Scott Wayne Indiana sent me a nice email and a couple of links to his sites. The first one is his photo a day project – http://coinop.tumblr.com/. I really like them. That’s one of them above.
He also sent a link to 39 Forks which is a collection of his art projects. There’s some really nice stuff in there including the $200 car project where he bought a car for $200 and drove it till it broke. Here’s the road movie:
And perhaps my favourite thing of all is Web Street
Based on the insight that more street art is seen on the web than on actually on the street, he’s set up a blog of digitally manipulated street art. Things that have never actually existed on the street. But look like they might have done. Check it out.
I was lucky enough to speak at the Boards Magazine Creative Workshop in Amsterdam last week. It was really good event and I genuinely enjoyed all the other speakers. There were a bunch of highlights. From seeing the amazing preview of the Killzone 2 Interactive Ad through to the incredibly inspiring Dr Bob Deutsch talking about primates and brands.
But there was one thing that really stuck in my mind as being totally brilliant. And it was some work that Erik Kessels showed off amongst a selection of their bonkersness He played some extracts from a series of short films called Kijkers. They are a bunch of 3 minute films that get kids experiencing TV in different ways.
I’ve searched for them online (so that I could get hold of the DVD) – and the description that I found of them online was: 57 korte kunstfilms voor kinderen vanaf 6 jaar. Which, given my lame grasp of languages, translates as something along the lines of ’57 short art films for children under the age of 6′.
I think that this Google translated text from describes them better than I could:
Almost everyone can see, but not everyone can see. Look, you learn. Just as you must learn to eat oysters or olives. Norbert ter Hall en Erik Kessels made for Villa Achterwerk the program Kijkers: short art films that show how different things can look. The two seasons of Kijkers are now collected on this DVD. 57 films made by artists, filmmakers, directors and a sheep. About toes, clouds, beards, butterflies, a stop sign and much more. Kijkers has a gift for your eyes. See for yourself.
I could hardly find any of them online. But here’s a couple of examples:
And.
These aren’t as good as the best ones Erik showed. There was a clip of a rubber duck in a foamy bath bobbing up and down under a running tap. And some handy cam footage of buildings that look like faces (but with someone making the noises that the faces would make if they were human). Oh bollocks, they’re almost impossible to describe and make sound good.
Anyway they all play with notions of perception in really interesting and charming ways. And I want to see them all.
And furthermore Malcolm Goldie (aka Acid Malc from ClubPub of yore) did the sonic intro. It’s amazing what you can learn off Google ;-)
Artist Kenny Irwin posts under the name perfectlymadebirds on Flickr. His photos and their descriptions are totally amazing. I found myself getting sucked into his weird universe for more time than is strictly acceptable for someone on the right side of the mentalist line.
I’m not going to say any more, I’ll only spoil it. I’ll just suggest a couple of ‘drop-in points’…
I’m really in love with Codec Breeze (a series of pieces that use a weird and subtle animated effect that I think has been generated just using different levels of compression in parts of the image).
When packaging just works. I couldn’t resist them in the shop. They just stood out a mile.
I went in to buy 2 beers. And when I saw these I’d have bought all the designs they had. But they only had 3…
I don’t even feel like a sucker. Much.
Still not quite as good as the old Tennents cans though. I’ve got vivid memories of my grandpa drinking these in Scotland wearing a cracking Rab C. Nesbit style vest…
It’s kind of ironic that the only Microsoft tool that has an ‘art’ mode is Word. Who could miss its amazing ‘Word Art’ feature – if you’ve never played with it, go into the ‘insert’ menu and choose ‘picture’, then in the picture menu choose ‘word art’.
You’ll then be presented with the palette of artistic dreams…
It really is just like art. Almost.
Excel on the other hand doesn’t have an ‘art’ mode. But Danielle Aubert has been making art with it. And I like it.
What’s my point? Well I guess something about the fact that people find their own interesting ways of using tools. And just because you call something something doesn’t mean that it is. Or something like that.
If you give me $10 I will take a photograph of the sky just for you. That means I will go outside, shoot a photograph of the sky, print it as a 8.5″ x 11″ full color laser jet print, write the date on it, fold it into an envelope, and mail it to you. Oh, and I will also delete the file so that you will have the only existing copy of that photograph. It’s just for you.
Or:
If you give me $630 I will give it to my landlord for the month’s rent. I won’t work for one month and I’ll send you an email everyday of what I did and why it was important (unless I am away from a computer). Actually, I am going to need some more money for food and utilities. I am going to raise this to $1000. (NOTE: this is one person a month, if you buy this you will be given a specific month). I will also print out the emails I sent you everyday and mail it to you as a small edition of one artist book.
Honestly it might sound a bit odd, but go and have a look at the list. It’s really compelling. The values that he’s given to things and hist notion of ownership and limited-editionness are really interesting.
