the sound of arrows: wonders.

Swedish 80s dream-pop duo The Sound of Arrows just tweeted the link to their latest video. “Wonders”, fresh of their just-released, highly-buzzed about debut full length album “Voyage,” delivers everything we’ve already come to crave from them. Long story short, they sound like unicorns playing synths riding through space dust, on their way to watch The Neverending Story with David Bowie. While drinking Crystal Pepsi… sitting on a couch made of clouds and dollar-store laser beams. Walkin’ on sunshine, and don’t it feel good.

I’ve had a mild to mildly unhealthy obsession with them since falling crazy in love with their video for “M.A.G.I.C.”

And, um, no big deal, but I’m now tweeting with them about the video. Day = made. Oh, and if you’re looking for me, I’ll be busy being friends with them now. Stefan and Oskar are stand-up gentlemen.

everynone: symmetry.

In the middle of watching Everynone’s lovely Symmetry, the thought that overwhelmed me was “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” That Newton, he was a smart cookie. I love the philosophy of science; that is, that Newton’s Law of Motion is much more than a scientific truth (though it definitely is that). It’s also karma. It’s kindness. It’s what goes around comes around. It’s how the transference of love and respect is a psychological action that, like ripples in a pond, created a tangible, physical reaction in those who experience it from you.

In a whiplash, purely visual style that reminds me a lot of one of my fave short vids, Chris Milk’s Last Day Dream, the vid starts out light-hearted, but further in I realized that was just part of its elegant ploy. Start with simplicity, entice us to watch, and then the symmetries become harder and more thought-provoking.

Symmetry is filled with a deep ease, a contemplative review of questions asked but not answered. Because each of these truths – the steak-eater or the cow, the light bulb or the sunshine  – will be different for each of us. The power is not in that we agree, but that we recognize and understand what they mean to us. Are you a consumer or a creator? A destroyer or a deliverer? For everything you do, each of your action, what reactions are you sending back into the world?

+ via kateoplis

matt pyke & friends: super-computer-romantics.

Any time Matt Pyke is about to release new work feels like Christmas Eve. My favourite digital artist and motion designer ever, Matt’s simply unbeatable at creating innovative, organic and jaw-dropping work for his own studio, Universal Everything, and some of the world’s biggest brands. (You may have heard of them: Nike, Chanel, Nokia, MTV and the London 2010 Olympics. Whatever. NBD.) He’s also the mastermind behind my favourite motion design project ever, the inimitable Advanced Beauty. If you haven’t seen it, get it. Buy it. Find it. Watch it. It’ll change your life.

One of my fave facets of Matt’s work is how it never seems forced or even “created” – somehow it feels like everything he does (“organic digital” is what I like to call it) just comes into being. It flows as easily as if it washed up on a shore or floated in on a breeze. Plus I’ve emailed with Matt a few times and he’s also a really stand-up guy and a class act all around.

In his first ever solo show, Matt’s taking over Paris’ La Gaîté Lyrique with Super-Computer-Romantics. Guest-curated by Charlotte Leuozon and with sound design by Matt’s brother and frequent collaborator, Simon, the exhibition features 8 separate environments covering more than 26,000 square feet. Pyke says “The approach is one of a romantic view of technology and of really kind of being optimistic about what you can do with technology and how you can create beauty with super-computers, how you can create pieces of video work and pieces of audio-visual work.”

Reading La Gaîté Lyrique’s extensive info on the event, I started to get light-headed and giddy: “Here, a 3 meters high walking monster, endlessly transforming itself. There, a monolithic block invites viewers to peek into a singular experience – witness the birth of materials at a molecular level. On the mezzanine, stands a crowd of generative living sculptures, grown from code. Facing them, a huge projection of a never-ending procession of bodies, struggling against a hurricane of sound. Each piece can be considered a supercomputing beauty seeking emotional sensations and feelings whose magic breaks with rational functionalism. Remixing primitivism, minimalism, pop culture and 19th century landscape painting, the exhibition Matt Pyke & Friends takes us to a romantic theatricality reaching a subtle and meaningful relationship between technologies and the viewer.”

Opening this Thursday and running until May 21, 2011, the show will also feature a full-sized theatre screen with a retrospective of all of Pyke’s commercial and artistic work to date as well as a public lecture, from Matt himself, on the subject of “creation.”

