Another artist at the Willoughby Windows Project is Gaia, who produces work both for the street and for galleries.
A lot of Gaia’s work is large scale illustration, with line drawings representing natural subjects like animals and earth children. These are then either wheatpasted on buildings or included in installations or 2D work, and some work is on a massive scale.
What’s great about it are the stunning monochrome images of nature, reminiscent of a bygone era, set against urban landscapes and decay. Check out the Gaia links after the jump.
My particular favourite is the Cannonball Press Zero Sum Game; eight keys and four outcomes all lead to financial ruin. Sorry Chief.
I like the wood cut style and the black and white which makes it all seem a bit old school, and that typeface all hints at a bit of wild west profiteering gone wrong.
No prizes for originality today I’m afraid, but the death of an icon has triggered an amazing online response, with Facebook groups, Tweets, Last.FM plays and search volumes that prompted Google to think it was “under attack” all supplemented by an unhealthy amount of pretty rubbish jokes.
At last count, 561 groups have been created today around R.I.P Michael Jackson with over 300,000 members. We have tracked the largest group over an hour this afternoon and have witnessed staggering viral growth in real time.
So with such viral momentum behind these groups, the only question left to ask is, where is my invite!?
Read a tremendously interesting article in the Economist the other day about the speed at which news is being covered. It explores how wonderful Twitter is at breaking news but then, how inevitably with so many people trying to have their say, descends into useless nonsense.
I experienced firsthand the use of ‘Twitter news’ during the tube strike when the TFL website was providing no useful information about if it had a actually started or not. Instead i turned to second by second reports of hellish bus journeys on Twitter due to the strike having begun.
However with more important news such as the recent protests in Iran while Twitter provides the second by second reports the broadcasters are incapable of it is by no means a substitute. Information is often incorrect and the depth of coverage will never reach the levels broadcasters are capable of no matter how many tiny URL’s are used.
More importantly as on any Twitter story the first few posts are ‘factual’ but this quickly descends into opinionated rants making searching for actual useful reports very difficult.
Long live the BBC (for accurate news coverage even if it is a little bit slower).
For me, this is quite significant for blogging and moves the medium closer to magazine publishing; the changing hands of titles for this kind of money is reminiscent of acquisitions in print.
How’s this shift come about? Well, put simply:
People started blogging
Publications followed suit
In this time the people had built up a following and brand to rival the publications
Publications/media companies decide to buy blogs
To an extent, I think this adds a further degree of authority and credibility to blogging, whilst also showing that the print world is continuing to move to online (even if it is quite slowly).
All publications need do now is sort out their revenue models. But that’s a discussion for another time.
The human printer is a group of people that replicate CMYK, black and white and spot colour prints through arduous use of felt tips.
By drawing many dots in a half tone pattern, they build up pictures not unlike those you’d find in print, but with a slight merging and softening of details. Of course, unlike with an electric printer, each print is different.
There’s probably a lot to be said about how it’s a reflection on the artistic desire to rebel against or subvert technologies that threaten the artist (such as impressionism in the wake of the invention/discovery of photography), but that could get a bit pretentious.
So instead I thought I’d introduce you to Louise Naunton Morgan, who I discovered today through It’s Nice That’s graduate series. She’s one of the printers, but I found the rest of her work really interesting. Here are some of my particular favourites:
Word on the street is that the studios are going to remake a host of 80’s classics such as Karate Kid, Short Circuit and Ghost Busters. Amongst those also being remade is Total Recall and this got me thinking about a very important and serious question; In the modern day world of action heroes who can step into Arnie’s shoes?
The answer is nobody. The role of the action hero has changed with more nimble, in thought and body, stars taking centre stage such as Matt Damon or Christian Bale. We are therefore left with the likes of Vin Diesel to play our traditional action hero. Unfortunately he is terrible even in the most basic action role.
The true action hero is dead. Goodbye and God bless.
Katie’s last post about flash sales and then Matt’s subsequent comment about affiliates got me thinking. When planning social media communications we spend a lot time mapping online communities and identifying influencers and opinion formers on stuff like fashion and music. When will these opinion formers realise the huge power they have over consumers and brands and start to cash in? And I mean really cash in; over and above the freebies, PR, kudos and respect they exchange for their endorsement in a blog, tweet or forum.
Well some have started to. Some really cool (and very bright) street fashion enthusiasts have set up Hypebeast. A site aimed at people who crave and rely upon the opinions of much cooler people than themselves to tell them what they should be wearing – what’s in and what’s out. Hyperbeast consists of a network of very cool and very well respected guys and girls who are out and about on the streets of New York. When they come across someone or something on da street that they like they take a photo and blog about it. Hyperbeast are using social media platforms to keep up with the pace of street fashion, providing up to the second tweets on the latest trends – vital for avoiding embarrassing situations such as turning up to a BBQ in a pair of Kanye West sunnies (so last month).
Well there’s nothing special about that you may think. This is just the way the social web has moved the game on, monthly lifestyle and fashion magazines are dying because people demand more immediate and up to date information and opinions from cool people. But the clever bit is that these guys are affiliates. They make a cut on the products they recommend.
It’s my first post for Spreading JAM and as the only girl I felt was right to bring some style to the proceedings. Recently we’ve noticed retailers jumping on the viral bandwagon by running flash sales – that’s items being reduced for short periods with notifications sent to a list of select subscribers who “theoretically” will tell all of their friends (personally I tell no-one – why would I share the bargains?).
ASOS started the trend with their lunch-hour sprees and more recently net-a-porter sales outlet ‘the outnet’ (outlet – outnet, get it?) have run Friday auctions where they sell off luxury designer items to the bidder who can hold her nerve longest. If you’ve got a desirable brand then it’s a great way to generate buzz without actually giving anything away for free.
Right now Fashion156 are offering a sale preview with 40% off all my-wardrobe goods that are not “new season, wardrobe classics or summer essentials”. Enter code fashionconfss40 at the check-out.. Be quick…
Microsoft’s Natal seemed novel when they announced it at E3 earlier this month, but Glaswegian YouTube user conquerearth has made a more old school version of a hands-free games console.
Following his Theremin Hero video, he’s teamed a theremin with a NES and the Nintendo classic “Super Mario Brothers”.
The result is a game where you move Mario left and right with your right hand, and make him jump with your left. Looks fun, and you can play along to Good Vibrations when you’re done.
