art » UMaine NMDNet

Graffiti's new duds

May 292011

Street art just got more homespun, thanks to “Hardcore Chicks With Sharp Sticks.” You go, grandma!

Graffiti’s Cozy, Feminine Side NYT > Home Page http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=d13cf59391fa2b6c5101200b9f65fca0

“Yarn bombing” seems to be having its moment in pop culture….

Yarn bombing takes that most matronly craft (knitting) and that most maternal of gestures (wrapping something cold in a warm blanket) and transfers it to the concrete and steel wilds of the urban streetscape. Hydrants, lampposts, mailboxes, bicycles, cars — even objects as big as buses and bridges — have all been bombed in recent years, ever so softly and usually at night.

It is a global phenomenon, with yarn bombers taking their brightly colored fuzzy work to Europe, Asia and beyond. In Paris, a yarn culprit has filled sidewalk cracks with colorful knots of yarn. In Denver, a group called Ladies Fancywork Society has crocheted tree trunks, park benches and public telephones. Seattle has the YarnCore collective (“Hardcore Chicks With Sharp Sticks”) and Stockholm has the knit crew Masquerade. In London, Knit the City has “yarnstormed” fountains and fences. And in Melbourne, Australia, a woman known as Bali conjures up cozies for bike racks and bus stops.

Design your own clothes? There's an app for that

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Apr 142011

DIY couture may not yet have hit the runways in Milan and Paris, but it’s alive and well in new media circles.

For her performance Cast, U-Me Intermedia MFA student Amy Pierce didn’t make her own wedding dress as much as invite others to make it for her. Her choice of material–a plaster body cast that required her to stand motionless for four hours–was a metaphor for the marriage contract that was particularly, well, “fitting.” (Like any good bride, she eventually fainted.)

Meanwhile designer Mary Huang has developed an application that turns drawings into dresses, courtesy of a handy mathematical algorithm.

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/11/03/24/1157201/An-App-That-Turns-Any-Drawing-Into-a-Dress?from=rss via Byline

“A new app by interactive designer Mary Huang called Continuum, lets you turn any drawing into a customized three-dimensional garment. From the article: ‘Huang dubs her software “D. dress”—the “D” stands for “Delaunay triangulation,” an algorithm she uses to deconstruct each dress into a series of triangular planes. Any adjustments in necklines, skirt lengths, or sleeve types are achieved by adding or subtracting triangles. “Lo-res triangular models are more abstract,” Huang admits, “but this abstraction prompts people to imagine what the resulting dress would look like rather than expect an exact rendition of the screen image. The triangulation also insures that almost any drawing will produce an interesting form.”’”

LePage's missing mural seen haunting the State House

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Apr 072011

Anonymous video artists have projected onto the Maine State House the mural by artist Judy Taylor originally installed to commemorate Maine’s labor history. The mural’s removal by Maine’s new governor Paul LePage has provoked outcries of censorship from artists and educators.

Spray graffiti from your phone

Create, News 1 Response »

Feb 212011

In Soviet Russia, art collectors put you in crate

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Jan 252011

If the Yes Men were the “Da Men,” they would have been locked up long ago. I hope Plutser-Sarno has a better travel agent than Julian Assange.

Aleksei Plutser-Sarno has been on the run since Russian law enforcement has been working to shut down Voina, the radical Russian art collective he belongs to….

For three years, Voina, which means war, has been playing cat-and-mouse with Russian law enforcement, staging street actions that ranged from the obscure (throwing live cats at McDonald’s cashiers) to the monumental (a 210-foot penis painted on a St. Petersburg drawbridge, so that it rose up pointing at the offices of the F.S.B., the security service).

Last September, Voina launched its most audacious project: “Palace Revolution,” which involved running up to parked police cars and flipping them over — a commentary, the group explained, on police corruption…

But Voina did not need art-world connections — YouTube, LiveJournal and Twitter gave it access to young Russians who shared the group’s sense of humor and rage at the police. Its plans got bigger, riskier. Before painting the penis on the bridge last June, the group practiced for a month before concluding that nine people could do the job in 30 seconds. As it turned out, guards barreled after them and they had only 23 seconds.

The image stood for a few hours before the authorities scrubbed it off; by then it had exploded onto the Internet. It was, Mr. Plutser-Sarno said, Voina’s most perfect act.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/world/europe/22voina.htm

Kinect hackers have more fun than Microsoft intended

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Nov 222010

If I were thinking about a new media installation I’d try to get my hands on one of these.

http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2010/11/another-kinect-hack-thats-vastly-more-interesting-than-the-games/

*I may have to start a whole category for these, because they’re coming thick and fast and it’s only been a week. Looks like Microsoft accidentally invented a primo piece of art-installation hardware.

Calling all comic artists, logo designers, and video makers

Opportunities No Responses »

Nov 182010

Graphic artist wanted for high-profile comic novel
Logo needed for environmental research course
French Web site looking for student artists

We post music right?

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Oct 172010

Fairly awesome music video for Charlotte Gainsbourg’s “Heaven Can Wait” featuring Beck. Definitely surreal, in the full-on, Rene Magritte sense of the word. The director, Keith Schofield, has some other, similarly good vids out there, such as this one for Chromeo’s “Don’t Turn the Lights On”.

William Gibson's "Zero History"

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Oct 152010

William Gibson’s last three novels (starting with Pattern Recognition back in 2003) are essential reading, in my opinion, for anybody who’s into New Media these days. They’re all set in the modern day, though the characters are decidedly sci-fi– hackers, marketing execs (hackers of a sort), graphic designers, fashion designers, filmmakers, and so on–generally controllers and creators of information.

So, on one level these books (and I sincerely recommend you start with Pattern Recognition) serve as commentary on our jacked-in, post 9/11, etc., society, but on quite another, more immediate–and I think gratifying–level Gibson just uses these themes as an occasion to produce some incredibly focused, almost morbidly precise writing. The density of his prose can be a little daunting at first, but once you get into the swing of things it’s quite good. A little vacuous at times, definitely show-offish at others, but on the whole simply delightful.

A bit like wine-tasting perhaps–the kind where you have to spit out the wine after a few seconds. It’s ridiculously good sometimes–the prose seems almost calibrated to induce a kind of lyrical hypersensitivity in the reader–but on the whole it lacks heart, and leaves one feeling not a little empty.

Reviews:

Av Club

NYTimes

P.S. If you’re into fashion, Gibson’s descriptions are basically candy. Finely textured, gunmetal-black candy.

Announcing the "Not Tea Party" and "Not Tea Company"

Events, News, Uncategorized 1 Response »

Oct 152010

Hello,
My name is Dennis St. Pierre, I am an MFA student in the Intermedia Program here at the University of Maine.

I am announcing a new light hearted, humorous and informative voice opposed to the Tea Party Movement. Everything is explained below in a press release I wrote.

We are still adding content on a daily basis to our site, especially the intelligence, (aren’t we all) and there are lot’s of products that are not in our online store yet.

Hopefully everything will be completed soon. None the less, it is time to announce.

So please visit our site, purchase goods in our effort to stand up to the Tea Baggers and fight for our country while at the same time raising money and awareness for important causes. Help us go viral and spread the call.
Any advice, feedback, links to great information and content you think would be appropriate to add to our site, would be greatly appreciated.

I hope life finds you all well. I wish you all great happiness.

Dennis St.Pierre

Hello Everyone,
I am Dennis St. Pierre, an ordinary worker, a student, an artist and most important a citizen! I am a Perturbed Passionate Patriotic Pacifist (say that 4 x fast) who is tired of the high jacking of our Democratic Republic by the Tea Party and feel it’s time to do something about it. So I and some Friends, have created the NOT TEA (yes naughty) Party. We have decided to fight back using humor, intelligence and common sense.

Like most of you, we have little time to go to meetings and assemblies, coffee party’s etc. We are so busy just staying afloat. But that doesn’t mean we have nothing to say and the time to speak up is passing us by.

By not voicing our opposition, by remaining silent and complacent, we are allowing a possible takeover of our government and ultimately our country. This is the work of the ultra wealthy and the extremely misinformed in the guise of “Patriots”, who call themselves the “Tea Party”.

It is through simple acts of defiance that we can defeat this opposition. We all know the power of marketing; we all know how powerful a few words can be. We all can defeat this rhetoric filled and misinformed group and take our country back.

How? We fight back without malice, but instead armed with humor, common sense and strong intelligence as our weapons, We take simple actions like that of wearing a T-shirt, placing a bumper sticker on our car, placing a sign on our lawn to be our voice when we don’t feel like direct confrontation. We take time to gain knowledge by reading and debate. Suddenly, you gain strength, armed with the knowledge of being one of many. Suddenly you feel strong enough to stand up and confront the bullies directly.

We believe as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. believed that it is through many little acts of non violence and intelligent defiance that true power prevails. These acts include the use of Humor, Knowledge and Good Will.

That being said; we are attempting to give you the means to defeat this takeover. We have created a website www.notteacompany.com or www.notteaparty.com . It is being updated constantly with News, A Library, Links, Cartoons, Humorous Videos, a place to exchange knowledge, as well as a Mercantile where you can buy products to voice your displeasure of the Tea Party. Products with humorous double entendre rally cries! “I’m NOT TEA”, “Sooooo NOT TEA”, “NOT TEA & NICE”, “It’s Nice 2 B Naugh-Tea” and many others that support the “NOT TEA PARTY” idea. We will soon have “Wicked Not Tea Coffee” as well. 15% of all profits go to NON PROFITS.

So, I hope you will go to our website and our store and become part of a “Wicked Not Tea Party”. So laugh, be informed and perform acts of Good Will all while being NOT TEA!!!

Sincerely,

Dennis St. Pierre
The NOT TEA COMPANY

For more info please contact me via email at notteacompany@yahoo.com

“Remember…… try to be good and if that’s impossible, Be reeeaaalllly bad and tell me how good it was!!!! ”

“Imagine” john lennon

Probably the greatest pudding ad ever

News 1 Response »

Oct 142010

Giga Pudding – Cannibalized from Boingboing, natch. I thought this a rather awesome example of advertising as art. And btw, does this pudding come in a bucket or something?

