Through small deliberate interventions, I altered these vintage images, allowing light to pass through them. (After all, photographs are made possible with light.) In a literal and somewhat playful manner, I aimed to give the photographs back to the light, hence the title of the series, Dare alla Luce, an Italian phrase used to describe the moment of birth.
We couldn’t help seeing the lights as connectors, between people, ideas, feelings, memories, the past and present: those subtle-body kinds of communication and experiences that happen all the time, that we’re made of, and out of which we make things. read more…
We were knocked out by the insanely colorful streetscape made by a Lebanese team of artists/designers, known as dihzahyners, in Beirut.
We imagined how the the worst and bleakest urban neighborhoods we’ve traveled through would be TRANSFORMED by color. All it takes is paint, vision, collective effort: read more…
In the past we’ve seen dumpsters transformed into adhoc-ish swimming pools. Even easier to do is to turn dumpsters into giant planters, the brain child of designer Michael Bernstein called “Ten Yards of Futopia.” Imagine them scattered around a city. They’d act like mobile public parks, bringing blasts of NATURE (from gardens to forests) to urban settings. Since dumpsters come in all different sizes, the mini parks could be tailored to various spaces. We’d paint em to get rid of the ultra gritty aspect and perpetuate the new illusion: futopia…
We recently stumbled on Serbian artist ABVH‘s GIFs that animate famous outdoor artworks by Banksy. This one makes us incredibly ANXIOUS (a powerful emotion); the GIF animation turns up the volume on Banksy’s original message. It made us think about what we REALLY need reminding of: to stop, slow down. What would be the street sign for that?
Dargelos posted this cool doorway while on their trip through Germany. It made us think how wonderful it would be to see public street signs that inspired creativity rather than just “Walk/Don’tWalk” etc. The “How to Work Better” wall sign we posted a while back is a great example.
(Video link here.) As an artist in residence at MIT, Trevor Paglen worked with materials scientists to develop an ultra-archival disc of images, capable of lasting in space for billions of years. He meant this disc to contain a “cultural mark”, that would portray our world long after it might have disappeared altogether. He interviewed scientists, artists, anthropologists, and philosophers to consider what such a cultural mark should be, and ultimately settled on 100 photos. The disc of photos will be sent into space this month.
We’ve long been fans of Aakash Nihalani‘s geometric tape illusions and wonder how we might apply the idea to our Laboratory. Could we make simple 3-D looking illusions out of tape on our ceiling to make it look higher, or on a wall to make it look like there is another room…? (Much of the Laboratory is crafted of illusions, most spectacularly our mirrored corner window illusion. read more…
(Video link here.) This stop-action video tracking 5 years of one man’s appearance makes us wonder how much how we look, and what our style is, affects our experience and identity…
…And the many choices we can make about our appearance.
Going through airport security checkpoint a couple of weeks ago, the TSA agent looked at Sally’s passport picture and said, “Why did you change your hair?” read more…
We’ve long been fans of Smith’s work which is exemplified by the interactive drawing space she offers on her Home Page with a sign that says simply: ”right in front of you”. It yells: JUST DO YOUR THING…NOW!!!!!
Smith urges people to make their own “portable life museums”: read more…
What do you get when you put ephemera, a typewriter, and Tyler Knott Gregson together? Amazing, improvisational bits of insight. Gregson’s “Typewriter Series” is written on found bits of paper: a Delta barf bag, a receipt, a page from a book. The idea feels a lot like an adaptation of what Vonnegut did with Hocus Pocus, a novel written entirely on bits of paper and later strung together. Gregson is a hopeless romantic, and that shows in his work, frequently about a lover.
We see old typewriters in secondhand stores all the time for pennies. We love read more…
Wednesday would have been the late avant-garde composer John Cage‘s 100 birthday, and he’s had SUCH an big influence in our lives, we wanted to commemorate the day. To describe his work is practically impossible, since it broke down definitions of “music” like crazy and was really performance of endlessly varied kinds – involving chance or planning, silence or unexpected sound – which all ultimately made you think expansively about life. read more…
We recently found some photos that we took in the fabled Chelsea Hotel’s a few months before anyone knew it would be closing. (Click here to listen to Leonard Cohen singing Chelsea Hotel,which he wrote for Janis Joplin, while you read on). We’d been to artist John Wellington’s birthday party in one of the rooms there, and as we were clumping down the iron stairwell on our way out, we couldn’t help but admire the wild graffiti that adorned the fire extinquishers in the corner of each landing: an ubiquitous, essential tool made into something grander than it’s usual self… read more…
We often post videos,profiles or quotes of artists because of the courage they exhibit in producing work that breaks from the norm, and that many would consider dangerous. Their example helps us to have a bit more courage in our own life and work, in whatever small matter terrifies us.
Among the most poweful is Chinese artist AiWeiwei. He is a dissident, who has forthrightly spoken out against the Chinese Government, and endured imprisonment, surveillance, and the shut down of his blog, which has become one of his most provocative works (If you click on aiweiwei.com, no page will load: it’s a very real example of what censorship means. )
Weiwei’s artwork spans many media, and blends politics and art in profoundly moving ways. His simple ethos:
If you don’t speak out and you don’t clear your mind, then who are you?read more…
(Video link here.) On the heels of Sally’s how-to-make-herb-salt-video on The Splendid Table this weekend, we thought this piece by British ‘ecclectic, eccentric and innovative musician’ Imogen Heap would make a nice combo-platter. Heap “sings” salt into a beautiful and very controlled, rather cosmic-looking pattern. Actually, singing might not be the right word – we actually dislike Heap’s sound – but LOVE how she turns it “visual”, with ordinary salt.
Wonder what the process was that led her to discover out-there technique….
. One of our favorites: 
, accompanied by an image by the great photographer 
