Metropolis II: Chris Burden’s Amazing, Frenetic Mini-City

in Animation, Science, Technology | July 20th, 2011

In his 2007 New York­er essay on per­for­mance artist Chris Bur­den, the crit­ic Peter Schjel­dahl wrote that most of Bur­den’s oeu­vre con­sist­ed of “pow­er­ful works that deal inge­nious­ly with aes­thet­ics and ethics of pow­er.”

Schjeld­hal added that “you needn’t like them to be impressed,” and then described some of Bur­den’s more infa­mous pieces:

He spent five days in a small lock­er, with a bot­tle of water above and a bot­tle for urine below; slith­ered, near­ly naked and with his hands held behind him, across fifty feet of bro­ken glass in a park­ing lot; had his hands nailed to the roof of a Volk­swa­gen; was kicked down a flight of stairs; and, on dif­fer­ent occa­sions, incurred appar­ent risks of burn­ing, drown­ing, and elec­tro­cu­tion.

Bur­den’s more recent “Metrop­o­lis II,” which might seem tame by com­par­i­son, fea­tures over 1,100 mini­cars careen­ing through a maze of inter­con­nect­ed free­ways. It’s still pret­ty chal­leng­ing, even in dilut­ed video form:  The noise and con­stant motion seem cal­cu­lat­ed to wreck your nerves, and accord­ing to this brief seg­ment on the piece, at least one car spins off the tracks every hour. The city may be sur­re­al, but the stress feels as famil­iar as your last bad rush hour.

You can find a fas­ci­nat­ing on-stage inter­view with the artist in LAC­MA’s Direc­tor’s Series, as well as a wealth of infor­ma­tion about Bur­den’s life and work on the muse­um’s web­site.

H/T Fast­CoDe­sign

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.

Kurt Russell Auditions for Star Wars

in Film | July 19th, 2011

Talk about dodg­ing cin­e­mat­ic bul­lets. Imag­ine The God­fa­ther with­out Mar­lon Bran­do. It almost hap­pened. And then Star Wars with Kurt Rus­sell (play­ing Han Solo). It was a real enough pos­si­bil­i­ty, and here’s the audi­tion tape as proof…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Star Wars as Silent Film

Star Wars the Musi­cal: The Force is Strong in this One

Darth Vader’s Theme in the Style of Beethoven

Kutiman Mashes Led Zep’s Black Dog: 80 Clips Stitched into One

in Music | July 19th, 2011

The Israeli mashup artist known as Kuti­man gave us Thru Jer­susalem last month, a con­tem­pla­tive jour­ney through Jerusalem’s eclec­tic, local music scene. Now he returns to his Moth­er of All Funk Chords roots and goes uptem­po again, stitch­ing togeth­er 80 cov­ers of Led Zep­pelin’s 1974 clas­sic, “Black Dog” (orig­i­nal here). Per­haps more than any oth­er I’ve seen, this video gives mean­ing to the expres­sion “the total is greater than the sum of the parts.” The indi­vid­ual cov­ers hard­ly stand out, but the mashup deliv­ers the goods.

via Wired

Jack Kerouac Plays Pool, 1967

in Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | July 19th, 2011

Kudos to How to be A Retro­naut for find­ing this great clip of Jack Ker­ouac play­ing pool in ear­ly 1967. We bet he was the coolest play­er in that par­tic­u­lar room (at the Paw­tuck­etville Social Club, in Low­ell, Mass). But we’d also bet that he copied that cool, taut per­sona from Paul New­man’s turn as “Fast Eddie” Fel­son in the clas­sic movie The Hus­tler filmed six years ear­li­er.

For more great moments in Beat his­to­ry, check out Ker­ouac and Gore Vidal meet­ing William F. Buck­ley, Alan Gins­berg’s Tug­boat Ride and William S. Bur­roughs Shoot­ing Shake­speare, all oth­er­wise found in our col­lec­tion of 275 Cul­tur­al Icons.

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.

Classic Jazz Album Covers Animated & Brought to Life

in Art, Music | July 18th, 2011

Back in 2009, Blue Note Records, the influ­en­tial jazz label, was cel­e­brat­ing its 70th anniver­sary. And The Bel­la Vista Social Pub, look­ing to pro­mote its own sum­mer jazz con­certs in Siena, Tus­cany, came up with a smart idea. Why not pay trib­ute to Blue Note (and pro­mote the Ital­ian con­cert series) by ani­mat­ing the cool cov­er designs that graced Blue Note albums dur­ing its hey­day. These cov­er designs were the work of Reid Miles, a graph­ic design­er who moved from Esquire mag­a­zine to Blue Note around 1955, then designed hun­dreds of aura-cre­at­ing cov­ers until he left the label in 1967. The ani­mat­ed video above, called Hi-Fi, brings Miles’ work back to life. Graph­i­col­o­gy has more on the nos­tal­gia-induc­ing clip here.

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!

Billie Holiday Sings “Strange Fruit”

in Music | July 17th, 2011

Before the week­end slips away, we want to remem­ber Bil­lie Hol­i­day who was born 98 years ago today. To this day, Hol­i­day is wide­ly con­sid­ered the great­est jazz vocal­ist of all time, known for her dis­tinc­tive phras­ing and melan­choly voice. Above, we bring you her per­for­mance of “Strange Fruit,” a song record­ed in 1939 that protest­ed the lynch­ing of African Amer­i­cans in the South. The com­po­si­tion intro­duced Hol­i­day to a main­stream audi­ence, giv­ing her career a big break. Down the line, Hol­i­day closed every con­cert with the song, which con­tin­u­al­ly grew in cul­tur­al impor­tance. By 1999, TIME called “Strange Fruit” the song of the cen­tu­ry, solid­i­fy­ing its place in the Amer­i­can song­book.

