April 6, 2010
David Choe has been refining his trademark fast & loose graffiti style for over a decade now, spinning murals, paintings and prints from his sometimes-lewd imagination with enviable technical prowess.
After discovering Choe in Juxtapoz, I had the chance to see his work in person two summers ago at Lazarides’ pop-up gallery at Houston & Bowery (the space now occupied by Keith McNally’s new hotspot Pulino’s). The London-based gallery’s is hosting Choe’s solo show Nothing to Declare—his first solo show in his hometown in six years—to inaugurate a temporary space in L.A. this summer. The show and the space are set to open on April 23rd.
Lazarides / Outsiders has an artist bio and a couple of older videos (above & below).
In addition to being a prolific artist, Choe also updates his site/blog regularly.
Clickthrough to the Zef Side if you dare (the tags are also a dead giveaway)…
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April 1, 2010
"apr 1: birdhouse with painted-on entrance (april fools day)"
I just discovered artist/designer/musician Brock Davis’s project to make “One piece of creative work made every day for 365 consecutive days.” The results are invariably visual and variously beautiful, thought-provoking, funny, and sometimes all three.
"mar 1: bert and ernie making out while cookie monster watches"
There are far too many good ones to post here, so I recommend seeing it for yourself. Readers can expect some of these pictures to show up (without explicit permission) as obliquely-related visual aids for future posts, in the same spirit as freely-associated mp3s.
via Murketing
I also recommend terrysdiary and yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah.com as other notable/inspiring digital/visual diaries. I’m sure there are others…
Self explanatory...
March 19, 2010
» Phoenix – Lisztomania (Classixx Version) (5:04) – 12.4MB mp3 @ 320kbps
Classixx’s take on “Lisztomania” was easily one of my favorite remixes of 2009, but the PS22 chorus of Graniteville, Staten Island offers yet another take on the pop gem.
Via Opening Ceremony.
Like OK Go, the PS22 chorus comes pretty close to manufacturing viral videos (which technically may not be possible). They got some press in NYMag last summer and you’ve probably heard them on a couple tracks on Passion Pit’s debut LP Manners (video of the PS22 chorus in the studio).
It seems that they’re best known for their rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” and they’ve also covered the likes of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”… but they have yet to take on the ultimate hipster party jam: Lady Gaga vs. Journey – Don’t Stop Just Dance (6:16) – 14.5MB mp3 @ 320kbps
March 16, 2010
» Aesop Rock – Daylight (4:25) – 4.1MB m4a @ 128kbps
The Persistence of Trite Imagery
Since this Sunday marked Daylight Saving Time, I decided to put my philosophy degree to good use by pondering the psychology and metaphysics of this semi-annual ritual.
First of all, there is technically only one daylight to be saved: contrary to folk wisdom that might suggest otherwise, daylight is an indivisible entity. In a sense, daylight is like money—which is also grammatically singular but conceptually plural (insofar as one would hope to have more than one money)—such that daylight is quantifiable, at least in terms of daylight hours. In other words, official terminology denotes that summer is ‘Time to Save Daylight’—i.e., Time for Daylight-Saving—while the colloquial (if not altogether prevalent) shorthand “Daylight Savings” is a gerund, as per the nominal usage of “Savings” for that type of bank account. (Even the Wikipedia URL for the Daylight Saving Time entry is Daylight_savings.)
The monetary metaphor is useful in illustrating how DST’s pithy essence “spring forward, fall back” belies the curious phenomenon that either occasion—the turning of the clocks in spring or in fall—can be described as gaining or losing an hour. Common parlance suggests that we have indeed acquired a full 60 minutes, yet this increment simultaneously seems to have slipped through a mysterious temporal rift in the wee hours of Sunday morning. It appears that we have both gained and lost an hour on Sunday, a discrepancy that reveals two divergent systems of belief concerning time and how it is measured: absolute vs. relative. The two views correspond to a scientific picture of an independent physical world and a pragmatic ‘lived’ experience of time, respectively.
The former system holds that time marches forward of its own accord and that to push a clock forward—from 2AM to 3AM, say—disturbs the clockwork of the universe to the effect that humans have erased an hour from their day. Here the bank analogy must be modified: on Sunday, we withdrew an hour on credit, which we will pay back in October; for the next six months, we owe one hour to the universe, or nature, or whatever. We have lost it in the interest of practicality—we need to borrow the hour for the better half of the year—though we plan on restoring balance in six months or so. For the absolutist, the hour is deferred.
Those who abide by the second perspective, on the other hand, see time as more malleable, where chronology is purely pragmatic: we gained an hour on Sunday because we now have an extra hour of sunlight—and, ostensibly, productivity—to the effect that the days themselves grow longer. By springing forward, we stake a claim to the greater daylight afforded by the rotation of the Earth, silently folding one hour into the shroud of slumber in order to extend each and every day in those six months. For the relativist, it’s possible to save daylight like money albeit not in the interest of yielding a long-term dividend: everyone cashes out the same predetermined amount at the end of each day.
Of course, both schools of thought understand that the actual demarcation of time to be incidental (i.e. pragmatic in a broad sense)—otherwise we wouldn’t have license to give and take (or take and give) hours as we please. Nevertheless, I wonder if there is any correlation between the saving(s) locution and the gain/loss dichotomy: are relativists more predisposed to regarding DST as a savings account, as opposed to absolutists who treat the extra time as a line of credit?
Does that even make sense? Rather, does it even matter?
Now for the real news:
- Advertising 2.0: This Time, It’s Personal. FaceBook is now crowdsourcing targeted advertising like social AdSense (=AdBook?). (NYT, Future Perfect) Also, Product Placement: Geolocation is so hot right now (NYT)
- Mattel Mentality x Mad Men = Barbie. WTF. (NYT)
- Google Maps now has (spotty) bike directions: Gothamist blurbs, Streetsblog mentions, Wired crowdsources; Bike Snob NYC is more thorough, with an incisive riposte to the Post
- Big ups to the Alma Mater in the Times. But seriously, the prospect of digitally tracking writers’ inspiration and composition process is quite fascinating.
- Stanley Fish on Pragmatism’s Gift.
- I’ve always been a stickler for free throws (i.e. I don’t understand why every player isn’t shooting 90+% from the line), so I was pleased to see that Wired has posted a guide on How to Nail a Free Throw.
- Old news, but here’s a couple of interesting articles on sports video games and their source material; specifically, how video games are have become increasingly true to life for athletes: League of Gamers (ESPN); Gamechangers: How Videogames Trained a Generation of Athletes (Wired)
- Speaking of video games, Virtusphere. Just watch the damn video.
- G4 (correctly, I think) identifies Chatroulette’s ‘Merton.’ NYMag’s Vulture (correctly, I think) identifies Ben Folds as a “Fin de siècle singer-songwriter.” Just watch the damn video.
- (Over)analysis of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music video. (Vigilant Citizen)
Music news:
- What Would They Know: Matthew Perpetua interviews Liars for Pitchfork.
- Time to Get Away: LCD Soundsystem finishing up their last record. (Daily Swarm)
- Wanna Be Startin’ Something: MJ posthumously lands a massive record deal. (WSJ, NYT)
Art news:
Bonus Trailer:
March 2, 2010
OK Go’s latest highly share-able music video features the Chicago power-poppers showing off their latest trick: a Rube Goldberg device. They’re best known for the video with the treadmills and maybe the one with the dancing, though (music snob alert) I discovered them before they blew up—I would rock “Get Over It” on the drive to and from high school (Discman + tape deck converter FTW). Good times. I also remember building Rube Goldberg machines in middle school. Also good times.
Wired has more on the making of the video, while OK Go themselves have posted a four-part making-of on YouTube. Honda’s “The Cog” commercial is an obvious pop-culture reference point:
Although the Muybridge-inspired video for the first single from their new album Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, “WTF,” wasn’t quite as big a hit as their earlier work, suffice it to say that the boys certainly know how to craft a video of the viral variety.
January 19, 2010
–Andy Woodruff of Cartogrammar has mapped his “whole darn year“—a map of routes he travelled in the Greater Boston Area last year. He acknowledges that UrbanTick has done the same thing in the past, but the flash movie (linked above) is worth watching nonetheless.
–Stereogum has just posed a new track by David Byrne & Fatboy Slim, “Please Don’t,” featuring Santigold on vocals. The song is from Byrne’s forthcoming concept album Here Lies Love, a collaboration with Norman Cook, plus guest appearances from the likes of Tori Amos, Róisín Murphy, etc. (I never would have guessed that I would someday have a picture of Imelda Marcos on my blog, but it must be cool if David Byrne thinks its cool.) (Stereogum; previously on BV)
–Stereogum also recently brought my attention to Wieden+Kennedy’s web series “D.I.Y. America.” Say what you want about insidious corporate marketing industry appropriation of authentic art and music movements, the videos definitely benefit from high production value. Three of the four episodes focus on skateboard culture, plus an interview with NYC artist Swoon.
–Anomaly London handled Diesel’s latest cheeky ad campaign, “Be Stupid.” It’s fine for what it is, though I don’t think anything will ever top the viral ‘SFW pornography’ video by The Viral Factory for Diesel’s XXX extravaganza (video after the jump). (DB)
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January 12, 2010
Earlier today, Google’s SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond posted a potentially revolutionary announcement on the Official Google Blog: due to security issues and censorship-related tension, Google may go so far as to terminate its operations in China (pending negotiation with the Chinese government).
This astounding move is already being regarded as a shot heard ’round the world regarding the Western principle of free speech in the face of China’s draconian Internet censorship policy, as well as an opportunity for Google to live up to its pithy dogma, “Don’t be evil”.
As someone who has personally been frustrated by Chinese censorship, I fully support Google’s stand against the insidious authoritarianism still exerted by the putatively progressive state.
Incidentally, I was staying about half a kilometer from Google’s headquarters in Beijing.
The New York Times has more coverage, as always.
See also: Grass Mud Horse
December 13, 2009
Paste Magazine's Evolution of the Hipster
December 6, 2009
or, Carles, your mother is telling you to go home and blog*
Is Carles the Iverson of the Blogosphere?
Hipster Runoff sucks Carles back into blogging
Just thought I’d share… though I realize that if you care, you’ve probably already heard from a more credible media outlet; if you don’t care, you’re probably wondering why I’m reading Hipster Runoff instead of working on real content.
Hell, I don’t even care… I don’t know why I keep bringing it up, I don’t even read or like HRO, I’m just here to buy soy sauce. Or maybe it was just an elaborate ploy to get me to blog about him…
The Chinese meme-machine is a slightly different beast, as they derive their significance largely from subverting censorship and/or outright absurdity:
