schmevil

Two pieces from Candy Girls, by Yoshitaka Amano.


You can find more from the collection (along with work from other artists) at lebasseprojects.com.


Candy Girls S23



Candy Girls Mk.II-1

Temptation, by Andrea Arroyo


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We know this much
Death is an evil;
we have the gods'
word for it; they too
would die if death
were a good thing

Sappho

Someone needs to go on an iconing spree through Stina Persson's gallery of watercolours.


***

Although they are
only breath, words
which I command
are immortal

Sappho

This video by Fever Ray is really quite arresting. The song is a moody, atmospheric kind of thing and lovely, but the video is layered with interesting images. I'd love to read someone's unpacking of what's going on there.

NBS Nightly News with Ted Philips, March 11th 1970 is a viral marketing vid for The Watchmen. It's a retrospective on ten years of Dr. Manhattan, which is a brilliant idea and true to the spirit of the book - Dr. Manhattan is a total game-changer, far more so than the bomb was in our world; a fusion of nuclear power and the existence Superman.



I spent a couple of hours today, catching up on my blog reading list, and Art MOCO introduced me to Joey Remmers whose work is damn cool. I love the shadows on the water in this one.

Also Monaux who's doing a lot of tattoo inspired work that I'd be tempted to at least wear on a tee, if not my skin. ETA: Love the Tarantino!

That cold I fought off? I didn't fight it off. I now have the voice of a pubescent seal. Tomorrow is my day off, and I'll be wallowing in sickitude; burrowing into foot-deep layers of blankets and mainlining lemon tea. Lots of interesting things happened today, but for now, I'll confine myself to three nifty things I found online.

But first, I have a request. There are some awesome icon-makers on my flist. Would any of you be willing to make me a custom icon, for to-be-revealed purposes?

Nifty stuff:

1. Check out this mini-doc on the narrative structure of comic books via otw_news.

2.

Drawn & Quarterly has a pdf preview of Lynda Barry's multimedia comic "What Is it?" about getting creative. Their blurb:

What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or remember. Bursting with full-color drawings, comics, and collages, autobiographical sections and gentle creative guidance, each page is an invigorating example of exactly what it is: "The ordinary is extraordinary." Lynda Barry explores the depths of the inner and outer realms of creation and imagination, where play can be serious, monsters have purpose, and not knowing is an answer unto itself.

How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? These types of questions permeate the pages of What It Is, with words attracting pictures and conjuring places through a pen that first and foremost keeps on moving. Her insight and sincerity will tackle the most persistent of inhibitions, calling back every kid who quit drawing to again feel alive at the experiential level.

3.

And finally, check out the beautiful illustration work of Kate Slater.

Since the release of the theatrical trailer Watchmen has sold 900,000 copies! In comments on The Beat Torsten Adair says:

I think what is driving this is that non-comicbook people saw Dark Knight with their comicbook-reading friends, saw an incredible trailer, and asked their friends, “What is that all about?” And their friends replied, “That’s the greatest graphic novel ever written, and you have to read it.”

Watchmen is currently #36 on BN.com, the lowest since the trailer hit. From now until April, retailers everywhere have to bring their A Game everyday. People are going to read Watchmen, then read it again to see how the pieces fit together, then they are going to come back and say, “Okay, I’ve read a great graphic novel. What other great stuff do you have that I don’t know about?” That’s when the retailer asks, “What do you like to read?” and then goes to the shelves and starts hand selling.

Pretty much agree - on its own I don't find The Watchmen trailer all that impressive, but pairing it with The Dark Knight was the perfect marketing move. The target audience for The Watchmen is much the same as for TDK (as distinct from say, Iron Man).

I so need to reread.

***

This morning I was introduced to Xavier Nuez via MoCo Loco. Here's how they describe his work:

While conventional wisdom tells us to keep away from dark alleys, photographer Xavier Nuez goes looking for trouble, or at the very least, signs of it. Being accosted by addicts and dealers, chased by gangs and questioned by police is all part of a night’s work. Nuez is inspired by inner-city ruins, dead ends, back lots and uninviting urban corners, partially due to a family history of homelessness and the fear that he too would succumb. To counteract this past, the artist creates monuments of the gutters, working with Hasselblad film cameras and shooting with lights and gels, and very long exposures.

His site has some seriously gorgeous photos of graffiti art, construction sites and 'ruined' urban landscapes. Incredibly lush colours and fantastic lines.

See also Buff Monster, who started doing guerrilla, silk-screen poster art, and now does vinyl figures and other cook stuff.

( two images )

And NASA's image of the day an Arctic eclipse. v. v. cool.

Only a couple more days to participate in International Blog Against Racism Week. Check out ibarw for collected links from the week.

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CBC has a story on Chan Hyo Bae's series of photos of himself as an English queen.

