Cool Hunting
Playing the Building
by Tim Yu
In conjunction with Creative Time, Playing the Building is an installation by David Byrne that transformed a 9,000 square foot abandoned room in Lower Manhattan's Battery Maritime Building into an instrument for the summer. An antique pump organ controls devices that create sounds using the building's infrastructure, including heating pipes, metal beams and pillars.
For a special event last month, curator Mark Beasley invited accomplished musicians to perform an improvisational piece with the building. The result is a captivating musical experience.
Glow Fest 2008
by Ami Kealoha
by Perrin Drumm
Last month, Santa Monica's pier hosted 12 hours of performance and installation art, attracting 200,000 revelers for Glow, a public light and sound extravaganza in the style of Paris' Nuit Blanche. This video navigates through both the throngs of people (almost more notable than the art itself) and the many luminous installations dotting the beach and boardwalk.
At the far end, Infranatural unveiled "The Amazing Mental Scope," which reads the viewer's emotions and translates them into changing colors on the body of the telescope. Skyglow (Jeff Cain) offered some respite from the crowd, projecting aerial footage of Los Angeles onto the ceiling of a room, which actually required you to stop moving and lie down.
Other crowd-pleasers included Dunnage Ball (Peter Tolkin Projects), a sort of illuminated, modern moon-bounce, and Usman Haque's show-stopper "Primal Source." Yes, that's the one with the projections onto the big wall of water that everyone pointed and gasped at.
Not featured in our video, but still worth noting, is the award for the best use of glow sticks, which goes to Illumination Migration (Frank Rozasy). Nine hundred and fifty glow sticks were stuck in the sand and rearranged over the course of the night in accordance with the change in tide and migration of grunions.
June Taylor Jams
by Ami Kealoha
Tucked in an anonymous building on a quiet Berkeley, CA street, June Taylor makes small batches of some of the most mouth-watering jams, preserves, syrups and marmalades we've tasted. In this video, June modestly shares her artisan and old-world techniques, explaining how nature helps dictate exotic flavor combinations like Strawberry and Provençal Lavender and how she takes into consideration even the tiniest of details, such as the shape and size of the pieces of fruit. It's a window into an exceedingly rare level of art and craft.
In this video RISD president John Maeda narrates a visit to Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan, CT. Maeda shares his impressions and talks about how it relates to his thoughts on simplicity. Meanwhile, we explore the site (there are actually several buildings on the property in addition to the Glass House), shot over a couple picture perfect spring days....
Bringing together 24 street artists from all over the world, Electric Windows is a semi-permanent installation of large-scale work exhibited on the exterior windows of a 19th century blanket factory in Beacon, NY. We traveled to the small town earlier this year to meet some of the artists and watch them make "urban art" in a not-so-urban setting. We also interview one of the...
A massage-based video game controller, panties with wings and an inflatable dress were just a few of the concepts exhibited recently at the NYC gallery Eyebeam to launch Sabine Seymour's new book "Fashionable Technology." In this video, we interview Sabine about the burgeoning field and her lifelong obsession with fashion. She also helps us peruse the exhibit, chatting with the designers and artists behind...
Known for her hauntingly still imagery, photographer Lisa Kereszi's subjects have included junkyards, burlesque clubs and other desolate sites. Her commercial work for clients such as The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Nest, W, GQ, Tokion, Penthouse, Nylon, Flaunt, wallpaper* and others shares a similarly serenely meditative quality, capturing the quiet beauty of scenes that would otherwise likely go unnoticed. Currently teaching...
Drawing on found objects (and people), kitsch and the banal, Philadelphia-based artist Alex Da Corte makes multimedia work that belies its material origins. This video visits his studio/apartment and his recent gallery show at Fleischer-Ollman to gain some insight into his ideas and technique. We also interview Fleischer-Ollman's director William Pym to get his take on the young artist....
A Pratt graduate who cut his teeth in the Brooklyn design scene, jewelry and furniture maker Kiel Mead represents the next generation of New York designers. Taking inspiration from such disparate sources as everyday objects (car keys, chewing gum, retainers) and Catholic iconography (Saint Sebastian, crucifixes), his work mixes irreverence with first-rate craftsmanship. In this video, we visit his Brooklyn studio where he shows...
