I really enjoy Malcolm Sutherlands animated shorts."Malcolm Sutherland is an animator / illustrator originally from Calgary, Alberta. He studied printmaking at the Alberta College of Art and Design before moving to Montreal in 2002 to direct a short animated film at the National Film Board of Canada. He also studied film at Concordia University. He has produced several comic books, including OOLA DUG in 2007. Malcolm currently lives in Montreal with his wife Anna."
Ofer Wolberger has a varied and consistent portfolio as well as an engaging blog. I found him via Conscientious where Jörg M. Colberg has a wonderful series on collage art.
"Ofer Wolberger (b. 1976) is an artist who lives and works in New York City. He is the recipient of The Humble Arts Foundation Spring 2008 Grant for Emerging Photographers. He was a finalist for both the BMW Paris Photo Prize in 2008 as well as the Prix HSBC pour la Photographie in 2009. His photographs have been collected and exhibited internationally. In 2009 his project Life with Maggie, was exhibited at Michael Hoppen Gallery in London and at C/O Berlin. Next year Life with Maggie will be exhibited at VU in Quebec. He is currently working on a series of 12 self-published artists books collectively known as The Photographic Book Project.
Ofer is a member of the POC Project."
"The age of information in physical form is waning. As intangible routes thrive with quicker fluidity, material and history are being lost, slipping and eroding into the ether. Newer media swiftly flips forms, unrestricted by the weight of material and the responsibility of history. In the tangible world we are left with a frozen material but in the intangible world we may be left with nothing. History is lost as formats change from physical stability to digital distress.
The richness and depth of the book is universally respected yet often undiscovered as the monopoly of the form and relevance of the information fades over time. The book’s intended function has decreased and the form remains linear in a non-linear world. By altering physical forms of information and shifting preconceived functions, new and unexpected roles emerge. This is the area I currently operate in. Through meticulous excavation or concise alteration I edit or dissect communicative objects or systems such as books, maps, tapes and other media. The medium’s role transforms. Its content is recontextualized and new meanings or interpretations emerge.Explanation of Process
In this work I begin with an existing book and seal its edges, creating an enclosed vessel full of unearthed potential. I cut into the surface of the book and dissect through it from the front. I work with knives, tweezers and surgical tools to carve one page at a time, exposing each layer while cutting around ideas and images of interest. Nothing inside the books is relocated or implanted, only removed. Images and ideas are revealed to expose alternate histories and memories. My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception."
SubBlue describes himself as a "laser physicist turned web developer with an interest in generative graphics programming" and his works are fascinating.
Hearing with touch. It's such a lovely and liberating concept.
"The Backwater Gospel is the bachelor projects of eight students at The Animation Workshop. It's an animated short about a small, isolated community in the Dust Bowl of the 1930's, a minister hell-bent on ruling his flock and an undertaker who always precedes death."
"I have this idea in my mind for a painting about butterflies. Blue and green and yellow butterflies, tumbling out of my brain. I think it’s going to be good. I feel like I can almost touch them... like they’re right there for me to grab as they’re flying away... out of my skull and taking all those dark thoughts and little devils with them. Just fluttering away and leaving the good stuff behind. Butterflies. I’m going to get my canvas and my paints. I think I’m all better. I think I’m ready to leave."
"My interest in photography arises from an urge for self-expression. It is the
product of my research into the search for identity. In reflection on my own
experience of life, I am moved to ask questions about the meaning of identity.
I ask, for example, how identity is expressed in our lives. I wish to explore the
relationship between the individual presenting his / her personality and the
society to which he / she presents it. As a being in society, I wish to use images
as a means of conveying impressions as I receive them, and open them to
discussion.
I do not see photography as a means of describing objective truth. Rather, I see
subjectivity in selecting and constructing the content. I recognize that photography
always offers the possibility of multiple interpretations. The subjectivity of creating
construction combined with a recognizable reality tempts the viewer to forget the
mediating function of photography. One is tempted to believe that one sees the
situation itself with the help of the picture. But a photograph is a product of artistic
fiction.
For me, the most fascinating capacity of photography is its capacity to portray a
moment as a picture and to capture an essence of the event. My photograpic
series are composed of different fragments of reality put in relation to each other.
While photographing, I watch people very closely. I choose situations in which
I believe people are described in an honest way; but the fact remains that I do
choose the scenes I photograph, and what kind of message I construct by
combining these images. I feel a responsibility to the people I wish to portray,
and therefore I work very carefully, choosing the situations in which I photograph,
and selecting the pictures which I show in public."
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I stumbled across this gem at Franklin Einsbruch's blog (formerly ArtBlog.net). Enjoy. LINK.
"The work of Daniel Palacios (Cordoba, 1981), an artist educated in sciences who graduated with a degree in Fine Arts, develops by applying the relations of art, science and technology to space and the perceptual systems as a result of his postgraduate studies which earned him Masters degrees in Art and Technology and Art in the Public Sphere.
Works such as ‘Waves’, ‘Outcomes’ and ‘Kill the Process’ have brought him to exhibitions like ‘Synthetic Times’ at the National Art Museum de China [NAMOC] and ‘El Discreto Encanto de la Tecnología (The Discreet Charm of Technology)’ at the Museo Extremeño e Iberoamerica of Contemporary Art [MEIAC] in Badajoz, the prestigious Neue Gallerie of Graz (Austria) and Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie [ZKM] in Karlsruhe (Germany), one of the main sanctuaries for electronic art on a global level, in addition to taking part in such international fairs as ARCO and festivals of the stature of ARS Electronica of Linz (Austria). His work has received major recognition, including the second VIDA9.0 Art and Artificial Life awards and support for production of his work from the PROPUESTAS programme of the Arte y Derecho Foundation, in addition to being awarded an artist residency at Casa Lutetia (Sao Paulo, Brazil), published in the MIT Press specialist magazine ‘Leonardo’ in “Art from Andalusia for the 21st Century’ coordinated by Ivan de la Torre Amerighi, and the recent Tames & Hudson publication of ‘Art and Science Now: How Scientific Research and Technological Innovation are Becoming Key to 21st-Century Aesthetics’ by professor Stephen Wilson.
He has also given workshops and conferences on the combined use of technology and plastic arts in such schools and centres as the FAAP School of Plastics Arts (Brazil), School of Fine Arts of La Laguna (Tenerife), CRCC (Palma de Mallorca), Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, IAAC (Barcelona), File Symposium at the SESI Gallery (Brazil), Science Week at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Malaga…Concerning information and electronic technology as tools for creating a process more than achieving a defined representation. Although it encompasses different themes, his work is a set of relationships with the surrounding environment: whether with the physical space itself as we perceive it or what phenomena are happening in it. In a certain sense, he creates situations which invite reflection or represent his own reflections at a specific moment of his research concerning perceptions and the manner in which they influence the way we relate to them.
Contact with reality and plastic languages is a major aspect of his work, which seeks to create situations and not simulations, utilizing ‘reality’ in his installations with the goal of creating plastic, non-digital results. Technology allows him to control what factors come into play in that space, in what measure and what their effect will be. In this way, the public is an indispensable part of the work by participating in its process, while the artist in turn can study their reactions, the one factor he cannot control and the vital aspect of his work."
Peter Van Der Ham created this brilliant realisation of Steve Reich's Clapping Music from a concept by George Manak. An original rendition is below.
"For several years Shoplifter has worked exploring the use and symbolic nature of hair, and its visual and artistic potential. It started as a discovery in an antique shop, a lock of hair encased as a keepsake and shaped as a flower, and has since evolved as an exploration of hair’s meaning - from strength, self-image and beauty, to vanity, decoration and fashion.
Shoplifter has said of her work, “Vanity is to a different extent on the surface of my work and sometimes it appears only vaguely or in an abstract way, but it plays a role whether it is visible in the work or only in the air when I make it. I really respect the human need to decorate oneself and one’s environment, be it driven by vanity and obsession or sincere love for beauty, which in and of itself is vanity at its best.”
Shoplifter has often collaborated with Björk, who used her hair sculptures for the art for her album Medúlla. Other collaborations include Assume Vivid Astro Focus, , ThreeAsFour, and Victoria Bartlett’s VPL.
Shoplifter has exhibited extensively in the US and Europe, most notably at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, where she was commissioned to produce a window installation in collaboration with a.v.a.f. Other exhibition venues include The Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland, White Columns, New York, Amy Smith-Stewart Gallery, New York, Colette Art Gallery, London, Deitch Projects, New York, Creative Time, New York, Gavin Brown Enterprise, New York and The Kitchen, New York."
Björk, wearable hair sculpture 2004
* Top image: Lines, Acrylic on canvas, 28" x 27" / 73 x 69cm 2009
Hello everyone. Just to give you a head's up that I've been having a video-embedding issue that's specific to Firefox which repeats the same embedded video across various posts. It is not a problem with the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Opera. That said, the Firefox issue is cleared up when the cache is cleared.
Ben Reubold's short Solar would make a nice diversion on your break. See it in full resolution HERE.
