Rauschenberg Erases De Kooning

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | February 24th, 2011

In 1953, Willem De Koon­ing was one of the world’s most revered liv­ing painters, and Robert Rauschen­berg was a tal­ent­ed ris­ing star, just a year out of art school. In this clip, Rauschen­berg tells of how, armed with noth­ing but chutz­pah and a bot­tle of Jack Daniels, he knocked on De Koon­ing’s door and flat-out asked the mas­ter for an orig­i­nal draw­ing — so he could erase it. De Koon­ing not only acqui­esced, but even chose a draw­ing he par­tic­u­lar­ly liked. Though it was con­tro­ver­sial at the time, Erased De Koon­ing is now con­sid­ered a con­cep­tu­al art clas­sic. And its influ­ence endures: Last year a stu­dent at Brown out-Rauschen­berg’d Rauschen­berg by eras­ing De Koon­ing’s wikipedia entry.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

MoMA Puts Pol­lock, Rothko & de Koon­ing on Your iPad

The MoMA Teach­es You How to Paint Like Pol­lock, Rothko, de Koon­ing & Oth­er Abstract Painters

How the CIA Secret­ly Fund­ed Abstract Expres­sion­ism Dur­ing the Cold War

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Teclópolis: Modernity in Stop Motion

in Art, Film, Video - Arts & Culture | February 23rd, 2011

I could­n’t say it much bet­ter than Fes­ti­val­Ge­nius did: This Argen­tine stop motion film (cre­at­ed by Can Can Club) recounts the “strug­gles of an anachro­nis­tic Super 8 cam­era to main­tain rel­e­van­cy in the face of dizzy­ing and over­whelm­ing effects of exces­sive con­sump­tion and waste on an increas­ing­ly plas­tic civ­i­liza­tion.” In 12 min­utes, every­day objects form increas­ing­ly com­plex, almost unimag­in­able land­scapes. A won­der to see. Teclópo­lis was released in 2009.…

via Drag­on Stop Motion

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Free Interactive Comic Book: Poe’s “Pit and the Pendulum”

in Art, Literature | February 22nd, 2011

First came the stop motion film. Now comes the inter­ac­tive dig­i­tal com­ic book that gives you a mod­ern take on Edgar Allan Poe’s clas­sic hor­ror sto­ry, “The Pit and the Pen­du­lum.” (Find Poe’s orig­i­nal text here or lis­ten in audio here.) The dig­i­tal Pit and the Pen­du­lum com­ic book is the brain­child of Marc Lougee and Susan Ma, who have lay­ered infor­ma­tive links, QR codes and social media into their visu­al design, adding a new mea­sure of inter­ac­tiv­i­ty to the tra­di­tion­al com­ic book expe­ri­ence. To get the most out of the expe­ri­ence, you will need to down­load a good PDF read­er and QR code read­er. Find those resources here. And, on a relat­ed note, don’t for­get to watch anoth­er favorite of ours: the 1953 ani­mat­ed film ver­sion of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” nar­rat­ed by James Mason. A clas­sic!

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Sub Zero: Winter Time-Lapse in South Dakota

in Art, Life | February 21st, 2011

Ear­li­er this month, Randy Halver­son braved the cold South Dako­ta nights (where tem­per­a­tures often drop to ‑25 below wind chill), to cre­ate this night­time time-lapse film. Using a Canon 60D and T2i, Halver­son gave each shot a 20 sec­ond expo­sure, with a one sec­ond inter­val placed between shots. The result is pret­ty jaw-drop­ping. H/T @matthiasrascher.

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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay: Animation Concepts

in Art, Books, Film, Literature | February 18th, 2011

Michael Chabon pub­lished The Amaz­ing Adven­tures of Kava­lier & Clay in 2000, and the next year it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fic­tion. The film ver­sion of the nov­el has been locked in “devel­op­ment hell” for a good decade now. (The pro­duc­er Scott Rudin has a rep­u­ta­tion for option­ing high-pro­file nov­els and sit­ting on them for a long time; he also holds the film rights to Jonathan Franzen’s The Cor­rec­tions.) Any­way, some­where in the devel­op­ment process, the direc­tor Jamie Caliri was asked to explore ani­ma­tion con­cepts, and here’s what he came up with: a fun inter­twin­ing of live action and ani­ma­tion.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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The Ice Book, a Beautiful Pop-Up Book

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | February 17th, 2011

The Ice Book, seen above, is a paper the­atre brought to life with light. Watch as sheets of paper are illu­mi­nat­ed in a daz­zling ani­ma­tion dis­play. Accord­ing to the artists, Davy and Kristin McGuire, The Ice Book tells the sto­ry of a mys­te­ri­ous princess who lures a boy into her mag­i­cal world to warm her heart of ice. It was shot with the Canon 5D Mark II, with the actors super­im­posed onto the mon­tages using a makeshift green screen, and pro­jec­tions cre­at­ed in Adobe After Effects. A sim­ple yet remark­able achieve­ment. You can learn more about the project here. Don’t miss the page describ­ing the behind the scenes work, or this oth­er pri­mo video that savors books in stop motion film.

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

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A Rare Look Inside Pixar Studios

in Art, Film | February 16th, 2011

Since 1995, Pixar has released a steady stream of award-win­ning ani­mat­ed films. First came Toy Sto­ry, then Find­ing Nemo, Mon­sters, Inc., The Incred­i­bles, and most recent­ly Toy Sto­ry 3. (You can revis­it Pixar’s clas­sics in this won­der­ful lit­tle trib­ute video.) Get­ting inside Pixar Stu­dios has nev­er been easy. But last week The New York Times pulled it off, pro­duc­ing a six minute video that takes you through the stu­dios designed by Steve Jobs him­self, and inside Pixar’s patent­ed ani­ma­tion process – a process that com­bines more tra­di­tion­al and cut­ting-edge ele­ments.

Note: This video tour also appears on Vimeo and YouTube.

H/T @matthiasrascher

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100 Greatest Posters of Film Noir

in Art, Film | February 11th, 2011

Dur­ing the 1940s and 50s, Hol­ly­wood entered a “noir” peri­od, pro­duc­ing riv­et­ing films based on hard-boiled fic­tion. These films were set in dark loca­tions and shot in a black & white aes­thet­ic that fit like a glove. Hard­ened men wore fedo­ras and for­ev­er smoked cig­a­rettes. Women played the femme fatale role bril­liant­ly. Love was the surest way to death. All of these ele­ments fig­ured into what Roger Ebert calls “the most Amer­i­can film genre” in his short Guide to Film Noir. (Also find 23 noir films right here.)

Accom­pa­ny­ing noir films were visu­al­ly engag­ing movie posters, and Where Dan­ger Lives (a noir blog) now gives you the “100 Great­est Posters of Film Noir.” They’ve been work­ing through this “best of” list for the past three months, and they con­clude this week with the Top 10 …  the best of the best.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

25 Free John Wayne Films

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