Tour de France but I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve just come off the back of the Giro so I’m up for mixing it up in a crit race.” Word is he will be accompanied by Ed Clancy, not forgetting last year’s champ James McCallum of Plowman Cravens Evans.
I’ve been looking forward to for a year; should be a great day - get there early for a good view, and be sure to take a camera!
photographs by Leigh Simpson
