sundance

Learn how to do awesome things

Popular Science has a photo gallery of “30 Awesome College Labs” that will have you questioning the meaning of your life as you stare at your beige cubicle walls. Pictured above is Missouri University of Science and Technology’s experimental mine where students “learn how to implode buildings, design fireworks displays, blast smooth slices of stone [...]

San Quentin inmates explore green job opportunities

San Quentin probably brings to mind Johnny Cash’s legendary performance at the prison… or perhaps a particularly creepy episode of Lockdown. But green jobs? Yep… on Saturday, the Insight Garden Program (which attempts to rehabilitate prisoners through organic gardening) and the California Reentry Program hosted a green careers fair at the prison.

Esquivel Shoes makes music

Esquivel from David Hubert on Vimeo. I have a sick shoe fetish like any good gay and so when I was sent the above video for the California handmade shoe design house Esquivel, I immediately took notice. Directed by David Hubert and Olivier Staphylas, the film is less than two minutes long. However, it leaves [...]

Jeff Koons’ hospital room

Photos by Michael Tropea. Copyright Jeff Koons

RxArt, the brainchild of art dealer and curator Diane Brown, has enjoyed great success pairing artists with hospitals in order to transform them into more welcoming and calmative environments. In the past, the nonprofit has worked with Ed Baynard, John Margolis and R. Crumb, who created a series of kid-friendly coloring books. But Brown admits they’ve always wanted to work with Jeff Koons, whose big, bright pieces are a natural fit for children’s wards. Koons himself has been involved with children’s charities, donating his fee for designing this year’s BMW art car to one. So when RxArt asked him to take the sterile, white CT scanner room at Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital just outside Chicago and turn it into something that would “soothe and cheer young patients and brighten the potentially frightening testing environment,” Koons jumped at the chance, taking no fee for his painted 2D recreations of his iconic Balloon Dog, Hanging Heart, Donkey and Monkeys.

Where’s the bike shop?

A Reuters photographer snapped this photo of co-owner Christian Petersen peering out the window of his awesomely decorated bicycle shop located in Altlandsberg, Germany. In case you’re wondering, there are about 120 bikes mounted on the building. [Via]

Naked news: C-section predictions, tragic marriage proposals & Bible sex tips

• Swedish scientists recently discovered a way to help predict whether a mother-to-be will need a C-section. This could save women painful and possibly dangerous hours attempting a doomed vaginal delivery.
  
  
• Esteban Rojas, one of the thirty-three Chilean miners who has been stuck underground for 20-some-odd-days (and counting), proposed to his long-time girlfriend. The proposal was written on a piece of scrap paper the miner stuck through a small hole in the tumbled rock.
  
  

Campbell Soup’s fan letter to Andy Warhol

Letters of Note unearthed this gem from the time capsule: An earnest and sincere fan letter written by William MacFarland, a product marketing manager at Campbell’s Soup Company, to Andy Warhol following the success of this pop artist’s iconic “32 Campbell’s Soup Cans.”

New “e-personation” bill may limit your online revenge options

California Senator Joe Simitian drafted a new bill that would make it a misdemeanor to impersonate someone online — a.k.a. “e-personation” — with the purpose “of harming, intimidating, threatening or defrauding.” If busted for e-personation, you could get $1,000 in fines and/or one year in prison. The bill was passed unanimously by both the Senate and the Assembly so just needs Ahnold’s signature to become law in California.

More giant bubbles

Stinson Beach Bubbles (canon 550D) from markdaycomedy on Vimeo. Ok, so we like giant bubbles around these parts. Matthew featured some at the beginning of this month. And I cannot stop watching the above video, shot at Stinson beach, in Northern California. Set to chill-out music by Incompetech and shot by Mark Day, a stand-up [...]

Sigourney Weaver narrates Google Earth tour of Belo Monte dam impact

In April, I took note of James Cameron’s efforts to stop the building of the Belo Monte dam on Brazil’s Xingu River. Actress Sigourney Weaver (a co-star in Cameron’s AVATAR) joined Cameron on one of his trips to Brazil, and has now collaborated with Amazon Watch, Movimento Xingu Vivo Para Sempre (Xingu River Forever Alive Movement), and International Rivers to produce a 10-minute video (above) showing the probably impact of the dam project on indigenous people in the region, biodiversity, health, and even climate change (which were outlined in the previous post).

Things Organized Neatly

See more Things Organized Neatly after the jump.

With the proliferation of media available online, our eyes practically burn after a day of looking at a computer screen, surfing the unsheriffed Wild West that is the Internet. I don’t mean in terms of content, but in terms of design. After being bombarded with site after site of blaring graphics and blinking ads, we could all use a little quiet space. Serving as an antidote to all things messy, bad or just over-designed is Things Organized Neatly, which delivers precisely what it promises: picture upon picture of objects composed in a way that pleases the eye. From well-loved kitchen utensils to ripped up paint chips to Pink Floyd’s “Ummagumma” album cover and David Byrne’s personal collection of distortion pedals, these pictures are a blissful retreat for the Web-weary.

2010 Emmys round-up

So the Emmys happened on Sunday night and I watched it right until Mad Men at 10 pm. NY Magazine’s Vulture blog had a nice round-up of the show’s highlights and lowlights with a headline asking “Were these the best Emmys ever?” (no), as well as the attendees’ sartorial selections. Side note: My favorite observation of the show was by my friend Ayo with whom I was watching the show in his apartment. Ayo asked, “Has anyone seen a photo of Betty White when she was younger? I bet she was hot. I’d get after it.”

