Katz of the day

moon cat by medake

mac of the moment

Mac-O-Lanterns

TXT of The Living Dead

What would you say if Zombies were chasing you? TXT of the Living Dead takes the classic horror flick Night of the Living Dead and turns it into an interactive graphic story. Using text messaging an audience re-writes the movie by texting in their own dialogue.


Come on out at Halloween

Halloween night... 7 - 9 ish.

TXT of The Living Dead, interactive graphic story, playing on the corner of Smith st. and Pacific St. in Brooklyn. Take F/G train to Bergen stop.

maybe we will achieve this

Seen On A Draw Bridge in Amsterdam


via

Make your own IE Voodoo Doll Plushy

to protect us from perversion on the internet


This is a follow up to the IE voodoo Doll posted some days ago. about:blank points to some handy instructions by Teresa, the artist behind the needful thing, how to make your own IE Voodoo Doll Plushy.



click for full size (may be resized by IE)

now go ahead and torture it in any way that fits. (and send Teresa a pic)

Doggie Style

Croc Dog. This is just straight up clever

Hot Dog. Cliche and predictable, yes, but nice execution and pretty dog.

It’s October, and nearing that special time of year that kids of all ages dress up in ridiculous garb and beg money from kind strangers, then come home to worried parents rifling through their prizes for razors and poison. Good times, good times.

Unless, of course, you’re one of those poor creatures who do not pick out and dress up in costumes: those who are dressed up in costumes unwillingly. The pets.”

That is so cute my heart stopped. I just want to put it in my pocket.

Honestly, I wouldn’t care for this as much if it wasn’t a pug. But it is a pug. Comedy genius.

Going Completely Too Far, Lady. Too Fa.

As seen on say no to crack

Receptionists

Tokyo-based photographer, Junko Takahashi, recently published a book of photographs on receptionists. Junko on her work:
“In today’s society, most people exist, consciously or unconsciously, in a variety of organizations and organized spaces. So, if I could photograph those people who can usually be found in such spaces, the results would interestingly reflect reality.”

via Asian Photography

needful

IE voodoo Doll

to protect us from perversion on the internet

via

communication is beautiful

digged at sayonala's

Super Marie et Sainte Barbie

by Soasig Chamaillard

via

All in the Pink

JeongMee Yoon The Pink Project 2005-2007


Dayeun and Her Pink Things



Songmi & Gayoung and Their Pink Things

Jiwoo and Her Pink Things

Seohyun and Her Pink Things

SeoWoo and Her Pink Things

Out of the Blue

JeongMee Yoon The Blue Project 2005-2007


Ethan and His Blue Things





Steve and His Blue Things


Hojun and His Blue Things

Jimin and His Blue Things

Jake and His Blue Things

who´s afraid of an artist escort

ARTOUT is an experimental art service that allows those (with the financial means) to spend time with an artist. To get into their minds and hear first hand what they believe and how they represent it through their work. A novel idea, but not an insane one. Like it or not, we are in the thick of capitalism, which means that any and everything we as consumers can conjure up to ‘need’ have and will be addressed and cured.
...Artistic creativity results from the dialectical relation between the acceptance of the market as the underlying principle of social reality, and the need to escape its imperatives of obedience and consensus; its locus is the individuality of the artist. The artist plays the “messenger” and the “message”, the self-medium that finds its legitimacy through the charismatic negation of conventionality.

...Spending time in the company of the artist is a creative act; it reveals power relations within the existing artist-patron paradigm and leads to the mutual liberation of both artists and art-patrons from the condition of simple material production and accumulation to the next level of the direct creative exchange and immediate human solidarity.

ARTOUT is the first to create such an open forum of exchange between the art producer and the art consumer and help the artists to retake the economic territory that is rightfully their. This is the territory of the instant utopia and today we are here to claim it.

Olivia Wadsworth

ARTOUT artist escort services include spending time with the client, discussing art, culture, politics, personal and other issues, accompanying the client to the movies, theater plays, restaurants, art shows, museum and gallery openings, performances, attending birthday parties, weddings, bar mitzvah, funerals, academic conferences, fund-raising dinners and other public and private events.

Each client gets a special certificate, confirming participation in the project. Photo and video documentation is available upon request.

