sundance

Dreaming with Malin Akerman: Go Towards The Light

DreamStates: Malin Akerman Animation by //kneeon

Malin Akerman is a Swedish-Canadian film actress and model. She has appeared in such films as Watchmen, The Heartbreak Kid, 27 Dresses, Couples Retreat, The Proposal and The Romantics. She is featured in the upcoming film Bang Bang Club about combat photographers and will also star opposite Tom Cruise in the film adaptation of Rock of Ages.

Malin took the time to sit down with us for an interview for our new animated web series, DreamStates, talking about a very disturbing dream she had. DreamStates takes a look into our dreams through the eyes of creative innovators from the worlds of music and film. In Malin’s dream she hears her mother get killed and is then stabbed by the killer until “everything goes black”. After “awakening” – she is faced with the choice of saying goodbye to her father or heading towards the “light”. Along the way she gets some help and guidance from old family and friends. Scary.

See all the stars at the MET Costume Gala!

Jay-Z and Beyonce Photo by: Larry Busacca/GettyImages They don’t call it “The Oscars of Fashion” for nothing. Check out all the glamorous celebs, designers and models at The MET Costume Gala and see which 10 ladies FFF editor Kelley Culp thought were the best dressed of the night. Didn’t know it was Australian Fashion Week? [...]

FILM – looking back at KNIFE IN THE WATER

“One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” Those are Anton Chekhov’s wise words from 1889, but they still ring true today. And it goes not just for theater but for literature and film – and knives, namely the sharp one brandished early on in Roman Polanski’s KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962). Shot in black and white with just three actors, two of whom had never acted before, Polanski’s first feature film is often referred to as one of the best directorial debuts in history, right alongside Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE and Jean-Luc Godard’s BREATHLESS.

Only in New York

Only in New York do people live in apartments covered in tape, covered in yarn, and covered in crazy wallpapers. Eclectic people flock to this city and New York Magazine‘s new issue features some extreme decor proves that. Included are six apartments of various size and extremity. Featured are Agata Oleksiak (now known solely as [...]

Keeping (it) up with the Joneses: a multi-orgasmic man tells all

In the first book the two of us wrote together, a sex manual called The Big Bang, we included the throwaway line “multiple orgasms for men — sorry, that’s a whole ‘nother book.” (What can we say, we only had a few hundred pages to work with, and it seemed to us that women who had never had any orgasms of any kind deserved a bit of attention.) Well, a reader named Alan Oberman wrote to us recently to say, “It doesn’t have to be a book. I’ve written an article, based on personal discovery, on how man can become multi-orgasmic.” He’s been so pleased with the results that he asked if he could share his experience with our readers — and given how many men write to us asking about this topic, how could we say no? (Though we must admit that we did demur when it came to hearing about Alan’s personal experience building his own perfect artificial vagina!) So, without further ado, here is Alan’s story, in his own words:

Maurice Sendak’s “The Hobbit”

In the 1960s and in preparation of its 30th anniversary, the publisher of Tolkien’s The Hobbit reached out to Maurice Sendak to create illustrations to accompany and re-imagine this classic hero’s tale. Unfortunately this pairing was not to be. Tony DiTerlizzi probed what happened and the story is pretty interesting, as is the what could [...]

Spotlight on ScanLAB

William Trossell and Matthew Shaw run ScanLAB, a series of projects that investigate the capabilities of 3D laser scanning in architecture on all scales, from intricately detailed objects to large cityscapes. The results land somewhere in that exciting new space between technology and art. Their Abney Park Cemetery project is a good example of what that means. Last year Trossell and Shaw visited the London cemetery and took what they call forensic snapshots – eerie, ghostlike images of the chapel, which was severely damaged in a fire and is currently in a state of decay (the chapel is still awaiting funding for repairs).

Charles Dickens’ bizarre letter opener

The New York Public Library has one of the more bizarre artifacts of our literary past that I’ve seen. Apparently Charles Dickens loved his pet cat Bob, and to remember the feline when he passed away, the famed author “took one of Bob’s paws, had it stuffed and slapped it on a letter opener.” Feel [...]

