It's difficult to find much information on Myung Sook Yoon and the diminutive displays of her work online do little justice to her creations. Also, I've found that many South Korean photographers are poorly represented in the west which is a shame. We'll have to see what we can do about that."The sea accompanied by typhoon or hard rain is dreadful but makes my heart flutter with a new hope.
Sometimes a strong wind shaking my windows makes me sit up all night but with a happy expectation that a new day will come with clear and beautiful scenes newly born after the rain.
Whenever I take pictures, there is not myself, there is only a person who feels cold and hungry.
After the stay in big Jeju Island where I have no acquaintances for about two weeks, I can hear a sound from deep in my heart.
It is my voice of yearning to talk to someone. Yell!
Keep going to and out of the coast in the rain for several consecutive days, I just wait for the rain to stop.
And finally I see the sun coming out, I just feel like running away when I stand in the piercing wind at the rainy coast of Jeju Island in mid winter.
But those that are not frequently seen I want to take.
Time does not exist when I think in which angle I should see the sea, where between the sky and the sea I should put the horizon, etc.
In Seoul, electric cables in the street sometimes remind me of the horizon.
The sea shows a desperate, dark appearance but a hope suddenly comes out of it.
I felt desperate about the fact that I am a woman before.
I also felt bad about myself that I am small, silent and not social.
As time went by, I understood those things have made myself.
Now I found myself enjoying taking landscapes into the photos alone.
The sea is always there, showing its appearances as it is and I see the appearances of the sea the way I want to see it.
This is my relation with the sea.
I become the richest of all in the world when I take the photo of the sea that I wanted after a long waiting.
I am just happy that I have stood before the sea."
Read the full article HERE."When I heard about it – in passing, in a soundbite – I figured it was a US example of the sort of inanely confrontational fantasy scheme Anjem Choudary might issue a press release about if he fancied winding up the tabloids for the 900th time this year. I was wrong. The "Ground Zero mosque" is a genuine proposal, but it's slightly less provocative than its critics' nickname makes it sound. For one thing, it's not at Ground Zero. Also, it isn't a mosque.
Wait, it gets duller. It's not being built by extremists either. Cordoba House, as it's known, is a proposed Islamic cultural centre, which, in addition to a prayer room, will include a basketball court, restaurant, and swimming pool. Its aim is to improve inter-faith relations. It'll probably also have comfy chairs and people who smile at you when you walk in, the monsters."
"Sixes Last" for musician Alias' track from his album Muted was created by 1st Avenue Machine in 2005. Directed my Arvind Palep and produced by Serge Patzak, it's beautifully strange.
"It is about how artificiality is creeping into the modern day world," said director Arvind Palep. "We were looking at a merge between synthetic biology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and what could spawn from them."
Under the intense microscope of Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight, "Sting" appears as shallow as a typical politician if not plain stupid.
With the release of the film Moomins and the Comet Chase in cinemas and with the republication in english of The Dangerous Journey (4 Nov 2010 - UK), it is a good time to be a Moomin fan. As an added bonus, Björk has done a track on the film with frequent collaborator, poet and writer Sjón. 
Links:
At the end of a day that started with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being accused of rape and molestation in Sweden, Sweden's Chief Prosecutor, Eva Finne has now stated, "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape." Prior to this withdrawal of an arrest warrant, Assange had stated, "The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing" and "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks'. Now we have the first one."
Dear friend, Monika Forsberg has been putting together a sublime portfolio.
"BLACK SWAN follows the story of Nina (Natalie Portman), a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely consumed with dance. She lives with her retired ballerina mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) who zealously supports her daughter’s professional ambition. When artistic director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily (Kunis), who impresses Leroy as well. Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play both the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, who represents guile and sensuality. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side with a recklessness that threatens to destroy her."
“The act of laughing is considered kind of a low-class, working-class activity — a form of entertainment — and you know, it’s not something you do in art museums,” says Sheri Klein, author of the book “Art and Laughter.” Because of this association, she says, the role of humor in art is “terribly misunderstood.”
"I usually work from photos in magazines – Hello!, OK! – and the Daily Mail is a particularly good source. When I see a photo I like, I tear it out and put it in a folder, and when I fancy doing a painting, I go through the folders and find a good image. I’m very fond of the picture of a dog called Solomon. His owners were on holiday on the Isle of Wight and he went missing. He was found – after he had swum from the Isle of Wight to Southampton. These paintings are sort of what Solomon might have been thinking on that swim. "
Bae Bien-U's large-scale works (which I can't reproduce here) are not served well by the representation above. You can see his portfolio HERE split between the natural and artificial in higher resolution.
