August 14, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Topographic Tweets

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English designer Richard Wolfstrome partnered up with Chalk Architects to create Topographic Tweets, an installation in the Chalk studio window for the Welcome Trail as part of the Love Architecture Festival 2012 in Brighton, UK. This ‘pop-up’ installation took 10 days from concept to finished execution.

Topographic Tweets invited tweeters to express an opinion, a view, an idea, contentious or otherwise, about architecture, which were designed into a typographic urban landscape. Strips of texts rising up the window in different shades of white, grey and frost give the impression of a skyline where the lettering, absent their counters (spaces in letters), ‘light’ up the architectural form. Fabrication and installation by Nik the Brush.

August 2, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Elian: Street Art from Argentina

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Elian is an Argentinean street artist from Córdoba who creates colorful geometric street murals. I like the clean lines and color palettes on these murals, and the transparency effect on the top one is clever, but there’s lots more to see on his site and flickr as well.

via graffitimundo

July 31, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Kunsthof-Passage: Dresden

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Tucked away in a student district of Dresden, Germany, you’ll find Kunsthof-Passage, a series of buildings and courtyards that encompass a farm collective as well as shops and cafés. Walking through these buildings into the courtyards leads to a fun surprise: the Court of Water. Using the gutters, metal pipes and funnels, architect Heike Bottcher designed a Rube Goldberg-type contraption that plays “music” when the rain comes down and through. Though this installation is probably the most fun, there are other artistic façades in Kunsthof-Passage including the Court of Mythical Creatures and the Court of Metamorphosis. The whole thing screams fun artist community and seems to be well worth a visit if you find yourself in town.

Photos: Andreea Gerendy; mi-fo; aerohaveno; fotocommunity; wm_archiv; and Michelle Weingarten

via boredpanda

July 27, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 7/27

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Some free and cheap (affordable) cultural events that look interesting to us for this weekend in New York City:

1. Street Art – Williamsburg Street Art Walking Tour 2-hour tour, Saturdays at 2:30 pm. Meets at N7th Street but email hello@streetartwalk.com to reserve a spot and confirm details. $20 per person.

Alternatively: Historic Harlem Walking Tour, Saturday 7/28 at 11 am. $18.

2. Art – Joseph Albers in America at the Morgan Library, through 10/14. Admission:$12 Student/Senior $8. Fridays 7-9 pm FREE.

3. Music – The Metropolitan Opera Summer Recital Series. Friday 7/27 at Brooklyn Bridge Park; 7-9 pm; FREE.

4. Film – Ai Weiwei Never Sorryis the first feature-length film about the internationally renowned Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei. At IFC Center starting Friday 7/27; Adults $13; Seniors $9. Check link for showtimes and tickets.

5. Art/Food – Check out Big Kastenmann sculpture by Erwin Wurm at The Standard Hotel. Then head upstairs to Le Bain on the roof top from 2 pm on (21 and over) and have a crepe ($5 to $8) while sitting on a waterbed with a great view of the High Line and the Hudson. And of course there’s always a walk on the High Line post-crepe! All weekend.

6. Music – Antipop Consortium at the New Museum. Alternative hip hop ensemble described as fragmented rhythms of contemporary electronic music with the confrontational, interrogative stance of rap. Friday 7/27 at 7 pm. Members $10, General Admission $12

7. Music – Breakout Sessions Music Fest sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery at 1031 Grand St., Williamsburg. Saturday 7/28 from 3pm to 11pm. 10 bands, 9+ hours of music, 4 hours of open bar. $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Tickets here.

8. Music – Mostly Mozart Festival Preview Concert at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center. Saturday, 7/28, 7:30 pm. FREE

9. Theater – Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim Delacorte Theater, Central Park through 8/25, 8 pm. Tickets same day in the park (line up early) or same day virtual ticketing here. All weekend.

10. Leisure/Food – One of our favorite summer things to do is hop on the East River Ferry from Long Island City after WarmUp at PS1 or Brooklyn Flea in Williamsburg and ride down under all three bridges with lovely views of Manhattan getting off at Pier 11 at Wall Street (approximately 1 hour from the LIC/Hunters Point; $4 per person.) From there Adrienne’s Pizza on Stone Street for a delicious old style pizza pie and a little feel of Europe in NYC. All weekend.

