An action movie

Marian/Nouvelle Vague

designers mixtape

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden plans to be the first country to open an embassy in popular virtual world Second Life.

"It will have answers to questions on all aspects of Sweden," Olle Wastberg, general director of the Swedish Institute, an organization which promotes the country's image abroad, said on Tuesday.

The embassy will be called House of Sweden and modeled on the country's new embassy in Washington. It will open in a couple of weeks.

Second Life, created by Linden Lab, opened to the public in 2003. It says it now has more than 3 million inhabitants from around the globe.

Reuters operates a virtual news bureau in Second Life.

Bela Bordosi

An artist's letter / Monica Majoli

Letter sent to a curator written by painter Monica Majoli about her work.

"DEAR FLORENCE,
You requested a more personal description of my work. It is always difficult for me to condense all the elements, feelings and motivations into words. Eventually I feel overwhelmed by the complexity of it all, and frustrated by the limitations of not being able to express fully everything. So please accept this overview of the work - I look forward to talking with you in person in October.
One of the most important aspects of the work is that it is nonfictional. I only paint actual experiences, not fantasies. Within that I elaborate and alter things in the environment, but the activities and the rooms and objects in the interiors are "factual". So in this way I view the paintings as documentary, as a way for me to memorialize events and relationships. The male sex scenes began when a close friend of mine started to go to underground piss parties and became increasingly involved with S/M sex. I had always been fascinated by his anonymous encounters with men. I envied the nonverbal quality and the absolute sexual abandon of his experiences.
AIDS confused all this - and I began to wonder about this decision to pursue this despite the consequences. I understood his desire to "connect" through sex regardless of the cost. I viewed this paintings as religious, although I still can't explain this. As I continued to paint I slowly realized that I was identifying, uncomfortably so, with the masochist in the compositions.
I swiched reluctantly to images of myself when I feel deeply in love with a woman and felt compelled to paint her after our relationship ended. These autobiographical paintings all involve dildoes. Right now, l'm working on a round painting in which l'm fucking myself with one dildo while sucking on a double-headed dildo. The feeling I want to express is of a huge emptiness and isolation. I haven't figured out why dildoes are the central "props" in those paintings. I think it has to do with this false tool - that the mind wants to make real. Using a fake device to try to communicate with a lover or comfort oneself - so in a way this communication or connection is ultimately doomed. The body fragments are selfportraits which I began when I first painted the scenes. In this way I felt it was like a conversation between the intimacy of the details and the voyeuristic, removed quality of the scenes. I feel that both bodies of work concern the same issues - the body fragments address mortality and vulnerability more directly. I chose parts of the body that seemed particularly fragile. The parts are either cut or in a state of exposure to describe the perils of love and simultaneously, the compulsion to love.
You asked about the quantity of the work - why there are so few.The process of painting is very time consuming because I apply the paint in thin layers of oil paint - mostly medium, not very much pigment at one time. I feel this gives the paint an enameled quality that I like.
The building of the substance of the paint has become increasingly important to me. Alse the interiors have become more heavily patterned and complex Most importantly, because the paintings are from real experiences life regulates the process. I need to feel really moved by something and also feel that the experience has a broader symbolic significance that will translate as an image.
In mid-September an interview in the magazine Arude will be coming out - which l'll send to you if you would like.
Thank you for sending the articles about your gallery, I enjoyed reading them.
Sincerely, Monica."
Click on the image for her portfolio site.

Inez van Lamsweerde/Vinoodh Matadin

"Biography
Inez van Lamsweerde (1963) and Vinoodh Matadin (1961) were born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.van Lamsweerde studied at the Vogue Academy of Fashion and Rietveld Academy In ¡msterdam. She began her career as an artist and spent a year on a studio grant at the PS 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York. Since the late 1980s, she has collaborated with Vinoodh Matadin, whom she met in their hometown, Amsterdam.
Matadin was a designer at the time, and their joint projects were a combination of art and fashion. Rather than taking an outsider view of the fashion world as artists, they have become part of the fashion system, although retaining the freedom to create critical and occasionally disconcerting images.
The team worked with fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton, Yohji Yamamoto, Joop, and Thierry Mugler. They both live and work in New York and Amsterdam."

Coke ad.