“The oldest picture in my memory is a crayon drawing, which was hung on the back wall of the classroom when I was in the second grade of elementary school, that showed a low tiled house crouching under a big tree on a hill, with the sea visible in the background. I seem to have lived my whole life with this image stuck in my mind. It may even have been this image that influenced my interest in such subjects as the sea, pines and rock formations”. *
The Reykjavik Grapevine have an interesting article on our friends, The Icelandic Love Corporation and their upcoming show, Tight.
"Everybody thinks they know what art should be. But very few of them have the sense that is necessary to experience painting, that is the sense of sight, that sees colors and forms as living reality in the picture. "
A song cover isn't a cover unless you make it your own. Enjoy these tunes from Homeless Mustard of Greenwich Village.
"The choice is with us still, but the civilization now in jeopardy is all humanity. As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and the sky. In our tenure of this planet we've accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage — propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders — all of which puts our survival in some doubt. But we've also acquired compassion for others, love for our children and desire to learn from history and experience, and a great soaring passionate intelligence — the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity. Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet Earth. But up there in the immensity of the Cosmos, an inescapable perspective awaits us. There are not yet any obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours always rush implacably, headlong, toward self-destruction. National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. Travel is broadening."- Carl Sagan, Cosmos (1980)
This gem from French animators Jack, Kalkair, Pozla, Waterlili and Moke. crafted for the BornHIVFree project is a wonderous, hopeful beacon for a worthy project. The Les Bonzoms team have worked on a series of feature projects including Persepolis and earlier this year were offered the chance to pool their talents under the Bonzom name by Passion Paris (Passion Pictures' Paris based studio). Be sure to add your name in support.“The purpose of the Born HIV Free campaign is to encourage millions of people to support The Global Fund so we can finally put an end to the tragedy of 430,000 babies being born HIV-positive every year, when we have the means and the expertise to prevent this.” says Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Global Ambassador for the protection of mothers and children against AIDS. “Hopefully this beautiful film will reach a wide audience because of its creative ingenuity, and inspire millions of people to support The Global Fund so we can finally put an end to this terrible injustice.”
“Baby in the Sky” is a highly creative and imaginative animated film that conveys the beauty of life ahead for an unborn child. The film artistically portrays an imaginary journey in a world full of adventurous landscapes and fantastic creatures. It ends with a call from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy for an HIV-free generation in which she says “Life is a beautiful journey. Don’t let AIDS kill it.”
The film owes its powerful soundtrack to multi-award winning and singer/songwriter artist Amy Winehouse, who offered the pro-bono use of her “Back to Black” song for the film.
“It was a question of finding a true resonance with the images in the film created by Bonzoms”, says musician / producer Julien Civange, who conceived the Born HIV Free campaign, about the use of Winehouse’s music. “We wanted to find a piece that was modern but also well known, something that carried the same sensibility as the film. The magic came with the soundtrack by Amy Winehouse, an artist that Carla considers one of the greatest and most talented of her generation and who was generous enough to participate in the campaign.”
Credits :
Commissioners :
The Global Fund
Julien Civange manager of the campaign
for Carla Bruni-Sarkozy
Production Company :
Passion Paris Production
Director :
Jack-Antoine Charlot/Bonzom
Executive Producer :
Marc Bodin-Joyeux
Claire Potel
Animation Production :
Je suis bien content
Production manager :
Marc Jousset
Perrine Capron
Script & original idea :
Olivier Bardy & Jack Antoine Charlot
Storyboard :
Kalkair
Animation :
Guillaume Delaunay
Dimitri Lecoussis
Damien Barrau
Davy Durand
Compositing :
François Leroy
Jimmy Audoin
Sound Design Studio
Sound designer :
Michael Fakesch & Stéphane Papin
Voice-over : Carla Bruni Sarkozy
Music : Amy Winehouse/Universal “Back to black
"When say that I crochet animals, it often creates a stereotypical image in people’s minds. Although I enjoy playing with this image it is a preconception that’s hard to shift. Aesthetically, the animals I make are more akin to taxidermy than anything else so I came up with the term Crochetdermy to better describe what I do.
My background is in conceptual art. In an attempt to find new ways of exploring the 'Anything can be art' theory, I make work that combines uncomfortable themes such as accessible objects, nostalgia, traditional craft and realism."
From the grassroots goodness of Home to the epic short film for Kisses Over Babylon, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros demand attention.
Written by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, Dark Night of the Soul features the talents of James Mercer of The Shins, The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Frank Black of the Pixies, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Suzanne Vega, Vic Chesnutt, David Lynch, and Scott Spillane of Neutral Milk Hotel and The Gerbils.
