Artists Turn Weather Data into Swirling “Living Portraits” of Continental U.S. Wind Patterns

in Art, Science | February 20th, 2013

Like an invis­i­ble sculp­tor, the wind slow­ly shapes the nat­ur­al world, bend­ing Mon­terey Pines along California’s coast to reach hor­i­zon­tal­ly towards the land, and whip­ping dry beach dunes into peaks.

Artists Fer­nan­da Vié­gas and Mar­tin Wat­ten­berg, work­ing as HintFM, used the aer­i­al view of wind blow­ing around the Unit­ed States as the tem­plate for a dynam­ic art piece, Wind Map. About every hour, Wind Map down­loads wind cir­cu­la­tion data from the Nation­al Dig­i­tal Fore­cast Data­base. The site’s image of the con­ti­nen­tal U.S. refresh­es with new data, show­ing the most cur­rent traces of wind pat­terns, in vary­ing shades of white depend­ing on wind speed.

Like grass on an expanse of hill­side, the wind becomes vis­i­ble against the dark back­ground of the coun­try. It’s pos­si­ble to see, vivid­ly, the wind’s strength as it swoops from the north west and the south, up into a sin­gle cor­ri­dor that blasts up from Mobile Bay in Louisiana to Chica­go and beyond.

HintFM calls the site a “liv­ing por­trait” of the wind’s foot­prints at any giv­en moment, but they make sure we know it’s art, not sci­ence. Please, they note, do not use the map or its data to fly a plane, sail a boat, or fight wild­fires.

But the Wind Map archive can’t help but offer mete­o­ro­log­i­cal val­ue. Watch the wind pat­terns as Hur­ri­cane Sandy brewed off the East­ern seaboard in Octo­ber and again when it hit land. Oth­er images in the archive gallery include days that pro­duced some beau­ti­ful whorls of wind.

The site includes links to infor­ma­tion about wind pow­er. Made vis­i­ble, the wind can be seen as the force it is, beau­ti­ful, pow­er­ful, har­ness­able.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch a Cool and Creepy Visu­al­iza­tion of U.S. Births & Deaths in Real-Time

Per­pet­u­al Ocean: A Van Gogh-Like Visu­al­iza­tion of our Ocean Cur­rents

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at . 

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Finding Vivian Maier: New Documentary Reveals the Vision of Obscure Chicago Street Photographer

in Art, Life, Photography | February 18th, 2013

The posthu­mous dis­cov­ery of Vivian Maier’s pho­tographs is an art world stun­ner on the order of Hen­ry Darg­er’s mas­sive In the Realms of the Unre­al.

The syn­chronic­i­ty makes one won­der.

He was a Chica­go-based cus­to­di­an.

She was a Chica­go-based nan­ny.

They shared a com­pul­sion to create—some might say document—but were so intense­ly pri­vate, the rev­e­la­tions of their respec­tive lives’ work threw every­one for a loop.

Employ­ers and neigh­bors found it hard to believe they’d had it in them. (View an online gallery of her work here.)

Cura­tors, mar­veling at the quan­ti­ty of their out­put and qual­i­ty of the vision, piled on superla­tives.

Some­thing tells me the prick­ly Ms. Maier would not have appre­ci­at­ed any com­par­isons to a man whose work fea­tured so many rep­re­sen­ta­tions of naked, her­maph­ro­dit­ic girl-war­riors being bay­o­net­ted, but death makes it dif­fi­cult to keep hold of the reins gripped so tight­ly in life.

For the fore­see­able future, Maier’s lega­cy rests in the hands of John Mal­oof, the young Chicagoan who bought her neg­a­tives from an unpaid stor­age unit for less than $400, hop­ing he might find some­thing of rel­e­vance for a neigh­bor­hood his­to­ry project. He got more than he bar­gained for, obvi­ous­ly, but the years spent scan­ning the unknown artist’s work is begin­ning to pay off in exhi­bi­tions, gallery rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and a book. Now he is near­ing com­ple­tion of Find­ing Vivian Maier, a doc­u­men­tary film that promis­es to shed more light on this fas­ci­nat­ing tale.

Would the sub­ject have want­ed this?

