February 14, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Shelley Jackson: Snow Story

It’s been, and continues to be, a long and relentlessly snowy winter here in NYC this year, but Brooklyn-based author/illustrator Shelley Jackson is making the best of it. With admirable handwriting, Jackson has set out to writing a story in the snow—one word at a time—photographing each one and posting them to her instagram. Reading from oldest photo to newest, you can follow the ongoing story, waiting with bated breath for the next words to appear. Photos, it seems, are posted in relatively large batches roughly once a week, so maybe you can get a sentence or two in at a time. Story aside, the photos themselves are lovely, with great composition and a splash of color here and there. This is not the first time Shelley Jackson has taken to story-telling a word at a time; SKIN, a story published in tattoos on the skin of 2,095(!) volunteers is a previous project.

You can follow SNOW (in reverse order) over here, “weather permitting”, but from the looks of things outside, that shouldn’t be an issue…this could end up being a multi-volume story.

via gothamist via the awl

February 11, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Times Square Valentine Heart Sculpture

It’s that time of year again, when all things turn red and heart-shaped in honor of St Valentine. Times Square is no exception. Now in its sixth year since the revitalization of Father Duffy Square, Times Square Arts held their annual Times Square Valentine Heart Design Competition for a heart- and love-themed interactive sculpture to be placed across the square from the TKTS booth steps. This year’s winning design is Young Projects’ Match-Maker that will cosmically connect people, guided by their zodiac signs. Peering through bright red, interwoven periscopes – which, from certain angles, appears as an iconic heart, while from others a more abstract tangled object – visitors are offered glimpses of their four most suited astrological mates.

But while Match-Maker is a clever design, the competition was no slouch either. The five finalists were strong candidates and merit mentioning as well. Haiko Cornelissen Architecten submitted Tweet Heart NY, an illuminated heart that would pulsate with every tweet @ it. The more tweets, the faster the pulse. Schaum/Shieh Architects offered My Fuzzy Valentine, a striped graphic reflective structure that would create moiré patterns when rotated that pulse like a beating heart, as well as making for great selfie opportunities and creating digital Valentine-grams. Next, The Living proposed Vapor Valentine: a dynamic cloud that captures and displays the ever-changing life and light of Times Square. People could interact with the heart through touching and blowing the cloud, through placing their hands on the glass box to affect the vapor inside, and through a custom text-messaging hotline. Heart, proposed by Pernilla Ohrstedt Studio, would have been made from an illuminated circle that could be pulled and folded to form a heart. When released it would flutter until regaining its balance. Lastly, SoftLAB’s entry was inspired by the sweetness and forms of rock candy and candy hearts, hence its name Sweet ❤. Its kaleidoscopic reflective surface would capture the lights of Times Square in addition to revealing hidden messages as visitors moved their mobile cameras around the sculpture.

You can visit the winning Match-Maker sculpture through March 11, 2014, and you can read more about all the entries over here.

via Van Alen Institute

February 5, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Coffin as Solarium: Younes Baba-Ali

Winter is a time of migration to warmer climate, not only by birds, but, in the past generation or two, among many of the professionally retired in western societies. And right about now, in the midst of our fourth or fifth snowstorm here in NYC — I’ve lost count — the thought is completely understandable and immensely appealing. Moroccan-born visual and sound artist Younes Baba-Ali, who splits his time between Brussels and Casablanca, has an interesting take on the phenomenon of “migratory flux”. His installation/sculpture titled Ending Your Life Under the Sun converts a coffin into a tanning bed, or is it the other way around? Who hasn’t associated those sun beds with coffins at some point? If you can get past the slightly morbid aspect, there’s definitely wiggle room for a chuckle.

via Sabrina Amrani Gallery

February 3, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Museum Bird Cages: Marlon de Azambuja

Maybe it’s time birds get in on museum culture. Or at least that might be one of artist Marlon de Azambuja’s (previously here and here) goals in creating these sculptural bird cages in the shape of famous international museums. See if you can identify all four. I’ll link to photos of the actual museums: top (c’mon, that’s a freebie!); second one down; second from bottom; and bottom.

