April 26, 2008
Nice Ansel Adams slideshow w/audio in the NY Times. The audio is from Andrea G. Stillman, his former assistant with whom he worked in the 1970's.
On color:
"As an artist he felt that he could not make a creative statement in color because people would expect the color photograph to exactly mirror nature. Whereas when he was working in black and white he could create, what he called, a departure from reality."
April 26, 2008
Trying to get a few thoughts recorded about this image.
I'm actually not quite sure what I want to say now that it's sitting right there. Maybe just some free association.
It looks like candy, the human brain, a weird defect on someone with orange skin. The main form is embedded into the surrounding area, producing a slight bulge. The colors are electric and vibrate next to each other. It has both soft and hard qualities. The mottled texture mimics skin to some extend. The inside form feels snug and protected. It's comforting and exciting at the same time.
The cross-sectional look gives a private and vulnerable feeling, like looking at a part of someone you shouldn't be seeing. This starts to border on the sexual. Not something I usually speak to in my own work, but definitely always present.
Image: I came across this image in Wired's "Nano Photos Rival Modern Art" story. Scientists Muruganathan Ramanathan and Seth Darling made an ultrathin film of polymer, patterned it with oxygen-reactive-ion etching and used heat and solvents to make it more crystalline. Image courtesy of Materials Research Society.
April 20, 2008
MICHAEL CERA So what are you doing here? Do you need someth-
ELLEN PAGE Wait, hold on. Your track team is about to come running by and I need to do a voiceover narration for no particularly reason, even though I only do it like three more times in the entire movie.
ELLEN PAGE (V.O.) Whenever I see the track team, I can't help but picture their penises, because doing so allows me to explain that fact in a voiceover narration that I can end with the very hip term "pork swords."
ELLEN PAGE Alright, sorry about that. What were we talking about? Oh right, I'm pregnant and it's yours.
MICHAEL CERA Rather than freak the hell out like a typical high school student, I'm going to sputter around for words awkwardly and barely finish complete sentences. It's kind of my thing.
and
ELLEN PAGE Hi. I'd like to make an appointment for an abortion. Oh wait hang on my Hamburger Phone is acting up. (shakes phone) Alright, there we go.
CLINIC RECEPTIONIST (O.S.) Alright, well just come in any time and we can tak-
ELLEN PAGE Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't think you heard me. I'm talking on a HAMBURGER PHONE. How zany is that? That's for shizz quirky.
April 15, 2008
E sent this post to me of spectacular Olan Mills photos with captions. I actually have one with my brother on the backdrop with the covered wagon wheel. Be sure not miss the one about a clown car.
April 11, 2008
Who wouldn't well up with pride reading a hometown story like this? Looks like someone is having a sugar crash.
April 9, 2008
If your interested in problem solving, this google talk entitled Human Computation is a good watch.
April 2, 2008
Great Post by Carol Diehl (by way of Chris Jagers) on texts from the Whitney Biennial: Impenetrable prose from the Whitney Biennial
My favorite:
This early work's active impediment of a unified spectatorial vantage point has led the artist to investigate, in his words, "a variegated relationship between painting—a practice whose ossified discursive and speculative value I want to mark with its various economic and technical support systems—and the contradictions of discursive engagements that subsist largely outside the site of display, but which are value-producing sites nonetheless."
Just gorgeous.
March 7, 2008
Sonny wins by a long-shot when it comes to inking the alphabet! Pops could definitely use a lesson.
March 4, 2008
A great article by Andy Rutledge on creativity as a tool and independent from self expression.
The most effective use of creativity begins with a litany of very un-creative things called "facts"—the facts we get to know during the discovery process.
Also, linked by a commenter on the article, Sir Ken Robinson's talk on creativity for TED. It's more anecdotal than informative, but still a great talk
March 4, 2008
E and I visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art this past weekend and I shot a few pictures of pieces that had an impact on me. Of course, the collection was so large that I had no time to record the credits/captions of each piece, much less spend time with everything that piqued my interest.
We also saw the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum. It's a great show but I left with much to be desired. I take that back, the Cindy Sherman collection was excellent. Her photographs are so rich. I could spend a day just looking at them.