Sterling Johnson, otherwise known as the Bubblesmith, goes to work at Stinson Beach, a little north of San Francisco. Mark Day captures the artistic display with his Canon 550D, and it’s all set to Bach’s Prelude in C Major. Like the kid said in American Beauty, “Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in…”
via Science Dump
As gimmicks go, the moving GIF is almost as old as the internet itself. But artists Jamie Beck and Kevin Berg have taken their animated photographs, or “cinemagraphs,” as Beck calls them, far beyond the original gimmick. While some of their images tend towards kitsch, featuring cliches like long hair rustling in the breeze, or wine pouring from a bottle, the duo (see a collection of their photos here) has also produced several shots of startling beauty: A single newspaper page rustles in a frozen park. The reflection of a taxicab glides like a ghost across a window. A beautiful woman suddenly seems to catch you staring at her. The effect is pure paranoia, like early Polanski, or a morning walk on no sleep.
So is the cinemagraph the future of photography, or just a neat trick? You can join that debate over at flickr.
Thanks to Eric Strenger and @eugenephoto for the tip.
Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based arts and culture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, and many other publications. You can follow her on twitter at @sheerly.
This past February, Randy Halverson ventured forth into the frigid South Dakota night to create a painfully pretty time-lapse film. He called it “Sub Zero,” an apt title given that temperatures fell to ‑25 degrees Fahrenheit.
With the approach of spring, Halverson returned to the great outdoors to shoot “Orion,” which features constellations tracking across his family farm. The film starts in an old grain distillery, then moves outside, and gets downright mesmerizing around the 1:45 mark.
In case you’re wondering, the film doesn’t take its name from the Orion constellation. Rather it comes from the Orion telescope head used to shoot the film. That gear appears at the 2:09 mark.
You can read more about “Orion” in Wired as well as on Vimeo. And stay tuned for more: Halverson hopes to shoot South Dakota’s badlands and the Rocky Mountains this coming summer…
Sit back and enjoy Candaş Şişman’s video dedicated to the influential Turkish sculptor, İlhan Koman (1923–1986). Rodin, Giacometti, Brancusi – they all informed Koman’s work, and now filter back into Şişman’s video installation, which went on display at last year’s Hulda Festival.
The festival, featuring Koman’s scientific sculptures, ran from March 2009 until November 2010, and traveled to Stockholm, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bordeaux, Lisbon, Barcelona, Naples, Malta, Thessalonica and finally Istanbul. You can find more of Şişman’s work on Vimeo here.
Marc Newson is one of the world’s most respected, exhibited and award-winning designers. According to his website, he’s also the most highly-valued. Newson’s pieces have set so many records at auction that his work now accounts for almost 25% of the total contemporary design market. It therefore comes as no surprise that the hourglasses he has designed for Ikepod’s reboot cost anywhere from 9,000 to 13,000 Euros.
It’s tempting to dismiss Ikepod’s new Hourglass video as a sleek ad for an overpriced product, especially since that’s exactly what it is. But the video is also an elegant, visually striking tribute to a vanishing world, in which time (and timepieces) seemed to move more slowly.
Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based arts and culture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, and many other publications. You can follow her on twitter at @sheerly
April may be the cruelest month, mixing memory and desire, etc. But Mr. Eliot never depended on seasonal change for his livelihood, except perhaps in the vaguest metaphorical sense. For a more uplifting take on spring, here’s The Windmill Farmer, a charming short film by one of our favorite young animators.
Joaquin Baldwin, 27, earned his MFA at The UCLA Animation Workshop. He was born in Paraguay to an environmental activist mother and an artist father, and you can see the influence of both vocations in his shorts, which have already won over 100 awards, and often have an environmental theme. For more information about his work and background, check out our editor’s 2010 write-up over at Brainpickings. And enjoy those lilacs while they last.
Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based arts and culture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, and many other publications. You can follow her on twitter at @sheerly.
Both Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey are longtime advocates for government funding of the Arts. If you missed their testimony before the House Appropriations Subcommitee on the Interior earlier this month, you aren’t alone. They were kicked off the schedule because of preparations for a congressional shutdown. These speeches were delivered not to the subcommittee but to a crowd of advocates and fans.
Both are well worth watching. Spacey, who is also the artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre, has long been one of the most respected and articulate actors in Hollywood. (See his inspiring pep talk to a young actor on Inside the Actor’s Studio here.) He packs more wisdom in these 12 and a half minutes than some performers do in a lifetime.
As for Alec Baldwin, his speech is shorter, but equally compelling. If you’re in a rush, head straight to minute 4:00, which begins with this teaser: “I come from a business where we all know a great secret …”
Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based arts and culture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, and many other publications. You can follow her on twitter at @sheerly.
It’s the second time we have Spain in time lapse video this week. First, the historical landscape of Central Spain. Now El Teide, Spain’s highest mountain, and the home to one of the world’s best observatories. This drop-dead gorgeous footage (click here to watch expanded version) was captured just days ago by Terje Sorgjerd, whose work can be followed on Facebook here. And, don’t miss our Facebook page, where you can get our daily posts and share intelligent media with family and friends…
via Metafilter
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