If you like these you might also enjoy these gingerbread museums.

January 30, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Jon Burgerman: Head Shots

The always-wacky usually-less-bloody Jon Burgerman (previously here) has a an ongoing series of interventions staged in front of film and television ad panels, photographing himself perfectly situated as the target of the pointed gun, arrow, or other weapon of choice in each poster. These Head Shots, as the series is called, are then digitally manipulated, adding splattered blood in a Tarantinoesque fashion. Definitely a departure from the cute characters he usually draws, but still, somehow, very Burgerman.

You might like his Korean Subway series, too.

January 29, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Michael Johansson: Model Kit Sculptures

Swedish artist Michael Johansson takes everyday objects apart and rejoins the pieces in a welded metal frame, coating them with a unifying layer of plastic, ultimately simulating the look of a snap-apart model kit, something Johansson is very familiar with having spent much of his childhood making toy models. There’s obvious humor in these, but the titles such as Toys’r’Us – Dingy Scale 1:1 and Engine Bought Separately leave it completely unambiguous.

And then there’s this aspect of his work…

via thetreemag

January 27, 2014 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Sally Hewett: Embroidered Body Parts

These sculptural embroidered works by British artist Sally Hewett are intriguing, if a tad disturbing. But that’s just her point. Hewett is interested in the social and political history of the craft of embroidery and stitching, but she is also interested in the ideas of beauty. She writes on her website: “My embroidery and stitching practice centres on bodies, beauty and ugliness and the conventions that determine which is seen as which…I am interested in how we see things, how we interpret what we see and how the connotations of needlework and embroidery as a medium affect how the content is seen – is it seen as ugly, beautiful or funny?” You decide.

These pieces are made using quilting hoops that vary in diameter from just a couple of inches up to almost 20″. Inserted in the hoops to create the large bellies, bottoms, breasts, lips and more, is everything from stretched velvet, lycra, or cotton, to foam padding, hair and, of course, stitching…lots of stitching.

Photos courtesy of the artist; bottom photo by Jane Burns.

via saatchi

January 23, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Icepop Generator: MELT

It was only a matter of time before 3D printing turned to food, or vice versa. There have been some spectacularly beautiful pieces (actually, too beautiful to put in your coffee!) made with sugar, and now there is talk of Hershey teaming up with 3D Systems to create, I assume, some amazing things with chocolate. So, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Dutch company MELT is creating an the Icepop Generator to bring personalized ice pops to the public while educating them in 3D design technology. It appears, however, that the Icepop Generator works more on a carving and chiseling process rather than actually 3D printing an ice pop from frozen water but, it’s amazing nonetheless. Starting with a block of ice, the generator (which looks like many 3D printers with the twist of doubling as a freezer) has a sort of drill that moves back and forth along three axes, carving out the designated design, in effect, functioning as a mechanical sculptor. The Icepop Generator was just funded yesterday on Voordekunst—a Dutch funding platform similar to Kickstarter—so these pops are likely to be at a street fair or festival near you in the not-so-distant future. In the meantime the creative team at MELT has made several a pop, some in their own image. You can see how it works in this video:

via notcot and 3ders

January 21, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Upside Down House: Moscow

At the VVTs All-Russia Exhibition Center in Moscow last week, an upside down house had visitors in a tizzy. Similar in concept to Jean-François Fourtou’s Tombée du Ciel, this house (not sure who the artist/designer behind the project is) is larger and even includes a car hanging from the driveway. The multi-room structure was built upside down as a tourist attraction and was fully fitted with furnishings, kitchen, bath, and even food on the dining room table, all hanging from the ceiling, or, rather, floor…wait. It appears that at least in one of the rooms a video camera was inverted inside a cabinet (see third photo down) projecting the room live and right side up on a tv screen and, consequently, its visitors upside down. Confusing and fun.

