Artists Fill Paris With 600 Fake Ads To Protest Corporate Sponsorship Of Climate Conference

Paris is bombed again, however, this time with environmental messages aimed at the world leaders who gathered there for the COP21 climate conference on Monday. 600 fake posters denouncing major corporations were installed behind the glass at bus stops around the city by Brandalism, a UK-based project that fights corporate control in advertising.

“By sponsoring the climate talks, major polluters such as Air France and GDF-Suez-Engie can promote themselves as part of the solution – when actually they are part of the problem,” Joe Elan from Brandalism said in their press release.

“Because the advertising industry force feeds our desires for products created from fossil fuels, they are intimately connected to causing climate change,” Elan said. “We are taking their spaces back because we want to challenge the role advertising plays in promoting unsustainable consumerism.”

This is very clever public art that makes use of well-known brands juxtaposed against a controversial issue to make a powerful impression.

Barbara Kruger’s Invasive Installations

This installation by Barbara Kruger fills the Lower Level lobby of the Hirshhorn gallery and surround the viewer with language. The entire space—walls, floor, escalator sides—is wrapped in text-printed vinyl, immersing visitors in a spectacular hall of voices, where words either crafted by the artist or borrowed from the popular lexicon address conflicting perceptions of democracy, power, and belief.

At a point in time when ideological certitude and purity seem especially valued, Kruger says she’s “interested in introducing doubt.” Large areas of the installation are devoted to open-ended questions—“WHO IS BEYOND THE LAW? WHO IS FREE TO CHOOSE? WHO SPEAKS? WHO IS SILENT?”

At once addressing the individual, the museum, and, symbolically, the country, Kruger’s penetrating examination of the public sphere transforms one of the Hirshhorn’s key public spaces.

 

Logo design process by Aaron Draplin

Honest to god, this is one of the most inspirational design videos I have ever seen. If you have about 1 5 minutes to spare, I promise it’s worth watching the whole thing.

From Vimeo:

“Most logos aren’t designed in fifteen minutes, but most designers aren’t Aaron Draplin. Aaron’s a Portland fixture by way of the Midwest, the owner of Draplin Design Co., and an advocate of “blue collar” design: design that works. Here he takes our logo design challenge, creating a dozen iterations of a logo for a fictional construction company. Not inspired? Just wait. Watch as he sketches, brings his ideas into Illustrator, and tests and tunes the different iterations. The logos Aaron creates prove design can elevate any company or brand.”

 

https://vimeo.com/113751583

Urban Interruption by Candy Chang

A graphic designer, guerrilla artist, and urban planner, Candy Chang has been instigating site-specific interventions into public spaces. She’s stenciled sidewalks to indicate where she thinks her neighborhood could use a new tree. She’s distributed nametags to be stuck on boarded-up buildings in post-Katrina New Orleans—only instead of “Hello My Name Is,” they read “I Wish This Was,” leaving room for residents to complete the sentence. For her project titled Before I Die, an abandoned house became a chalkboard for a wish list on which passersby reminded themselves of “what really matters.”

 

 

“When Faith Moves Mountains”

This work by Belgian performance artist Francis Alÿs involved the physical labor of five hundred volunteers with shovels. In 2002, they gathered at a huge sand dune on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, and over the course of a day moved it by several inches.

The action itself, as documented in photographs and video, is extraordinarily impressive, but in the end the “social allegory” takes over from the work’s undeniable formal presence. The action was completely transitory. The next day, no one could recognize that the huge sand dune had been moved. The true aftermath of the work lies in the ripples of anecdote and image that radiate out from it.

Happy International Origami Day!

Apparently, today, November 11, is World Origami day!

A bit on the history of origami:

It is generally accepted that paper was invented around 105 A.D. in China. The Japanese first used paper during the sixth century. It is true that other cultures engaged in various forms of paper folding, but it was the Japanese who first discovered the possibilities associated with using paper as a medium for art.

When origami was first practiced, however, it was a craft only for the elite. Japanese monks folded origami figures for religious purposes. Origami was also used in various formal ceremonies, such as the practice of folding paper butterflies to adorn sake bottles at a Japanese couple’s wedding reception. Tsutsumi, folded paper gift wrappers, were used in some ceremonies to symbolize sincerity and purity. Tsuki, folded pieces of paper accompanying valuable gift, are another example of ceremonial paper folding since these models would act as a certificate of authenticity.

As paper became more affordable, common people began making origami figures as gifts or creating folded cards and envelopes for their correspondence.

Origami also started to be used as an educational tool, since the folding process involves many concepts that are relevant to the study of mathematics.

Where Fashion and Tech Collide: Intel’s “Adrenaline Dress”

At New York Fashion Week, a company called Chromat unveiled a technology-enabled dress that expands and collapses based on the wearer’s body temperature, adrenaline or stress levels. Launched in partnership with the tech company Intel, and accordingly hosting the button-sized Intel Curie chip, it is made from 3-D printed panels and an adaptable carbon fiber framework.

The Adrenaline dress senses when adrenaline levels get high and mimics the fight-or-flight mode, extending the wearer’s sensory system to form an imposing shape, much like a peacock would fan its colorful feathers to attract mates.

The dress is a nod toward a future built around intelligent clothing that adjusts based on human whim. Imagine clothing that elongates its sleeves as the whether cools, or a skirt that changes length to change from office to nightclub? Exploring the molecular structure of fabric is a big leap forward expected to follow from wearables labs.

Brian Chan, Maker of Anything

Brian Chan is an artist and craftsman with more than 10 years of experience at MIT and Mass Art. Some of the specialties he has had over the years are Japanese swords, replica props, and musical instruments. Brian also enjoys designing complex origami (he is currently working on an origami book to be published through Origamihouse Japan) and painting. He works at the MIT Hobby shop, and hopes to continue teaching fine craftsmanship and design in the tradition of his mentors, Ken Stone, Hayami Arakawa, Fred Cote, Toby Bashaw, Mark Belanger, JD Smith (Mass Art) and Jim Kelso (an independent metalworker).

Check out more of his amazing work at: http://web.mit.edu/chosetec/www/origami/.

What is “Cool”?

The other day in class Professor mentioned the notion of “cool” and what it means in an ever-evolving society wherein the community incessantly redefines what “cool” is. This has resulted in a wonderful and beautiful (and sometimes worrying) array of words that mean the same thing (cool) and yet different things (the cool of a particular place and time).

I think this video by Hank Green (brother of the famous author John Green) explores the idea quite eloquently. Check it out below!

The Phenological Clock

This past summer, I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum of Design in London and saw this work, The Phenological Clock, from the Orange Tip Butterfly to the Hairy Footed Flower Bee!

Natalie Jeremijenko, artist, engineer and ecologist, created this piece under the title ‘Re Public of Air’ for the Victoria & Albert Museum ‘All This Belongs to You’, connecting the Museum to the wider ecology of the city.

A PhenClock has a January through to December clock face showing the months when local organisms bud, burst into leaf, bloom, set seed, produce fruit, hatch, emerge or migrate. These seasonal events are arranged in concentric, coloured annual circles, one for each species. Whenever a flowering perennial plant buds, leafs out and flowers, all these events appear in the same circle.

Interestingly, the work, which seems to be a biology data report was displayed in the entrance of the museum for all to see. Do you think it constitutes art, or merely a project report?