sundance

Portsmouth Sinfonia: the supremely average orchestra

My ears have just been educated and exposed to a cultural artifact from the the 1970s, which had me guffawing. Considered a milestone decade for music, this period also witnessed the birth of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an orchestra at England’s Portsmouth School of Art that specialized in decidedly unexcellent warbled performances of well known classical [...]

Doug Aitken at Regen Projects

Doug Aitken isn’t any one thing. He’s a photographer, a filmmaker, a sculptor and an installation artist. Sometimes his work is completely tech-based and other times it’s hand-crafted. But the common thread evident in all his work is a fascination with and mastery of new media. Whether he’s projecting video onto the side of a [...]

Design in the way

Michael Bierut over at Design Observer has written a great essay about NYC’s Times Square and the recent purchase by the city of 376 lawn chairs. The chairs were a hit with tourists, but not with design snobs and were quickly replaced to more tasteful chairs. But are the people sitting on these new chairs [...]

Wisconsin monastery may be greenest building in the US

Yesterday, the Holy Wisdom Monastery in Madison, Wisconsin, held its first mass in a new 30,000 square-foot building that may be the greenest in the country. The Benedictine Women of Madison‘s new home features “Geothermal heating and cooling; solar panels; windows that open and natural lighting in all occupied spaces; rain gardens; roof gardens; tankless water heaters; and a slew of reused furniture including a renovated organ…” The sisters believe their new building has a “high probability” of receiving 63 of 69 LEED points, which would beat out the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center (also in Wisconsin), the current top dog of the US green building scene.

Raggedy Ann & Andy’s big move

Toy collectors of the world, like myself, will lose a special place this year.  The Raggedy Ann & Andy Museum located in Arcola, Il. is set to close by year’s end. The dolls, created by Johnny Gruelle in 1915, have had tremendous staying power. Their likeness has appeared on products ranging from nutcrackers to spinach cans [...]

Writer defends adulterers, calls the rest of us “holier than thou”

photo via venetia_joubert_sarah_oosterveld

If you’ve listened to Howard Stern even once over the past decade (that’d be Em, not Lo), then you know that one of his most loyal advertisers is the Ashley Madison Agency — the online dating site that caters to married people with the tagline “Life is short. Have an affair.” Charming. On and off over the years, we’ve thought about reporting on Ashley Madison, but every time we did, steam would come out of our ears and we’d realize that our entire article would consist of seven words, most likely typed in all caps: “Stop cheating you slimeball pieces of shit.” Just because the site sounds like it was named by Nora Roberts, as Jezebel so brilliantly notes, doesn’t mean it’s any less sleazy, immoral, unethical, or just plain wrong.

The Sylvia chandelier

I don’t mean to encroach on our lovely Em and Lo’s territory, but I had to share this neat chandelier available at Culver City, California’s Sundayland. This 26” by 26” chandelier, the “Sylvia” is built from silver plastic vibrators and is sure to “turn on any room.”

Typo animation of Tom Waits’ “Eggs and Sausage”

Jackie Lay animates the lyrics of Tom Waits “Eggs and Sausage” from his 1975 album Nighthawks at the Diner. She captures the familiar typography of the neon signs and menus that one finds in nearly all diners regardless of regions. Watching this makes me nostalgic for the Village Inn diner in Anchorage, Alaska that my [...]

An Inglourious Basterdization

It was about midway through the opening titles when I stopped taking INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS seriously. Why does Tarantino insist on changing the font half a dozen times? More legitimate problems with the film itself arose after a promising opening scene (with Christoph Waltz, whose ability to pull off an SS officer fresh from a Hollywood backlot speaks to his talent as an actor) when Brad Pitt saunters onscreen as Basterd-leader Aldo Raine. Raine maintains a look of constipation throughout the entire film, but what is supposed to be a cocky smirk, along with a thick Tennessee accent (funny!) and a scar that wraps around his neck, is all the backstory we get on him and his eight Jewish minions, and it’s hardly enough to give them and their killing spree any credibility. They remain strangers; All we’re able to grasp about them is their brutality.

Three movie frames

Tangentially related to the previously mentioned animated GIFs by Mark Portillo, the blog Three Frames has garnered some attention for its bizarre collection of animated GIF images that loops three screen frames from various (obscure?) movies.

Escalator animation

Artist Mister Kama utilizes an escalator to create this f’awesome animation! While we’re on the topic of escalators, I’d like to quickly share this throwaway YouTube clip of a girl putting her own “spin” on an escalator.

Drop me off in gif city

While the talented members of certain communities such as Vimeo are producing and creating some wondrous and professional quality pieces thanks to the advent of affordable HD equipment and editing software, artist Mark Portillo goes a decidedly opposite direction. On his blog, “Drop Me Off in Harlem,” he shares his animated greyscale GIF sketches that [...]

Cassette tape sculptures

If you lived through the pre-CD epoch, you probably have somewhere a cluttered pile of ignored cassette tapes (kids, google it if you don’t know what I’m referring to). If you don’t want to throw them away, but not sure what else to do with them, then get inspired like artist Brian Dettmer. He converts [...]

Flash mob musical troupe break out in NYC

Note the police officer who attempts to break up the faux flight until the singing begins!

Break Out In Song is an ambitious public arts project that pushes the boundaries of live theater as it dazzles unsuspecting audiences with free, spontaneous and fully staged Broadway musical numbers. The idea came to producer Ryan Mackey as he would listen to show tunes on his iPod, wishing that he could start singing and dancing. After seeing the viral video of about 200 dancers perform a song from THE SOUND OF MUSIC in a train station in Antwerp, Belgium, he decided he wanted to do something similar in New York.

West Virginia Tree Sitters Halt Mountaintop Removal Blasting

Two tree sitters with the Climate Ground Zero campaign have forced coal giant Massey Energy to cancel blasts on a mountaintop removal mine above Pettry Bottom, a Coal River Valley town in Raleigh County.

Eating Los Angeles

Don’t call it a roach coach – LA’s taco trucks are better than ever The economy has been very democratic this year in that it has made businesses at every level suffer, and the restaurant biz is no exception. From coffee shops to four star affairs, the life span of restaurants has been as tenuous [...]

Monkey around chandelier

John Niero’s “Monkey Around” re-purposes the classic barrel of monkeys toy into a fun chandelier made from “hundreds of playful monkeys made of laser cut acrylic.” [Via]

Feds, Illinois Sue Midwest Generation to Stop Air Pollution

The federal government and the State of Illinois today filed a civil lawsuit against Midwest Generation LLC, a unit of Edison International, alleging that the company violated, and continues to violate, the Clean Air Act.

Houston Funded to Clean Up Dirty Diesel Drayage Trucks at Port

Owners of the more than 3,000 diesel-fueled, heavy-duty trucks that transport shipping containers at the Port of Houston will be getting economic stimulus funding to retrofit their trucks with pollution controls or buy newer, less-polluting vehicles.

Mate poaching study: wedding ring = excellent pickup device

photo by adactio

We’ve always heard from our less-than-scrupulous guy friends that a wedding band lures single women in like flies to honey — apparently it works better even than a cute puppy or a baby bjorn. Though, we suppose if we’re going to be really fair, we should save the word “unscrupulous” for the competitive biotches who pursue a man not despite, but because of his wedding band. And let it be said for the record that we have heard not one story about the reverse happening: apparently a woman in a wedding band just isn’t an aphrodisiac to men.

Insect flight patterns

Most of us walk past a lit street lamp at night without a second thought or glance, but filmmaker Charlie McCarthy not only stopped to look up, he also snapped 156 photographs of insects buzzing around the light. He then stitched them together to create this film set to Telefon Tel Aviv‘s “What’s The Use [...]

ASIA EXTREME: Park Chan-wook’s Evolution of Vengeance

Vengeance as a core theme is no stranger to Asian cinema, and it’s been employed by directors working in genre cinema (Shunya Ito’s FEMALE PRISONER #701: SCORPION) as well as those catering to the arthouse crowd (Akira Kurosawa’s THE BAD SLEEP WELL). Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL films were an amalgam of Asian revenge films; everything from Hong Kong Kung-Fu flicks of the 70s to Toshiya Fujita’s LADY SNOWBLOOD series.

Interactive LED wall art

Combining tracking devices that interact with passing pedestrians with 35,000 LED bulbs, this installation in Montreal is dazzling! Built by Moment Factory, “a new media arts and entertainment studio,” this LED wall art can be seen every evening from 7 pm to 11 pm to La Vitrine Culturelle. La Vitrine – Montreal from steven bulhoes [...]

Green tech finds (8/27/09)

Summer’s coming to an end, but ice cream and watermelon are still on the radar… as green tech finds.

• Gardening online: Nope, it’s not a new Facebook app. Italian company Azienda Agricola Giacomo Ferraris has created a sort of CSA 2.0 — Italians can design a garden online, and the company plants the vegetables requested, and delivers the produce from the garden to the customer’s door. (via Springwise)
  
  
• Online sustainability training: Looking to update your skill set for the green economy? Nevada’s Truckee Meadows Community College has a new online certificate program in green technology; the University of Wisconsin-Extension is offering a full online bachelor’s degree program in sustainable management.
  
  

GI Joe versus THE THING

I have already written about my obsession with GI Joe action figures here on SUNfiltered. From my childhood I also have fond memories of watching, scared out of my mind, JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING. That film is just creepy. Directors Simon Gesrel and Xavier Ehretsmann have created the above video for the Electro band Zombie [...]