Now you may say why should I pay for an artist, they grow on trees, just enter the next pub and you get a dozen for free. But most likely you wouldn´t call this service an an illicit business. And this is where we come to another episode from the let there be brain section:

In September 2007 A. Kozlov, a well respected artist and writer, was accused by Parsons Paris management of associating the school's name with "an illicit" business, thus damaging the reputation of the school, and forced to leave his teaching position. The reason for such an accusation was his participation in the ARTOUT project. This accusation is groundless, ludicrous and unworthy of any self-respecting academic institution.
source


Parsons The New School for Design describes itself:
Parsons focuses on creating engaged citizens and outstanding artists, designers, scholars and business leaders through a design-based professional and liberal education.

art angst? Maybe they should rename themselve to Parson

You can support Anton Kozlov by signing a petition against this ridiculous behaving here

right now at our European headquarter

follow link to build your own

Flower of the moment

in case you didn´t know

"Butterflies are self propelled flowers." — Robert A. Heinlein

whisper

"O Tiger-lily!" said Alice..."I wish you could talk!" "We can talk," said the Tiger-lily, "when there's anybody worth talking to."

Talking flowers have long stimulated the imagination, in stories from Tennyson through Carroll - if we were able to hear flowers, what would these voices of mother nature tell us? Whisper answers this question by having a garden of freshly cut calla lilly flowers whisper into your ear. Each flower in the grove whispers erotic sexual phrases one would hear while being intimate with a loved one. These phrases were written and chosen because the natural function of a flower is attraction, attraction towards bees inorder to spread it's genetic code. The intimacy is accentuated by the close proximity the listener must come to the flowers to hear the whisper.

Whisper by Jiacong Yan

9 calla lillies, 1 dvd player, 2 cd players, 9 ka-on sound devices cables, 5.1 audio optical output

see a whispering video (QT)

Plants ‘Chat’ Over Their Own Network

Recent research from Vidi researcher Josef Stuefer at the Radboud University Nijmegen reveals that plants have their own chat systems that they can use to warn each other. Therefore plants cannot be considered boring and passive organisms that just stand there waiting to be cut off or eaten up.

Many plants form internal communications networks and are able to exchange information efficiently. Many herbal plants such as strawberry, clover, reed and ground elder naturally form networks. Individual plants remain connected with each other for a certain period of time by means of runners. These connections enable the plants to share information with each other via internal channels. They are therefore very similar to computer networks. But what do plants want to chat to each other about? Recently Stuefer and his colleagues were the first to demonstrate that clover plants warn each other via the network links if enemies are nearby. If one of the plants is attacked by caterpillars, the other members of the network are warned via an internal signal. Once warned, the intact plants strengthen their chemical and mechanical resistance so that they are less attractive for advancing caterpillars. Thanks to this early warning system, the plants can stay one step ahead of their attackers. Experimental research has revealed that this significantly limits the damage to the plants. Viruses However there are two sides to the coin. That is not just the case for the Internet but also for plants. It appears that plant viruses can use the infrastructure present to rapidly spread through the connected plants. The infection of one plant therefore leads to the infection of all plants within the network. This research clearly reveals that the general image of plants is a poor reflection of reality. Who had now suspected that the majority of plants around us are constantly networking?

This research is part of the Vidi project ‘Plant Intranets. Costs, benefits, & risks of communication pathways in clonal plant networks’ that was funded by NWO and the Radboud University Nijmegen.
source: science daily
Image courtesy of Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research

digged at the remarkable popular logistics, a blog about the intersection of public health, energy and environmental policy.

My hobby: mispronouncing

xkcd

Everybody wants to fly

it may remain a dream

via

Flying in suburbs

Little do I know about the origin and the creator of these beautiful photographs of people floating majestically through the streets. But they are for sure an invitation to leave the computer and soar a bit through the neighborhood. For no specific reason they remind me of these marvels.

update: Ciarán kindly informs us that these photographs are by Denis Darzacq who won a well deserved first price in the category Arts and Entertainment at World Press Photo 2007. From the notes:
"Paris street dancers display their skills at breakdancing, capoeira and other personalized dance forms. Breakdance evolved as part of the hip hop movement among African American youths in New York City in the 1970s, and is arguably the best known of hip hop dance styles. Capoeira is derived from a Brazilian martial art. Although dances may involve a known range of positions or steps, they are unstructured, highly improvisational expressions of individual technique"





















via Juan Roman less and more

An Open Letter for Burma

A protester outside the Burmese embassy in Bangkok, holding a flyer showing the face of imprisoned opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on September 27, 2007.
Photo by Chaiwat Subprasom/Reuters


Those who signed are from a wide range of Asian ethnicities and include writers (novels, memoirs, poetry, essays), visual artists, museum curators, filmmakers and performers. Many artists worldwide are now planning activities on behalf of Burma, including readings, concerts and performances, dedicated art pieces and commentary through art. Although artistic and intellectual expression are subject to severe censorship inside Burma, the people of Burma are known for their love of learning and the arts, so it is intended that this Open Letter will provide some comfort and encouragement to them in these very difficult yet still hopeful times.

