Free Art - Download A Cloned Artist

When artist and furniture designer Bert Simons had a midlife crisis, he decided to tackle it head on . His solution was to clone himself. Not with complex biological methods using DNA and sheep, but with good old fashioned paper and glue. The results are striking. The three dimensional paper bust sculpture is fascinating in the way that it's computer generated form betrays a of high tech aesthetic while being something that is realised with such low tech materials. In this era of online avatars and virtual worlds, it is as if the artists alter-ego has stepped from the digital realm into reality.

The artist encourages people to help him in his quest, to mass produce himself, in true contemporary social media style, inviting people to download the online kit which gives you everything you need to recreate the artwork. People that make the sculptures have their masterpieces featured within the artist site. Is this art 2.0?

Bert has mastered the art of paper sculpting and has created many more in his series of photo realistic three dimensional portraits and sculptures. Visit Bert Simons site for more information and to check out his other works which range from furniture, interior, paintings and even rocket design.

Not only are the sculptures very unique, but he has also managed to craft an interesting story around it, and also by explaining and demonstrating his process.

Artist Dominic Wilcox Is The Bee's Knees

I really enjoy the work of artist Dominic Wilcox. I found his site while browsing recent images on vi.sualize.us (a very interesting new social image bookmarking site, that I have been meaning to post about for a while). The humor and play reminds me a lot of the work of a close friend on mine, Daniel Eatock. Dominic is a fairly recent graduate from the RCA and is surely someone to watch out for. Please check out his excellent body of work on his site, but here are some of my favorite works by Dominic.


A bowl made from partially melted plastic toy soldiers. I love the contrast between the smooth outer surface and the rough inner surface. Resulting effect is beautiful, not only visually, but also in the fact that the final result has a lot of uncontrollability about it.


Chairs and installation created by vacuum forming plastic over office furniture and house hold objects.


Stickers to put on your car or bike that make it look rusty, to discourage thieves from taking it.



A bed where the mattress takes on the form of a sleeping body.



A bee's knees. A literal expression of the famous phrase.

The Decapitator

When I was studying art at college my self and my fellow students were lucky enough to be given a workshop by a creative duo that called themselves AVI Billboard Interventions, that also were a new breed of culture jammers. They worked to subvert existing outdoor advertising, to create a new and often opposing message to the one of the original advert. What was new about their approach was the way that they hijacked the advert. Until then, people would use far more crude means to subvert or hijack the message, such as spraying or painting over the image. But theirs was not such an immediately obvious take over. At the time the Apple Macintosh was just starting to revolutionise the design scene, and was putting cost effective and professional typography and print technology in the hands of the masses. Their approach was to harness this new opportunity make their changes to the billboard in such a way as it would be unperceivable to the viewer. Simply by selecting the right font, and replacing a few select words of a campaign, they infected billboards like a hidden virus, and their subversive message was suddenly given the weight and credibility of a polished, glossy marketing campaign, appearing to be delivered by a major brand. A billboard ad, ironically located at the exit of a car pound for towed illegally parked cars, suddenly Volvo cars appeared to be telling people to 'Buy A Bike' rather than their latest station wagon, and the government began suddenly being honest and self critical, telling people how their policies were failing.

I was reminded of the work of AVI after seeing the work of London based culture jammer 'The Decapitator', who has started re-appropriating billboards, albeit in a far more grotesque and darker fashion. The Decapitator pastes an image over the heads of models in adverts, to make them appear as if they have somehow been decapitated. Having carefully recreated the correct looking background, the subversion is not immediately apparent, and the viewer is left believing that the company behind the advert genuinely included a decapitated model. The meaning may be less apparently socially or politically motivated (or not as the case maybe), at least it but the approach is the same. I would love to see lots more of this kind of subversive activity!

I found the images on CMMNEWS Check out The Decapitators culture jamming on his Flickr account. Here are a few examples, a mix of subverted ads and their original formats.

UPDATE: Since writting this entry I also came across the work of Saatchi & Someone a culture jammer that created some very interesting and political billboard subversions.

There is also more info on how to go about hijacking billboards in this article on Urban75

Giant Crack Appears In Tate Gallery

As visitors to the Tate Modern gallery in London enter the galleries giant turbine hall, they are confronted with the disturbing sight of a giant crack. Starting as a small fissure, the 167 metre fracture grows wider and deeper as it snakes the entire length of the hall.

Created by Columbian artist Doris Salcedo, the piece is titled "Shibboleth," after a Biblical massacre in which members of a defeated tribe were identified for slaughter based on the way they spoke. The artist describes the sculpture as laden with meaning as deep as the crack itself. It represents the divide and gap between Europeans and the rest of mankind.

Personally I enjoy the concept of creating a scultpure that is more about the space it does not fill, rather than the space it actually occupies. It is in effect a hole. An empty space, that due to it's dynamic and powerful nature created a piece that is thought provoking and demands time and contemplation to get the most out of it. In this respect it is very different from some of the previous commissions to the yearly installation, that have been more immediately involving of the viewer, such as the giant slides by Carsten Höller.

The crack, cast in concrete and lowered into a hole dug along the length of the hall will be filled in next year, leaving a permenant and giant scar.

Martin Klimas - Smashing Art

I have just returned from a shoot that used a camera that could capture video at 1000 fps, and the results were beautiful. I can't wait to post the resulting project here soon. High speed photography can create amazing results.

With a desire to see what else people were doing with this technology I had a look around and came across the work of Marting Klimas. We are all familiar with images of bullets speeding through apples, and the shattering of glass, but Marting Klimas has gone beyond the 'simple' cliche and made images that really create something unique. The smashing porcelain figurines not only look dramatic as they explode, but the way that the figures are fragmenting, and the fragments themselves complete a scene.

The magic split second moment when the figurines and their exploding fragments create a scene that perfectly expresses the original expression of the figurine. Each one amazing in its improbability of capturing such a perfect scene. The fragments seem to become crashing water into which the figurine is plunging. The fighting figures that seem to have caused themselves to have shattered through their own energy.

The images much better express themselves, than I could ever articulate and do justice, so just look at the images for yourselve. Awsome!

It also made me think just how did Martin come up with the idea - I can only imagine that it was through a lucky accident. and I would love to know just how many figures were smashed to achieve these results.

These are rare images where they say so much, yet the concept is so painfully simple. Totally awe inspiring.

Found on - Where We Play

Exercise Video's For Dogs

Yes there is hope for dogs with weight problems and eating disorders. Entering an new realm in the world of exercise videos, Mariko Takahashi's workout should leave your pooch in perfect shape. This deliciously surreal clip is actually a short film to promote Panasonic during the 2004 Olympics, and was one of ten short movies in the Capture The Motion series . Made by Japanese designer, commercials and short film director Nagi Noda this film will freak you out. This is one of my favorite shorts, I can't imagine how Nagi came up with the concept, that comes across in such a positive way, yet on another level does seem to allude to more serious issues about our obsession with exercise and it would also not really surprise me to hear that there really were dog exercise video's on the market either!

Faile - First Solo New York Show

Faile yesterday announced their first solo show in New York City that will take run from Thursday, June 7th to Sunday, June 10th. It will feature only works on canvas and wood. Faile also announced that they will also be releasing new prints sometime in August.

The location will be announced the evening before the show via the Faile site

The Extraordinary Paper Scultures of Richard Sweeney

Sweeney's art concentrates of the construction of complex forms through repetition of simple elements and forms. Where the structure of the form is exposed and becomes an integral part of the beauty of the form itself. Inspired by nature and architecture Sweeney's works is driven by a search for using the least amount of materials to create complex looking structures.

View his site and his Flickr gallery.