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!

Good Vibrations: Guitar and Cymbal Caught on Video

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Science | July 15th, 2011

This gor­geous video of a cym­bal (shot with a Phan­tom at 1,000 frames per sec­ond) made our morn­ing. And then Kot­tke’s find below — bril­liant footage of vibrat­ing gui­tar strings — made our after­noon.

Hope you enjoy them as much as we did, and have a great week­end!

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.

David Lynch and Interpol Team Up on Short Film

in Film, Music | July 15th, 2011

Three years ago, the mem­bers of the band Inter­pol sat down with film­mak­er David Lynch. It was a casu­al meet­ing, an “ice break­er,” that paved the way for a future col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Skip ahead to 2010, and the col­lab­o­ra­tion begins. Inter­pol wants to devel­op visu­als to accom­pa­ny their per­for­mance at the 2011 Coachel­la Fes­ti­val, and Lynch agrees to take on the job. The result: “I Touch a Red But­ton Man,” a short ani­mat­ed film that accom­pa­nies Inter­pol’s song “Lights.” The film (orig­i­nal­ly shown at Coachel­la) was offi­cial­ly released online yes­ter­day at Huff­Po, where the band also talked about the gen­e­sis of the project in their own words.

You can find this film list­ed in the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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!

In Honor of Louis C.K.‘s Well-Deserved Emmy Nomination

in Comedy | July 14th, 2011

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the come­di­an Louis C.K. whose half-hour F/X show Louie was just nom­i­nat­ed for an Emmy Award (full list of nom­i­nees here). To cel­e­brate, here’s one of our favorite of his riffs from a 2009 appear­ance on the Conan O’Brien show. (Speak­ing of Conan, don’t miss his Dart­mouth grad­u­a­tion address.)

We love Louis for many rea­sons, not the least of which is that he can build a killer, harangue-free rant around lines like “the foun­da­tions of cap­i­tal­ism are crum­bling.” Enjoy.

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.

125 Science Videos: Our Greatest Hits

in Science, Video - Science | July 13th, 2011

We reached deep into our archives and pulled out a list of our great­est hits — our favorite sci­ence videos from the past five years. 125 videos in total, and the list will grow from here. Right now, it cov­ers every­thing from Astron­o­my and Space Trav­el, to Physics and Biol­o­gy, and then Psy­chol­o­gy and Neu­ro­science. Our rec­om­men­da­tion? Just jump right in here. But if you want a lit­tle pre­view, then let’s start you off with ten slam-dunk videos from the col­lec­tion:

(Note: In the future, you can access this col­lec­tion by click­ing the “Great Sci­ence Videos” link under “Essen­tials.” Top of the cen­ter col­umn.)

• Earth­rise in HD – Video — In Novem­ber 2007, Japan’s Kaguya space­craft orbit­ed the moon and cap­tured the first HD footage of an “earth­rise” and “earth­set.”
• Tour­ing the Earth from Space (in HD) – Video — Give NASA 7 min­utes, and they’ll show you the Earth’s most impres­sive land­scapes — as seen from space.
• “First Orbit”: Cel­e­brat­ing 50th Anniver­sary of Yuri Gagaran’s Space Flight - Video — 99-minute doc­u­men­tary recre­ates the Sovi­et cos­mo­naut’s his­toric launch into space on April 12, 1961.
• Arthur C. Clarke Presents the Col­ors of Infin­i­ty – Video – The futur­ist brings us inside Mandelbrot’s world of frac­tal geom­e­try.
• Physics from Hell: How Dante’s Infer­no Inspired Galileo’s Physics – Video – Fas­ci­nat­ing pre­sen­ta­tion by Mark Peter­son, physics pro­fes­sor at Mount Holyoke Col­lege.
• Lawrence Krauss: Every Atom in Your Body Comes From a Star- Video – The­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist talks about his work at the World Eco­nom­ic Forum in Davos.
• What It Feels Like To Have a Stroke - Video — Har­vard neu­roanatomist Jill Bolte Tay­lor recounts her expe­ri­ence hav­ing a stroke. One of the most pop­u­lar TED Talks of all time.
• Nature by Num­bers - Video — Well-known geo­met­ri­cal and math­e­mat­i­cal for­mu­las (The Fibonac­ci Series and Spi­ral, The Gold­en and Angle Ratios, The Delauney Tri­an­gu­la­tion and Voronoi Tes­sel­la­tions) present them­selves in nature.
  
• Tsuna­mi Rip­ples Across Globe: Ani­mat­ed Video — Video — The Nation­al Ocean­ic and Atmos­pher­ic Admin­is­tra­tion shows Japan­ese tsuna­mi rip­pling across the Pacif­ic.
• Daniel Pink: The Sur­pris­ing Truth About What Moti­vates Us - Video — Research reveals what real­ly, tru­ly moti­vates us. And it’s all shown with ani­ma­tion.

Find the full list of Sci­ence Videos here…