Amazing Ceiling Art and Other Inspiration on the Web

Check out this really cool blog for inspiration. I found them on Twine because they were in the top 10 because of this post on ceiling art, with great images.
http://www.adistinctiveworld.net/?p=1538

Here are some of the images from their post.

The Senedd(National Assembly for Wales), Cardiff

The Alcázar, Spain
image source

VIDA International Contest

submissions are open as of today July 6th, 2009, for the VIDA competition of art made with artificial life technologies. Think robotics, avatars, cellular automata, projects that fuse biology with technology and art.

Art VS Design

This looks like a fun opportunity:

http://www.artistswanted.org
Deadline May 31st @ 11:59 PM.

An international Open Call for Unique Talent
Details & Submissions >

Images are power. In this dynamic era compelling design can move millions and transcendent art can inspire a generation. From cave paintings of early man to today's industrial designers, art & design has uniquely shaped the world around us, each in its own distinct way. This contest is designed to answer the age old question: What shapes our world more, art or design?

Join thousands of creative people in this visual dialogue.

Mark Mothersbaugh, acclaimed artist and lead singer of art-rock band DEVO leads a panel of judges including Jarrett Gregory (curator at NYC's New Museum) and Donwan Harrell (founder and creative director of Akademiks clothing) in selecting the top artist or designer to be featured at a gala reception at the New Museum in June. The public also plays judge - determining the most powerful medium of the moment - in an online face-off that pits art submissions against design submissions.

Opportunities will be created for everyone who participates and we are awarding over $11,000 in prizes.

Grand Prize & Student winner will be awarded with:

* A gala reception at the New Museum in New York City
* $2009 cash grant
* International Publicity, including a feature in Filter Magazine and work shown through Gawker Artists exposing the winners art or design to hundreds of thousands of visitors across 190+ website galleries
* $500 in gear from Akademiks
* Plus the Red Bull Prize: Offering a choice of: A vintage Vespa OR a trip to London to visit the Tate Museum and the Design Museum OR a fully loaded Mac Book Pro


Every participant gets:

* An online portfolio and international exposure
* A $70 "Thank You" package with gear and discounts to help further your work


Registration is open now and continues through Midnight May 31st.
Details: http://www.artistswanted.org/

Art VS Design was put together by a handful of Brooklyn based artists and designers who have experienced first-hand the difficulties of achieving national attention. We believe both Art & Design hold a powerful place in our society and it is our intention to break-out new talent through a process that is dynamic and open-ended.

Deadline: May 31st @11:59 PM

Funny Twitter Cartoons

via webdesignerdepot via Twine

I LEGO NY

Awesome use of LEGO bricks!

From the NYT's Niemann's blog >
more on christophniemann.com >

Dresses made of bacteria and inflatable suits sensitive to sound

And dresses made of fungus too!

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0424/6news_av.html?2366252,null,230

All at the Dublin Science Gallery's TechoThreads exhibit last April (2008)


pictured here: Front, by Jessica Findley, Ralph Borland, and Margot Jacobs

(more info on Front in this cool interview with Jessica)

Interesting Lighting Materials!

I have not found any reviews yet (glowing or otherwise! hahaha) but this site looks like a good source for interesting lighting materials-- especially phosphorescents and electro-luminescents!

http://www.phosphortech.com/services.html

Take your friends to SCHOOL!!

I almost forgot to post this!! Classes start super-soon so sign up now and improve your lazy self! You can choose from:

- Microcontroller Progamming for Artists: Introduction to the Arduino System
- Fun With Fiberglass: Basic Composite Fabrication
- Fuzzy Logic: Intro to Soft Circuits
- Musical Instrument Building
- Building Music & Video Controllers: Creating Sensor Instruments with MidiTron

all worthy endeavors! All at LEMUR in BKLYN!

There's other stuff happening too, so ... check it out already >

Science Visualization Challenge Winners

The National Science Foundation has announced the Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge winners for 2008 and there's some great stuff in there.

