As much as we hate to say it, advertising can be ridiculously creative and important, too. Why say you? The Australian Childhood Foundation‘s ad campaign to raise awareness about child abuse. They put up posters that cover a child-sized mannequin. On the sign it says, “Neglected Children are made to feel invisible.” But when the mannequin is ripped out from beneath, the text underneath is made visible, which reads, “Thank you for seeing me.” Ups to Wooster Collective for catching this first and not explaining it at all.
On Saturday, we’ll be in an art show, for those of you that’ll be in Philly this weekend. I mean, $1 beer? You might as well take a Chinatown bus down, it’d probably be a cheaper night out. In addition to dozens of artists – including the man responsible for Downbeat Treaty‘s cover – there will also be a number of performers and DJs.
We got a couple tracks for you for the Seclusiasis dudes that will be there. First, Dev79 hit us off with an MPFree of his new Raffertie remix. And we got the stream of a nasty Ghost joint that we can’t wait to see a certain rapper bless.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Ghost, “Danger”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
YrWall is like a giant computer screen that you can paint on with spray cans that use virtual paint. Pick your color and cap size, then spray and the wall does what you tell it to. No cops, no fumes, no drip – no bombing either. It looks like you can mess with the transparency, which is cool; but what would make this really fresh would be if you could spray different textures. Seems like a good way to add the physical element that’s missing from digital art, which is only important to the artist, not the viewer.
Electronic manipulation and sampling are not the only ways to bring new sounds into music. Case in point: Walter Kitundu and his instruments. They are Dr. Moreau-like creations, spliced turntable and string instruments. Hooked up to an amplifier, they bump all-new sounds. Dude is an instrument “builder in residence” for Kronos Quartet (them again?). Sound creation aside, the pieces are visual works of art in themselves. A number of his creations are instruments that exist as a form of functionless sculpture and spectacle, and they are much less interesting. At Kitundu’s Web site, you can listen to songs (“Emotional Infidel” is Culture System’s suggestion) made with his instruments and samples of individual instruments. Unfortunately, none are MP3s, and not all the instruments offer samples.
The above is a demo for The Rev, a music visualizer created by the Barbarian Group. It’s a sound responsive program full of depth, texture, variety and constant change. The visualizer was created for a British energy drink called Relentless. The iTunes version can be downloaded at their Web site. For more on how it was created, check this blog post by Flight 404, one of the developers. The song used for the demo is called ”Six Months Without Light” by a downtempo band called The Flashbulb.
EasyWeb projects crisp video art onto public spaces and buildings. They use software so that the video interacts with the objects they appear on, giving the sedentary objects a life of their own.
Jersey’s notorious AIDS crew brought their skills indoors for a legal showing of their talents, and they killed it. Simple as that.
The show, which was at Jersey City’s 58 Gallery, was impressive as a whole, rather than on the strength of the individual pieces. It was like one big collaborative installation with solo pieces thrown in for good measure.
Simple graffiti covered the walls, which was then washed over in various spots with different colors of transparent paint. More detailed attention grabbing smaller paintings adorned the walls at different spots on top of the subtle graffiti. Then messy white squares were thrown up, and the paintings were placed within them. This stark border helped emphasize the individual works, allowing the viewer to look at them without being overwhelmed by the paintings around it.
There was so much to look at on the walls that it took me a good twenty minutes to absorb it all.
As for the solo works, Distort’s oil painting of kids playing with guns really burned everybody else. Komar’s electric pole was fire was well. The pole and electric box were painted in the corner, and a wire was stretched from the top of it to the other corner of the gallery. Shoes were then strung over it. Dutch’s stained glass window of Biggie also stood out.
The opening was earlier this month, but it will still be open for viewing for about another week. Unfortunately, somebody took their time sending me photos, or I would have posted this sooner. Check out Photos By Tone for some more shots of the opening. Also peep Distort’s Jokerized City Council member here.
Update: Also, a lot of these dudes make music. Animal Crackas, who are also crew, performed at the opening. This song is called "Spiderweb," and it is on their upcoming album.
