January 2, 2011
A panorama is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model. The word was originally coined by the Irish painter Robert Barker to describe his panoramic paintings of Edinburgh. Shown on a cylindrical surface and viewed from the inside, they were exhibited in London in 1792. The motion-picture term ‘panning’ is derived from panorama. Panoramic photography eventually came to displace painting as the most common method for creating wide views.
Not long after the introduction of the Daguerreotype in 1839, photographers began assembling multiple images of a view into a single wide image. In the late 19th century, panoramic cameras using curved film holders employed clockwork drives to scan a line image in an arc to create an image over almost 180 degrees. Digital photography of the late twentieth century greatly simplified this assembly process, which is now known as image stitching. Such stitched images may even be fashioned into forms of virtual reality movies, using technologies such as QuickTime VR, Flash, or Java.
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January 2, 2011
In photography, an omnidirectional camera is a camera with a 360-degree field of view in the horizontal plane, or with a visual field that covers (approximately) the entire sphere. Omnidirectional cameras are important in areas where large visual field coverage is needed, such as in panoramic photography and robotics.
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January 2, 2011
Fantastic Planet is a 1973 animated science fiction film directed by René Laloux, production designed by Roland Topor, written by both of them and animated at Jiří Trnka Studio. The film was an international production between France and Czechoslovakia and was distributed in the United States by Roger Corman. The story is based on the novel ‘Oms en série,’ by the French writer Stefan Wul. The film is chiefly noted for Topor’s surreal imagery.
The film depicts a future in which human beings, known as ‘Oms’ (a play on the French word ‘hommes,’ meaning ‘men’), have been brought by the giant Draags to the Draag home world, where they are kept as pets (with collars). Most Oms are domesticated as pets, but others run wild, and are periodically exterminated. The Draags’ treatment of the Oms is ironically contrasted with their high level of technological and spiritual development. The Draag practice of meditation, whereby they commune psychically with each other and with different species, is shown in transformations of their shape and color.
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January 2, 2011
Birdy Nam Nam is a French DJ crew, originally formed to compete in the DMC World DJ Championship. Their self-titled debut album was released in 2006 on Uncivilized World Records and was created entirely on turntables.
In 2009 they released ‘Manual for Successful Rioting,’ an album that found the four programming and playing synths along with their turntables. The group’s name is taken from the 1968 Peter Sellers film ‘The Party,’ directed by Blake Edwards.
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January 1, 2011
The Japanese kusudama (literally ‘medicine ball’) is a paper model that is usually (although not always) created by sewing or gluing multiple identical pyramidal units (usually stylized flowers folded from square paper) together through their points to form a spherical shape. Occasionally, a tassel is attached to the bottom for decoration.
Kusudama originate from ancient Japanese culture, where they were used for incense and potpourri; possibly originally being actual bunches of flowers or herbs. They are now typically used as decorations, or as gifts. It is a precursor to modular origami, a paper folding technique which uses multiple sheets of paper to create a larger and more complex structure than possible using single-piece origami techniques.
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January 1, 2011
Blockhead (real name Tony Simon) is an American Hip hop producer based in Manhattan, New York. Aside from his solo efforts released on the Ninja Tune label, he is most associated with producing for Aesop Rock, a rapper for the Definitive Jux independent hip hop label. He is also a member of the hip hop/comedy group Party Fun Action Committee. His father, the late Sidney Simon, was a well known sculptor in New York City.
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December 24, 2010
In Jamaican popular culture, a sound system is a group of disc jockeys, engineers and MCs playing ska, rocksteady or reggae music. The sound system scene is generally regarded as an important part of Jamaican cultural history and as being responsible for the rise of several modern Jamaican musical genres.
The sound system concept first became popular in the 1950s, in the ghettos of Kingston. DJs would load up a truck with a generator, turntables, and huge speakers and set up street parties. In the beginning, the DJs played American rhythm and blues music, but as time progressed the sound migrated to a local flavor.
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December 24, 2010
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music, originating from Croydon, UK. Its overall sound has been described as ‘tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals.’
The earliest dubstep releases, which date back to 1998, were darker, more experimental, instrumental dub remixes of 2-step garage tracks attempting to incorporate the funky elements of breakbeat, or the dark elements of drum and bass into 2-step.
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December 22, 2010
An ambigram [am-bi-gram] is a typographical design or artform that may be read as one or more words not only in its form as presented, but also from another viewpoint, direction, or orientation.
The words readable in the other viewpoint, direction or orientation may be the same or different from the original words. Different ambigram artists (sometimes called ambigramists) may create completely different ambigrams from the same word or words, differing in both style and form.
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December 22, 2010
Chuck Close (b. 1940) is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits.
Though a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work that remains sought after by museums and collectors. Ironically, while being one of the most successful portrait artists of his time, Close is also afflicted with prosopagnosia (face blindness), a condition that prevents him from recognizing people’s faces.
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December 20, 2010
Love is a sculpture by American artist Robert Indiana. It consists of the letters LO (with the O canted sideways) over the letters VE. The image was originally designed as a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art in 1964, and first exhibited as a sculpture in New York City in 1970. This original sculpture is made of weathering steel and has been on exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art since 1975.
The LOVE design has been reproduced in a variety of formats. Likewise, the sculpture has been recreated in multiple versions and a variety of colors, and is now on display around the world. While it was first made in English, versions of the sculpture exist in Hebrew, Chinese, Italian and Spanish. The LOVE emblem has been adopted by skateboarders and frequently appears in skateboard magazines and videos. After skateboarding was banned in Philadelphia’s LOVE Park, the emblem was used by organizations opposing the ban.
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December 20, 2010
Victor Vasarely (1906 – 1997) was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art. His work entitled Zebra, created by in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art.
He was born in a town outside of Budapest, but settled in Paris in 1930, where he went on to produce art and sculpture mainly focused around the area of optical illusion. Over the next three decades, Vasarely developed his style of geometric abstract art, working in various materials but using a minimal number of forms and colors.
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