Shown here is "String Vibrations" by Andrew Davidhazy, Rochester Institute of Technology

Nice Site for Art Openings and Events

ArtSlant.com
Already listing tons of events, they have subsites for NY, LA, Paris, SF, Chicago, and the mysterious "Elsewhere"

Check it out >

Exposure: This event sounds cool...

...and features my favorite band in NYC!

"I never really took photography seriously until I went totally blind." This extraordinary statement comes from Pete Eckert, a uniquely talented photographer who was just announced the winner of the major photography competition: "Exposure" hosted by Artists Wanted.

http://www.artistswanted.org/pete_eckert.html

Following in the footsteps of recent public art exhibitions that have permeated the city, Mr. Eckert's figurative work, which features explosions of light and teeters on the verge of abstraction, will be projected on a massive scale on buildings and rooftops within Chelsea, Dumbo and Williamsburg.

On Thursday August 7th from 6 to 9 pm, the projection series will culminate in an opening at the Leo Kesting Gallery at 812 Washington Street in the Meat Packing District. A special press preview will take place before the event from 5 to 6 pm (RSVPs should be directed to exposure@artistswanted.org).

We hope you will join us and The Hungry March Band for this exciting event! Check out this press release for more deets:exposure.pdf

Southstar-- cool LED light art

By Josh Goldberg and Glen Duncan

Lily Pad Arduino

Nice mix of tech and craft!


The embroidery uses traditional floss and techniques mixed with lights and sounds generated by the board's software. The amount of light sensed by the sensor changes the speed and pitch of the lights and sounds generated, with more light increasing the overall pace.
Rebecca Stern's Lilypad Arduino embroidery on visualcomplexity.com

more about her project


The LilyPad Arduino is a microcontroller board designed for wearables and e-textiles. It can be sewn to fabric and similarly mounted power supplies, sensors and actuators with conductive thread. The LilyPad Arduino was designed and developed by Leah Buechley and SparkFun Electronics.
more about the LilyPad Arduino

Cool Art by Levi van Veluw

see his gallery on behance.net

via Flavorpill

more cool sites curated by Flavorpill

Airborne Jellyfish

Air jelly!

check out this video:
http://www.festo.com/cms/de_de/5890_6299.htm

CrAzY zoom thing!

reminds me of zoomquilt

check it out > http://www.scifi.com/tinman/oz/

you can change the speed at the top left

Artists and Designers: Starve no more!

Enter contests and win money. Photoshop, photography, design...or start your own contest. Win prizes, get exposure...this is a really nice approach to the online art marketplace...


the site is a bit hard to navigate though. The idea is still cool.

http://www.worth1000.com/

Nice Illustrations by Michael Karshis

found on Design Feed

check out his site >

Funky Art Made of Pencils

This incredible sculpture made of pencil tips is by Jennifer Maestre. It looks like some kind of sea urchin.

wow, check this one out too:

there are more on her site as well

via craftzine

Mail Art: Hair Mail and Others

Around a hundred A6 sized cards sent to Margaret Huber from 2004 to 2006 from Japan, Finland, Spain, Russia and England. Hair, fish, a sachet of white powder, a piece of broken record etc. were sent to test the postal system. Only three cards never reached their destination.

This great project is by Riitta Ikonen
http://riittaikonen.com/projects/mail-art/
via newstoday

An Artist Inspired by Interaction Design! Mafalda Santos

Love it! Her art is about the relationships between things, and contains lots of diagrams.

Organizational schemes, networks, interconnection and principles of scale and composition are determinant in Mafalda’s work. Expanded drawings on murals or ground works cull their information from computer interface, books and archives to create a simplified imagery that reflects “a moment/place in a mental or social structure of relations.” The artist also considers that they offer a comment on the specific context for which the work was produced.

She's from Portugal and has some work on view at Location 1 in NY. You can see more of here work on that site too, it looks like she doesn't have her site up yet.