Vimeo of the Week: N.Y. Adorned “Tradition”

N.Y. Adorned “Tradition” from Evan Owen Dennis on Vimeo. Evan Owen Davis‘ film N.Y. Adorned “Tradition” is a short black and white portrait of tattoo artistry and New York City. The tattoo studios, not unlike the art studios of New York, are filled with people from all over the world. Images of New York City [...]

Dreaming with Questlove: Soul Train Pressure

DreamStates: Questlove Animation by Nessim Higson

Questlove is an American drummer, DJ, music journalist and record producer. He is best known as the drummer for the Grammy Award-winning band The Roots, which is now the in-house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. He has produced for artists such as Common, D’Angelo, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Bilal, Jay-Z, Nikka Costa and more recently, Al Green, Amy Winehouse and John Legend. He’s also featured in our new animated web series, DreamStates, talking about his crazy, bizarre recurring dream. DreamStates takes a look into our dreams through the eyes of creative innovators from the worlds of music and film. In Questlove’s dream he is watching himself on a movie screen while he waits for a train at 30th St. Station in Philly, worries about failing out of school and is plagued with the daunting task of coming up with a new theme song and animation to Soul Train. What? We can’t make this up. Check it out.

Green tech finds (5/5/11)

Blimps, chicken feathers, and viruses… your green tech finds for the week.

• The 10,000 year heat pump: Heat pumps aren’t sexy; they are, however, an incredibly efficient technology means of heating and cooling buildings. Researchers in Norway are experimenting with a new, more simple design framework that they think will create a heat pump with a “dramatically longer life.” (via @adamwerbach)
  
  
• Tracking e-waste: Where do your old electronics end up? The basement? The trash? Or in a developing country for “recycling?” The UN’s StEP project wants to find out, and the US EPA has provided them with $2.5 million to track US electronic waste. (via @TerracomChicago)
  
  

Making of a Marc Newson hourglass

The Hourglass from Ikepod on Vimeo. Watch this gorgeously shot video directed by Philip Andelman of the creation of a hourglass re-imagined by superstar contemporary designer Marc Newson, typically “known for his unique style of ‘biomorphism’ to achieve organic forms through high-tech materials.” The great accompanying music is by the aptly named Philip Glass. Of [...]

Night of 1000 Stevies Hits NYC!

Once a year in New York, Steve Nicks is wearing a fringed shawl and twirling, ever twirling, as she sings (or more likely lipsynchs) “just like the white winged dove” and other familiar lyrics to a packed house of fervent admirers.

Well, not Stevie herself, if you want to get technical. It’s actually scads of Stevie impersonators and worshipers, who convene at the “Night of 1000 Stevies” event to pay tribute to the Fleetwood Mac waif who went on to ethereal solo stardom complete with all kinds of witchy/hippie/gypsy paraphernalia and a pronounced catch in her throat.

A school for freerunning

Tempest Freerunning Academy from The Cool Hunter on Vimeo. When you sit all day at your computer, it’s easy to forget what your body is capable of — the movement, the strength, the agility, the fitness. Which is what helps make this video from the Tempest Freerunning Academy so inspiring. It’s a showcase of California’s [...]

UNCLE BOONMEE and an A+ for Originality

As Cannes 2011 approaches, it was nice to have the opportunity to see last year’s Palme d’Or winner on the big screen: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES. Tim Burton was last year’s head of the jury — if you see this film, you’ll see the affinity here – UNCLE is a slow, strange, plot-less journey, relying on visuals and a slow-burn Ozu-like filmmaking that gets better as it goes. The sprinkling of visual surprises feel shocking in comparison to the rest of the material. There are some strange, visceral and unforgettable images, right up Burton’s alley. It’s a real treat in terms of originality — promises abound here that you’ve never seen anything like it before.

Stunning time-lapse of Milky Way

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo. I previously blogged here about a stunning time-lapse video by Terje Sorgjerd of auroras that was featured on NASA’s website. Terje is back with another video “The Mountain” that was shot in grueling conditions from the top of El Teide, Spain´s highest mountain, and captures in stunning detail [...]

