NASA Presents “The Earth as Art” in a Free eBook and Free iPad App

in Art, e-books, iPad, K-12, Science | December 20th, 2012

In 1960, NASA put its first “Earth-observ­ing envi­ron­men­tal satel­lite” into orbit, and, ever since, these satel­lites have let us observe the dynam­ics of our plan­et in a new way.  They can tell us all about chang­ing weath­er pat­terns, the impact of cli­mate change, what’s hap­pen­ing in the oceans, the coast­lines, rivers and more.

The satel­lites have also demon­strat­ed again and again the Earth’s aes­thet­ic beau­ty, revealed in the pat­terns, shapes, col­ors, and tex­tures seen from space. That beau­ty is what gets cel­e­brat­ed in NASA Earth As Art, a new visu­al pub­li­ca­tion made avail­able as a Free 160-Page eBook (PDF) and a Free iPad App. Fea­tur­ing 75 images in total, the app gives you a very aer­i­al look at places like the Himalayas, Arizona’s Paint­ed Desert, the Lena Riv­er Delta in Rus­sia (shown above), the Byrd Glac­i­er in Antarc­ti­ca, and much more. Enjoy the images, from the sur­re­al to the sub­lime.

You’ll find NASA Earth As Art list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks. Also see these relat­ed NASA mate­ri­als:

NASA Archive Col­lects Great Time-Lapse Videos of our Plan­et

Ray Brad­bury Reads Mov­ing Poem on the Eve of NASA’s 1971 Mars Mis­sion

Great Cities at Night: Views from the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion

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Enthusiastic Futurist Jason Silva Waxes Theoretical About the Immersive Power of Cinema

in Art, Film | December 13th, 2012

No one will ever accuse Jason Sil­va of lack­ing in enthu­si­asm. The self-pro­fessed “film­mak­er, futur­ist, epiphany addict” is in love, head over heels, with tech­nol­o­gy, and it’s a love infec­tious, as he shows us above in his short mono­logue, Atten­tion: The Immer­sive Pow­er of Cin­e­ma. Inspired by Diana Slattery’s essay “Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty and Hal­lu­ci­na­tion,” Sil­va extracts a the­o­ry of cin­e­ma as a “rhetor­i­cal tech­nol­o­gy, a shrine to immer­sion.” His ideas are also built around a nar­ra­tive and lin­guis­tic con­cept known as “deic­tic shift the­o­ry,” from deix­is or “self-ori­en­ta­tion.” For Sil­va, the deic­tic shift occurs when the “view­er assumes a view­point in the sto­ry,” and, in total immer­sion, “enters the dream as dream.” He spec­u­lates that at this point, the “pre-frontal lobe dims, and there’s a loss of ego,” such that “cin­e­ma is akin to god­li­ness.” Hog­wash, you say? Per­haps, but it’s enter­tain­ing hog­wash, and if one takes the time to process the ideas embed­ded in Silva’s man­ic, form-is-con­tent pre­sen­ta­tion, it’s even per­sua­sive. But poor Beethoven. Fur Elise doesn’t deserve anoth­er beat­ing.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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Neil Gaiman Gives Sage Advice to Aspiring Artists

in Art, Literature | December 10th, 2012

“I want to be a direc­tor, and I’ve been told that there are enough artists in the world, and that’s not some­thing I should pur­sue. Do you [agree with that]?”

A young woman put that ques­tion to sci-fi and fan­ta­sy writer Neil Gaiman at The Con­necti­cut Youth Forum last week. And he respond­ed with an answer that might sound famil­iar, espe­cial­ly if you viewed the thought­ful com­mence­ment speech he gave at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the Arts in Philadel­phia last spring. There, he gave 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts, and, if you have a real­ly sharp mem­o­ry, you’ll recall sug­ges­tions #6 and #10.

  • Make your own art, mean­ing the art that reflects your indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and per­son­al vision.
  • Leave the world more inter­est­ing than it was before.

They’re wise tips, but they’re bet­ter tak­en in con­junc­tion with sug­ges­tions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9. Watch them all here. And don’t miss our col­lec­tion of Free Neil Gaiman Sto­ries, avail­able in text, audio and video.

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Artist Ken Butler Turns One Man’s Trash Into Another Man’s Quirky Stringed Instrument

in Art, Music | December 3rd, 2012

Hey, hoard­ers, think you’re the only ones who see poten­tial in a sin­gle crutch, an emp­ty Scotch bot­tle, the jagged remains of a skate­board?  Not so. Musi­cian, artist, and all-around vision­ary Ken But­ler has been turn­ing such trash into trea­sure since 1978, when he fit­ted an ax with a tail piece, fin­ger­board and con­tact mic and snug­gled it inside a 3/4 size vio­lin case. Chop a cher­ry tree with it, or play it just like Bud­dy Guy plays his ax. Like most of the hybrids But­ler cre­ates in his Brook­lyn stu­dio, it’s a func­tion­ing musi­cal instru­ment, though he’s quick to point out that for him, the sound is imma­te­r­i­al. What real­ly counts is the poet­ic cou­pling of unlike­ly mate­ri­als.

Things real­ly get cookin’ at the 4:20 mark, when But­ler plays a few licks on a three-stringed shov­el before mov­ing on to a bow­able, elec­tri­fied ten­nis rack­et. The results are far love­li­er than the mas­ter would lead you to believe.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day can stum­ble her way through the Enter­tain­er if there’s a piano handy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of Mak­ing a Fla­men­co Gui­tar: 299 Hours of Blood, Sweat & Tears Expe­ri­enced in 3 Min­utes

Mak­ing Fend­er Gui­tars, Then (1959) and Now (2012)

The Joy of Mak­ing Artis­tic Home­made Gui­tars

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Ira Glass Makes Balloon Animals and Gives NSFW Advice to Teens — At the Same Time!!

in Art, Life | November 30th, 2012

Pri­or to pub­lic radio super­star­dom, Ira Glass enjoyed mod­est suc­cess as an ama­teur teenage magi­cian with a side in bal­loon ani­mals. At the behest of Rook­ie, an online mag­a­zine by and for teen girls, Glass shared some trade secrets gleaned from the 1974 pam­phlet, Roger’s Rub­ber Ark, Vol­ume II. Ignore the dia­bol­i­cal squeak­ing, and you’ll come out of this video know­ing every step that goes into a seat­ed Snoopy and a sur­pris­ing­ly ele­gant French poo­dle.

Even bet­ter than the bal­loon how-tos are Glass’ straight­for­ward respons­es to Rook­ie read­ers’ ques­tions, a chal­lenge pre­vi­ous­ly faced by Jon Hamm and Paul Rudd.

He applauds the courage of “Anony­mous,” who revealed her true feel­ings to a crush via text mes­sage. But, when pre­sent­ed with the facts, Glass con­cludes unequiv­o­cal­ly that her sen­ti­ment is not shared. (It’s not.)

The entire­ty of wom­ankind will embrace him for what he has to say to nerdy girls and those with short hair­dos.

And when the top­ic turns to con­dom eti­quette and fel­la­tio, well, let’s just say that the teenagers of the world could use more sex edu­ca­tors like Ira Glass.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ira Glass on the Art of Sto­ry­telling

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Watch as Alberto Giacometti Paints and Pursues the Elusive “Apparition” (1965)

in Art | November 29th, 2012

The Swiss artist Alber­to Gia­comet­ti is most often remem­bered for his famous­ly thin, elon­gat­ed sculp­tures of the human form. But Gia­comet­ti was a sim­i­lar­ly bril­liant and orig­i­nal draughts­man who main­tained that draw­ing was the cen­tral skill of an artist. “One must stick exclu­sive­ly to draw­ing,” he once said. “If one dom­i­nates draw­ing even a lit­tle bit then every­thing else becomes pos­si­ble.”

Gia­comet­ti the draughts­man had a dis­tinc­tive way of rework­ing a line, of going over it again and again as if he were sculpt­ing in plas­ter. “When I make my draw­ings,” Gia­comet­ti said, “the path traced by my pen­cil on the sheet of paper is, to some extent, anal­o­gous to the ges­ture of a man grop­ing his way in the dark­ness.” The result­ing tan­gle of lines give his draw­ings a spe­cial vibran­cy, a sense of motion and depth on the two-dimen­sion­al plane.