Catalog Dying (with laughter)

Catalog Living, the wildly funny creation of Molly Erdman, a Los Angeles-based actor, writer, and comedian is genius. She clips ridiculous images from cheesy catalogs – Pottery Barn, Wisteria, CB2- and gives a voice to the people living in those spaces. The commentary, the thoughts of these inhabitants, you may guess, is just as funny as [...]

Denon’s 100th birthday

If you don’t know Denon you’re probably not serious about music. Denon lovers are not just fans, they’re fanatics, and during the brand’s 100th Anniversary year they have something more to get excited about than just a birthday. To celebrate their centennial, Denon has released an Anniversary Product Collection of 7 special-edition designs that hearken back to the good ol’ days of the dawn of audio technology.

Beloit College annual mindset list

Beloit College released their annual “Mindset List.” Since 1998 (the year I entered college…), Beloit publishes a cheeky list of “the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall” that originally acted “as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references.” Here’s a sampling from this year’s list about [...]

MoMA staff recreate art in LEGO versions

Inspired by Christoph Niemann’s (a favorite over here at SUNfiltered) recreations of iconic New York landmarks using LEGO bricks, some of the MoMA staff spent a Friday afternoon made their own LEGO minimalist miniature replicas of pieces from the museum’s collection. Seen above is Richard Serra’s “Equal (Corner Prop Piece)” and “One Ton Prop (House [...]

Spears vs. Takashi Murakami

This year we’ve already seen one pop princess (Christina Aguilera) reemerge from hiding only to be written off as a Gaga-wannabe past her prime. This was a shame as Xtina’s album had brilliant highs and it just seems she was a victim of Gaga’s power over the press.

Now we ready ourselves for Britney Spears’ comeback. And while Spears has always been more likable than Aguilera, and was never one for put-on art/fashion reference, the news about, and accompanying images for, her cover shoot for Japan’s POP Magazine seem a bit desperate, no?

FULL FRONTAL FASHION highlights

Alexander Fury and shoes by Alexander McQueen Alexander Fury, the fashion director of SHOWstudio, talks inspiration and digital media at the eye of the fashion storm. Love’s first video for iPad application stars Elle Macpherson in bouffant and lingerie. FFF goes to Istanbul and India. Clary Sage brings fashion to organic yoga wear.

Bad Sex Advice at the Local Car Wash

Normally we don’t bother covering books that we think are terrible, but every now and then we can’t resist. There’s a book available for sale at a car wash (seriously) in L.A. called WTF? How to Survive 101 of Life’s Worst F-ing Situations. (That’s the name of the book, not the car wash, by the way.) And it turns out that one of life’s “worst f-ing situations” is when your girlfriend wants to be exclusive. Another f-ing disaster is when she wants to get a little kinky in the bedroom. It’s as if the authors are actually trying to piss us off. And it worked.

Rediscovering Human League

When I saw, and wrote about, OMD’s new record the other day a few of my younger friends said they’d never heard of OMD. Never heard of OMD? I was shocked. I felt old. Very, very old.

This realization that the youth of today is missing out on such a wonderful period of music, the 1980s, shocked me. Um, where do you think Gaga got all her ideas? I started searching through the 15K songs in my iTunes library. Where did pop music as we know it today come from? Too electric to be Rock. Too camp to be hip-hop. Today’s pop music, from Ke$Ha to Gaga to Rihanna, owes much to electro-pop.

Montage of “I could tell you but I’d have to kill you”

Posted on YouTube is this video montage of various movies using the cliche phrase “I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.” Maybe it’s time for writers to retire this?

A new life for shipping pallets

Photos by Mila Hacke. More after the jump.

DIY home sites are always dreaming up ways to reinvent that ubiquitous piece of seemingly un-reusable wood, the shipping pallet. There have been some nice efforts, like studiomama’s Shipping Pallet Chair, or vectroave‘s more straightforward furniture applications, but none so big or beautiful as Matthias Loebermann’s Palettenpavillon.

Introducing …. SPARKS!

So for the last month or so, Lisa and I have shamelessly been touting our own recent work. Is this our natural instinct? NO. Was I taught to talk about myself nonstop, providing photos, silly anecdotes, imdb links and other fodder? NO. (No! Says my mom.) No, no, no.

But guess what? It’s the new world for indie filmmakers. For years now, but in the last year or so more than ever, filmmakers have had to very carefully strategize every aspect of distribution. Partnering with a distribution company, if one is lucky enough to actually get one, as opposed to simply handing over a film, is simply the new way it is. (A recent indieWIRE event had a panel of experts generously doling out twenty great tips on distribution and festivals. The level of strategizing, which implicitly includes talking up your work, is an example of the level of involvement I’m talking about here. Read the summary here.) So with chin-up spirit, and not complaining at all, because who doesn’t like to retell what unimaginable feat they accomplished on the set, or how they survived the perils of micro-budget filmmaking, or how fabulous, gorgeous, talented and fashionable their actors are … introducing SPARKS.

Public art: Subway spoiler alert signs

Newmindspace and Jason Eppink collaborated in installing these “Spoiler Alert” signs around the few New York City subway stations with LED displays as a commentary on their impact on certain commuter habits and behaviors. These LED signs also threaten historical social behaviors, rendering obsolete the time-honored New York tradition of leaning over the platform edge [...]

Green tech finds (8/26/10)

Hemp cars, pedal-powered submarines, and lots of wave power… this week’s green tech finds.

• Harnessing the surge: Finnish company AW-Energy is building a test plant in Portugal for its Waveroller concept, which “utilizes the so-called surge phenomenon found on ocean coasts.” (via Good News from Finland)
  
  
• More wave power: Ocean Renewable Power Company is testing out the wave power potential for the US Coast Guard’s station in Eastbrook, Maine.