AN OPEN LETTER FOR BURMA
October 3, 2007
From people of Asian background in the arts:

We write to express our extreme dismay at the brutality of the military regime of Burma (Myanmar) against protesters who have been peacefully asking for change in that Asian nation. Led by Buddhist monks and nuns, tens of thousands of people have marched in Burma's cities and towns in recent weeks. This has been an inspiring example of nonviolent resistance which has caught the attention of the entire world.

Unfortunately, the military dictatorship has chosen to meet this challenge not with negotiation, but with gunfire from automatic weapons. Monks and nuns have been viciously beaten and arrested, students and journalists shot in the street, and whole cities are now under a military reign of terror.

As citizens of the world, as artists valuing free expression, as people of Asian heritage, we write in support of the courageous Buddhist monks and nuns, and other people from all religions and walks of life in Burma, as they continue to seek peaceful change and national reconciliation.

We demand an immediate end to the violence against the protesters, and a release of all political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, dissident comedian Zarganar, and poet Bamaw Nyo New.

We support the ongoing struggle of the people of Burma for basic human rights, and we admire their expressions of compassion for all humanity. As fellow humans, we stand with them.

Sincerely,

1. Maxine Hong Kingston
2. Linda Kim
3. Htein Lin
4. Amitav Ghosh
5. Khin Aye Than
6. Ruby Walters
7. Doryun Chong
8. Charmaine Craig
9. Huma Dar
10. Maya Lin
11. Tamara Chin
12. Bharat Venkat
13. Jerry Zee
14. Taro Shinoda
15. Mira Kamdar
16. Eungie Joo
17. Byron Kim
18. Pascal Khoo Thwe
19. Maryam Kashani
20. Kim Beom
21. Audrey Chan
22. Wei Hua Peng
23. Hou Hanru
24. Clara Kim
25. Kris Kuramitsu
26. Michael Ondaatje
27. Haegue Yang
28. Paisley Rekdal
29. Yiyun Li
30. Le Ly Hayslip
31. Gitanjali J. Hursh
32. Vasanthi Victor

information contact:
Edith Mirante
Project Maje
maje@hevanet.com
project maje
or:
Guernica
editors@guernicamag.com
guernica mag

via

I'm sorry but I don't want to be an emperor.

Final Speech of "The Great Dictator" by Charlie Chaplin

The Jewish Barber (Charlie Chaplin) :

I'm sorry but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible ; Jew, Gentile, black men, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others' happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls ; has barricaded the world with hate ; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge as made us cynical ; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man ; cries out for universal brotherhood ; for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers ! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you ; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel ! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder ! Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men --- machine men with machine minds and machine hearts ! You are not machines ! You are not cattle ! You are men ! You have a love of humanity in your hearts ! You don't hate ! Only the unloved hate ; the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers ! Don't fight for slavery ! Fight for liberty ! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men ! In you ! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness ! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite.

Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie ! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will ! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people ! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise ! Let us fight to free the world ! To do away with national barriers ! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance ! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite !


Hanna, can you hear me ? Wherever you are, look up Hanna ! The clouds are lifting ! The sun is breaking through ! We are coming out of the darkness into the light ! We are coming into a new world ; a kind new world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed, and brutality.
Look up, Hanna ! The soul of man has been given wings and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow. Into the light of hope ! Into the future ! The glorious future ! That belongs to you, to me, and to all of us.
Look up, Hanna ! Look up !
Hanna ! Did you hear that ?

Final Speech of "The Great Dictator" by Charlie Chaplin - Compiled by Reza Ganjavi
Written and delivered by Sir Charles Chaplin

via

New York - 50 years ago

Times Square 1957 Inge Morath

... it was cool

Turning the Place Over

photograph Andrew Taylor

Turning the Place Over is artist Richard Wilson’s most radical intervention into architecture to date, turning a building in Liverpool’s city centre literally inside out. One of Wilson’s very rare temporary works, Turning the Place Over colonises Cross Keys House, Moorfields.
Richard Wilson is one of Britain’s most renowned sculptors. He is internationally celebrated for his interventions in architectural space that draw heavily for their inspiration from the worlds of engineering and construction.

click for a video of Turning the Place Over

Turning the Place Over consists of an 8 metres diameter ovoid cut from the façade of a building in Liverpool city centre and made to oscillate in three dimensions. The revolving façade rests on a specially designed giant rotator, usually used in the shipping and nuclear industries, and acts as a huge opening and closing ‘window’, offering recurrent glimpses of the interior during its constant cycle during daylight hours.
Lewis Biggs, director of Liverpool Biennial, said: “Turning The Place Over will be remembered and celebrated for as long as people’s jaws are capable of dropping.”

click for a video of Turning the Place Over

Turning The Place Over, launched on June 20 and will run until the end of 2008