Perhaps this virtual girlfriend in bed installation will appease the lonely art connoisseur. Weird but interesting, from Drew Burrows:
MoMA Kills Art
One of the senior curators at the MoMA had to end the life of a tiny coat built out of living mouse stem cells after it grew so fast that the cells began to clog the incubator.
From the New York Times article:
One of the strangest exhibits at the opening of “Design and the Elastic Mind,” the very strange show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York that explores the territory where design meets science, was a teeny coat made out of living mouse stem cells. The “victimless leather” was kept alive in an incubator with nutrients, unsettlingly alive. Until recently, that is.
Paola Antonelli, a senior curator at the museum, had to kill the coat. “It was growing too much,” she said in an interview from a conference in Belgrade. The cells were multiplying so fast that the incubator was beginning to clog. Also, a sleeve was falling off. So after checking with the coat’s creators, a group known as SymbioticA, at the School of Anatomy & Human Biology at the University of Western Australia in Perth, she had the nutrients to the cells stopped.
This is just a taste of the interesting kinds of developments we’re going to see from biological science in the near future.
(via)
IATT Bulletin 1147
What would you do first with the ability to travel through time? Desmond Warzel shares some clever writing, with Wikihistory, a message board by time travellers.
At 18:06:59, BigChill wrote:
Take it easy on the kid, SilverFox316; everybody kills Hitler on their first trip. I did. It always gets fixed within a few minutes, what’s the harm?At 18:33:10, SilverFox316 wrote:
Easy for you to say, BigChill, since to my recollection you’ve never volunteered to go back and fix it. You think I’ve got nothing better to do?
Color Wars Morph
Competing in Ze Frank’s Color Wars, people have been recreating their childhood photos and posting them to the youngnow gallery. Here are a bunch that I animated using a morphing program:
[Color Wars Young to Old Morph – YouTube]
MUTO a wall painted animation
If you’re looking for something arty, creepy, yet mysteriously compelling, check out MUTO, a short animated film that uses public walls as a backdrop for animated creatures.
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
(A segment of this film originally titled Fantoche, linked previously).
Ganstagrass
Ganstagrass: When bluegrass and HipHop collide.
Introducing block rockin’ honky-tonk, New American music for the 21st century, built with love in a little studio, hand crafted, running on inspiration and imagination and duct tape, calling on the spirit of Gram Parsons and Otis Redding and KRS-ONE and Dolly Parton and Nina Simone and Willie Nelson and Missy Elliott and Johnny Cash, to write about what we feel and play what our hearts tell us, because to make it happen is reason enough, and to share it with the world is all the reason you need, because we tell the truth with music and the truth is beautiful.
I’ve listened to the first few tracks and though I’m not a big hip-hop fan, the mixes are fun in that, “Hey, who knew those two seemingly incongruent genres would work so well together?”
Some lyrics may offend: You can take the gansta out of the Rap but he’s still going to swear like a pirate.
Stairway to Heaven in 101 Versions
WFMU’s Beware of the Blog presents Stairway to Heaven in 101 different versions. There’s Foo Fighters, Frank Zappa, Camper Van Beethoven, and Dolly Parton, just to hint at the veritable cornucopia of selection.
What We Australi-Are
Three years ago my brother moved down under to live a year on a work/travel visa in Australia. He got some great photos at many famous Ozzie locations including this one at Uluru (Ayres Rock) that he’s selling on iStock photo:
He messaged me yesterday to let me know he found out it’s being used in a political ad created by Paul Andersen and Adrian Elton, This is what we Australi-Are. The video is the winning entry in a contest to create television ads that promote a better, fairer, more progressive Australia. A friend of his from London recognized him.
Update: I guess the photo is no longer for sale. The Aussie government now requires a release for photos of Uluru.
Beatles Remastered
My friend Kelli owns pretty much every Beatles album ever released, so when I decided to fill the gaps in my own digital Fab Four collection, she made it easy for me.
On Sunday while perusing the magazine rack at Chapters we came across a Rolling Stone article that may have me once again, updating my collection. It’s a short paragraph about a Beatles fan (or fans) who have created a fantastic do-it-yourself reissue of all of the Beatles recordings using a record player and original vinyl albums.
The Beatles’ albums came out on CD in 1987, but fans have long complained that the early digital technology used to remaster the recordings left them sounding hollow and thin — and that the official remasters are way overdue. That’s where Purple Chick comes in — a secretive fan (or group of fans) who has been quietly remastering classic discs like Revolver and A Hard Day’s Night, and releasing the digital files for free online. How is this possible? The Beatles’ CDs sound so bad that carefully digitized tracks from pristine vinyl copies are noticeably better — with crisper highs, a fuller soundstage, and more realistic reproduction of instruments and voices.
Check out Purple Chick Six plus three and the many megaupload links he’s posted for some of the highest fidelity digital recordings of the Beatles, ever.
I’ve compared them myself; the DIY remasters are noticeably different and in some cases better, but in at least one instance, (In My Life – Rubber Soul) the new file had the same audio in both the left and right channels, where my previous version was in true stereo. So your mileage may vary.
Also note, the files are in the open source format .FLAC and will need to be converted before they can be played in some players. (Audacity can do it).
Not Purple Chick, but 6plus3… Sorry about that Paul, and thanks for the clarifications in the comments.
Refacing American Tender
Flickr user Joe D! posted this great set of modified currency. Right now he’s posted 74 of them, but he says he’s going to add more.
Here are three that I liked:
