Growing // Innit

Mark Brown, Growing // Innit (2008)

Mark Brown's Gif Dump was recently featured on Rhizome but I really enjoyed this one.

Machines That Almost Fall Over

Michael Kontopoulos, Machines That Almost Fall Over (2008)

A system of sculptures that is constantly on the brink of collapse. My intention was to capture and sustain the exact moment of impending catastrophe and endlessly repeat it.

I like it when something brings about anxiety in myself/the viewer - I can only imagine what it would be like in person.

Via Today and Tomorrow

yeeaaahh_fish.gif

Painted Pixels: Richter's 4900 Colours

The Surpentine Gallery is currently exhibiting Gerhard Richter's 4900 Colours: Version II, a large scale project that consists of 196 square panels of 25 colours each that can be combined into a large 4900 colour panel or separately into any desired configuration. The project was kind of a continuation of his stained glass window design for the Cologne Cathedral to replace the window previously destroyed in WWII. The window only consisted of 72 colours that were chosen based on the colour scheme of the original medieval glazes, and then organized randomly using a computer programme in order to create an even distribution of tone.

For this exhibition, the panels were installed two by two equally spaced along the walls, and despite every painting being unique from the next, their randomness gave each panel a sense of sameness, making it not really worth while to examine each and every one individually. Rather, these paintings worked well from a distance, enveloping you with their pixel-like monotony. In the context of Cathedral Window, the shiny vibrant quality of the enamel bring about what could, I suppose, be deemed a sense of the "technological sublime"* - the colours become a kind of "white noise" (more so with the window - as we've all learned in our art history or colour theory lessons, coloured light points optically blends to become whiter/brighter light - coloured pigment, however, becomes grey/dull) that is very hypnotizing.

What I really appreciated about 4900 Colours, though, was not only how Richter openly relied on computer generation to arrive at his compositions, nor just how their physical treatment gave the coloured squares a stong pixel-like quality, but also how in making them reconfigurable the entire project becomes a big game of cut and paste. Richter has, in my opinion, successfully translated bitmaps and digital image editing into the painted medium. Would it be wrong to include this as another format of net/computer art?

*We've grown accustomed to technology, however, religion still remains suspicious of science and technology with respect to faith, the Bible, etc., so I'd say the "technological sublime" is still apt in this case.

Image sources: 4900 Colours via Serpentine Gallery, Cathedral Window via Wired.

fish_warp.gif

I don't think this is annoying enough ... yet.

I was going to make this comic, but I thought it would be too pretentious.

WTF?!?

Plaster cast of Lobster Boy's hand for sale on Ebay (plus a few extra bits of memorabilia).

Via BoingBoing

Gickr

Gickr is a free online utility that allows you to upload images or videos and create your very own animated GIF. It's extremely simple and fairly effective - you can choose size and speed and finally can choose to download and/or hotlink the image from their server. As a result, they have a vast gallery of user created GIFs. The gallery is pretty great if not a bit disturbing, acting as a window into the psyche of today's youth, which is basically: bling, porn and plenty of narcissism (surprisingly not a lot of guns, though).

Most of what you find are slideshows of either people taking pics of themselves in the mirror with their mobiles or images scraped off the internet mixed in with webcam images - it can get pretty bland - sometimes, though, you get something so bad it's good, or something where the user is actually playing with animation. The product isn't quite as flash as Blingee, but together I'm pretty sure they could easily rule the internet.

Adrienne is not impressed

... with how Blogger converts all uploaded images into jpegs. I did not give Blogger permission to do this!!

abstract5.bmp + remixes

Black or White

Testing

Sorry, taking a crash course in web art with Lorna Mills' class notes site (i.e. not reading much at this point).

Via Tom Moody.

Coffee

Anti-Theft Lunch Bag

Anti-theft lunch bag - Share a fridge? Have you ever had your sandwich stolen? A surreal product that could work with most any contents.

Via BoingBoing

Belize Larval Fish Group

An awesome collection of high quality digital photos of the fish of Belize taken by the Division of Fishes at the Smithsonian Institute has recently been uploaded to their Flickr site. The Belize Larval Fish Group photo set, so far, has 44 images that help make up a larger collection that will be on display at the Smithsonian later this month.

AMNH: Picturing the Museum

When I first moved to London I quickly snagged a job doing front of house at the Natural History Museum. Although the job itself was pretty dull and the pay was far from sustainable, one of the few things that made it worth doing was the experience of being in such an aesthetically rich environment after hours when nobody was around. When nobody is around, the museum itself becomes odd and surreal - and heaven forbid you should get lost in the maze of a basement where you don't know if you'll run into a dark room of dusty bones or the friendly folks at IT.

The American Museum of Natural History Research Library has an amazing collection called Picturing the Museum, with images from the forties documenting the museum staff at work and the displays they worked on. The collection is great, not only for the the quality of these old images, but also for some of the bizarre scenarios they create (and for bringing back whatever few fond memories I have of working in a museum).

Via BoingBoing

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Protein Party

Just needs some beats...