Mmm… Bucket of pudding… [Homer Simpson salivating noises]…

chapter fourteen

News 1 Response »

Oct 132010

Hey all,

I’m writing from San Francisco, my home these days. San Francisco is at the forefront of an amazing urban gardening movement, and it is very exciting! I’ve been working very closely with one urban farm in particular, called Hayes Valley Farm. It’s a 2.3 acre food forest rising from a freeway that collapsed during the ’89 earthquake. I hold the title of Lead Researcher on the Biodiversity Team. Most recently for 350.org’s 10-10-10 global day of action to prevent climate change, we began an effort to research and steward what edible and medicinal plants do well in the multiple microclimates within the city. We gave away 150 permaculture kits to initiate healthy ecosystems in folks’ backyards, front yards, planter pots, or vertical wall gardens (we get creative in the city). Our ultimate question is “how many people can you feed on how little urban land?” I like to think it is possible to have sustainable cities, but I wonder too if they stay cities or become something new…. This teeters on an artistic and pedagogical piece I recently did for Mary Walling Blackburn’s Radical Citizenship: the Tutorials, called Root, City, Thorn.

Anyway, I’m also very involved in thinking about the human organizational models that encourage healthy ecosystems and healthy people. We are facing some very juicy challenges on the farm and are seeking answers from lots of different sources. To this end, and in the spirit of exchanging insight, I’ve just launched an email list called Chapter Fourteen. I hope all you UMaine alumns involved in permaculture and/or participatory models of communication will join this list and share what you’ve learned from your own communities, as well as stories about where you’re stuck.

Please join! http://lists.beforebefore.net/listinfo.cgi/chapter_fourteen-beforebefore.net Beginning on the new moon November 5th we’ll have roughly 2 week discussions around the topic a moderator initiates. Please let me know if you’re interested in facilitating a discussion, and I’ll sign you up!

Thanks Jon for getting NMDnet going!

xoxo

Hungry? Help yourself to the aquarium

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Oct 022010

Your next gourmet meal, waiting in a fishtank near you.

http://www.farmfountain.com/index.html

Farm Fountain is a system for growing edible and ornamental fish and plants in a constructed, indoor ecosystem. Based on the concept of aquaponics, this hanging garden fountain uses a simple pond pump, along with gravity to flow the nutrients from fish waste through the plant roots. The plants and bacteria in the system serve to cleanse and purify the water for the fish.

This project is an experiment in local, sustainable agriculture and recycling. It utilizes 2-liter plastic soda bottles as planters and continuously recycles the water in the system to create a symbiotic relationship between edible plants, fish and humans. The work creates an indoor healthy environment that also provides oxygen and light to the humans working and moving through the space. The sound of water trickling through the plant containers creates a peaceful, relaxing waterfall. The Koi and Tilapia fish that are part of this project also provide a focus for relaxed viewing.

The plants we are currently growing include lettuces, cilantro, mint, basil, tomatoes, chives, parsley, mizuna, watercress and tatsoi. The Tilapia fish in this work are also edible and are a variety that have been farmed for thousands of years in the Nile delta.

Stop-action iPad animation

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Sep 192010

Animation is all about time, right? Well, these animations demonstrate that time can be a box you can break out of, thanks to stop-action applied to simple 3d CAD files.

The best art museum is the one in your pocket

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Sep 162010

Net artists never die, they just find new networks. The latest platforms for digital art? iPhones and iPads, not to mention Google headquarters.

Could the iPad be the new canvas for artists? 400,000 downloads for a single artwork say “Yes, it is.”

"Junky but funky" beats mark opening of Without Borders VII

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Sep 142010

10orono Without Borders Bells sma Season seven of this venerable intermedia festival finds newly minted U-Me MFAs mixing it up with the likes of Fluxus mainstay Dick Higgins and DJ paul j. bosse, the “junky but funky beat mechanic.”

Art for your nose at Ars Electronica

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Sep 092010

No, we’re not talking piercings. The latest in interactive installations are on view at the 2010 Ars Electronica, the same festival where NMD students Kristen Murphy, Max Langton, Matt James, and John Bell presented in 2002.

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/MarPwmaPkY4/ via Byline Robots, phantom limbs and a nostril-powered digital painting take center stage at Ars Electronica 2010. Organizers for the digital arts festival, a longtime magnet for madcap interactive designers, describe this year’s exhibition as “a response to impending doom….”

Italian artist Sonia Cillari exhales through a cable connecting her left nostril to the center of a big screen. Her breathing defines the contours of a digital creature called “feather.”

Older Entries

Graffiti's new duds

Design your own clothes? There's an app for that

LePage's missing mural seen haunting the State House

Spray graffiti from your phone

In Soviet Russia, art collectors put you in crate

Kinect hackers have more fun than Microsoft intended

Calling all comic artists, logo designers, and video makers

We post music right?

William Gibson's "Zero History"

Probably the greatest pudding ad ever

chapter fourteen

Hungry? Help yourself to the aquarium

Stop-action iPad animation

"Junky but funky" beats mark opening of Without Borders VII

Art for your nose at Ars Electronica

Design Research

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