Born in Busan, South Korea, photographer Chan-Hyo Bae moved to London, England in 2004 to attend the Slade School of Fine Art. He found himself closed off from his adopted country — not just by language, but by customs and rituals he didn’t know or understand. Touring the city’s many museums, he saw endless portraits of the English aristocracy, the creators of the very social structures he found so impenetrable. So, Bae decided to see what it would feel like to be them. The result is Existing in Costume, an exhibition running to July 5 at Toronto’s Gallery 44.

I love the title of exhibit.

In each photo Bae is cosutmed in the regalia of English royalty from various eras. He leaves his hands unpainted, while his often heavily made up face and elaborate costumes successfully immitate (and interrogate) English portraiture. In most of the photos he can't pass as white, but he can pass, I think, as a bio-female. While otherwise fully costumed, he carries or wears something meaninguful to his own heritage in all of the 15 photos - in one it is a wooden birdcage, in another it's a fan. As with his unpainted hands, it's at once a visual representation of how people of colour resist colonization, and how the other is appropriated. My favourite is the image of him carrying a Korean fan.

An excellent visual commentary on colonialism, cultural appropriation and multicultural assimilation.

Bae chose to dress like an English queen, not an English king, in part because of the stereotypes he encountered in his adopted country. Even in 2008, he feels that Asian men are seen as “weak” or less masculine in Western society, a prejudice left over from the colonial days and Orientalism. This photo of Bae, in a demure skirt suit that might be sported by a modern queen, speaks to racist, sexist and classist restraints.

I think it's interesting that he chose to associate 'weak,' Asian masculinity with English, female power, which is itself underwritten by patriarchal power, and exists narrowly, to uphold that patriarchal system. Is he saying that Asian masculinity has historically been appropriated for the perpetuation of masculinist Western power? *pokes flist*

***

Facebook, Coca Cola, and Medical Aid in Africa
Incensed by the irony that remote African communities had limitless access to bottles of Coca-Cola, but no infrastructure to get medicines to sick children, innovator Simon Berry decided to speak up and ask Coca-Cola to dedicate a fraction of its distribution network to carry medicines for simple, widespread and life-threatening ailments like diarrhea.
World Changing
August 6, 2008

Cool idea, irritatingly comic SCIENCE!d in this month's Invincible Iron Man. Unsurprisingly, the real world version makes more sense. *g*

What's great about this story is that Coca Cola is actually considering it. Much of the best networks and infrastucture are privately owned and imho in order to achieve the green shift, and anything approaching an ethical distribution of wealth (and health), we're going to have to start tapping those private resources. Not just the networks, but all the skills they've developed.

I'm not a huge fan of private-public partnerships because government and business everywhere already spend too much time in bed together, and all too often these partnerships magnify the evils of both groups. NGO-private partnerships, so long as they're transparent, I'm all for. I think there are a lot of opportunities for very liberal NGOs to work with business, while less ideologically compatible ones keep doing what they do best - resist.

Still, when it comes to aid I'm always leery of new 'solutions' unless they involve substantial contributions in terms of planning and labour from the people they're supposed to help. Hence the success of micro-credit, which is all about helping people help themselves, how they want to be helped.

***

Anyway, I haven't had coffee yet, so I'm going to go do that now. *pokes brain*

1. Find more Carlos Ramos at The Corey Helford Gallery along with other great stuff, including robot boxing.

2. Paper and cardboard miniature. Photographed. Find more from Jasper de Beijer at Fette-Gallery.

3. Mixed media. Find more Amy Rice at Blue Bottle Art.

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Artic Ice: Going, Going, Gone

There's a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history, a leading ice scientist says. The weather and ocean conditions in the next couple of weeks will determine how much of the sea ice will melt, and early signs are not good, said Mark Serreze. He's a senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo. The chances for a total meltdown at the pole are higher than ever because the layer of ice coating the sea is thinner than ever, he said. "A large area at the North Pole and surrounding the North Pole is first-year ice," Serreze said. "That's the stuff that tends to melt out in the summer because it's thin."

Seth Borenstein
Associated Press @ Discovery News
June 30, 2008 ( click for pic )

Climate Change Causing Significant Shift In Composition Of Coastal Fish Communities

A detailed analysis of data from nearly 50 years of weekly fish-trawl surveys in Narragansett Bay and adjacent Rhode Island Sound has revealed a long-term shift in species composition, which scientists attribute primarily to the effects of global warming.

Science Daily
June 30, 2008

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And finally, ART+CLIMATE CHANGE.

* Cape Farewell, a site dedicated to cultural responses to climate change, particularly in the form of art.

* Will Climate Change Be Good For Canada? A visual essay.

I decided to distract myself from my impending academic doom with some coolness. For the record - finished my Shakespeare paper, getting started on my Elizabethan/Jacobean paper (which is going to be on Women Beware Women), and am nowhere on my Virillio presentation. Onward!

Carl Warner



Yes, that's meat. Warner has an incredible series, available on his site, of food landscapes.

Chris Jordan



Jordan does large scale photography. Handguns "depicts 29,569 handguns, equal to the number of gun-related deaths in the US in 2004."