Per­haps that’s a ques­tion for the Hen­ry Darg­er Study Cen­ter at the Amer­i­can Folk Art Muse­um…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Talks About His 99 Favorite Pho­tographs at Paris Pho­to 2012

1972 Diane Arbus Doc­u­men­tary Inter­views Those Who Knew the Amer­i­can Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Best

Pho­tog­ra­phy of Lud­wig Wittgen­stein Released by Archives at Cam­bridge

Ayun Hal­l­i­day, a point and shoot hack, is relat­ed by mar­riage to anoth­er female street pho­tog­ra­ph­er with an inter­est­ing lens on his­to­ry. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Discover J.R.R. Tolkien’s Personal Book Cover Designs for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

in Art, Books, Design, Literature | February 18th, 2013

The Fellowship Of The Ring Book Cover by JRR Tolkien_1-480

In some rare cas­es, adap­ta­tions and inter­pre­ta­tions of a lit­er­ary work can sur­pass the source. Despite hun­dreds of valiant efforts on the part of fans, film­mak­ers, game/toy design­ers, and radio pro­duc­ers, this has nev­er been true of the ful­ly-real­ized fan­ta­sy world in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hob­bit and The Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy. (not that it’s ever been anyone’s intent). As we not­ed in a post last week, Tolkien’s fic­tion­al world is so intri­cate, its sources so vast and var­ied, that Corey Olsen, “The Tolkien Pro­fes­sor,” has made it his entire life’s work to open that world up to stu­dents and curi­ous read­ers, most recent­ly with his eight-part lec­ture series on The Hob­bit.

The Two Towers Book Cover by JRR Tolkien_1-480

One might also add illus­tra­tors to the list of Tolkien inter­preters above who have—in the almost eighty years since The Hobbit’s pub­li­ca­tion and six­ty years since the first appear­ance of The Lord of the Rings trilogy—done their best to visu­al­ize Tolkien’s world. But per­haps no one did so bet­ter than the mas­ter him­self. Long known as a visu­al artist as well as a lit­er­ary one, Tolkien left behind over 100 illus­tra­tions for The Hob­bit, one of which adorns 2011’s Harper­Collins 75th anniver­sary edi­tion of the book. He also cre­at­ed these orig­i­nal cov­er designs for each book in The Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy.

The Return Of The King Book Cover by JRR Tolkien_1-480

ring-eye-device

In the long and com­plex pub­li­ca­tion his­to­ry of Tolkien’s most famous of works, it’s unclear if these designs ever made it onto books pub­lished dur­ing his life­time, but the sig­il in the cen­ter of The Fel­low­ship of the Ring design (left), with its omi­nous eye of Sauron sur­round­ed by elvish runes and topped by the one ring, did grace the ele­gant, min­i­mal­ist cov­ers of the first edi­tion of the tril­o­gy. Tolkien’s art­work received a thor­ough treat­ment in a 1995 mono­graph J.R.R. Tolkien Artist & Illus­tra­tor, which cov­ers over 60 years of Tolkien’s life as an artist, and the mag­ic of flickr brings us this com­pendi­um of Tolkien illus­tra­tions.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Lis­ten to J.R.R. Tolkien Read Poems from The Fel­low­ship of the Ring, in Elvish and Eng­lish (1952)

The Art of the Book Cov­er Explained at TED

Vladimir Nabokov Mar­vels Over Dif­fer­ent “Loli­ta” Book Cov­ers

Jack Kerouac’s Hand-Drawn Cov­er for On the Road

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 10 ) |

The Art of Illustration: Four Illustrators Introduce You to the Awe-Inspiring State of Their Art

in Art, Comics/Cartoons, Video - Arts & Culture | February 17th, 2013

Con­tem­pla­tive types used to los­ing them­selves in an image may wish to have a motion sick­ness bag on hand when view­ing The Art of Illus­tra­tion, the lat­est entry in Off Book, a PBS web series explor­ing cut­ting edge art and inter­net cul­ture. The edit­ing seems even more ver­tig­i­nous than in episodes devot­ed to indie video game design­ers and glitch artists. The score recalls R. Crum­b’s exis­ten­tial hor­ror inside a mod­ern night­club.

Watch it any­way, for the inter­vie­wees thoughts on the state of illus­tra­tion.

Pro­fes­sor Steven Guar­nac­cia of the The New School’s Illus­tra­tion Pro­gram describes how illus­tra­tion’s cre­ative poten­tial explod­ed once pho­tog­ra­phy became the prime way of doc­u­ment­ing celebri­ty appear­ances and oth­er such news­wor­thy visu­als.

Edi­to­r­i­al Illus­tra­tor Yuko Shimisu inter­nal­izes those obser­va­tions, throw­ing shade on any idea she feels would look bet­ter in pho­to form. Shimisu, like all of the artists fea­tured in the short video, uses tra­di­tion­al media to make her draw­ings, but col­ors them dig­i­tal­ly. The form may pre­date pho­tog­ra­phy, but Shimisu implies that any prac­ti­tion­er unwill­ing to embrace the trend toward new media will find them­selves going the way of the dodo, as edi­to­r­i­al gigs migrate onto tablets and even small­er dig­i­tal devices.