Getting me all hot and bothered for the upcoming show, today Nowness debuted a stunning teaser vid for “Supreme Believers”, one of the installations from Super-Computer-Romantics. The Universal Everything Vimeo channel has also released a teaser for the exhibition. Both are classic Pyke and I want more, more more.

Here’s a video of Matt himself talking about his vision for the exhibition (and giving some visual glimpses into what he’s got planned). 

I need to see this show. I NEED IT. If anyone would like to take me to Paris to see Super-Computer-Romantics, I’m not above begging. I’m a pretty decent conversationalist, I sleep well on planes and I know some French. I’ve also never met an escargot that I didn’t like. Just putting that out there.

If you want more Matt Pyke (and why wouldn’t you), here are past posts on Forever, a video installation for the Victoria & Albert Museum; the new brand identity they created for MTV International; their gorgeous 2010 reel; and here’s one of Universal Everything’s most recent works, a series of digital installations for Chanel:

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+ via @universalevery

glasser: ring.

Never underestimate the power of good cover art. I might have passed over Glasser if I hadn’t been stopped dead in my tracks by the gorgeous cover, below, to her upcoming debut album “Ring.” And that would have totally been my loss, because Glasser is basically now my favourite new thing.

The home-project pseudonym of “one-woman orchestra” Cameron Mesirow, Glasser first got some buzz after releasing her debut EP “Apply” in May 2009. Recorded in Garage Band, she clearly showed right out of the gate a natural ability to make the rough edges endearing.

But “Home”, the recently-released first single from “Ring”, is what really got me excited. The audio evolution from her EP seems so natural and the imperfect wooden percussion; swelling synth chorus; swooping strings; and dreamy, chanty call of Glasser’s voice has been on heavy rotation in my brain since I first heard it. Like siren song, I can’t shake it. And that’s a good thing.

“Ring” comes out Sept. 28 from True Panther. Pre-order here.

Here are two grainy, misty, analog-feeling vids for two tracks from her EP “Apply”:

“Apply” directed by Jacinto Astiazarán

“Tremel” directed by Sarah Enid Hagey

Via Pitchfork.

quick + dirty #1: ian berenger, surfap, pets + ducroz.

I see many more videos that I love than I could do full blog posts on. Though I’m constantly adding vids to my Vimeo channel that aren’t on the blog, I decided to start posting some of them here even though they won’t each have a full written post. In the time-honoured programming tradition of the quick and dirty, that’s the name I’ve decided to give to this new post series of awesome vids that I think you’ll want to see…

ian berenger: our time is brief.

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surfap: super mario bros.

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pets + rémy m. larochelle: a good day for telling lies.

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ducroz: phosphene.

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gorillaz + jamie hewlett: on melacholy hill.

Gorillaz are one of a select group of artists who continuously and relentlessly push the edge of what music videos can accomplish. Working with some of the absolute best directors and animators in the business doesn’t hurt either. They’ve never stopped evolving the visual lives of the animated personas, and in so have created a video universe where the music and the motion complement and augment each other. I still think the vid for “19-2000” (also directed by Jamie Hewlett and Pete Candeland) is one of the best animated music vids ever.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Gorillaz have teamed up again with Passion Pictures‘ Hewlett and Candeland for their latest, “Melancholy Hill.” The video is, basically, fucking incredible. There were over 40 people on the crew of animators and compositors, and it shows. The attention to detail is crazy and it pays off big time. Not watching this in HD would be the equivalent of going to a top restaurant and asking for ketchup. HD it baby.

Personally, I think it looks better on Vimeo but if that one gets pulled here’s the link to the vid on Gorillaz’s YouTube channel.

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Via Feed.

patrick boivin: at-at day afternoon.

Ah, Star Wars. Though I fear it’s starting to become the Helvetica of retro pop culture design references, just like Helvetica, or anything over-played, when it’s done really well in a new and exciting way allowances can be made. And if the outcome is as totally kick ass as Patrick Boivin‘s “At-At Day Afternoon”, then everything old is new again.

The premise? Gloriously simple. Imagine your dog was an At-At. Film it. Rejoice. Spread its awesomeness to the world. Make everyone feel like children again. Done.

And if you’re not sure what an At-At is, then I’m afraid I’m not sure we can be friends anymore.

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Via Motionographer.

ryan mcginley + nowness: entrance romance.

I first started following photographer/artist/wunderkind Ryan McGinley more than 2 years ago, when I posted about his gorgeous (and still my favourite) photo exhibition “I Know Where The Summer Goes.” Since then McGinley has blown up huge and deservedly so. Expanding his visual scope from photography, he moved into film last year with a short for fashion house Pringle of Scotland starring Tilda Swinton.

Last weekend, in collaboration with LVMH-branded website Nowness, McGinley released an incredibly hot looking short film (shot partially by a Phantom Camera at 1500 fps) called “Entrance Romance (It Felt Like A Kiss).” I’m a big proponent of art not necessarily needing to be “about” something, so this is right up my alley. In the short, supermodel Carolyn Murphy shoots hairspray at a lighter, makes out with a wet dog, and has a few glass objects thrown against her head. I fucking loved it. What’s it about? Don’t know, don’t care. It seems so gleefully confident in it’s abject weird nothingness that I fully bought it.

Though the whole concept of filming shit being thrown at people isn’t original (the work of New York City-based photographer Meg Wachter comes to mind) the production value is through the roof and, plus, Murphy is simply incredible to look at. The look of serene intensity she maintains while knowing, somewhere, that a bowl full of goldfish is hurtling towards her is somehow completely fascinating. However, it’s the sly wave of sadomasochistic discovery that spreads across her face after being drilled in the head with a bottle of Heineken that really makes this worth the price of admission. Except that it was free… but you get my point.

Via Towleroad.

great lake swimmers + nir ben jacob: river’s edge.

Worthy Polaris Prize-nominees Great Lake Swimmers are one of my favourite bands of all time.  Their music is like acoustic air. It’s billowy and expansive and makes you feel like flying. I don’t have enough organic expletives to express my love for it. If I ever get married, it will be to a track from their brilliant 2007 album “Ongiara.” I won’t say which one, because it’s mine, but if I ever have a boyfriend who figures it out I’ll go down on one knee there and then.

Their latest, 2009’s “Lost Channels” makes me feel everything good and slow in the world. It’s sunshine and fresh-mown grass and cold beer and long eyelashes and that feeling that when you’re done what you’re doing you’ve got somewhere better to go – all rolled into songs.

Matching the subtlety and earthy eloquence of “River’s Edge”, director and animator Nir Ben Jacob has created a video inspired, literally, by wood. Carved and thatched, the visuals unfold and evolve like building blocks and move in time with the track like musical carvings. The result is a gorgeous vid that reaches out, like branches, and wraps itself around you.

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I found this quote from Jacob on Video Static. It made me love the video even more:

“About a year ago I stumbled on these old wood-chip plate compositions my late grandfather made. They’re a beautiful example of early Israeli-Yemenite art. As soon as I saw them I knew I had to animate them. They had been in storage for decades so it meant a great deal to bring them out and breathe life into them. This was an opportunity to not only contribute to his work, but also expose it to the audience it never had. It is the official video.”

If you’re into Jacob’s style, then check out his equally killer vid for The Walkmen’s “On The Water”:

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eric whitacre: lux aurumque.

My head is filled with so many thing right now. This, hands down, is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. And the genesis of how it came to be makes it even more beautiful.

Los Angeles-based composer and conductor Eric Whitacre has taken the notion of crowd-sourcing to a new level. An artistic, sincere, sonically communal level. He used his blog, his Facebook page, and YouTube to audition hundreds of singers to virtually perform his newest choral work, “Lux Aurumque.” The chosen 185 vocalists, from 12 different countries, were sent the sheet music and each individually videoed themselves performing their part. Whitacre and his team then synched them together and created a video of a virtual choir, complete with all the singers, in video form, standing like a choir with a video of Whitacre himself conducting from the centre.

The result soars. There’s no other word for it. I pressed play and the world slipped by and I felt like I was nowhere and everywhere at once.

To me, the formation of the choir itself is such a lovely metaphor in itself: instead of just coming together vocally, this group was brought together across the means of separation that held them apart – distance, language, and the reality of their lives – to be brought together by a common love of singing and a common access to the internet. The digital world has the possibility to unite us in so many new ways.

Humbly, I don’t love the annotations at the beginning of the vid (I think they’re tacky and amateurish) and the purple and blue “lights” are sort of killing me (though I get that it’s reminiscent of choir theatre lighting, which isn’t always the greatest). I would LOVE to see what a real motion designer would do to create a visual interpretation of the virtual choir that’s as exquisitely haunting as the sound of it. For some reason, director Asif Mian is the first one that popped into my head. I’d kill to see Mian create a video for something like this.

Via Mashable

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