Advertisement from the Colombian government to the world. source

Global Affairs

The big majority of the population of ANY country is totally ignorant about the rest of the world. Only a small minority of people in each country is educated enough to even start understanding this situation as a fact. America has a HUGE problem with the Bush policies, in deed. And Americans that defend recklessness are as bad as extreme right advocates of any country. The responsibility of Americans on the global arena is both a privilege and a burden, and that level of responsibility is what is measured in different degrees by other countries. But if you ask the same questions in Indonesia, or even Germany you would have similar answers. Common people are not well educated, and that is a GLOBAL problem.

The photo god

source

Margiela traveling jackets

Thanks to Tinko, "Travel Jacket: 53 hours to construct/5330 Euros The jacket is cut from a zipped nylon travel garment bag.

What I loved was the breakdown: "The hours of work necessary for the creation in question includes: the preparation, the finishing and the quality control but exclude the researc of raw material, technical control, necessary treatment (cleaning, softening, dying, etc.) and the fittings. Travel Jacket - February.

These pieces are exclusively available at seven of the Maison Martin Margiela shops around the world. Each month one new theme is introduced for each women and men." SOURCE

nanohazard!

Competition to find the icon that will represent "nanohazard". Many of the entries were pretty funny, my favorite were the gnomes in crisis (dancing?). What is really amazing is that the selection process was apparently democratic...damn!
I would totally had voted for the gnomes.

Timothy Marvel Hull

5 things you don't know about me

1. I'm 5'. 5" tall and weight 110 pounds.

2. I graduated from law school, then I dropped from an MBA before going and graduating from art/design school.

3. I love raisins, Rick Owens, and macs.

4. I have two cats :Chia (god moon in quechua) and Lola (my grand ma's name).

5. I have 12 purses, 10 pairs of boots, and 26 pairs of shoes.


Now that I made my part in the tag game, I tag:
Bobble Bee, Face Hunter, Image of Hell, Still in berlin, LustPrintZip


*** the tag game rules:
People who get tagged need to write a blog post of 5 unusual things about them as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 5 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says "you are tagged" in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

From Cologne with love

imm cologne
international furniture fair, cologne, germany
15 - 21 january, 2007
http://www.imm-cologne.com

the talent show of the imm cologne 2007
organised by koelnmesse and the german design council.
34 works were presented at this years furniture fair,
featured here is a selection.

Diesel for You Tube?

The shifting industry of advertisement blending into the very private life of consumers has been taken as new approach by Diesel with this website: Diesel Intimate. It feels totally adolescent to me, but again, it might be so hot.

Selfpornotion Industry

Who can plead innocence at creating a whole series of house porn like Paris Hilton? The new stage on this PARIS HILTON brand, extension is of course a website that hosts her "accidental" sex adventures in multiple scenarios. Oh poor Paris, being exposed against her will (yeah, sure). I guess she is less scary to look at than many of very very artificial porn actresses. In Paris defense I would say that she makes porn look very fresh, and the whole "clueless act" is just a wonderful PR for her brand.

Simon Johnston

Graphic designer Simon Johnston and his work:

"Dust
One of the inherent problems of discussing graphic design history is how easily the work lends itself so perfectly to reproduction. After all, that is its original raison d’être. There is a deception of sorts at work here. The work in retrospect often becomes discussed only in terms of the retinal — the visual residue of the work. The operational, contextual, time-specific circumstances, the active, motivated and communicative aspects of a work all flow into and are subsumed by the image of the reproduction of the work. We are left with the husk, gathering dust. There is a danger that the discussion of that husk becomes merely about style — a one-dimensional approach to a two-dimensional form. Is the real value of the work here, in its appearance, or in its use, when it was alive as a piece of active communication? A sense of context helps our understanding of the images, perhaps puts a little life back into the husks, and helps us to see things in perspective."

Art and design

Helmut Smits (1974) is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Lestat, move over!

Can it get more gothic than vampires?
Female vampires by Givenchy!

Dior's Oriental barroque

A lung / the Knife

I'm a crusader
I'm the darkest lady
I'm the taste on your tongue

I'm Darth Vader
I know what I'm made of
Cause I was born by the sun
The sun

You're looking for me
But it's not what you seek
I've got a twisted personality

You're a crusader
You're the darkest lady
I like the taste of your tongue

You are Darth Vader
I know what you're made of
And you were born by the sun
By the sun
By the sun
The sun

And I'm looking for you
And I'm glad I found me
A special kind of personality


Yes, you are the crusader
You are the lady
I want to chase your tongue

Gorgeous execution

Finish Insurance company that dared to use animation to deliver their business' message.
SOURCE

Spanish flare

Simple and elegant ad for a spanish restaurant.
Agency: JWT, Milan
Art Director: Flavio Mainoli
Copywriter: Paolo Cesano

Sundance

The Sundance festival and its very amusing annual showcase of short films on the web. Take a look.