Mean­while over at DC Comics, Sean Mur­phy has yet to dis­cov­er a super­pow­er capa­ble of speed­ing up the work that goes into ren­der­ing a sto­ry in com­ic book for­mat. The facial expres­sions, grand per­spec­tives, and moody light­ing that are his stock in trade could the­o­ret­i­cal­ly be cap­tured with a shut­ter click, but at what cost to the over­all nar­ra­tive?

And then there’s the inim­itable Mol­ly Crabap­ple, pur­vey­or of Vic­to­ri­an-fla­vored kink and founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, whose Occu­py Wall Street posters chal­lenged the visu­al bound­aries of activist art. Find­ing a per­son­al style one can blow up into a brand is not just a choice, she implies. It’s one’s best hope of sur­vival in a sea flood­ed with com­peti­tors.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day pub­lish­es her illus­trat­ed zine, The East Vil­lage Inky the old fash­ioned way, then pro­motes it across all man­ner of dig­i­tal plat­forms, includ­ing @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Salvador Dalí Gets a Screen Test by Andy Warhol (1966)

in Art, Film, Video - Arts & Culture | February 4th, 2013

The Sur­re­al­ist is ready for his close up, Mr. Warhol. Are you ready for him?

As pre­vi­ous­ly not­ed on this site, Andy Warhol filmed near­ly 500 “screen tests” in the mid-60s. He was­n’t look­ing to dis­cov­er unknown tal­ent or cast an upcom­ing movie. His inter­est seemed to stem more from voyeurism, the col­lec­tor’s impulse, and his fix­a­tion with glam­our. The major­i­ty of his cel­e­brat­ed sub­jects, obey­ing Warhol’s instruc­tions, refrained from ham­ming it up on cam­era.

Report­ed­ly, Bob Dylan was a bit of a diva.

But it was not until Sal­vador Dalí faced the lens that the mak­er met his match…twice. The Muse­um of Mod­ern Art doc­u­ments the Span­ish artist’s fla­grant dis­re­gard for Warhol’s stric­tures, while also spec­u­lat­ing on Warhol’s response.

And yet, some­thing soul­ful does come through in the clip above. Is Dalí emot­ing? Or is the shim­mer­ing back­ground melody by Arman­do Dominguez the inspi­ra­tion for Des­ti­no, a Dali-Dis­ney ani­mat­ed joint that took 57 years in the mak­ing?

Relat­ed Con­tent

Sal­vador Dalí Reveals the Secrets of His Trade­mark Mous­tache (1954)

Des­ti­no: The Sal­vador Dalí – Dis­ney Col­lab­o­ra­tion 57 Years in the Mak­ing

Andy Warhol Dig­i­tal­ly Paints Deb­bie Har­ry with the Ami­ga 1000 Com­put­er (1985)

Andy Warhol’s ‘Screen Test’ of Bob Dylan: A Clas­sic Meet­ing of Egos

Ayun Hal­l­i­day will let you know if she makes it to Pitts­burgh for her screen­test if you fol­low her @AyunHalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Artist Nina Katchadourian Creates Flemish Style Self-Portraits in Airplane Lavatory

in Art, Photography | February 1st, 2013

nina k2
The work of artist Nina Katchadouri­an is high­ly acces­si­ble. So much so that it’s like­ly her fault if the line for the bath­room on your next flight stretch­es all the way from tail to the cock­pit. Such is the pow­er of Lava­to­ry Self-por­traits in the Flem­ish Style, the best known seg­ment of her ongo­ing Seat Assign­ment project. How can pas­sen­gers pass up the oppor­tu­ni­ty to recre­ate Katchadouri­an’s wide­ly dis­sem­i­nat­ed images, know­ing that the orig­i­nals were shot in the mir­ror on an iPhone, using props like dis­pos­able seat cov­ers and an inflat­able neck pil­low?

more flemish
There goes the Mile High Club.

Shy and/or civic-mind­ed types who don’t rel­ish the impli­ca­tions of tying up the john­ny at high alti­tudes should have a go at restag­ing the oth­er aspects to Katchadouri­an’s inflight work, on dis­play above.

(Hint: book a win­dow seat and exer­cise restraint when the fight atten­dant hands you your com­pli­men­ta­ry bag of mini pret­zels.)

Hon­est­ly, much of what you’ll see, from the unnerv­ing­ly named Dis­as­ters to the genius of Sweater Goril­las, can be accom­plished with­out leav­ing the ground. Though it may prove more cre­ative­ly reward­ing to delay until the only palat­able alter­na­tive is an unreg­u­lat­ed amount of real­i­ty TV screen­ing on the seat back ahead of you.