Rotting fruit & vegetables: a growth industry

Did you know it’s International Compost Awareness Week? Yeah, just found out myself… but agree that composting is a topic worthy of celebration and education. Most of us probably associate the word with backyard bins and piles (or smells coming from the neighbors’ bins or piles), but it’s also turning into a big business… largely because both large waste haulers and smart entrepreneurs are recognizing not only the demand for this “black gold,” but also that the raw materials are available for free.

Rem Koolhaas’ “Cronocaos”

Tonight Rem Koolhaas will kick off the New Museum’s Festival of Ideas with a keynote that will introduce the major themes behind the festival as well as those at work in his exhibition “Cronocaos,” which debuted last year at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Koolhass and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) have been obsessed with the past ever since he co-founded it in 1975. “Cronocaos” is as much a retrospective of some of the firm’s most important work as it is a frank look at the ongoing struggle of preservation in architecture and urbanism in general. “Through our respect for the past,” Koolhass says, “heritage is becoming more and more the dominant metaphor for our lives todays – a situation called Cronocaos. We are trying to find what the future of our memory will look like.”

Artsy animated GIF images

GIF images have historically resided in the seedier corners of the Internet, in profiles of message board users and the like, but these looping animated images have started to emerge as a medium of some artistic merit in their own right. New York City photographer Jamie Beck and designer Kevin Burg have gained some viral [...]

Episode Recap – Jedda-Kahn – Selling Out or Selling Smart

During the course of ALL ON THE LINE, many people constantly ask me what the most common problem among all the different designers were and while each one had very different issues, the most unifying thread – no pun intended – was arguably, finding that perfect marriage of art and commerce.

Of course, whenever I explain this, the one designer that comes to my mind is always Jeddah-Kahn. This is, of course, not a problem unique to him but a struggle constantly battled by all designers. Jeddah-Kahn was just the one designer that would, at times, drive me to the brink of frustration battling this point. I admired him for not wanting to give in but at times, as you saw on this week’s episode, we would wind up talking in circles, sometimes to a resolve and sometimes not.

Stitched Vogue covers

Inge Jacobsen, a photography student at London’s Kingston University, has gained a lot of recent attention for her intricately cross-stitched Vogue covers. The artist explains: With the over saturation of images, my practice seeks to intervene in this overwhelming consumption from the mass produced and alter it to create something unique. By using intricate and, [...]

The new face of collage

Sometimes collage gets a bad rap. It can conjure up unfortunate images of old ladies scrap-booking and decoupaging to their heart’s content, but the art of cut and paste plays a much more significant role in the world than in the confines of the pages of family photo albums and shell-covered trinkets. Influenced by surrealism, constructivism and Dada, the technique was firmly established as an art form in the 1920s and 30s and continues to inspire a new generation of young artists and illustrators who are discovering the art form for themselves for the first time.

The $300 House: safe green housing for the world’s poor

The world’s poorest citizens often have to make do with shelter… and that often involves scrap or natural materials found near shantytowns. In one sense, this is green building at its simplest; on the other, such structures provide minimal protection, while often creating risks for fire, suffocation from cooking smoke, and other hazards.

Last Summer, Dartmouth business professor Vijay Govindarajan and marketing consultant Christian Sarkar tossed out an idea on the Harvard Business Review blog: the $300 house. The concept: create a safe, sustainably-built structure that provided shelter and even some utilities (solar power and water filtering) at a price that the world’s poorest people might be able to afford. To keep costs and environmental impact down, the house would use prefabricated materials. People would buy the houses on a microfinance model.

The greatest man made light show

NPR has this fascinating short video piece about a moment in July 1962 when the US government decided to study the effects of detonating a hydrogen bomb above the earth’s atmosphere. The video includes original footage of the after effects of the bomb which resulted in as the narrator said, “the greatest man made light [...]

You Can’t Fight Destiny. Tonight at 10p.

There are many triggers that usually helps peak my interest with designers I’ve yet to discover. It can be anything from a unique name to innovative designs to a brilliant a-ha marketing idea that I wish I had thought of or just something as simple as their backstory.

With Jeddah-Kahn Blue, I will admit I was intrigued by that name but more so, it was when I discovered that he came from a long line of tailors and dressmakers. But it’s important to note that he wasn’t designing to get into the family business; contrary, he was designing clothes because he knew that was his destiny. There’s something quite admirable about it.