How Shea Hembrey Became 100 Artists

in Art, TED Talks | June 17th, 2011

Arkansas-born artist Shea Hem­brey kicks off his TED talk by con­fess­ing to a hick child­hood in which he and his sis­ter “would com­pete to see who could eat the most squir­rel brains.” That mod­est joke sets the stage for his intro­duc­tion of Seek, a project Hem­brey con­ceived in response to his dis­ap­point­ment with sev­er­al exhibits of con­tem­po­rary art in Europe, includ­ing the Venice Bien­nale. Find­ing much of the work he encoun­tered too obtuse and inac­ces­si­ble, Hem­brey decid­ed to cre­ate an inter­na­tion­al bien­ni­al of his own, fea­tur­ing the 100 most inspir­ing artists he could find.

The twist, of course, is that all 100 artists (and art­works) were cre­at­ed by Hem­brey him­self, in strict accor­dance with two per­son­al cri­te­ria:  First, the work must be some­thing he could explain to his grand­ma in less than five min­utes; next, its process must engage the three “H’s” of head, heart, and hand.

All 100 pieces fea­ture dis­tinct mate­ri­als, char­ac­ter and craft, and tak­en togeth­er they pro­vide an impres­sive show­case for Hem­brey’s humor and vir­tu­os­i­ty. But that grand­ma of his had bet­ter be hid­ing a degree in semi­otics, or at least an old copy of the The Post­mod­ern Con­di­tion, because the suc­cess of Seek’s joke is large­ly depen­dent on our knowl­edge of the world it lam­poons.  And for all the deter­mined folksi­ness of his man­i­festo, the posi­tion Hem­brey stakes out — some­where between par­o­dy and homage — would not be unfa­mil­iar to the cura­tors of the Venice Bien­nale.

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.

Sylvia Plath Reads “Daddy”

in Poetry, Video - Arts & Culture | June 17th, 2011

What do you get for the father who has every­thing? How about a healthy dose of canon­i­cal resent­ment, in the form of Sylvia Plath’s most famous poem, read by Plath her­self, from our list of Cul­tur­al Icons?

Or, if you’d pre­fer some­thing that says “I love you” with a lit­tle less ran­cor, you might want to go with a video that’s guar­an­teed to make him smile.

Hap­py Father’s Day!!!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Antho­ny Hop­kins Reads Dylan Thomas

Vir­ginia Woolf: Her Voice Recap­tured

Ernest Hem­ing­way Reads “In Harry’s Bar in Venice”

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.

My Water’s On Fire Tonight: The Fracking Song

in Current Affairs, Video - Science | June 16th, 2011

In 2005, Vice Pres­i­dent Dick Cheney per­son­al­ly engi­neered a loop­hole in the U.S. ener­gy bill exempt­ing com­pa­nies that use an oil- and gas-drilling pro­ce­dure known as hydraulic frac­tur­ing, or “frack­ing,” from reg­u­la­tion under the Safe Drink­ing Water Act. As a result, tons of diesel fuel and assort­ed chemicals–some of them tox­ic, like benzyne–are inject­ed at high pres­sure into the earth at the sole dis­cre­tion of the com­pa­nies doing the inject­ing. One of the chief ben­e­fi­cia­ries of Cheney’s string-pulling is the com­pa­ny that invent­ed the pro­ce­dure, Hal­libur­ton, which employed Cheney as chair­man and CEO just pri­or to his becom­ing vice pres­i­dent. (A coin­ci­dence?)

In the wake of the Hal­libur­ton Loop­hole, as it has come to be known, there have been a grow­ing num­ber of water pol­lu­tion cas­es, from Penn­syl­va­nia to Col­orado, asso­ci­at­ed with frack­ing. Some of those cas­es were doc­u­ment­ed in last year’s Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val award-win­ning doc­u­men­tary, Gasland, by Josh Fox, who said in a PBS inter­view, “I could take a car bat­tery and throw it in the water­shed and go to fed­er­al prison, but these guys can take the same chem­i­cals and inject it by the thou­sands of gal­lons, and they’re exempt. It makes no sense.”