Ayun Hal­l­i­day has an inflight Peanut for you. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

Meet “Father Philanthropy”: America’s Most Prolific and Unlikely Master Art Forger

in Art, Random, Video - Arts & Culture | January 28th, 2013

Close your eyes and pic­ture a phil­an­thropist.

Like­ly you envi­sioned a fat cat with a design­er check­book. It’s the accept­ed image, but not every bene­fac­tor fits the mold.

Take Mark Lan­dis, a gen­tle soul who’s spent three decades sur­pris­ing the staffs of small Amer­i­can muse­ums with art­work pre­sent­ed out of the blue. Not just any art­work, and cer­tain­ly not the nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry orig­i­nals they were rep­re­sent­ed as—in every case, donor Lan­dis was even­tu­al­ly revealed to be the artist.

In Ter­ri Time­ly’s doc­u­men­tary glimpse, “Father Phil­an­thropy” (above, with a delet­ed scene below), Lan­dis oblig­ing­ly guides view­ers through the mul­ti-step process by which his forg­eries are cre­at­ed, but he reveals lit­tle about his moti­va­tion, beyond a desire to hon­or the mem­o­ry of his par­ents (Moth­er looms large here.)

His fakes don’t add up to a grand con­cep­tu­al piece, a la artist  J. S. G. Bog­gs’ incred­i­bly detailed, far-more-valu­able-than-the-items-they-were-used-to-pur­chase ban­knotes. He seems indif­fer­ent to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of high pro­file, if ill got­ten, pres­tige. He is, quite sim­ply a giv­er. His gifts cost the recip­i­ents pro­fes­sion­al pride and unex­pect­ed fees asso­ci­at­ed with fer­ret­ing out the truth, but they seem mal­ice-free. “About all I’ve got is an abil­i­ty to draw and paint,” he states, “So nat­u­ral­ly it led me to give away draw­ing and paint­ings.”

via The Atlantic

Relat­ed Con­tent

Art for the One Per­cent: 60 Min­utes on the Excess & Hubris of the Inter­na­tion­al Art Mar­ket

Art Lovers Rejoice! New Goya and Rem­brandt Data­bas­es Now Online

Ayun Hal­l­i­day keeps things real @ayunhalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Join Cartoonist Lynda Barry for a University-Level Course on Doodling and Neuroscience

in Art, Comics/Cartoons, Education, Science | January 26th, 2013

lyndabarry

Car­toon­ist Lyn­da Bar­ry, who has helped legions of adults grope their way back to the unself­con­scious cre­ativ­i­ty of child­hood, is teach­ing at the uni­ver­si­ty lev­el. Bar­ry’s Unthink­able Mind course is designed to appeal to stu­dents of the human­i­ties.  Also hard­core sci­ence majors, the sort of lab-coat­ed spec­i­mens the first group might refer to as “brains.” The instruc­tor describes her Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin spring semes­ter offer­ing thus:

A writ­ing and pic­ture-mak­ing class with focus on the basic phys­i­cal struc­ture of the brain with empha­sis on hemi­spher­ic dif­fer­ences and a par­tic­u­lar sort of insight and cre­ative con­cen­tra­tion that seems to come about when we are using our hands (the orig­i­nal dig­i­tal devices) —to help us fig­ure out a prob­lem.

The twen­ty-one grads and under­grads accept­ed into Pro­fes­sor Bar­ry’s course have been warned, via the illus­trat­ed let­ter above,  hand­writ­ten on legal paper, that the work­load will be heavy.

lyndabarry2

You should be warned as well, if you elect to audit this course from home. Enroll­ment is not nec­es­sary. Pro­fes­sor Bar­ry will be post­ing her week­ly assign­ments and cur­ricu­lum mate­ri­als on her tum­blr, a forum where her abid­ing inter­est in sci­ence is as appar­ent as her devo­tion to undi­rect­ed doo­dling. Your first assign­ment, post­ed above, requires a box of crayons, the col­or­ing pages of your choice, down­loaded to four types of paper, and a sig­nif­i­cant chunk of time set aside for brain-relat­ed arti­cles and vin­tage videos star­ring Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Michael Gaz­zani­ga and astronomer Carl Sagan. You should also be com­mit­ted to keep­ing a four-minute diary and serv­ing as your own guinea pig.

Who’s in?

A big H/T @kirstinbutler

Relat­ed Con­tent

Car­toon­ist Kate Beat­on Plays on Lit­er­ary Clas­sics — The Great Gats­by, Julius Cae­sar & More

Steven Pinker Explains the Neu­ro­science of Swear­ing (NSFW)

Carl Sagan’s Under­grad Read­ing List: From Pla­to and Shake­speare, to Hux­ley and Gide

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day ‘s most recent book is Peanut.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 24 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast