GAY = SIN from Matthew Brown on Vimeo.
Matthew Brown has made a video which he shares on Vimeo, looking at how some people are so thoroughly opposed to the ‘gay lifestyle’ – which I interpret simply as opposition to the fact that gay people exist – that they feel compelled to share their distain for others in a as public a forum as is possible. He overlays critical audio over images captured of friends sharing special times together. The sounds so awfully contrast with the clement, benign and thoroughly gregarious nature of the images portrayed – pictures that could not be further from the audio that accompanies them. The result is artistic and thought provoking, as well as not just a little bit beautiful.
Check out the video link for an High Definition version which, through its clarity, renders the images yet more poignant and meaningfull.
Enseada dos Tubarões (“Shark Inlet”) [on the Brazilian ‘Fernando de Noronha‘ archipelago} gets its name from the sharks that visit the inlet during the high tide. They seem to enjoy swimming in the quiet shallow waters (it’s prohibited to go down to the beach). The best time to spot them is during the high tide in the morning, when there’s more sunlight on the water. Since I’m not one for getting up early, we went in the afternoon, and saw 5 sharks swimming around, all in single file.
This has suddenly, (as in just now) become a place I’d like to visit. Like? Love. More information available on Wikipedia. Quote & Image by Jim Skea.
A new display technology to be released by Microsoft today called Surface could be a dangerous threat to Apple Computer (as well as others like Philips, Sony and Nokia). It’s essentially a multi-touch screen embedded into table that allows the user(s) to interact with it through using their hands as well as objects placed on the table itself. You could use your fingers to grab the edges of a photo to make it bigger or just drag it ‘into’ a mobile phone that’s laying on the ‘Surface’ and in connnection with the device. This dragging move would simply drop the image into the mobile phone’s storage. It could be used (according to Microsoft) to plan directions to or from a location (such as if it were placed in a coffee shop/airline departure or arrivals lound/museum).
What’s interesting about the technology is that the brains behind it are not all that revolutionary. Many of the techniques shown have been displayed in other forum like Jeff Han’s multi-touch talks at the 2006 and 2007 TED conferences, the music browsing application’s technique of flipping the album cover art to show a track listing (showed at Steve Jobs’ January 2007 Macworld(iPhone) Keynote). Embedded dots on the bottom of an article would read the pre-programmed intentions of an object (like a higly reduced Datamatrix machine readable barcode). The underlying technology isn’t new but screwing it all together in a pleasing way is. This is the realm of Apple’s strengths and Microsoft, in a number of areas of late, has been showing its design acumen is not as faulty as sometimes thought.
This device could be a success for Microsoft, and ironically if Apple were to have made it I don’t think it would be. Why? Because the technology relies on interaction with other companies and partnering with groups to place the device, something that Apple is very weak on. A great example is the iPhone currently on the route to release. It may be a fantastic product but months after its announcement, developers still don’t know if it will be open to outside applications or whether it will be locked down to only Apple-approved initiatives. Of course Microsoft isn’t always successful in this field: see technologies like its Spot watches and other devices that are based on FM radio transmissions of data over the air. The project is still running but never gained anything like the momentum Microsoft must have hoped it would attain.
What’s most dangerous about this development is that it makes Microsoft look cool and hip. If you can simply place your iPodZune onto your Surface at home and it starts piping music through your home theatre system without the hassle of having to network it up with your PC then that makes Microsoft look good. Even better if you can do that with your Zune at a friend’s house. Or a friend’s player at your house. It’s the social interaction that is key and makes devices like this work. Getting maps at a coffee shop has limited appeal after a while. There’s no reason why you’d rather do it there than your PC at home, but sharing photos or videos of a recent vacation is much more fun at a local third-space than in your office cubicle.
The technology is amazing because it’s not the technology that’s interesting. It’s the content partners and the network of locations that counts. This isn’t perhaps the type of thing that’s going to be in an average home for some time yet but it’s the perfect thing to have in a B2C environment like a coffee shop/dentist waiting room or even a corporate foyer. These play directly into Microsoft’s strengths, and Apple’s weaknesses.
The WSJ’s D-Conference joint interview today between Jobs and Gates should be interesting.
Un de les choses le plus drole que j’ai vu dupuis longtemps: quelqun a mis leur cameraphone sur le courroie d’un restaurant de sushi au Japon. Personne a fait rien sauf faire signe de la main. Ahh, une ville sans les voleurs! Le meilleure truc, je pense, est quand l’appareil va dans la cuisine. Chouette!
This photoshoot by Cliff Watts, proves to me how talented an actress Lindsay Lohan is. Not only can she act, but the fact that she can model as so clearly demonstrated in these shots, with the variety and quality of poses offered, really affirms my respect for her. She may be a party animal and currently a bit off the rails , but her talent shines. It’s impressive.
The UK’s Turner Prize for modern art has a history or rather controvertial pieces and outspoken critics. This year one of the shortlisted artists combines these two aspects of the prize to produce a piece of installation art that refers to aspects of the UK’s current political climate as well as our conceptions of protest. Mark Wallinger has recreated many of the placards, posters and signs of the peace protestor Brian Haw who has maintained a daily protest opposite the Houses of Parliament since June 2001. The government, long embarassed by the protests tried, in 2005, to pass a law (widely seen as) specifically aimed at Mr Haw.
On a side note, Mr Haw can clearly be a prickly character. Here’s an exchange that accompanies the photo below, which I found on Flickr:
I went to Tate Britain yesterday to see Mark Wallinger’s recreation of Brian Haw’s Parliament Square protest. It’s incredible. Afterwards I thought I’d walk down to the square and see Brian for myself. He was making a cup of tea and when I asked him if I could please take a photo he didn’t seem to mind. . . . until that is I decided it might be a good time to make polite chit chat . . . here’s how it went . . . .
Tommy: “How are you today?”
Brian Haw: “Don’t ask me such fucking stupid questions!”
I apologised and then left. I didn’t think it was that much of a shit question.
What’s interesting about Wallinger’s piece is that his nomination opens the Tate up to criticisms of again producing art that isn’t really art. He may be making a social commentary about the works of Haw, but does a subject become ‘art’ by simply moving from its usual environment? This is especially relevant when it is being moved only a couple of hundred metres from outside the Houses of Parliament to within the confines of the Tate Gallery. It’s hardly original work. Haw’s work is original, while Wallinger’s comes across as simply a pale representation others’s passion. The photo right displays this perfectly for me. While Haw’s face has elements of peace, hope, cheekiness, and determination, Wallinger’s look is that of utter boredom. You can’t be bored at a protest. While Haw has to daily live with the threat of police harassment and trouble-makers from the general public Wallinger can sit in safety and paint a line along the floor of his exhibition space demarkating the scope of the law barring ‘unauthorised protests’ within one mile of Parliament. [see 'Make Peace Not War' on Flickr]
Christoph Grunenberg, the director of Tate Liverpool, where the prize will be presented, added that the jury, of which he is chair, said: “It was not our intention to set out a political message. It was just interesting that we discovered this pattern which seemed to emerge. Only after the jury had met and discussed the works did we realise there was a strong concentration of political work and work about religious beliefs and spirituality.
“It’s an obvious truth, but works of art are actually political acts and artists act as mediators. If you look at the artists this year, there is a spectrum of overtly political works such as Wallinger’s and pieces that are about the individual’s relationship to the world they live in.” The Independent
The debate about the value of ‘conceptual art’ is openly acknowledged by the Tate, addressed on their Turner Prize website by [in part]:
‘Conceptual art’ is also used to label work which makes us think or challenges our assumptions about what art is or should be. So is the real problem that contemporary art does not fit neatly into people’s ideas of what art should look like (something based on craft and skill, that can be hung neatly in their living room perhaps?) and so is dismissed as conceptual, and by association not worth the effort? Rather than reacting against the conceptual and the contemporary with a knee-jerk reaction of ‘But is it art?’, we should celebrate the possibilities that have been opened up so that artists – and viewers – can tackle ideas and issues and engage in debate. Is it not better, and more exciting, to leave preconceptions behind and look with a fresh eye and an open mind? Turner Prize: Conceptual Art – ‘cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit’
My preferred artist from the shortlist would be Zarina Bhimji whose work, for me, is evocative of political upheaval and strife and difficulty by maintains an interpretative element that seems to be lacking in Wallinger’s work.
Si tous les enfants veulent devenir astronautes, c’est pour se barrer de cette Terre où ils devront vivre toute leur vie…
Seriously amazing video. The voiceover is a bit odd, but the visuals (especially if you don’t understand french) are amazing! I especially like the bit with the pigeon. If that’s not an incentive to watch, I don’t know what is!
//If this video disappears from YouTube, email me.
3rd April: SNCF train breaks world rail speed record by reaching 574,8 km/h.
5th April, a crash at Gare de l’Est in Paris because the driver simply “n’a pas réussi à freiner en temps”: didn’t succeed in braking in time, and hit the bumpers on the station platform. The problem was believed to be human error as a monitoring system is in place that operates at speeds above 10km/h The train had over a thousand passengers on board, 71 were injured.
A couple of hours ago, on initially seeing this image, I was startled into thinking I thought I’ve been even more out of the news that I have in fact been, managing to miss an entire G8 summit. This stunning photograph, an addition to the photostream of a new Flickr contact had me jumping onto Google News to see what the Group of Eight had been up to recently, only to dig deeper and find that the demonstration shown here took place in July 2005. Phew. This particularly resonated with me because I found out today that over the past week I’d missed the whole news about a number of British Navy Seamen being held captive by Iranian force in the Gulf. News of ‘aveux contraints’, ‘political sacrifices’, ‘la patience et la détermination’, les ‘bras de fer’ et ‘les libérations dès que possible’ all around, and me in center of European international cooperation, oblivious. Oops. Clearly I’ve been reading the wrong news. Less Sopranos, tvs and more international politics I think.