Using Lasers to Highlight Emissions...Nuage Vert Project in Helsinki

The vapor emissions of he Salmisaari power plant in Helsinki will be illuminated to show the current levels of electricity consumption by local residents. A laser ray will trace the cloud during the night time, highlighting the need for power conservation...

Presented at the Pixelache Festival of Electronic Art and Subcultures, the idea comes from HeHe (Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen)-- not sure if they are french but they do live in Paris. Check out their site, they have a few other cool projects that are very different from this one(such as THE INTERNET AS IT WAS ON 23RD JULY 2004 - GOOGLE HITLIST)

check out the Nuage Vert project on pixelache >

via core77

Jim Campbell

LED magic!

I just came across the website of this artist, and it reminded me how simple things can be so good.

Born in 1956 in Chicago, Illinois, New Media installation artist Jim Campbell got a
B.S.(chuckle, chuckle!) in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from MIT in 1978. He has exhibited all over the world, but is based in the Bay Area. In my mind, he is most famous for his LED videos-- it looks like a video of a man walking but when you get up close, you realize the effect is produced by a grid of LED lights that grow dimmer and brighter-- the pulsating light tricks the eye into seeing a man, walking on snow...

check out his site >

Jellyfish made of lace!

fabulous work by Elide Endreson at Red Cake Gallery (gallery just opened online and in SF!)

Love Jeff Soto's Work

so good!

check him out at http://www.jeffsoto.com

Monster Engine makes "real" paintings from kids' art

this is AMAZING stuff. Dave Devries takes kids' drawings and turns them into "real" fleshed-out ones. It's great because kids' imaginations are so amazing but their skill level doesn't always translate into a drawing that conveys the idea as well as someone like Dave could.

He's also got a book out.

check it out >

amazing Flash artist

Erik Natzke makes the most amazing images from photographs and Flash -- he codes in Actionscript and Adobe Air by hand to create these effects -- stunning! I just can't stop looking at them.



also, notice the new pictobrowser i'm using...they added lots of custom features to it so you can make it look just how you want...use your arrow keys to advance.

Amazing artist uses salt, soap, beavers, people, houses...

...apparently whatever she can get her hands on!

My friend Toutine in Amsterdam just sent me this link to Scarlett's work-- rumor is that she's on her way back from the North Pole now, I can't wait to see what she's been up to this time!

She actually traveled to Bolivia and went to the Unuyi Salt Desert, the landscapes were amazing and surreal, "the enormous white space invites almost like a drawing paper", says Scarlett. Somehow it makes sense that she was also "inspired by the fact that the cartoon figure "Hulk" is such a popular image in that part of the world".

check out Scarlett Hooft Graafland's site for some more descriptive photos and text:

http://www.scarletthooft.com/

horsehair weaving artist!

Absolutely gorgeous and fascinating work by Marianne Kemp:

see more here:
http://www.horsehairweaving.com/horsehairweaving/goldenringlets.html

The Quiet Show and other animations by Toutine

An imaginative mix of cutouts, and shadow puppets enhabits this dream-like animation by Toutine (my super-talented friend in Amsterdam!)

What makes this so successful is the imaginative use of After-Effects that blends 3D with flat, paper-like cutout shapes.

Also, the music is great...it's by Mujaji, aka Seth & Jed Mowshowitz



And here is another animation that appeared in the Coney Island Film Festival in Brooklyn a few years ago, called Délire Chinois -- notice the creative use of vegetables!!



visit Toutine's website or her YouTube feed

Nucleus Online Art Gallery and Store

Really great stuff here! I've rarely seen a gallery where I like almost all the artwork.

Lots of cute, weird, cool paintings and drawings and sculpture, and some stuff for sale...enjoy!

check out the nucleus website >

Cute printables: 3D friends you just cut, and fold, and tape together

Readymech (readymech.com) has some cute little monsters you can print out and snip and tape or glue together to make a toy you can put on your desk to keep you company. Instant friends!