Architecture for humanity

"Architecture for Humanity, the world’s first and biggest humanitarian design organization, is making news for its development of an open-source architecture network, a way for architects to share, develop and license plans that can be used and modified anywhere in the world. "

Here are the finalists for the logo competition. I personally found most of the submissions weak. This one is my favorite within the weak finalists.

Source

Goin' out west

"I'm gonna do what I want & I'm gonna get paid"
"I dont need no make up, I got real scars""
Im gonna drive all night. Take some speed. Im gonna wait for the sun. To shine down on me. I cut a hole in my roof. In the shape of a heart"

Giovana Battaglia strikes again

She is one of the few women that has a charm that goes beyond the surface. This time captured by Scott Schuman in Milan wearing a winter look. Even though she looks perfect, there is something about those legs, that those boots just don't make justice. What a style warrior she is!

51% single

From the NYTIMES: “For better or worse, women are less dependent on men or the institution of marriage,” Dr. Frey said. “Younger women understand this better, and are preparing to live longer parts of their lives alone or with nonmarried partners. For many older boomer and senior women, the institution of marriage did not hold the promise they might have hoped for, growing up in an ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ era.”

Emily Zuzik, a 32-year-old musician and model who lives in the East Village of Manhattan, said she was not surprised by the trend.

“A lot of my friends are divorced or single or living alone,” Ms. Zuzik said. “I know a lot of people in their 30s who have roommates.”Pamela J. Smock, a researcher at the University of Michigan Population Studies Center, agreed, saying that “changing patterns of courtship, marriage, and that we are living longer lives all play a role.”

“Men also remarry more quickly than women after a divorce,” Ms. Smock added, “and both are increasingly likely to cohabit rather than remarry after a divorce.”

The proportion of married people, especially among younger age groups, has been declining for decades. Between 1950 and 2000, the share of women 15-to-24 who were married plummeted to 16 percent, from 42 percent. Among 25-to-34-year-olds, the proportion dropped to 58 percent, from 82 percent.

“Although we can help people ‘do’ marriage better, it is simply delusional to construct social policy or make personal life decisions on the basis that you can count on people spending most of their adult lives in marriage,” said Professor Coontz, the author of “Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage.”

irregular impulse of experiences

Melanie Bonajo (*1978, lives in Amsterdam, NL) creates surreal set ups which she then photographs. They have a dreamlike and somtimes outerworldly sensuality. Staubkohler will first show Melanie Bonajo's work in 2006.








artist statement.

My ideas are jingles in my head, they come to me. To be able to make a song i have to give stucture to the melodies, like i have to put the thoughts and idea's into matter to be able to impart the information and touch someone like it touched me first. My work is an irregular impulse of experiences and aesthetic enjoyments stemming from the questions I have and the things that I know. I am not interested in a particular truth or a common reality, but I do have to understand and embody my truth, which I find from looking within. Although these things might be universal, consequently, questioning myself leads to the act of questioning you. Nothing should control the spirit. My method of practice, making photographs, is simply a way of recording these thoughts. Primary to this visual diary is the notion of breaking free from everything that holds one down, such as: emotions, patterns, motions and expectation. I attempt to shape awareness by giving expression to the contradictions of contemporary life -with dignity. Re-contextualising and reframing the world through my lens, I attempt to leave a feeling of something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar or inexplicable. I create wonder with vengeance about the true nature of things, from my point of view. This outcome – art - must hit someone with its mental and emotional power so you can feel what you see. You can not turn your head away. I believe our language has to be physical in order to touch someone. After any word or image which is a collection of many words hids energy. Holding your gaze upon my photographs is an invitation to play. Confrontation can be liberating but it can also be bizarre. Melancholy and humor are important aspects for me. It might hurt a little, too.

un momento para un tango

Musical identity

FANTASTIC! little promotional video of Jovovich-Hawk for Style.com.
I actually like the idea this girls are talking about.

Victor and Rolf

Awesome documentary on the relevance of their work.

New bucolic: eventide

Colette curates

Colette has organized an exhibition with different visual artists expressing their views on 2007.These are some of my favorites. I saw lots of WWF panda logos in the work...environmental awareness perhaps? Click on the images (as always) for more information.