Reminder: Cut & Paste Call for Entries 2007

by Tim Yu

An important reminder that tomorrow 17 July 2007 is the entry deadline for this year's Cut & Paste Digital Design Tournament. Born in New York City in 2005, this year the live tournament goes international with stops in London, Berlin, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney and select U.S cities. Serving as a platform for emerging and aspiring designers, Cut & Paste works to strengthen creative networks.

Catch a glimpse of a past tournament here. More info about Cut&Paste, entry details and prizes here.

Slow Dancing

by Wendy Dembo

Last Thursday David Michalek's " Slow Dancing," an outdoor installation of 40-foot video screens featuring 43 dancers, premiered at the Lincoln Center in New York. Running nightly from 9pm-1am until 29 July 2007, projected images of dancers— including Karole Armitage, Trisha Brown, William Forsythe, Eiko, Judith Jamison, Bill T. Jones, Allegra Kent, Bill Shannon, Elizabeth Streb and many others—appear on three 40-foot scrims stretched across the facade of the New York State Theater.

From ballet to break dancing to Balinese dance, as well as ballet and modern dance, a really interesting mixture of genres come together in the piece. Michalek brings them to life using a camera that shoots 1000 frames per second. He asked all the dancers to prepare three five-second phrases to try in front of camera and said that everyone came well-prepared. When played back in real time, the five-second movements equal about eight minutes, allowing the viewer to see every minute detail and move. Like Marey and Muybridge, Michalek belongs on the list of photographers studying the human form in movement. (See more info on his technical process here.)

What I found to be amazing was the control and balance of the dancers. I was watching the clip of Wendy Whelan, a prima ballerina at the New York City Ballet and married to Michalek. In the slow motion you could plainly see how her legs were moving, but the rest of her body was completely still. Her arms stayed at the exact same level for her entire leap. It was magical. I asked Whelan what she liked about the project and she said, that she “loved watching the seed of a dream turn into reality after three years. It is an extraordinary gift to the people.”

Photo courtesy of Jason Wishnow

Slow Dancing
12 July-29 July 2007
Lincoln Center
70 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023 map
tel. +1 212 875 5000

I Have Been Remembering: Half-Lives & Half-Truths

by Tim Yu

A site-specific installation featuring hundreds of one-inch drawings of Seattle landscapes, each encased in a single puff of bubble wrap (above), Minneapolis-based artist Gregory Euclide's solo show, "I Have Been Remembering: Half-Lives & Half-Truths," is up in Seattle at OKOK Gallery through 7 August 2007. In the center of the gallery, a paper sculpture suspended from the ceiling depicts a 360-degree panorama of the gallery's exterior (below right).

Euclide's works on paper employ natural processes including burying the paper to produce indexical stains as an alternative way to inform. Bubble pieces, mounted to the gallery's front window, are injected with water from local sources and other bubbles glued to the floor of the gallery's front entrance prevent visitors from entering without popping the pieces. Taking the exhibit outside the gallery walls, additional bubble wrap pieces are scattered throughout the streets of Seattle. The exhibit opened this past weekend, 14 July 2007 and featured a live sound performance by Kamran Sadeghi—aka Son of Rose—composed in collaboration with Euclide.

Last week I helped put up the installation, roamed a few streets in the Emerald City and had a few party sodas with the artist.

How tall are you?
Last time I actually checked, 6'5"

You seem to be really in tune with your surroundings. Any thoughts on the environment?
People do not respect what they do not understand.. it is the "floating" principle. Being mindful of your surroundings produces respect. The idea that the environment is only here for our "recreation" is really disturbing, yet one sees it everywhere. Where there is money to be made there will always be abuse and misuse.

Continue reading...

The Rise + Fall Woodgrain Tote Bag

by Jacob Resneck

Add this woodgrain tote to the list of interesting schmatta coming out of Brooklyn these days by local label The Rise + Fall. One of their newest offerings, the bag pairs the classic practicality of a tote with the classic pattern of wood and is reportedly gaining popularity. While much of these products are featured exclusively in their Brooklyn store, they take queries online and ship abroad. Call them (+1 718 388 3108) for more info.

Also on Cool Hunting: Cloth Napkins, Beaded Chain-Link Necklace, Pillows and Jeans

How to Make Tofu

by m ss ng p eces

150g Dried Soy Beans :

2g Calcium Sulfate (aka Gypsum, used for wine/beer making) water

Soak beans in water overnight.

Place the beans in a blender, adding water until they're covered (about 1" above the bean level). Blend for two minutes until it's a smooth liquid.

Using a sack made from two pieces of cotton cloth, squeeze out the soy juice.

Bring the juice to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally to avoid burning. Reduce flame to low and simmer for two to four minutes or so.

While the mixture continues to boil, prepare a small dish and dissolve Calcium Sulfate into two to three tablespoons of water.

Using a food thermometer, bring the temperature of the boiling mixture to 176�F.

Pour all of the mixture into a dish with the Calcium Sulfate while mixing briskly for three seconds and stop. Wait 10 minutes for the tofu to set. Serve hot right away, chill or squeeze more water with a cotton cloth while it's still hot for harder tofu.

Fashion Magazine by Alec Soth

by Jonah Samson

Photographer Alec Soth has been one busy guy lately. In addition to currently exhibiting work in six different galleries New York, England and France, he maintains his own very popular blog, has a new book set for release this fall (Dog Days Bogota) and last year he became an associate member of the renowned photography cooperative Magnum.

To add to this list of accomplishments, Magnum recently invited Soth to produce its third annual glossy Fashion Magazine called Paris Minnesota.

Using this opportunity as an excuse to play with fashion, Soth set out to combine images of noted fashion figures (such as Karl Lagerfeld and Sonia Rykiel) shot on location in Paris, with portraits of teenagers (some dressed by a stylist for the shoot) in his native Minnesota.

From Soth's description of the magazine: "I often say that when I am making a portrait, I'm not 'capturing' the other person. If the photograph documents anything, it is the space between the subject and myself. Something similar is at work with Fashion Magazine. I'm not really comfortable saying I know anything about Paris or its fashion world. And I suspect that most fashionable Parisians know just as little about Minnesota. What is interesting is the space between us. My favorite example of this involves Chanel. In Paris, I photographed Karl Lagerfeld at the Grand Palais. In Minnesota, I photographed a girl with a Chanel shopping bag in front of Sally's Beauty Shop. With this magazine, I'm trying to explore the distance between those two places."

The first two issues of the magazine were produced by Martin Parr and Bruce Gilden. Paris Minnesota is available for pre-order through Photoeye and is due out in August. See more images here.

Vertical Garden

by Lost At E Minor

At 200 meters long and 12 meters tall, this vertical garden is an impressive permanent and living installation at the Musée Du Quai Branly in Paris. The "living wall" was designed and planted by Patrick Blanc and forms the facade of the museum which was designed by enigmatic French architect Jean Nouvel.

Also on Cool Hunting: Patrick Blanc: Vertical Garden.