via gizmodo

Thanks Ramon and Eugene. (GMS)

January 15, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

FlipBooKit Moto

Who doesn’t like a good flipbook, right? And your very own? Even better. A few years back I made a couple of flipbooks of my kids when they were little via flipclips which were a hit, but now kinetic artists Wendy Marvel and Mark Rosen have taken the concept to a whole new level with their FlipBooKit Moto, a motorized animated flip book. Based on their own artworks inspired by the motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge, the duo applied the same techniques they use in their sculptural mechanical flipbooks to a DIY kit. It’s easy to assemble— you’ll only need a screwdriver—and will take less than an hour to complete. You can use the included art or use your own images, the possibilities are limitless! Looks like a great gift idea. You can hear more about it in the video below and you can purchase it here.

via swissmiss

January 10, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Plasti-Scenes: Movie Scenes in Plasticine

I came across a contest on Little White Lies magazine from a while back that made me smile. The creative brief asked that participants “recreate an iconic movie scene out of modelling clay” also known as plasticine, hence their title Plasti-Scene…yes, it’s clever. I’m not sure if the entries are exclusively from artists, or non-artists as well. Some of the entries were very slick and well done but, honestly, some of my favorites tend to be the less perfect ones. All the films and creators are identified next to their piece except the bottom two which are scenes from “Psycho” by Sarah Randell and “The Big Lebowski” by Gordon Shaw. These are just a sampling from the 60 entries. You can see the rest here and the winners here.

January 8, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Ice Castles: 20,000,000 lbs of Ice

I’ve been through a corn maze and even visited an ice bar, but I had never heard of these incredible Ice Castles created in Colorado, Utah, and New Hampshire. As an homage to the Polar Vortex we’re presently experiencing here on the east coast, I thought I’d post some photos of these castles/mazes that are built by hand from more the 20,000,000 pounds of ice. These glacial formations include caverns, archways, paths and tunnels inviting visitors to wander through in awe. If the ice itself isn’t amazing enough, at night these structures are illuminated by colored lights for additional dramatic effect. The castles begin by ‘growing’ more than 5,000 icicles per day which are then sculpted together. By dipping the icicles in freezing water they then stick to each other and with the combination of wind, temperature fluctuation, and water volume a variety of effects can be achieved. The process takes a few weeks of growth and artistry, repeating the process twice daily, until the final ice masterpiece is completed. If temperatures don’t change much around here, we may be able to build one of these in Central Park any day now…

Take a virtual walk through with this video:

Photos courtesy of icecastles

via atlasobscura

January 6, 2014 by collabcubed - 0 comments

teamLab: Homogenizing & Transforming World

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Tokyo-based teamLab is a group of ultra-technologists including programmers, user-interface engineers, mathematicians, CG animators, as well as architects, designers, artists and editors, who blur the boundaries of their respective fields to create and discover new ideas and push limitations. Presently, their interactive installation Homogenizing and Transforming World is part of the exhibition Distilling Senses: A Journey through Art and Technology in Asian Contemporary Art, at the Hong Kong Arts Centre. Individual balls floating within an enclosed space communicate to each other via wireless connection. They change color and emit different sounds when touched by visitors or bump into each other or other objects. The balls send color information to other balls which in turn spread the information to other balls, changing all the balls to the same color. The piece is a metaphor for the internet and globalization in general. People act as intermediaries for information which so quickly travels via the internet globally, transforming the world in an instant and unifying at the same time.

You can see the installation live through January 12, 2014 or in the video below anytime:

via gestalten

December 18, 2013 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Janice Lee Kelly: Balloon Sculptures

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Initially inspired by working with balloons in her retail business, architect/photographer/entrepreneur Janice Lee Kelly (originally from Kentucky) began developing the medium into her own personal art form, eventually creating her studio FLOAT. Creating gravity-defying, kinetic and ethereal sculptures, Kelly captures and records their interaction with the environment through photography and video. In addition, Kelly creates balloon pieces and installations for exhibits and event spaces that range from smaller private ones to Lincoln Center for the Big Apple Circus.

via risdxyz

December 12, 2013 by collabcubed - 0 comments

The Snails are Coming! The Snails are Coming!