11. Music/Film –Muppet Movie Sing-a-long with the Loser’s Lounge in Prospect Park Bandshell. Saturday, 7/28, 7:30 pm (doors open 6:30) FREE

12. Theater – Oxygen presented by B-Floor Theatre Company (Bangkok) at Flamboyan Theater, CSV Cultural Center, 107 Suffolk St. Oxygen is a visual, movement and multimedia exploration of Thailand’s tumultuous political situation from 2010 to the present. Friday, 7/27 through Sunday, 7/29. Check for showtimes and tickets here. $20. All weekend.

Also in Music: The Head And The Heart / Lost in the Trees, at Prospect Park Bandshell, Brooklyn. Friday 7/27, 7:30 (doors open 6:30)

Also in Film: NewFest 2012 at Lincoln Center. NY’s premier LGBT Film Festival. Check for showtimes and tickets. Tickets $12 for members; $14 General Admission. All weekend.

Olympics 2012: Okay, so it’s more of a sports event than a cultural one, but you can watch the opening ceremonies surrounded by others at Big Screen Plaza, at the Eventi Hotel, (851 Sixth Avenue at 30th St) tonight Friday 7/27, 7-11:30 pm. FREE.

For more ongoing summer weekend suggestions (i.e. The Clock at Lincoln Center, Yayoi Kusama Retrospective at the Whitney and more) see our previous Culture on the Cheap posts here and here. Also: check back throughout the weekend for possible updates. Also, also: feel free to leave suggestions in the comments.

July 20, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 7/20

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Here are some of our suggestions for free and cheap cultural events in New York City this weekend:

1. Theater – Slowgirl by Greg Pierce, with Sarah Steele and Zeljko Ivanek, at Lincoln Center’s new Claire Two Theater. All tickets $20. Extended through August 5, 2012.

2. Art – Ghosts in the Machine at the New Museum. The new exhibit spans fifty years and traces the complex historical passage from the mechanical to the optical to the virtual. FREE Saturday (7/21/2012) 12-5pm with a visit to the museum’s block party. Otherwise $14 General Admission/$10 Student. FREE every Thursday 7pm-9pm. Through September 30, 2012.

3. Music – B.o.B FREE Secret Show at the Highline Ballroom; Sunday, July 22 at 9pm. Doors open 7:30pm. FREE with Ticket. Tickets available at the box office.

Also: Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra at the Brooklyn Bowl, Sunday, July 22, at 8pm. Doors open 6pm. $5.00

4. Comedy/Performance – D’FunQT: Stand Up or Die at Dixon Place (LES) Fri and Sat, July 20 & 21 at 9:30 pm. Tickets: $15 advance, $20 at the door, $15 students / seniors
Written and performed Leguizamo-style, this one-person show celebrates the joy of survival in a world often intolerant of difference. As a queer boy/stud/trans person, D’Lo unapologetically takes center stage and uses his fluidly morphing form and spot-on timing to bring the fierce with the funny.

5. Architecture – New Practices New York 2012 exhibit at the Center for Architecture. Mon-Fri: 9am to 8pm Sat: 11am to 5pm, through September 8th. FREE

6. Design/Performance – GlassLab Glassmakers from Corning Museum of Glass create pieces with contemporary designers. Glass blowing and all. Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 6:30 through July 29th. This weekend designers include Peter Buchanana-Smith and Paul Sahre. On Governors Island. FREE.

7. Art – Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective at the Guggenheim. Large-scale color photographs. Portraiture with a twist. Through October 8, 2012. Pay-what-you-Wish Saturdays from 5:45 to 7:45.

8. Theater – Uncle Vanya at the Soho Rep in Tribeca, through August 26th. 99¢ Sundays same day at the door. Line forms one hour before show. Limit 2 tickets per person. 7:30 pm. 99¢.

9. Dance – Pilobolus at the Joyce Theater. Through August 11, 2012. A limited amount of tickets available for $10 by calling the box office (212-242-0800). At the time of posting, only 1 ticket was left for this weekend, so best to try in advance. Showtimes and programs vary.

Also in Music: Bebel Gilberto/Criolo/Flavio Renegado/Beco Dranoff Saturday, July 21, 3-7 pm, Summerstage at Central Park. FREE

Also in Food: Les Salonnieres Country Blues Potluck Under the Stars. Dinner and Wine tasting. Bring a country-themed dish. Saturday, July 21, 7pm – 1am. Williamsburg Private Residence. Tickets $10.

More Food: 3rd Ward’s 5th Annual Pig Roast. Saturday July 21, 4pm to midnight. 195 Morgan Ave, Bushwick. FREE with RSVP

Also in Film: Coming Home: Short Films. Friday, July 20, 8pm. Rooftop Films at Metrotech Commons. FREE

Art on the Beach: Coney Island Annual Sand Sculpting Contest and Unity Day. (Here’s a video on last year’s event) Saturday, July 21, 12-5 pm. FREE.

Check last week’s Culture on the Cheap for additional (ongoing) events.

July 16, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Phlegm in New York

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I passed a large mural on my way to Chelsea and the Meatpacking District twice this week and the second time I decided to take photos and research who was behind the elaborate 3-part work. Turns out UK street artist Phlegm was visiting New York City this month and completed his first three murals in the U.S. right here in Manhattan—the other two in the East Village—and one of them an addition to an existing work by Know Hope (second from bottom.)

You can see a video of the bottom mural in progress here.

Bottom two photos by Matthew Kraus. All other photos by collabcubed.

July 3, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Michelangelo’s David à la Missoni

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This past Saturday, on our way over to the High Line for an evening stroll, Daniela and I spotted a large — yet much smaller than the original — 5-meter tall version of Michelangelo’s David plopped down, smack in the middle of 9th Avenue and 14th Street sporting a classic Missoni zig-zag skin. Right in the heart of the Meatpacking District, this surprising sight was not missed by many. There was no sign or explanation attached, but upon googling I discovered that the statue is the creation of, and collaboration between, Spanish artist dEmo and Luca Missoni. Originally installed in front of the Missoni store in Madrid, Spain back in 2010 with a larger zig-zag patterned outfit, for their Fashion’s Night Out, the statue seems to have made an appearance in Barcelona as well, and is now in NYC until September 2012.

You can watch a video of the statue’s installation in Madrid, here.

Bottom photo solifestyle; all others collabcubed.

June 27, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

A Memorial Bowing: Snarkitecture

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Last month when I was on Snarkitecture’s website getting information on their recent Odin Pop-Up Shop project, I noticed this project earlier in 2012. Alex Mustonen and Daniel Arsham, the Snarkitecture duo, reconstructed the 10-foot letters from the old Miami Orange Bowl and whimsically scattered around the east plaza of the new Marlins Ballpark. Created as a sort of memorial to the stadium that was demolished in 2008, A Memorial Bowing feels like a mix of ruins and renewal, with some of the letters submerged and others standing tall.

The alignments of the letters spell out new words and are a nice complement to the new stadium, which can be viewed through the type at different points.. Really, you can’t go wrong with monster-large type.

Photos by Noah Kalina

June 26, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Sean Hart: Street Poetry

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French street artist Sean Hart considers himself a poet (among many other things) and his poetry “is a weapon loaded with the future.” He paints large, existential-style statements in a condensed typeface on surfaces all over the world. His most recent series Shine (the blue and white photos at top) have an anamorphic quality, allowing his phrases to be read despite right angles and open doors in the center of the image. According to Hart all his works consist of paint, a camera, time and himself. No photoshop. No special effects. The works below Shine are from his series Yes Future from 2011, and the bottom image of a stabbed Tintin is from his series Parce Que!

UPDATE: One of Sean Hart’s recent interventions spotted on the streets of Madrid is over here on Escrito en la Pared.

via vandalog

June 25, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Lumen 2012: Atlantic Salt, Staten Island

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This past weekend was one of those spectacular New York City summer weekends, with clear blue skies, hot but dry air, and more interesting fun events taking place than time to see them all. We opted for the very colorful Mermaid Parade on Coney Island (30th anniversary, no less), the Renegade Craft Fair in Williamsburg, the Gay Pride Parade in the Village, and the play “Slow Girl” at the lovely new (and quite affordable) Claire Tow Theater with a beautiful terrace offering up some of the nicest views of Lincoln Center. Saturday night was our biggest dilemma: free concert at Bryant Park? Lumen Festival in Staten Island? However, after bopping around multiple subway lines in Brooklyn during the day, we went for the low-key option of the new Woody Allen film in the neighborhood.

BUT, back to the topic of this post: Lumen 2012. Over on the industrial waterfront property of Staten Island, more specifically, the Atlantic Salt Company—the company that supplies road salt to the city during its snowy winters—all sorts of light-related exhibits took place. Due to an almost snowless winter in NY this year, the piles at the New Brighton company are still high with over 150,000 tons of salt, some piles as high as 5 stories. Roughly 50 artists, projected and performed their works on and around the mounds of salt, which (at least in the photos) looks very cool and in some cases Felliniesque. I wasn’t able to match many of the works with their artists, but here are the ones I found, followed by a link to a list of all the participating artists.

