abstract:groove: building urban motion.

Milanese design and production shop abstract:groove created this amazing temporary outdoor video installation on the side of  of the Hotel St. George, in Viale Tunisia, Milan.

Described by the creators as “an audiovisual experiment of perceptive transformation in architecture, through abstract narration, which will show the building as a screen and protagonist simultaneously. Imagine the façade of a building could have a brain and a conscience; consequently it could sleep and dream. Imagine that these surreal forms of life have a characteristic to let loose, during the REM sleep period, a visible transposition of their dreams.”

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Via No Fat Clips!

jason de caires taylor: underwater sculptures.

Creating environmental art inside the world’s largest gallery, Jason de Caires Taylor’s underwater sculptures literally come to life. A passionate scuba diver and artist, his oceanic installations are otherworldly, enigmatic, and astoundingly beautiful. He creates solemn and haunting human shapes, arresting in their casual acts and calm conformity. Like outcasts of Atlantis, living all of their days at the bottom of the world.

To me, the most magical part of all is that over time these works aren’t just displayed in the ocean, they literally become the ocean. They wear away, erode into liquid, and plant life spreads itself across them. Absorbed by the very medium that creates their interest, they’re both a celebration and a sacrifice to the sea.

If you’re into this, check out the world-renowned outdoor installation of Antony Gormley and Nicola Basic’s amazing Sea Organ.

Via The Post Family

bethany bristow.

I’ve never seen anything quite like these small-scale public outdoor installations by New York artist Bethany Bristow. They basically look like glass-bodied rainbow-feathered birds who’ve been run over by a cab, and yet they’re gorgeous. Beautiful, multi-hued drinking cup bird remains… occasionally dripping corn syrup blood. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write, but that’s what’s amazing about art. Created on the streets of New York City and Singapore, I love how the shapes seem sometimes like a living creature at rest and sometimes like something that once was living but is now dead. And the anatomy of the creature itself is so foreign to us we can’t really be sure which…

Via Fabrik Project

faith47: the restless debt of third world beauty.

Here’s a slick vid giving us a glimpse into the work and world of South African graf artist Faith47. Directed by film-maker and photographer Rowan Pybus’ Makhulu Productions. Proper. I particularly like how it melds the act of making art with the people and natural environment of a place, evoking the light and air and mood of a city and how it both mirrors and inspires the outdoor art created within its arms.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

jonna pohjalainen: color pencils.

This is rad. As part of a group show of Finnish environmental art at Environmental Art, Jonna Pohjalainen transformed aspen logs into life-size pencil crayons.

Via NOTCOT

fabric: perpetual sunshine.

Created by the amazing design, architecutre, and research geniuses at Swiss genius-factory Fabric, their travelling exhibition “Perpetual Sunshine” is pure feel-good. Giving seasonal affective disorder the heave-ho, “Perpetual Sunshine” is a data-based sensory installation made up of 334 high-intensity infared bulbs. The light and heat emanating from the bulbs is calibrated by a computer to match the current temperature in any other part of the world where the sun is currently shining. So even though it might be night-time where you are, you can still be bathed in the exact light and heat glowing, at that moment, on the other side of the world.

Most recently on display at Madrid’s La Noche En Blanco festival, the installation has appeared at both indoor exhibitions and public outdoor events across Europe.

All images © Fabric Ch 2005-2008

slinkachu: little people in the city.

UK street artist Slinkachu is a full-blown all-out genius, and his on-going outdoor mini-art series, “Little People“, is one of the best things that’s ever happened in the history of stuff. It’s that fucking cool.

Right now there’s almost more Slinkachu-based excitement than I can handle. There are times I curse the universe that I haven’t for some reason magically woken up living in London, and this is one of those times.

First off, in a world that loves to make a heavy coffee table art book out of subjects far less worthy, finally the stars have aligned and the first book documenting the “Little People” project, “Little People In The City“, is being released around the world on September 5.

Appropriately, the book itself is little enough to fit in your hand…

If you’re (lucky enough to live) in London, then Slinkachu is hosting a book launch and London-wide treasure hunt on August 31. The man himself will be placing 4 installations around the city, and the first person to find all four gets a signed print from Slinkachu’s first ever solo show, “Ground Zero“, opening TONIGHT at Cosh Gallery in London’s Soho. Even if you don’t win the print, just by singing up and being there you’ll have the chance to nab the book almost a week before everyone else, and that’s prize enough.

On top of all that, Slinkachu’s official site is currently offline promising a re-opening at the end of August (which could be to coincide with the opening of his solo show, the book launch in London, or the general book launch… sweet jebus, the possibilies…) and I can’t wait to see what the site resurfaces like.

So much Slinkachu in so little time. Not that you needed any further proof, but check out the levels of brilliance that “Little People” is evolving into with one of Slinkachu’s latest installations, “Life As We Know It”:

anna garforth: mossenger.

UK designer Anna Garforth has gone above and beyond green-washing to create a truly biodegradable and all natural graffiti. With “Mossenger” she’s created living, breathing, and sustainable outdoor art. Fashioned from a common moss that thrives on brick walls, she took a quote from poet Eleanor Stevens, carved the moss, and glued it to the wall with a mix of totally biodegradable ingredients.

As the moss grows it will begin to spread out and the words themselves will literally spread themselves, in all their green glory, across the wall and melt into a field of green. Part of an on-going project experimenting with public space and street art, I’m majorly interested to see what Garforth will be up to next. Perhaps the next lines of the poem will strategically find themselves on walls across the city?

Via It’s Nice That

solar collector.

If art is in the eye of the beholder, then here is what happens when the beholders are creating the art. In the hills near Cambridge, Ontario, Gorbet Design Inc. (made up of Matt, Rob, and Susan LK Gorbet) has created Solar Collector.

Just the online description itself gets my little new-media-modern-artist’s heart a-thumping:

In a collaboration between the community and the sun, Solar Collector gathers human expression and solar energy during the day, then brings them together each night in a performance of flowing light.

How awesome does THAT sound? Integrating the cycles of it’s natural environment into an interaction-based work of outdoor art, similar to Jiyeon Song’s beautiful “One Day Poem Pavilion”, almost every aspect of Solar Collector’s design took a completely holistic and thought-out approach to it’s natural surroundings. Despite the high-tech aspect of its workings, there is a subtle, organic reasoning behind almost every element of the piece.

The 12 aluminum shafts are held at separate angles in the hillside. Each shaft has three LED lights and three solar collectors, gathering the sun’s energy to power their noctural illumination. The angles of the shaft represent the sun’s position throughout the year: the tallest shaft faces the sun’s location at winter solstice, and the lowest shaft faces does the same for summer solstice. If you’re a techie kinda person, you can check out all the detailed specs here.

During the day, while sunlight charges the batteries within each shaft, people go online and create their own patterns and send them electronically to solar collector. At sunset, Solar Collector comes to life and creates it’s display not just from the energy of light but from the creative energy of human beings. As the solar power in the batteries diminishes during the night, the light from each shaft slowly fades away and darkens until they’re energized by the sun again the next morning. It’s as natural and universal a cycle as breathing.

There’s also a kind of delightful shock to the location of Solar Collector. For those of you who don’t live in Southern Ontario, Cambridge isn’t exactly the first place you’d expect to find an interactive outdoor light sculpture. In fact, it may be one of the last. The randomness of its locale adds to it’s overall coolness.

Via Stimulant