In this excerpt from the 1966 film Alber­to Gia­comet­ti by the Swiss pho­tog­ra­ph­er Ernst Schei­deg­ger, we watch as Gia­comet­ti paints the foun­da­tion­al lines of a por­trait at his stu­dio in Mont­par­nasse. The footage was prob­a­bly shot in 1965, the last year of Gia­comet­ti’s life. The artist report­ed­ly saw the film not long before his death on Jan­u­ary 11, 1966. Watch­ing the film, we get a sense of Gia­comet­ti’s care for geom­e­try as he draws orga­ni­za­tion­al lines to work out the pro­por­tions. Gia­comet­ti would often leave these inter­sect­ing ver­ti­cal, hor­i­zon­tal and diag­o­nal lines–which would emerge organ­i­cal­ly as he went along–in his fin­ished works.

In the Ger­man nar­ra­tion, the speak­er describes Gia­comet­ti’s almost mys­ti­cal sense of the process: A face appears on the can­vas which is his own face but also that of anoth­er, dis­tant per­son who will appear out of the depth if only you reach out for him. But as you do reach out the per­son recedes, remain­ing just beyond your grasp. “The appari­tion,” Gia­comet­ti once said: “Some­times I think I can trap it, but then I lose it again and must begin once more.”

Spe­cial thanks to Matthias Rasch­er for his lin­guis­tic help.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vin­tage Footage of Picas­so and Jack­son Pol­lock Paint­ing … Through Glass

Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky Caught in the Act of Cre­ation, 1926

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Existential Moments with Theo Jansen and His Amazing Kinetic Sculptures, the Strandbeests

in Art, Life | November 26th, 2012

One gets the impres­sion that Theo Jansen sub­scribes to Dan­ish Philoso­pher Soren Kierkegaard’s max­im : Once you label me, you negate me.

(Aw hell, just acci­den­tal­ly negat­ed Kierkegaard again…)

In any event, no sin­gle label can suf­fice where Jansen is con­cerned. A mak­er of kinet­ic sculp­tures who resists defin­ing him­self as an artist. A trained physi­cist who cel­e­brates evo­lu­tion as a ‘mir­a­cle.’ An ear­ly morn­ing opti­mist. An evening depres­sive. An engi­neer of life, pre­oc­cu­pied by death.

All this is to say, Theo Jansen is an orig­i­nal, as com­pelling as the awe­some, lum­ber­ing crea­tures he con­jures from plas­tic tub­ing and wind. Hear him speak for him­self, above. Watch his Strand­beests in action below. And don’t feel bad if the labels you’ve spent a life­time amass­ing begin to feel a bit nar­row com­pared.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day built a Rube Gold­berg Device under duress.

 

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

in Art, Random | November 19th, 2012

In a 2010 poll, Sal­vador Dalí’s facial hair was vot­ed the most famous mous­tache of all time. The flam­boy­ant mous­tache was part of his schtick, there’s no deny­ing that. But some have assigned a deep­er mean­ing to it. The Wike­pe­dia entry for Dalí attrib­uted the facial hair to 17th-cen­tu­ry Span­ish mas­ter painter Diego Velázquez (see image). And yet per­haps the influ­ence was more lit­er­ary than painter­ly. Appear­ing on the game show The Name’s the Same in Jan­u­ary, 1954, Dalí was asked (at the 4:00 mark) whether the stache was a joke. To which the Span­ish painter respond­ed, “It’s the most seri­ous part of my per­son­al­i­ty. It’s a very sim­ple Hun­gar­i­an mous­tache. Mr. Mar­cel Proust used the same kind of pomade for this mous­tache.” And there you have it, the artis­tic influ­ence of the world’s most famous facial hair.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sal­vador Dalí’s 100 Illus­tra­tions of Dante’s The Divine Com­e­dy

Sal­vador Dali Gets Sur­re­al with Mike Wal­lace (1958)

Q: Sal­vador Dalí, Are You a Crack­pot? A: No, I’m Just Almost Crazy (1969)

A Tour Inside Sal­vador Dalí’s Labyrinthine Span­ish Home

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