Top photo: Brendan Coyle’s piece titled “Mr. Canard”; second photo: Jeanne Verdoux’s “Woman Working” animation; Marco Brambilla’s “Sea of Tranquility,” a recreation of a lunar expedition; Phillip David Stearns neon light installation; and here’s the link to the list of artists (we welcome any additional information, if anyone knows the other works)

Photos: Garret Ziegler; Rocco S. Cetera; Eric Norcross; and Anthony DePrimo.

June 19, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Zach Lieberman: Interactive Artist

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Another of the amazing speakers at Reasons to be Creative last week was Brooklyn-based digital artist and programmer Zach Lieberman. He uses technology in a playful way breaking down the fragile boundary between the visible and invisible. His main goal is to surprise. Lieberman has collaborated on numerous impressive projects, many of which have rightfully won awards and been exhibited at, among other places, MoMA’s Talk to Me exhibit last year.

One of his impressive projects—in conjunction with the Graffiti Research Lab—is a project initially created to allow TEMPT1 — a pioneering artist in the 1980s and 90s California graffiti scene who has since been afflicted with ALS, a degenerative neuromuscular disorder leaving him completely paralyzed except for the use of his eyes and mind — to draw using an eyetracking system. Lieberman was able to keep the cost very low, and with incredible ingenuity created Eyewriter. See the video below to watch it in action and for more details. Truly incredible and so heartwarming.

Another interesting project Lieberman collaborated on with two typographers and a professional stunt driver is IQ font for Toyota. Tracking the car’s movements using custom software designed by Lieberman, they created a font which is unique and can be downloaded for free.

Other projects include voice activated graphics in Messa Di Voce, an audiovisual performance collaboration with Golan Levin, and a music video for BELL using FaceTracker code with fun effects happening on the singer’s face in real-time. (See second video below.)

June 18, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Jon Burgerman

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I attended the Reasons to be Creative conference last week here in NYC and was blown away by every single speaker. Such talent! Creativity! Passion! Truly amazing.

One of the more entertaining speakers — due to his charm and wackiness — was Jon Burgerman, a British expat living and working in Brooklyn, in addition to eating a lot of salad and pizza. An illustrator and street artist, Burgerman draws and paints colorful characters that have been made into Kidrobot toys, appeared on Pepsi cans, hats, sneakers and even a car or two. He is (as described on his website) “a multidisciplinarian carefully constructing a world in which the narrative of being an artist is played out across a wide variety of media for the distraction, enlightenment and delight of those who choose to tune in.” Also, a total goofball, in the best sense of the word.

He recently had a show in a pizza shop in New Jersey; walls filled with pizza slice characters on paper plates (I am now the proud owner of ‘Cheesus Slice’). His tribute to the recently passed Maurice Sendak and Beastie Boys’ MCA is perfect. And if all these projects aren’t enough, he performs with fellow artist and good friend Jim Avignon as Anxieteam, which, to me, has a low-budget Flight of the Conchords feel and looks like it would be a lot of fun to witness live.

June 8, 2012 by collabcubed - 3 Comments

Luzinterruptus: Plaza de la Cebada Pool

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The Spanish guerilla art collective Luzinterruptus (previously here) is at it again. Their latest intervention took place on May 15th at Plaza de la Cebada in Madrid. Collecting over 2,000 used plastic cups and containers in the previous month, the artists filled them each with blue water, placed them in a 6 x 4 meter rectangle and lit them. This was to represent the community public swimming pool that had been demolished by the city in 2008 with the promise of building a new and improved pool. Four years later, still no sign of a pool, while plans are now evolving into a high-end entertainment center and gourmet food marketplace which will be too pricey for the people of the neighborhood.

The light installation in the shape of a swimming pool was a reminder of what the space once was and what it should rightfully be once again in the not-too-distant future.

via Luzinterruptus’ facebook

June 1, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Eltono: This Way in Warsaw

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I love these kinds of projects. Originally French but living in Spain, street artist Eltono (‘the tone’) collaborated on a mural, last month, with kids from Mala Street in Warsaw as part of the project “This Way” implemented by the Vlepvnet Foundation and the GPAS. The kids involved in the project are ones who, because of their social environment, don’t have easy lives and spend much of their time on the street. With their help, a geometric abstract alphabet was created and words using those letters and selected by the kids were painted on a wall on Mala Street. From defining the letters to cutting stencils and spray-painting the words, the kids worked with Eltono every step of the way, taking pride in their art.

