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The Medium is the Message
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1819
To borrow the phrase from Marshall McLuhan.
And with that as our theme, a variety of links to artists who exploit this (however inadvertently) in their art.
Mohammad Ali out of Punching Bags: http://www.realizeali.com/, note their site is flash handicapped, so to view better images of their project go to wired.com.
Matt Cusick using old maps: http://www.mattcusick.com/pages.php?content=gallery.php&navGallID=100
Jinks Kunst made a portrait of Serge Gainsbourg out of old cigarette butts: http://www.jinkskunst.com/land-art-et-recycling/ & http://webecoist.com/2011/03/27/butting-in-portrait-made-of-over-20k-used-cigarette-butts/
Wander Martich - Makes a penny out of pennies (I like the inherent recursion here..): http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitsorf/5016306135/ & http://www.odditycentral.com/tag/pennies
Andrew Myers creates portraits out of screws: http://www.andrewmyersart.com/#/home
Marcus Levine creates portraits and figures out of nails: http://www.levine-art.co.uk/public/gallery_nails/
And there are a variety of artists are making things out of junk & garbage - Vik Muniz: http://www.vikmuniz.net/, Tom Deininger: http://www.tomdeiningerart.com/selfportait1.html & (previously Linked) Zac Freeman: http://www.zacfreemanart.com/ & Jason Mecier creates portraits of celebrities out of their own garbage (or close enough): http://www.jasonmecier.com/junk06/jdrawer.html & http://www.jasonmecier.com/junk06/jkitchen.html
Impossible Bottles
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1713
So I've acquired this liquor bottle of perfect shape and I've a dim idea of putting something inside it, and I go onto the net searching for some inspiration.
Now I'm thinking of a brain, perhaps, with blinking neural synapses, or maybe a beating human (ish) heart, or a tentacled octopus. It's the perfect bottle. But I need some tips on getting it into the bottle, and so I'm searching online. Now there are plenty of impossible bottles, but most seem to take the height of the craft to be a deck of cards or pack of cigarettes placed inside, which is (dare I say) a little bit boring....
But I'll share my inspiration here:
Links: Wikipedia on Impossible Bottles, Impossibottles, Some rather dodgy looking Nigerian on YouTube trying to sell the secret of getting lots of twigs inside a bottle, (Probably an "honest living" if you're from Nigeria and on the computer....), Folk Art in Bottles, John Rausch, and the Humble Jeff Scanian. No, really, look at his photo - what was he like as a child bringing home art projects from school?
April Fools
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2164
And I'm racking my brain for some sort of April Fools prank to play. Something good, I could always call the restaurant and feign an undesirable ethnic accent, try to make a reservation for 30 people, separate checks and high chairs, but that lacks the excitement. Although it would wind everyone up. And so I'll keep thinking...
August Kekule's Benzene Dream
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 2704
And while I'm narrating other people's dreams, a nod to August Kekule's Benzene Dream - the problem of how the hydrocarbon chain that formed benzene was structured having bothered Kekule (and other Chemists) of the time, the answer came to him when he dreamed of snakes biting their tail, and realized that the structure of the benzene molecule would work if it were a ring...
That, at least, is as the tale goes. The facts (bare bones wiki) can be found here, a slightly less enthusiastic take can be found here. In any event the dream has so entrenched itself into the collective unconscious as a testimony to the power of the subconscious mind, it hardly matters whether Kekule ever had the dream or not. The moral is: Some people have useful dreams....
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