It’s a seri­ous issue involv­ing two of Amer­i­ca’s vital interests–the need for ener­gy and the need for safe drink­ing water–but a group of jour­nal­ism stu­dents in New York Uni­ver­si­ty’s Stu­dio 20 mas­ter’s pro­gram, in asso­ci­a­tion with the pub­lic-inter­est jour­nal­ism group ProP­ub­li­ca, has tak­en a light-heart­ed approach, cre­at­ing a music video to raise aware­ness of frack­ing. It’s called “My Water’s on Fire Tonight (The Frack­ing Song).”  The pur­pose of the project, accord­ing to group leader David Holmes, is to encour­age peo­ple to read ProP­ub­li­ca’s report­ing on the issue. “We were con­cerned with build­ing a bet­ter entry­way into that inves­ti­ga­tion,” Holmes told Poynter.org, “and we fig­ured a song would be the per­fect way to do it–especially since it’s called frack­ing.”

via Explainer.net

Werner Herzog Reads “Go the F**k to Sleep” in NYC (NSFW)

in Film, Literature | June 15th, 2011

Sev­er­al weeks back, Go the F**k to Sleep, the irrev­er­ent new chil­dren’s book, gained nation­al atten­tion when pirat­ed PDF copies went viral on the inter­net. But don’t feel sor­ry for the author and illus­tra­tor. The book is now #1 on the Ama­zon best­seller list; Samuel Jack­son has nar­rat­ed the offi­cial audio book (you can prob­a­bly snag a free copy through this Audible.com deal); and Wern­er Her­zog delight­ed fans when he read the (not safe for work) book at the New York Pub­lic Library book par­ty held ear­li­er this week. And, yes, this is the real Wern­er Her­zog — not the imper­son­ator who passed around pop­u­lar read­ings of Curi­ous George and Twas the Night Before Christ­mas on YouTube …

Loom: A Web of Horrors in 3D Animation

in Animation | June 14th, 2011

You’re not squea­mish, are you? A team of stu­dents at the Fil­makademie Baden-Würt­tem­berg, in Ger­many, has tak­en the aes­thet­ic sen­si­bil­i­ties of the hor­ror and action movie gen­res and import­ed them into the realm of the micro­scop­ic, cre­at­ing a stun­ning work of 3D ani­ma­tion called Loom, about a spi­der and a very unlucky moth. Direct­ed by Jan Bitzer, Ili­ja Brunck and Csa­ba Letay of the stu­dio Poly­noid, Loom presents a high­ly styl­ized depic­tion of the the sort of vio­lence that hap­pens all around us in nature, usu­al­ly beyond our notice. Loom and anoth­er short film (Der Besuch, by Aus­tri­an direc­tor Con­rad Tam­bour) shared first prize in the ani­mat­ed film cat­e­go­ry at last mon­th’s Sehsüchte Inter­na­tion­al Stu­dent Film Fes­ti­val in Pots­dam. Despite its daz­zling tech­ni­cal bril­liance, you may find the film to be a bit … creepy.

When James Joyce Got Into a Bar Fight, He’d Yell: “Deal With Him, Hemingway!”

in Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | June 14th, 2011

The nar­ra­tor of this rare clip describes James Joyce — arguably the great­est nov­el­ist of the 20th cen­tu­ry — as a “small, thin, unath­let­ic man with very bad eyes.” Ouch. And it gets worse. Accord­ing to the voiceover, when Joyce and drink­ing bud­dy Ernest Hem­ing­way faced a poten­tial brawl, Joyce would hide behind his more impos­ing com­rade and shout “Deal with him, Hem­ing­way, deal with him!!!’

But we bet they were both just hid­ing behind Gertrude Stein.

For more on Hem­ing­way’s adven­tures in fight­ing, see our post Ernest Hemingway’s Delu­sion­al Adven­tures in Box­ing: “My Writ­ing is Noth­ing, My Box­ing is Every­thing.”

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Joyce Read­ing from Finnegans Wake

Ernest Hem­ing­way Reads “In Harry’s Bar in Venice”

James Joyce, With His Eye­sight Fail­ing, Draws a Sketch of Leopold Bloom (1926)

James Joyce’s Ulysses: Down­load the Free Audio Book

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.

British Classics on the iPad App (Free… For Now)

in e-books, Literature | June 9th, 2011

We told you this was com­ing, and now it’s here. The British Library has start­ed to release 60,000+ texts from the 19th cen­tu­ry in dig­i­tal for­mat. And they’re get­ting rolled out with the release of a new iPad app. (If you have any prob­lems down­load­ing the app, try doing it direct­ly from the app store on your iPad.)

The upside: The new app cur­rent­ly fea­tures 1,000 works, includ­ing Mary Shel­ley’s Franken­stein, Charles Dick­ens’ Oliv­er Twist and oth­er British clas­sics. The col­lec­tion gives you scans of the orig­i­nal edi­tions. So you can read the works as they orig­i­nal­ly appeared.

The down­side: The app won’t be free for long. Even­tu­al­ly, you’ll have to pay. So get in while you can, or just skim through our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks and Audio Books. All clas­sics, all the time…

via BBC

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Snag­Films: Free Doc­u­men­taries on the iPad (and Web)

MoMA Puts Pol­lock, Rothko & de Koon­ing on Your iPad

Mark Kelly Beams David Bowie Lines to His Wife, Gabby Giffords

in Life, Music | June 9th, 2011

This week, U2’s 360° Tour hit the west coast of the US, stop­ping first in Seat­tle, then Oak­land and next Ana­heim. Though crit­ics have offered mixed reviews (this v. that), we had our­selves a ball, hor­ren­dous traf­fic jams aside. And we were par­tic­u­lar­ly touched by one moment with a poignant back­sto­ry.

Dur­ing the show, the audi­ence gets beamed up to Mark Kel­ly, an astro­naut on the space shut­tle Endeav­our, who hap­pens to be mar­ried to Gab­by Gif­fords, the US rep­re­sen­ta­tive shot this past Jan­u­ary in Ari­zona. To the 70,000 onlook­ers, Kel­ly says “Tell my wife I love her very much she knows” – the same lines deliv­ered by Major Tom, the fic­tion­al astro­naut, made famous by David Bowie’s Space Odd­i­ty: And, with that, U2 breaks into “Beau­ti­ful Day,” the song that served as a wake-up call for the Endeav­our crew, at Gab­by Gif­fords’ per­son­al request. How’s that for a nice touch?

P.S. Yes we know that Endeav­our returned to earth last week. But we have noth­ing against the will­ing sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief.

Errol Morris and Werner Herzog in Conversation

in Film | June 8th, 2011

Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty has just post­ed a ter­rif­ic dis­cus­sion between film­mak­ers Wern­er Her­zog (Griz­zly Man, The Cave of For­got­ten Dreams) and Errol Mor­ris (The Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line) from 2007. The two doc­u­men­tary titans shared the stage for over an hour, talk­ing about their long friend­ship, the mak­ing of doc­u­men­taries, and Her­zog’s film Encoun­ters at the End of the World. No shoes were served.

via @jessebdylan

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Her­zog and Cor­mac McCarthy Talk Sci­ence and Cul­ture

An Evening with Wern­er Her­zog

“They Were There” — Errol Mor­ris Final­ly Directs a Film for IBM …

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.

“Lift” — A Portrait of Life in a London High Rise

in Film, Life | June 8th, 2011

How do you ade­quate­ly por­tray life in a high-rise build­ing? Lon­don film­mak­er Marc Isaacs found a rather uncon­ven­tion­al answer to this ques­tion. He installed him­self inside the lift/elevator of a high rise on the East End of Lon­don. And for ten hours a day, over two months, he would ride up and down with the res­i­dents, with his cam­era point­ing at them. It is fas­ci­nat­ing to see how the res­i­dents react to him being there — some are sus­pi­cious or even hos­tile at the begin­ning. Oth­ers open up about their per­son­al lives and their dai­ly life in the build­ing. And then oth­ers bring him some­thing to eat, a chair to sit down on, or even lit­tle presents. The result is a mov­ing and “qui­et­ly fas­ci­nat­ing med­i­ta­tion on the mun­dan­i­ties of Lon­don life.” Writ­ing about the film, the Times Online put it best: “Isaacs has an astound­ing gift for get­ting peo­ple to open up to him and he uses film the way a skilled artist uses paint. The result is beau­ti­ful, heart­break­ing and pro­found­ly humane.”

Here’s some bonus mate­r­i­al: a review of “Lift” and Isaacs’ two oth­er short doc­u­men­taries “Calais” and “Trav­ellers,” a Sun­day Times arti­cle enti­tled “Marc Isaacs on his doc­u­men­tary art,” and an inter­view with Mark by The Doc­u­men­tary Film­mak­ers Group dfg.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.