antony gormley: one & other.

I’m a massive fan of Antony Gormley, sculptural mastermind and creator of “Another Place”, one of my favourite works of art of all time. He’s mega-famous (most notably for his landmark outdoor sculpture “Angel Of The North”) and he deserves to be. Now he’s given us yet another reason why.

With “One & Other”, Gormley’s proposed a brilliant idea for a massive, public, personable exchange of artistic expression, which he describes as part of the “democratization of art.” Beginning on July 6th, every hour, for 100 days (2400 hours) a person will take to the top of the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square… and do whatever they want. Creating a “unique portrait of the UK int he 21st century”, the project will be opened for applications from anyone living in the UK and there’s room for 2400 people to take part.  To universalize the project, all 2400 hours will be streamed live online for the world to watch.

Watch this vid of Gormley himself describing his inspiration for the project, and if you live in the UK go here to register to find out when you can apply.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

I’m generally jealous of people who live in London, but this has me mentally salivating. I’m tempted to fake British citizenship just so I can apply to do this, but that would break the spirit of Gormley’s idea. And if there’s one thing I respect above most, it’s the sanctity and purity of an honest artistic idea.

Via Josh Spear

d-pad hero.

This is killer. Created by Kent Hansen and Andreas Pedersen, D-Pad Hero is an NES emulation game that plays Guitar Hero on an old-skool Nintendo. This is the 8-bit shit right here. It’s so beyond rad I almost don’t want to talk about it anymore for fear that it’s actually a dream and I’m about to wake up.

There are only 4 songs right now (donate to the creators and you could get to pick a song to go into version 2.0) but they’re the perfect four songs: “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, “Harder Better Faster Stronger” (the original Daft Punk version – not the Kanye), “The Way You Make Me Feel”, and “The Swing Of Things.” It’s so bang on it almost makes me laugh out loud. My body doesn’t know what else to do with all its pent up geek joy and Mega Man nostalgia.

My fave is the Daft Punk (below), but Slash does a pretty good job, too:

You can check out vids of Pedersen playing all the songs here. If you’re really into, then sign the online petition for Ninteno Wii to produce the game.

edible.

When I first found this I wasn’t sure if it was a joke or a conceptual exercise or a viral. Turns out it’s real. Which leaves me feeling very conflicted: a mixture of curiosity, admiration, bewilderment, and abject horror.

Edible sells the most fucked up shit you’ve never eaten. And for good reason…

Edible is an online smorgasbord of exotic foodstuffs from around the world. And we’re not talking escargot-exotic. If your idea of pushing culinary boundaries is steak tartare, then please stop reading now. Because we’re talking “Giant Toasted Leafcutter Ants” exotic.

The site is so chic, and the monochromatic Helvetica-heavy packaging so modern, that you might not realize that your Antlix Lollipop isn’t just pretty to look at – it’s filled with bugs!

Besides being visually appealing, Edible is also a treasure trove of amazing sales and marketing positioning – necessary when you’re trying to sell things like this. For the Antlix Lollipop, they make it clear that not only is it peppermint flavoured (as opposed to “ant flavoured”, I suppose) but that it’s “less daunting to try”. And anytime licking ants is considered less daunting, you know you’re in for a real treat.

Real treats like Tequila Worm Lollipops, Scorpion Toffee Candy, and Scorpion Vodka…

That’s right. The Tequilalix Lollipop is not only sugar-free, but it’s got a real live worm suspended inside. If years of hitting the end of the tequila bottle and realizing that “why, yes, I am drunk enough to eat that worm” have left you desensitized, then how about scorpions. Big ones. With stingers. When you’ve reached the end of your bottle of Scorpion Vodka, there’s a full-sized edible scorpion to chow down on (though, and I’m not joking, as the site says “please be careful of the sharp stinger”). And if you want to try eating bugs while sober, there’s always Toffee Scorpion Candy.

Moving beyond insect-laden booze, the site also offers some more mainstream romantic gifts, like the Pearl Lollipop (made from ground pearls) and the hand-rolled 24 Karat Gold Lollipop. Useless, yes. Impressive, possibly.

But, let’s be real, on a website that sells Thai Curry Crickets, gold suckers are for pussies. So let’s get onto the carnivorous stuff…

That’s right. Reindeer Paté is the perfect holiday treat – sing about Rudolph while spreading Blitzen on a cracker. My personal favourite, the site makes a worthy bid for understatement of the year when it describes it’s hand-picked Mopani Worms as “an interesting addition to dinner parties”. No shit.

shape+colour on cbc.ca.

So this is kinda cool. shape+colour got quoted in a nifty little article on cbc.ca. For any non-Canadians out there, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is the gatekeeper to all things Canuck. It’s old skool and it’s hardcore…the kind of thing your Grandpa listens to driving around in his truck. Or, if you’re from the West, his combine.

My post on Nikola Basic’s “Sea Organ” got quoted in an article called “400 Organ Thursdays” by Li Robbins on the CBC blog. I’m a Canadian news source! My Grandpa is gonna’ lose his shit…

radiohead: nude re/mix.

Radiohead is cooler than everyone else. That’s just the way it is. With Nude Re/Mix they’re letting people download stems (digital tracks layered into songs – in this case voice, guitar, bass, drums, and strings/fx) of their song “Nude” for a small fee. Then you can remix them in GarageBand or other music programs and then upload back onto their site. The best tracks will get a listen-to by Radiohead themselves. They’ve even got a widget and Facebook app so you can release your mix to the world.

dropclock.

There’s nothing ground-breaking going on here, it just looks freakin’ hot.

The Dropclock is a ridiculously good-looking clock + screensaver. Telling time never looked so hot. Check out this demo to see the Dropclock in action:

Via NotCot

craig geffen: humancalendar.com + humanclock.com.

I wish I’d found out about this on, oh… say January 1st, but I’m only about two months late.

The latest in Craig Geffen’s duo of photographic time-keeping sites, the inspirations for Humancalendar.com came to him while riding his bicycle around Australis and wondering about the re-design for his already existing site, Humanclock.com.

His Brady-esque take on the calendar was completely conceptualized and coded by Geffen himself. Everyone in the 3,992 pictures (and I shudder to think about how he would have had to keep them all organized, facing the right angles, to make this thing work…) are all friends of his. I go there every day – almost not so much to see what day it is (I already know that) but more just to see if he ever fucks it up. He never does.

Humanclock is the site that started it all. Created in 2001, you just pick your timezone and the site shows you a photo representing the time. The pic changes each minute, and each minute has several photos sent in from all around the world. Here’s the one I got, sent from Tel Aviv, at the minute I started writing this post. Clearly, it’s fate, and I’m a big fan of anything involving what appears to be some kind of Tropical Skittle (or the Israeli version, at any rate):

Humanclock gets really addictive really fast, and the inventiveness of the photos never gets old. Price tags, license plates, people lying in the middle of the road – you never know what you’re gonna’ get. Similar to other personalized user-contributed photo sites (like the amazing You Are Beautiful), there’s something about the easy straight-forwardness of all this that I really enjoy. We’re dealing with some pretty quantified concepts here, and yet they seem so organic and happy on his sites.

cookthink.

Cookthink is a lot like Musicovery for your food. Instead of the music-radios site’s colour and emotion based searches, Cookthink asks the simple question “what are you craving?”. Then you can enter in specific ingredients, dishes, cuisine styles, or “mood” and the search engine will bring up recipes to satisfy you. The moods are pretty entertaining unto themselves, ranging from experiential ideas like “festive” and “hangover-friendly” to more enigmatic choices like “resinous”, “minimalist”, and “oceany”.

gap: sound of color.

I don’t know if this could really be called a genuine viral, since everybody knew it was happening and that it’s sponsored by Gap. I mean, most virals don’t have a Billboard press release. And by “many”, I really mean “none”. I’m pretty sure the genesis of this project was a bunch of old men wearing ties in a boardroom somewhere, scratching their wallets and asking “what are the cool kids doing these days? we need to move some khakis…”

Despite the sort of desperate-to-be-cool bandwagon-jumping vibe of the whole deal (not too surprising since Gap makes the most world’s most boring, middle of the road clothes), the colour freak in me can’t help but love this site. Plus the musicians they’ve got on board are sick. I tried not to like it, but c’mon, it’s called Sound of Color. It’s right up my alley…

Exploring music inspired the by the mood of color, 5 musicians – Marié Digby (songwriter of the 2007 song of summer “Umbrella”), Dntel, The Ravonettes, The Blakes, and Swizz Beatz – were given a color – red, yellow, green, blue, and black – and asked to write 5 songs about it. Then those tracks were given to 5 video directors. The end result is five original songs and videos, all inspired by the universal language of colour.

The site is beautiful and really seamless. Each colour gives you the song, the video, an interview with the artist, their bio, and a making-of. Plus you can download the tracks for free until March 15th and check out dozens of colour-facts about each hue. Cleopatra wore green to symbolize victory and all that stuff. I love that shit.

you are beautiful.

We all know it, but it’s hard to resist. We live in a world that bombards us with fear-inducing marketing aiming to convince us that we’re too ugly, too fat, or too old so that we’ll go out and buy shit to fix it. How often, if ever, do we get sweetly and succinctly told that there’s nothing wrong with us? It’s the simplicity behind You Are Beautiful that makes it’s message so immediate and powerful.

The creators of the site and all it’s members are anonymous, choosing to let their message speak for itself. Collaborators design different versions of the three words “you are beautiful” and then hi-jack public areas that would normally contain advertising. From more traditional graffiti spaces to usurping billboards and lining the insides of advertising-riddled subway cars, the idea is to replace the ubiquitous consumer-driven messaging we normally see with a compliment. A little burst of positivity, unexpected in the midst of buy-buy-buy messaging, that asks us to do absolutely nothing but feel good about ourselves.

The collected images of how the message has manifested itself created an exhibition that’s appeared in galleries around the world. Living up to the true nature of it’s movement, You Are Beautiful seeks out individuals to contribute as well. People can let out their inner artist with their very own version of the message, be it public or private, and send pics to the site for posting. The only thing they ask is that the message not be commodified or sold in any way – to just always be free and always be true to itself.

Plus, for just the price of postage, Are You Beautiful will mail you a free package of stickers. Spread the message, take pics of where you put your stickers, and send them to the site to be added to the collection:

Ryan Johnson – Milan, Italy

Emily Gordon – Ottawa, Canada

Peter Federma – Amherst, US

Laura Schlipf – Palmdale US