Faile

I saw Faile exhibiting in the Lazarides Gallery Soho, London last week. The Faile site is a great experience of the Faile art brand. I am saving up to buy some of their work!

Check out the Faile site.

Adam Neate - Art For Free

Adam Neate is a talented graffiti and street artist, who's work is finding its way into more traditional art gallery spaces. His paintings often made on recovered materials are for the most part left free in the streets for people to claim for themselves. Adam's work is an interesting examination about the relationship of art and how it is consumed. It also seems like Adam's work and means of marketing himself are timely reflections on the way that MP3's revolutionised the way that musicians have had to adapt to these times. Read an article with Adam at Steal Life, and check out his works at his own personal site www.adamneate.co.uk.

Gilbert and George

Gilbert and George have a retrospective at the Tate Modern from 15th February until the 7th of May, 2007.

Check out the Tate Modern site for some interesting films that show these facinating artists in their studio, how they work with computers and how they catalogue their vast collection of works and source materials.

Gilbert and George can gave a talk at the Tate Modern and answered questions from the audience. Hear it on the Guardian Weekly Culture podcast.

SMS Artist - Paul Notzold

Paul Notzold's artworks allow an audience to SMS and interact with large speech bubbles projected onto a flat surface, like the facade of a building. The bubbles are positioned near windows and doors to encourage an audience to create the conversations happening inside. The public audience receives a flyer with a cell number and simple instructions. A participant sends a text message to the provided phone number and it is then displayed inside the speech bubble. Multiple bubbles may be used and the audience can direct their input to a specific bubble.

Not always an urban and outdoor experience, the concept has translated into the more traditional enviroment of the gallery with 'One Of You Will Betray Me', an image of the last supper that allows the audience to create the dialogue of the famous scene.

More

As read on Include Digital Digest

Shin Tanaka - Paper Toy Designer

Shin Tanaka is a Japanese graphic designer and graffiti artist who has added a new angle to cool little toy designs, by releasing a collection that is made entirely of paper. Designers from around the world can submit their designs on predefiined templates, and then site visitors can open a box on the site and download a random toy design to print out and make for themselves.

Download one here.

As read on Include Digital Digest

Philippe Ramette - Underwater Photography Series

Having posted about french artist Philippe Ramette several months ago, I thought I would have a look around for some more of this inspirational artists work. I found this series 'Exploration rationnelle des fonds sous-marins' released this year that continues to demonstrate his incredable talent for creating shocking, beautiful and extemely clever visual irony. He has a skill for setting up very stark and graphic senarios that reveal the suprising in what appear apparently ordinary situations. The characters appear at ease despite the unnerving reality behind the scene, such as sitting on the seabed while reading a newspaper, taking a stroll, but across the open water of a bay.

More images from the series can be seen here...

Scott Snibble - Digital Artist

Scott Snibbe is best known for creating interactive artwork that reveals people's interdependence. Most of his works do not function unless the viewer actively engages with them—by touching, breathing, moving, etc. The works present systems in which the viewer is an essential component. Although his works involve significant technological infrastructure, visitors’ experiences predominantly involve human-to-human interaction. The pieces provoke communication among the viewers, which, more than a mere reaction to the work, becomes its very essence.

Snibbe's largest electromechanical sculpture to date was commissioned for a solo show at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in 2005. Blow Up, records, amplifies, and projects human breath into a room-sized field of wind.

David Ellis - Artist

Brooklyn based artist David Ellis and creates what he calls motion paintings.

"motion paintings travel through time like music, where beats are orchestrated and performed on "drum paintings" stretched and tuned to bass, snare, etc. and played via analog drum machines propelled by air, where player pianos meet SP1200s meet improvisational wild style sign painting"

MUST SEE - watch this motion painting on his site.


See more of his work at Jessica
Murray Projects and with the barnstormers at b-stormers.com and spreadtheknow.com.


Thanks to Revolver Lover for this link.

Andy Ward - Illustrator

English illustrator based in Venice.