I wasn’t able to translate the wall but for those who want to give it a shot here is the alphabet and a Polish to English translator.
(Using the virtual keyboard and pressing the “Alt+Ctrl” key you will be able to use the Polish special characters.) If anyone figures it out, please share with the rest of us!

If you like this project, you might also enjoy Boa Mistura’s work.

via escrito en la pared

May 31, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Trashman: Pprofessors

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St. Petersburg art collective Pprofessors (previously Red Men here), consisting of Lubin Andrew and Mary Zaborovakaya, created the Public Art Project Trashman to raise urban environmental awareness and, evidently, discourage littering. I wasn’t able to find more information in English or translatable Russian, but it seems pretty self-explanatory. I just like these colorful guys and think they’d put a smile on anyone’s face that came upon them — as well as give them the urge to toss garbage into the can.

via permm

May 30, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Mary Miss: FLOW & Broadway: 1000 Steps

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In my search for something else, I happened upon Mary Miss’s exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) last fall, FLOW: Can You See the River? Mary Miss is a New York based artist who has been combining sculpture, landscape architecture, and installation art with the issues of our time, since the 1970s. Making environmental and social sustainability into tangible experiences is a primary goal. In FLOW, Miss reveals important elements of the White River water system through a series of mirror and red dot installations at stopping points along the river, engaging and educating visitors.

Upon visiting Miss’s website I learned of a similar interesting project coming to NYC in 2013 — Broadway: 1000 Steps.

Using a similar mirror system to the one used in FLOW, Broadway: 1000 Steps is an initiative to establish Broadway as the new “green corridor” of NYC. Twenty hubs along the length of Broadway will make planned sustainability initiatives tangible to passers-by. A test Hub last September at 137th Street attracted the attention of several universities who are now participating in conducting research that will be included in the future hubs’ contents.:

Undergraduate and graduate students from these schools are conducting research that will inform hub content, mapping each of the hubs, collecting photos and relevant images, and proposing their own solutions to the MM/CaLL challenge. Research, data and visual materials collected by the students can be found at http://www.mmcallpartnership.org/. Student efforts will be completed by spring of 2012, and content development, design, and testing will be advanced during the summer and fall 2012. The goal of installing a majority of the hubs has been set to take place in spring/summer 2013, and it is expected that hubs will be in place for approximately one year.

Additional information on the Broadway: 1000 Steps can be found here.

Photos courtesy of the artist, IMA, and City as Living Laboratory

May 29, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Combo Colab: Mall-terations and More

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We are smitten with design duo Combo Colab. Not because we share a similar name (though we think that’s fun), and not because some of us have Argentinean roots (though that’s cool too), but this delightful Venezuelan couple, based in New Jersey, won us over at the designboom mart 2012 with their upcycled, reconceptualized plastic milk crates as stackable indoor/outdoor stools named Xtools (bottom 4 photos), and from there we learned of all their other interesting projects.

Carolina Cisneros and Mateo Pinto are architects and artists whose practice is focused on a design/build approach. Their work ranges from small scale works to temporary public art projects. One of my favorites is Mall-terations: a project on the Lower East Side here in NYC a little over a year ago. In collaboration with Marcelo Ertorteguy and Sara Valente, as well as neighborhood volunteers, Combo Colab created a series of five rotating benches (Compass Benches) down the mall on Allen Street, overlapping circular neighborhood maps. In addition, a timeline celebrating the history of immigration and ongoing revitalization of the Allen Street Corridor ran along the concrete sidewalk from one Compass Bench to the next. These were just great!

More recently, they designed Plop Spots — giant pillows made out of inflatable bags — to generate outdoor seating clusters in and around the Dumbo Arts Festival. All the pillows have fun expressions on them such as “ahhh”, “plop”, and “zzzz”.

There’s much more, too. Seedling, Soundscape, and the upcoming Red Hook Food Vendor Market Food Fence… Combo Colab are designers to watch.

All photos courtesy of Combo Colab

May 24, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Tapewriter: Autobahn

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Dutch design studio Autobahn, founded by Maarten Dullemeijer and Rob Stolte, created the font Tapewriter while experimenting using duct tape as the writing material and outdoor metal fencing as their canvas. Each rectangle in the fence matched the width of the duct tape, creating a kind of bitmapped effect when words were taped out on the metal grid. From street art and free expression to font…interesting.

via behance