tingilinde

branding and design in olympics past, present and future

Interesting - I like Barcelona best and London ... well .. let's just say ouch and jarring

ball 'n string car sculpture

very nice - from the BMW museum

thanks for the link Greg!

cognitive dissonance

Greg notes the pixel dog

wonderful stuff!

potentially great video on pbs

Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf appears on PBS in an animated version - it looks like it has great potential!

trends in logo design

what talks to you?

(thanks for the link John)

I've done a bit of logo design, but I'm just a person with Mac and a graphics tablet who doesn't know what he's doing. This one is for a tall athletic friend (who is actually taller than 6'6" but it is "less intimidating" to use the smaller size)

the female portrait

A very nice sequence - thanks Rich!

need prints?

Over the past few years I've come to the conclusion that having my digital photos and sketches printed commercially makes a lot of sense. They are usually much less expensive (the small color ink cartridges we use are often north of $8000 a gallon and your cost per print, especially if you are finicky like me and need to adjust things, can be very high).

The problem is finding the right print shop.

I'm very finicky and the sketches I make often have subtle shading and sometimes very dark regions. Prints tend to look terrible compared to the screen images and I have tried several vendors. This gets spendy as art quality images aren't cheap.

But I'm very happy now.

Zazzle has done a great job on some very non-trivial images. The prices are good (I go for the "watercolor" paper and high end inks - not cheap, but reasonable compared with custom printing houses in Manhattan) and there are regular sales if you get on their mailing list. The framing work is outstanding.

They also print images to other objects - tshirts, mugs, etc. I tried the stamps, lured in by a great sale on Thanksgiving. The quality is very high - better than another digital photo stamp service I have used. The large stamps (1.5 x 2.5 inches) are very dramatic with the right image.

I have not tried regular prints from Zazzle as I only print a few images, but suspect you won't be disappointed.

highest recommendation!

the joy of snow

white out is a lovely little video by Jeff Scher in today's NY Times.

the excitement builds!

summer people may prefer l’eau life

best printing firm i've found

I do a bit of amateur art and, every now and again, have some of it printed. Years ago I gave up on my own printers and turned to professionals. While my pieces may not be artistic, they are often too challenging for most printing companies. Over the years I've tried a half dozen companies with varying results. (note - these are medium to high end jobs -- not your standard drugstore prints)

In the past year I've had good results with Zazzle and recently had one of those multiple sigma positive experiences with them on a medium to high end printing job. They went completely out of their way to get it right even though the their first shot was better than anyone else I've used.

These guys rock

Highly recommended!! They have people who *really* understand printing who worked with me to nail the image. Outstanding service.

sciency pottery

This past Summer I was in Woods Hole and managed to visit The Soft Earth Pottery of Woods Hole.

Wonderful stuff - sediments from all over the planet (courtesy of the real science that happens in town) turned into amazing pottery.

Earth Crust and Space Dust is my favorite section

(thanks David for pointing her place out in the first place)

16 gigpixel last supper online...

The Last Supper at high resolution.

The main press release

THE LAST SUPPER IN DETAIL
From 27 October, Da Vinci’s Last Supper can be admired on the web at a definition of 16 billion pixels



Milan, 27 October 2007 – Today, for the very first time, The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci,
the most famous, most discussed and most controversial work of art of all time, declared a World
Heritage work of art and registered at the UNESCO worldwide sites, can be seen by all, in all its
details, on the website: www.haltadefinizione.com.

The online visualisation system of the highest definition photograph ever in the world (16
billion pixels) will in fact let viewers enlarge and observe any portion of the painting, giving
them a clear view of sections down to as little as one millimetre square.

The project started at the beginning of 2007, as a result of the meeting between the Ministry of
Cultural Assets and Activities - Milan Landscape and Architectural Assets Office, De Agostini
and HAL9000, a worldwide leader in the high-definition photography sector. This photographic
technique has two benefits: on one hand, it is a unique instrument of its kind for “monitoring”
the state of the painting and, on the other hand, it allows anyone on the Internet, from any part of
the world, to observe all the parts and details of the work. Thanks to this technology, HAL9000
can also create large high-quality fine art prints of The Last Supper which offer an overall and detailed
visual perception never possible before.

The photograph of The Last Supper, one of the most delicate and protected works in the world, is the
result of many months of work and research, during which specific lighting and photography
techniques were developed. The protection of the painting was, right from the start, the main
concern of the HAL9000 technicians and the Architectural Assets Office; the photography system
designed and implemented by HAL9000 was subject to technical inspection at the Environmental
Control and Physics Laboratory at the Central Restoration Institute in Rome, which decided
the system was totally suitable in accordance with current standards for the safeguarding
of artistic works.

This first and unique, official photographic record of The Last Supper is presented today, in the
‘Bramante’ Sacristy in the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. The presentation
involves talks by Arch. Alberto Artioli, Supervisor of the Milan Landscape and Architectural Assets
Office, Prof. Pietro Marani, President of the Da Vinci Research Institute and Professor of Modern Art
History at the Polytechnic of Milan, as well as HAL9000, the company which took the photographs of
the work. The Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities, Francesco Rutelli, is attending the
press conference.

The project was made possible thanks to the assistance of various partners: AMD, an American
multinational which provided the high-tech processing technology; Clauss, a German company which
provided the high-precision orientation structure, De Agostini, who provided web and communication
support; I-Net, who provided high-speed Internet access, and Nikon, for high-tech state-of-the-art
photographic equipment.


For information:
De Agostini S.p.A. External Relations Department

Elena Dalle Rive, ph. +39 02 38086421 mobile +39 335 7835912
Paola Claudia Scioli, ph. +39 02 38086373, mobile +39 335 5725029

insanely cute stuff

OK - you know who you are. You really need this stuff by Magi.

I will vouch for the artist.

jeff scher animations

From today's New York Times

I like Lost and Found and L'Eau Life

medical notes apply:
Not recommended if you have epilepsy and I may not be a good judge with my synesthesia.

(thanks for the link Jheri)

different realities

cute art watch the movies

(thanks for the link Lillian!)

opensourcery

very cute - using cameras and computers to enhance and create new magic tricks. And it is open source - more (as well as the code) here

art and science at the crossroad

I caught a lecture by Arthur I Miller on the similarity of creativity in 1905 Einstein and 1907 Picasso. (from the WGBH Lectures podcast and a mp3 here).

Highly recommended to those of you with an interest in science or art and, in particular, an interest in science and art.

Miller concentrates on the Special Theory of Relativity and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. I have never considered Picasso as working on simultaneity, but a good case is made.

Although the talk was given at the Perimeter Institute, it is even handed in its treatment of physics and art. I don't think much in the way of background is required to appreciate the talk - heaven knows, I don't know anything about art.

highly recommended!

free commercial 3d software

DAZ has the curious habit of giving away their last software versions and offering reduced costs to go from the old free version to the latest version. The current free version is 5.5 with 6 being a $20 upgrade. OS X and Windows versions.

I don't use Bryce, but have seen some outsanding work by amateurs who use it. The caveats are that buying 3d models can get spendy and there is probably some talent involved in the better renders. But this is probably a gentle introduction to 3d.

(thanks to Jon, a very good Bryce artist, for noting this)

education in the arts

Open Source Radio had a segment on the value of arts education .. something that is dying in "leave no child behind" public schools (but not in the elite private schools where people know it is important).

A quibble - two of the guests implied that NCLB was targeted to train children for technical skills... but this is very wrong. Math and science education is horrible and getting worse. But that is a long subject.

It seems unfair to limit arts education. I never coupled with the classes in K12, but art and music have turned out to be very important in my life. I was lucky - in high school a few teachers encouraged independent thought and the classics - somehow I took the bait.

I'm a terrible artist, but spend some of my free time drawing - some of my best time it turns out...

NCLB encourages a race to the intellectual bottom.

moonrise over jupiter

Another amazing image from the New Horizons flyby of Jupiter. This particular photo was taken primarially for artistic reasons.

if ben franklin was a myst character...

Steampunk eyeglasses (thanks for the link Kris)

Lillian wants a pair.

Bart suggests they must have been made for Tom Waits - best Renfield ever

___

steampunk refers to an alternate history based in the steel, brass and steam of the industrial age. Lots of neat mechanical things. The game Myst and the movie Steamboy are good examples.

through the eyes of an artist

a press release from Stanford in yesterday's email:

Contact: Tracie White
Stanford University Medical Center
Eye diseases gave great painters different vision of their work, Stanford ophthalmologist says

STANFORD, Calif. - Michael Marmor, MD, wanted to know what it was like to see through the eyes of an artist. Literally.

After writing two books on the topic of artists and eye disease, the Stanford University School of Medicine ophthalmologist decided to go one step further and create images that would show how artists with eye disease actually saw their world and their canvases. Combining computer simulation with his own medical knowledge, Marmor has recreated images of some of the masterpieces of the French impressionistic painters Claude Monet and Edgar Degas who continued to work while they struggled with cataracts and retinal disease.

The results are striking.

In Marmor's simulated versions of how the painters would most likely have seen their work, Degas' later paintings of nude bathers become so blurry it's difficult to see any of the artist's brush strokes. Monet's later paintings of the lily pond and the Japanese bridge at Giverny, when adjusted to reflect the typical symptoms of cataracts, appear dark and muddied. The artist's signature vibrant colors are muted, replaced by browns and yellows.

"These simulations may lead one to question whether the artists intended these late works to look exactly as they do," said Marmor who has long had interest in both the mechanics of vision and the vision of artists. "The fact is that these artists weren't painting in this manner totally for artistic reasons."

Degas and Monet were both founders of the Impressionist era, and their artistic styles were well formed before their eye disease affected their vision. But their paintings grew significantly more abstract in later life as, coincidentally, their eye problems increased.

"Contemporaries of both have noted that their late works were strangely coarse or garish and seemed out of character to the finer works that these artists had produced over the years," Marmor wrote in a paper titled "Ophthalmology and Art: Simulation of Monet's Cataracts and Degas' Retinal Disease" that was published in the December issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.

It's well-known that such artists as Monet, Degas, Rembrandt, Mary Cassatt and Georgia O'Keefe all reached their heights of artistic vision while facing a decline in their ocular vision. Marmor chose to focus on Degas and Monet for these simulations because both artists suffered from eye disease that was well-documented in historical records, journals and medical histories. Degas had retinal eye disease that frustrated him for the last 50 years of his long career. Monet complained of cataracts interfering with his ability to see colors for 10 years before he finally underwent surgery to have them removed.

"We understand better from these simulations what Degas and Monet struggled with as vision failed," Marmor said.

Over the past 32 years, the Harvard-educated physician has published 200-plus scientific articles on the science of eye disease while at the same time writing about famous artists and how eye disease may have affected their artwork. He authored one book, Degas Through His Own Eyes, and co-authored another, The Eye of the Artist, with James G. Ravin.

"As an ophthalmologist, I'm fascinated with the visual components of art," said Marmor, whose Stanford home is decorated with pieces of modern art that emphasize optical illusions. His family donated works of art to the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford. "I've also spent years talking to patients about the symptoms of their eye diseases. This was a natural outgrowth of my science and art interests."

One museum curator, Richard Kendall, called Marmor's publications on Degas and Monet "of considerable value to the art historical community."

"I consider him one of the most thoughtful commentators from the scientific community on questions of eyesight among French 19th-century artists,'' said Kendall, who is curator-at-large at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass.

To create the images of the artists' paintings as seen through their own eyes, Marmor used Adobe Photoshop software. He adjusted the blur and filter settings to what he determined would be the different stages of Degas' and Monet's eye diseases, based on medical expertise and historical research.

Degas suffered failing vision from 1860 to 1910. As his eye disease progressed, his paintings grew increasingly rough. From treating hundreds of patients with retinal disease similar to what Degas suffered, Marmor said, he knows that the shading and contrast of images becomes less defined and blurriness increases as such illness progresses.

"Friends would ask Degas, 'Why are you still painting?'" Marmor wrote in his December paper. "His works in the 1870s were drawn quite precisely with facial detail, careful shading and attention to the folding of ballet costumes and towels." By the 1880s and 1890s, the shading lines and details of the face, hair and clothing of the same subjects became progressively less refined.

"After 1900," Marmor said, "these effects were quite extreme and many pictures seem mere shadows of his customary style."

Monet wrote of his growing frustration with his deteriorating vision, describing how he was forced to memorize where the colors were placed on his palette. In 1914 he wrote in his correspondence that colors no longer had the same intensity. "Reds had begun to look muddy," he wrote. "My painting was getting more and more darkened." He was forced to rely on the labels on the tubes of paint in place of his own vision.

"Like retinal disease, cataracts also blur vision," Marmor said, "but more importantly for a painter like Monet, whose style was based on the use of light and color, they can affect the ability to see colors."

"Monet must have struggled mightily as he looked out into the murky yellow-brown garden and tried to decide what subtle impression to create on canvas," Marmor wrote in the December paper. "Slowly progressive age-related cataracts manifest as yellowing and darkening of the lens. This has a major effect on color perception as well as visual acuity."

After reluctantly submitting to cataract surgery in 1923, Monet returned to his original painting style, even throwing away much of the artwork he'd done during the 10-year period that he had cataracts.

"He just couldn't see the colors," Marmor said. "These simulations show how much his sense of color had been destroyed. Some people say, 'Oh, it's a stylistic change.' Gosh, I don't think so."

Understanding the challenges these artists faced because of eye disease helps further illuminate the accomplishments they achieved despite their disabilities, Marmor said.

"There's some reluctance among people in the art world to look outside the historical or psychological influences on the great artists," Marmor said. "I'm open to debate about what these visual changes might mean stylistically or aesthetically. What is not open to debate is what the artists saw. If you ignore that, you're ignoring facts."

###

neat audi tt wind tunnelish piece

Some interesting cg work to sell Audi TTs in Australia

They also have a tiny bit more with still images on Flickr and a note that the visuals were generated using Processing (very cool!)

remarkable hdr photography

Very nice HDR photography from stevacek

numerous excellent images .. I really like his train photo

Of course a normal monitor is insufficient to really appreciate this stuff (and I suffer along)

serious monitors

Few people need a good monitor, but for those who know want sRGB is and realize it is lame, LCD monitors have emerged to rival the best CRTs.

So if you are serious about art on your screen and have (more than) a few bucks, read this test of three professional quality monitors - with one being seriously less expensive than the competition.

list of open image sources

a nice source (via dailykos) ... some are in the public domain, others are CC and some are mixed in with copyrighted materials, so you should check first

microscopic art

beautiful images of the microworld...

excellent holiday card

From Carl Buell...

Of course the real present is seeing him working again ... this is some of the best natural history art there is.

check out his Olduvai George blog for samples

the last remaining reason to own a radio has vanished...

This American Life is now available as a podcast!

free (of course) and updated on Mondays

___

I've been grabbing the stream for a few years and time/space shifting it, but the podcast quality is better than fm or Internet streaming.

color with gun and camera

Understanding color is a necessity for most art. Adobe has a neat little tool called Kuler for doing just that. It also links to Adobe's Swatch Exchange (.ASE) to link to the various Creative Suite Components - as well as with other users online.

Very useful. The big issue, of course, is a calibrated monitor and most people don't have one worthy of real calibration and/or the ability to calibrate ... but Kuler is still an interesting little art application.

holiday recreation

It looks like I won't be getting around to recreational reading over the holiday.

Photoshop user from the dawn of time (before it was Photoshop or from Adobe:-)

____

The National Association of Photoshop Professionals has a few video previews of PS CS3 online. PS is sufficiently complex that it makes sense to join this organization for a year or two just for the instructional tools they provide. If you are really serious about PS, consider it part of the price.

a designing gift

I attempt to draw ... no real talent, but it is a nice way to remove yourself from normal work and find a bit of inspiration here and there.

A few years ago I was given a Inuos₃ tablet. After years of mousing it was completely liberating. I strongly recommend one of these beasts if you play with any sort of digital art.

Mine is a 6" x 8" model and is about the right size for me - larger units are cumbersome and expensive and, in my case, smaller units are a bit too small. The "pro" Intuos line matches my needs - the higher resolution pressure and tilt sensitivity are important. If you are new to this it might make sense to start with the less expensive Graphire line.

Each to his/her own though ... a friend happens to be one of the first significant digital artists. She was active in 1975 and used Lisp machines during the 80s. Most of her work these days is experimental video, but she uses a mouse when she draws.

Software is a more difficult call. I use Photoshop for most of my work (I know... that isn't what its made for...) largely because I am very comfortable with the program and have been using it approximately forever. There is something of a learning curve, but the tools are incredible. I also use Sketch Book Pro (now from Autodesk -- my copy is ancient ... I'd gladly "test" a new copy Lynn) and ArtRage. ArtRage 2 is very inexpensive and, combined with a Wacom Graphire tablet, may be a nice way to get your feet wet.

moore and the power of art

Corinne mentioned a Henry Moore sculpture (the amazing mother and child in St. Paul's). Somehow that sparked a memory of his his study on a tube shelter in London in during the blitz.

It is so dark and bleak - you can feel the fear. Yet there is still an element of hope. People are gathered as a community and are protecting themselves from something foreign. It may have been England's darkest moment, but it wasn't hopeless.

How would Moore sketch Baghdad 2006? What would he sculpt? Is there any hope?

ad supported hardware

Leah gets her laptop

probably excellent theft protection.

People have been laser etching and mechanically engraving laptops for some time, but selling space to buy a machine is novel. Of course selling it now will be more difficult unless you are a recognizable brand yourself.

There are a few shops that specialize in this. Assuming you provide the art prices range from $100 to $600. Some people go to local shops with computer driven laser engravers and do better - the $50 range. You can also go the non-permanent route with stickers or decals - but maximum cool demands engraving or etching

donald duck and the dutch patent office

Carl Barks was a very clever guy. Under his pen Donald Duck stories were very creative, often with interesting gadgets - paint brushes that painted patterns to robotic helpers to raising ships with ping pong balls.

It turns out a ship was raised by this technique about fifteen years after the comic book was printed. The technique was patented, but the Dutch Patent Office claimed prior art (the comic) and turned down the application.

This became the stuff of legend. I remember the comic book - I've read most of the Donald Duck series (with great pleasure) and I remember descriptions of the real salvage in magazines like Popular Science. Here is the full (almost) story.

the return of olduvai george

I thought he had gone away, but Olduvai George (Carl Buell) is back (thanks for noting this Adam)

Some nice illustration work

typing pictures

WordsEye

Very cool stuff. Type in a few words and create a picture. You have to register, but I strongly recommend doing so and playing.

Note that there are interesting ambiguities in English that can be exploited.

beautiful biology cg

I have read that biology is one of the largest markets for computer generated animation ...

Greg points to a beautiful example.

great new yorker cover

make something for adult swim

or youtube

A kit to help you make 2D animations - all you add is your talent.

a short tutorial (windows media) giving an idea how the program works

Potentially a huge toy for a certain type of person.

reflecting on pavilions

Thinking about things and meditating a bit today, I found myself going through reproductions of Tao-Chi, one of my favorite artists.

The painting is Pavilion Reflections at Sunset and somehow it speaks deeply to me today.

free poser 5

Adam points out Poser 5 is being offered for $0 through September 4.

Poser 5 is the last generation of Poser, but apparently more than adequate for anyone looking for posing figures to learn how to draw, making simple 3d sets (very low end CG), and apparently the things you create can be uploaded into Second Life for those of you who are into that sort of thing.

A big download and yet another learning curve, but low end CG might be fun for some of you.

upgrade to simplicity

Ars Electronica 2006 has the right theme this year.

The festival is underway in Linz and a webpage with links to a blog and podcast are online. A good place to hunt over the next few days.

alternatives to passive entertainment

Recently I saw a report aimed at the upper management of one of the larger tv/phone/internet providers. The message was that people loved to be entertained and, by providing them with entertainment everywhere, profits will be wonderful. There were details about securing the paths to the viewers (oddly enough IPTV is seen as making the viewers "active" rather than "passive") and making sure upstream datapaths from households are small, but the big message was "content is king" and there will be a revolution in content delivery.

I don't buy it. Content has never been king - communication has been more important historically (nods in the general direction of Andy). People have limits - most won't happily pay more than $200 a month to have "convenient" movies available on their TVs, cellphone and computers. $2 songs on their mobile phones aren't going to cut it.

What encourages me is the growth of amateur activity

am·a·teur (ăm'ə-tûr', -tər, -chʊr', -chər, -tyʊr') n.

A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.

I would modify this ... A person who passionately engages ...

Many (most) of those around me have some amateur activity where they actively grow. I was tempted to make a list, but I would miss too many people - I'm really impressed with much of the work I've seen. Photography is common, music for some, art for others and even amateur science (Sukie is a well respected amateur ferret medical expert). One person makes computer numerically controlled machines that are used to make more exotic machines, yet another makes guitars from scratch. Several are passionate about cooking as an art, a few are serious skiers, some make short movies and one is a B-movie actress. The list goes on and on. If you fund yourself you can not only live a dream, but stick with it and your skills will improve. These are all fascinating people.

I relax by attempting digital art and music. Don't be impressed. I'm astonishingly bad, but I'm the only audience and have a low threshold for quality. With help from a few mentors I'm slowly improving and the act of creation has fundamentally changed how I hear and see things around me.

For those who use computers, the tools are better than ever. My little twelve inch laptop may not be the best platform for doing art, but my desktop machine is just fine. A few thousand dollars gives me the same tools used by some of the best artists on the planet. This is the same amount of money we would be sending to our TV provider in a few years if we opted for high end entertainment rather than "lifeline" TV service.

I recommend this sort of activity to almost anyone - I haven't found any TV shows that are as rewarding as my low quality artwork - at least to me. (I note it is the act of making the items that is important to me - I generally destroy the results)

There are a few great things on TV and one shouldn't abandon the medium, but all of you have something more in your creative souls than being able to laugh along with a sitcom. Perhaps you can get together with friends and create your own show. Look at the beginnings of Rocketboom or some of the early shows on Adult Swim -- or SouthPark for that matter.

The Fall TV season and the relative inactivity of Winter are approaching. Forget that new HDTV. Give thought to scaling back your cable bill. Give yourself some tools and lessons with the savings. Your consumption of media may drop a bit, but when people at the holiday party as what you are reading or what you thing about some hit show, you can talk about your artwork, musical arrangement, homemade cosmic ray telescope, or whatever ...

_______

I apologize for the soapboxing, but there are richer activities than being passively entertained.

takagi masakatsu

Apple has a short piece on the artist Takagi Masakatsu. Of course they are trying to sell computers, but the power of Takagi's work is so great that you ignore that.

His musical style is eclectic - even IDM:-)

Take a look at the sample videos linked from his site.

pencil sales in japan

It seems tracing calligraphy in the style used at the time of Basho is popular these days.

my favorite Basho piece:

Mono no aware

Murasaki iro no hana
Haru no hana
To fuyu mo koyuki
Harahara

Shizen no bi kana
Ah! Midori no ha to
Aki no iro

Kaze no koe
Tori no saezuri
Kanashii umi
Yorokobino umi
Yama
Koishi
Ayameghusa

Wild Violet

The poignancy of things
A purple flower
The blossom of springs
and the light snow of winter
How they fall

The beauty of nature
A green leaf and
Autumn colours

The voice of the wind
The song of birds
A sad sea
A joyful sea
Mountains
Pebbles
A wild iris

(the image above was done electronically - no pencils were harmed in its production)

superman

On this morning's walk I was listening to Studio 360's July 7^th podcast on, of all things, Superman.

Did you know about the comicbook's Jewish origins? lots of other stuff.

the audio link (it should play all of the show segments)

throw some paint around

Thanks for the link Greg.

light and music boxes

I've been taken with the playfulness and simplicity of Jin-Yo Mok's installations ... check out the Sonic Column and various music boxes.

more pavement drawings

Some time ago we noted a page with amazing pavement drawings.

Greg notes that it has been updated.

very neat

neat drawing program

For those who have Wacom tablets ... there is a new version of Artrage.

The free program is neat and the paid version isn't too spendy at $20...

I spent quite a bit of time with the old version last Summer and was impressed.

windows

... and apples.

(thanks to Joe for passing this on .. it seems to be turning up in many places)

play with 3d modeling

A few months ago Google acquired SketchUp - they have just released a watered down, but free version.

sigh .. OS X version "coming soon" ...

ducks in the spring

A few years ago we noted duckomenta, but it is always good and Julia suggests a revisit.

ah copyright

Yesterday I was delighted to see Google's celebration of Jon Miro's work, but also noticed it disappeared by evening.

hmmm ....

as music videos evolve

I've been noticing that some of the indie folks have been producing very interesting music videos for their sites that sometimes border on the stunning.

Try this one from Sigur Rós for the track Glōsōli from Takk...

art and computers

What happens if the basics are neglected?

I suspect all real artists can and will still draw well. My belief is computer tools give those of us who are not skilled (or who don't have enough time to practice) a vehicle for expressing ourselves. Garageband for music and any number of art programs for the visual arts. The great stuff will still be done by pros, but enabling a larger portion of the population to play (and appreciate!) is a great thing.

google @last

strange ... Google has acquired @Last Software - the makers of SketchUp (a piece of software I want, but can't justify)

led art installation

very nice ...

a camera senses people approaching and alters the display and sound ... check the video

___

(via pixelsumo)

photographic gear

In the past two weeks two friend have asked me for camera recommendations. One was confused by the hyper abundance of models and the other was looking for a dSLR to improve the quality of family photos.

I'm not a terribly good photographer myself, but I know a few people who are (Bjarne and Lynn among the readers of this blog and a few professionals). I have a sense that the quality of photographers follows a powerlaw curve. At the high end there is a combination of genius, art, hard work and training. At the low end there is ... well ... not much. Most of us can greatly improve our photography through experimentation, study and feedback ... taking a course or even getting involved with online photography support groups (Tips from the Top Floor as an example) can dramatically improve one's art.

I will go so far as to claim that a sophisticated/serious camera in the hands of an unskilled user will decrease the quality of the image. (have you ever watched a rich kid try to drive a Porsche with a manual transmission and a racing clutch?) At some point a good camera, lenses, etc will improve your art. In the hands of a real photographer, art can be done with almost anything (a great camera helps, but I've seen brilliant images taken with a Kodak Brownie).

The great thing about digital photography is that you can afford to make mistakes. Taking thousands of photos won't bankrupt you. A cheap point and shoot is sufficient for the basics as is a dSLR, but the point and shoot has the potential of living with you allowing you to experiment and increase your skills at a much faster rate (I don't see too many people lugging around with a dSLR everywhere they go). Don't get me wrong - a dSLR is capable of better photography than a point and shoot - but the trick is to learn photography. Learn composition. Learn how to pose. Learn how to control light. Learn postproduction. Learn printing (an area where I have made very little progress)

My advice is to get something that you can comfortably control (don't get me started on horrible digital camera interfaces), get a flash and tripod (or beanbag) and practice practice practice. Don't worry about the most expensive camera you can afford because, when you are a good photographer a year or two down the road, you probably can do better and will have a better perspective of what you really need.

[If you have the bucks and know you will be sticking with the hobby, get the dSLR and a good point and shoot (I admit to have drooled over the new Leica-ish Lumix - I haven't tried it, but this may be the first serious digital camera with a usable interface)]

Good photographers should ignore my comments as they already know/have what they need for their particular flavor of art. One friend has a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II - it is so large that I would never use it. He does lug it around and creates spectacular imagery. Another friend does amazing art with his tiny Canon ELPH. He usually shoots medium format digital, but that is for fashion and ad photography - the Canon is for his own use and he says he is more creative with it than the big camera.

mechanical umbrellas and dancing

Singing in the Rain performed by some mechanical umbrellas. (thanks for the link Jheri)

getting the right angle

painting rooms for optical illusions ...

Different from anamorphic sidewalks, but very cool.

the hotel as performance art

A few days ago the New York Times had a pictorial on a show on new Spanish architecture. Hunting around found a site about one of the more interesting projects - a hotel covered with LEDs that is wrapped with a mesh of 500 three color LEDs that change color according to how much light each node on the mesh saw during the previous day.

James Clar, the lighting architect, has more information on his site.

inspiration for the make crowd

possible inspiration for Make-like projects from the Craft Technology Group at the University of Colorado

and if you are looking for real inspiration, try The Cabaret Mechancial Theater

homemade manga

Lots of amateur artists (particularly kids) are going to like this ... Manga Studio from e Frontier (the same people who currently do Poser)

It looks like a vector art program geared to the needs of manga/comic artists.

sand as performance art

Sandra notes some interesting performance art (sigh - windows media) - I like the piece imagine ... (I'm not taken with the music, but this brings back memories of finger painting)

so try this at home!

the british library online gallery

Go there - now!

I'm browsing through the Mozart ... it looks like the evening is shot.

staying positive on masahiro mori's curve

About six years ago I was doing a bit of art that required a careful collaging of several digital images. Early experiments were easy to describe with a quick sketch. Making them at a quality that looked good on a PC screen (about 8" x 10" at 72 dpi) involved a quick scan of images from 35mm negatives and perhaps 30 minutes of Photoshop.

The initial experiments were encouraging enough that a more serious run was tried. Serious studio time produced 6x7cm negatives that were digitized by a drum scanner. I wasn't able to use the full resolution because Photoshop wasn't able to handle 100 MByte files at the time, but to get acceptable results at a slightly lower resolution I found that I had to spend nearly 20 hours on each image. It seemed the eye was much more sensitive to finding mistakes when presented these richer and more detailed images.

I wanted to be able to print at 11 x 14 inches, but the quality just wasn't there. Technically I could do it now with Photoshop on my PowerMac G5 with its 8 GB of RAM and 1 TB of disk space, but the amount of work required would be at least 20 hours ...

The funny thing is people really liked the lower quality images that looked great on PC screens or low quality prints.

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Move ahead a few years to the CG movie Final Fantasy. Not only did the story bite, but the attempt at high resolution quality just failed. It was below the axis on Masahiro Mori's curve ... A few decades ago he made the suggestion that high quality computer generated images (or robotics or anything artificial) that weren't perfect would elicit a more negative response from the viewer than a very coarse figure .... a simple anime movie may be a more enjoyable experience than FF given the same sound track and story.

People have suggested this is one of the problems with games on Xbox 360 and (coming) on PS3. The costs of generating something acceptable at high quality may be astronomical to avoid "the uncanny valley" ... One wonders how many games can be produced if they cost $20 million each and the visual part of the gameplay is inferior to lower powered fare .... (speculation only)

I buy this and find it encouraging. There are many great stories out there. You don't need to spend $100M to make a believable CG movie with them -- perhaps $1M of animation is sufficient.

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Back to my 2d static art experiments. I would use digital medium format cameras to cut costs (the 12 hour shoot we had burned $8k worth of film and development) and Photoshop is certainly powerful enough now. But the amount of time to create a flawless 30 to 40 megapixel image makes me think twice.

art i need

I didn't know I needed it until Greg pointed it out...

perhaps I don't need it, but wow!