They're made by different artists but the site seems to be by Fwis, who has a very cool portfolio as well (fwis.com) which includes categories such as "we didn't get paid" and "client didn't get it"

SnOil - A Physical Display Based on Ferrofluid

This is an amazing art project by Martin Frey, where words and patterns appear in the ferrous liquid an make bumps that form the letters. Hard to describe how cool it is!

check out the site to see a video. He shows how it's made, too.

NYC EVENT: Eyebeam - SimpleTEXT: June 5th

SimpleTEXT lets you submit text messages from your phone or other mobile device and the audience controls the audiovisual performance...

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THIS EVENT IS FREE TO ALL

About SimpleTEXT:
SimpleTEXT is a collaborative audio/visual public performance that relies on audience participation through input from mobile devices such as phones, PDAs or laptops. SimpleTEXT focuses on dynamic input from participants as essential to the overall output. The performance creates a dialogue between participants who submit text messages which control the audiovisual output of the installation. These messages are first parsed according to a code that dictates how the music is created, and then rhythmically drive a speech synthesizer and a picture synthesizer in order to create a compelling, collaborative audiovisual performance.

To date, SimpleTEXT has been shown 13 times in 9 countries across Europe and North America.

SimpleTEXT focuses on mobile devices and the web as a bridge between networked interfaces and public space. As mobile devices become more prolific, they also become separated by increased emphasis on individual use. The SimpleTEXT project looks beyond the screen and isolated usage of mobile devices to encourage collaborative use of input devices to both drive the visuals and audio output, inform each participant of each other's interaction, and allows people to actively participate in the performance while it happens.Our purpose with the performance is to create the possibility of large-scale interaction through anonymous collaboration, with immediate audio and visual feedback. SimpleTEXT encourages users to respond to one another's ideas and build upon the unexpected chains of ideas that may develop from their input..

SimpleTEXT is an example of an interactive piece that works well in crowded public spaces such as social and unruly atmospheres where heckling, irony, criticism, and sarcasm are common modes of communication. The project is a large-scale piece in terms of scale of audience interaction, where the communication between audience members is tangible and direct.

Support/Sponsors:
SimpleTEXT is created by Family Filter, a collaboration between Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Tim Redfern, and Duncan Murphy. It was originally funded by a commission from Low-Fi, an new media arts organization based in London, UK. This event is sponsored and hosted by EYEBEAM and The UpGrade.

Eyebeam: http://www.eyebeam.org
The Upgrade: http://www.theupgrade.net

LINKS:
About SimpleTEXT including video documentation: http://www.simpletext.info
SimpleTEXT video on YouTube: http://tinyurl.com/kd9yw

Jonah Brucker-Cohen - http://www.coin-operated.com
Tim Redfern - http://www.eclectronics.org

---------------------------------
My friend Jonah sent me this info, seems to me that there's so much fun stuff going on in NYC now that I've left. *sigh*

* Below is information about the next SimpleTEXT peformance on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 @ Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology (http://www.eyebeam.org)

This event is in conjunction with the Upgrade NYC http://www.eyebeam.org/upgrade/

Please forward to those who might be interested in attending the performance!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SimpleTEXT
*a cell phone enabled interactive performance* by Family Filter
URL: http://www.simpletext.info

When:
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 (7:30 pm) - Beginning with a talk by Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Performance at 8pm)

Bring your Cell phone and/or Wireless Laptop to contribute to the performance!

Where:
EYEBEAM
540 W. 21st Street, (between 10th and 11th Avenues)
New York, NY 10011
Web Site: http://www.oboro.net
Map Link: http://tinyurl.com/2qb28h

Richard Sweeney's Amazing Paper Sculpture

Here's a link to his photo page on Flickr.

Amazing Polygon Art!

Inventor Chuck Hoberman uses polygons to build amazing expandable structures.

Watch this movie to see them in action: Inventing With Polygons

thanks to Diego for the link!