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Well, actually, they’re already here. These eight foot snails are part of the REgeneration Art Project and are made of recyclable plastic obtained from landfills. The snails are a creation of the Cracking Art Group (previously here) consisting of six international artists whose intention is to change art history through both a strong social and environmental commitment, and a revolutionary and innovative use of different recyclable plastic materials. The snails were “living” at Rumsey Field in Central Park up until last week before moving (okay, they were more moved/transported than moving themselves) to Columbus Circle last week. You’re gonna have to trust me, they’re there. That’s where I spotted them earlier today, but no time for photo-taking. Apparently there’s at least one at Eataly on 23rd Street as well. These snails seem to keep with the scavenger hunt street art theme that has descended upon our city since the fall, first with Banksy, then Invader, and now, in a smaller, yet at the same time larger, scale, the invasion of the red snails.

The snails will be up at Columbus Circle through January 6th, 2014, so if you happen to be in the neighborhood, do keep an eye out for them.

Photos: Timothy Clary/AFP; Captain Kidder; Silverscreen Productions; gigi_nyc;

December 11, 2013 by collabcubed - 0 comments

George Ferrandi: It Felt Like I Knew You…

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For some, regularly dozing in moving vehicles and inadvertently leaning against random strangers while doing so, is a common occurrence (ahem…Em), but in the case of Brooklyn-based artist George Ferrandi, it’s completely intentional. For her ongoing project It Felt Like I Knew You… Ferrandi rides the subway (her choice for these interventions because of its packed quality and the loneliness one can feel despite the physical intimacy) during rush hour and tests the limits of this shared confined area by reshaping the space between her body and a stranger’s sitting next to her.

I focus on the shape of the space between the person sitting next to me and myself. I attempt to mentally and emotionally re-sculpt that space. In my mind, I reshape it- from the stiff and guarded space between strangers to the soft and yielding space between friends. I direct all my energy to this space between us. When the space palpably changes, and I completely feel like the stranger sitting next to me is my friend, I rest my head on that person’s shoulder…

Ferrandi started the continuing project in 2012. The endearingly humorous results are documented by co-conspirator Angela Gilland on her phone. So, the next time you feel a woman’s head rest on your shoulder in the subway, it’s likely to be George Ferrandi…or, Em.

It Felt Like I Knew You can be seen at the Abrons Arts Center as part of the exhibit GUTS through the end of December.

via abrons arts center

December 9, 2013 by collabcubed - 0 comments

12 Shoes for 12 Lovers: Errazuiz

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NYC-based Chilean designer Sebastian Errazuriz (previously here and here) enjoys playing with the offbeat and wacky in his designs while pushing boundaries. His latest project, currently on exhibit at Miami Basel, is titled 12 Shoes for 12 Lovers. Consisting of twelve shoe sculptures, each representing the memory of twelve previous relationships, the project is an attempt to go through the reminiscence of former lovers who are the inspiration for each Shoe Sculpture. The shoes are accompanied by photos and stories in which Errazuriz reveals a glimpse of each relationship and in the process exposes himself to scrutiny and judgment. Some sculpture titles include: Cry Baby, Jetsetter, Gold Digger, The Virgin, GI Jane, and the Rock. You can see the rest of the set over here.

via core77

December 5, 2013 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Coloso: DOMA Collective

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I’ve seen electrical towers disguised as unconvincing trees, but a colossal robot might be the more fun way to go. That’s just what Buenos Aires art collective Doma did for the Tecnopolis, a science and technology art fair in Villa Martelli, Argentina. The converted power tower was aptly named Coloso and its glowing neon hands, heart, and animated face add to the fun of the almost 148 ft tall artistic intervention. The luminous robot puts on quite a show at night highlighting its winking eyes and growing heart. Watch it in action below: