Moth TV

Here is Elliott’s video of the Moth TV guys visit he other day. Anyone else got any footage we can put up here?

Interactive Swedish Piano Stairs

I love this idea which has just appeared on youtube. Funnily enough I read an interview with guitarist Les Paul who died recently about when he first started making guitars, he was interested in the sound properties of wood. He took the wooden treads off the stairs at home and planed them down to different thicknesses so that when he ran up the stairs they sounded like a marimba.

Interesting Blog Links

Below are links to a few really great designer blogs, some great ideas here, worth a look.

SHOWSTUDIO Raw Power

Here’s a good opportunity for a live brief for a Specialist Project, click on the images above to go to the site:

“SHOWstudio invite you to collaborate with Nick Knight, Alexander McQueen and PUMA in a unique competition designed to push the boundaries of filmmaking and fashion imagery creation to the very limit.

Our Raw Power competition offers young filmmakers, artists and directors the chance to create a video short by splicing their own unique film material with footage captured during Nick Knight’s ‘Crane Vs. Tiger’ shoot for the Alexander McQueen PUMA S/S 2010 campaign.

One winning filmmaker, chosen by Nick Knight and Alexander McQueen, will be commissioned to direct the Alexander McQueen PUMA Spring/Summer 2010 art movie, previewed on major fashion websites and visible in key fashion department stores and boutiques worldwide from January 2010.”

Moth TV

http://www.vimeo.com/3923290

We are pleased to announce that Moth TV will be coming in to talk about their work and run a workshop on Monday 12th October after all at 13.30. The workshop will go on until 8.00 in the evening so we are able to do projections outside. This is an essential session for all second years studying the Future Cinema unit and is also open to any interested third years.

“MOTH formed in November 2008 in the shadows of East London warehouses, flyovers and canal towpaths. Comprising digital artists Ed Firth and Shaun O’Connor, MOTH is united by a passion for experimental technology and for pushing the boundaries of traditional VJing. MOTH bridges the divide between video mixing and street art, generating site-specific video graffiti designed in response to the morphology, texture and ambience of the spaces and structures of the outside world.

In freeing projected visuals from the confined interior, the rectangular screen and the static projector, and introducing the dimensions of time and motion to street art, MOTH aims to develop a new discipline by exploring and exploiting the possibilities of roaming projection and the concept of psychogeography. Two wireless, wearable projection units connected to media tablets allow the artists to move freely around their environment, selecting and relaying pre-produced film and animation designed specifically for that arena.

MOTH’s approach is to explore a space, a structure or an area and respond to its shape, history, context and connotations through projected film and animation, treating the surfaces not just as a screen but as an element of a cinematic and theatrical installation. Recent commissions have revolved around exciting architecture and interesting, unloved fixtures of London’s urban landscape, from the Bow Flyover and Ladbroke Grove’s West Way to Heritage-Listed national treasures such as the Trellick Tower and the V&A Museum, and the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-On-Sea.”

http://www.vimeo.com/5622050

Meetdraw

Next Wednesday evening there is a Digital Media Networking event taking place in town and I’ve been asked to open the event up to final year students – www.meetdraw.com

Meetdraw has been organised by some of the regions leading digital agencies (Redweb, Refreshed Media, Adido, MCorp, etc) in an effort to emulate the type of social network that happens in around Soho and other cities with large concentrations of media agencies.  It is hoped it will provide a fertile ground for freelancers to tout their wares and for the agencies to share ideas and recruit their staff…

This is the third event of this sort that has been run and the previous two have been a big success, with in excess of 150 attendees and this one promises to be even better as the event is being sponsored to the tune of £300 behind the bar – of course, you’re welcome to come along too.

Meetdraw is taking place next Wednesday 14^th October @

THE WINCHESTER PUB
39 POOLE HILL
BOURNEMOUTH BH2 5PW
6PM TIL LATE

To make the event even more interactive, Meetdraw is hosting a Meet Counter:

1. Think of a question you want an answer to and write it down on entry or download a ticket from our website
2. On the night you will be given a number from the Meet Counter. Attach this to your person
3. Wait for somebody to find you with the answer
4. Keep your eyes on the screen. Perhaps somebody has a question you can answer!

Pepper’s Ghost

“Pepper’s ghost is an illusionary technique used in theatre and in some magic tricks. Using a plate glass and special lighting techniques, it can make objects seem to appear or disappear, or make one object seem to “morph” into another.”

Last week I was in Birmingham and came across two examples of Pepper’s Ghost.

The first one was in Cadbury World where they used Pepper’s Ghost as part of a narrative description of the history of Cadbury’s chocolate. The effect works well combining video with 3D real life objects.

There were a number of interactive games also worth a look designed by HMC Interactive.

Later that day I went into the Bull Ring Centre to check out the Orange Monkey Hologram gig , another example of Pepper’s Ghost. “Orange launch the Orange Monkey Hologram Gigs featuring hologram performances from ‘Mama Do’ singing sensation Pixie Lott, MOBO Award winning N-Dubz and the UK’s ‘Number One’ Tinchy Stryder.

The UK’s first ever multi artist hologram tour celebrates the launch of Monkey, Orange’s brand new Pay As You Go tariff with 4Music, which gives you free music and text messages just for topping up £10 a month.”

Not quite my sort of music but an interesting effect, still some way to go though before it offers a believable hologram effect.

David Lynch on the iPhone

Does it matter where and how we view a film? How do our perceptions of films change when they are viewed in the cinema, or at home, or on a plane, or at uni…..or on a phone? What do you think?

Telling Tales

Whilst in London for the Walking in My Mind exhibition I made a quick dash to the Victoria and Albert Museum to take in the Telling Tales exhibition.

“This exhibition explores the recent trend among European designers for unique or limited edition pieces that push the boundaries between art and design. It showcases furniture, lighting and ceramics, designed by a new generation of international designers, including Tord Boontje, Maarten Baas, Jurgen Bey and Studio Job, who are all inspired by the spirit of story-telling. Each tells a tale through their use of decorative devices, historical allusions or choice of materials, sharing common themes such as fantasy, parody and a concern with mortality.”

There is a particularly nice Flash site of the exhibits HERE

Walking in My Mind

An exhibition I really enjoyed was Walking in My Mind at the Hayward Gallery.
“Walking in My Mind explores the inner workings of the artist’s imagination through immersive, large-scale installation art. Ten international artists transform the Hayward Gallery’s indoor galleries and outdoor sculpture terraces into a series of gigantic sculptural environments, each of which represents an individual mindscape. Interior worlds of emotions, thoughts, memories and dreams collide with exterior reality, blurring the boundaries between inner and outer space.”

Artists include:
Charles Avery, Thomas Hirschhorn, Yayoi Kusama, Bo Christian Larsson, Mark Manders, Yoshitomo Nara, Jason Rhoades, Pipilotti Rist, Chiharu Shiota and Keith Tyson.

I thought this was a really nicely curated exhibition that made excellent use of the Hayward space. At times it was difficult to relate the exhibition to the usual inner space of the gallery. The exhibition provoked many interesting problems about how an artist can portray the inner workings of the human mind and where ideas come from.