April 17, 2013
Jen Stark (b. 1983) is a contemporary artist who creates paper sculptures. She also works with drawing and animation. She draws inspiration from microscopic patterns in nature, wormholes, and sliced anatomy. She studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), graduating Magna Cum Laude with a BFA majoring in Fibers with a minor in Animation.
Stark’s ideas are based on replication and infinity, echoing patterns found in nature. Since expanding her medium from paper to include wood and even mirrors, Stark’s oeuvre of optically and methodologically baffling sculptures and drawings has enjoyed a renaissance of context. Her signature creations combine a variety of materials in hypnotic mandala-like configurations. Stark lives and works in Miami, Fl.
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April 9, 2013
Building Stories is a 2012 graphic novel by American cartoonist Chris Ware. The unconventional work is made up of fourteen printed works—cloth-bound books, newspapers, broadsheets and flip books—packaged in a boxed set.
The work took a decade to complete, and was published by Pantheon Books. The intricate, multilayered stories pivot around an unnamed female protagonist with a missing leg. It mainly focuses on her time in a three-story brownstone apartment building in Chicago, but follows her later in her life as a mother. The parts of the work can be read in any order.
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April 9, 2013
Franklin Christenson Ware (b. 1967), known professionally as Chris Ware, is an American comic book artist and cartoonist, notable for his ‘Acme Novelty Library’ series and the graphic novels ‘Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth,’ and ‘Building Stories.’ His works explore themes of social isolation, emotional torment and depression.
His works tend to use a vivid color palette and are full of realistic, meticulous detail. His lettering and images are often elaborate and sometimes evoke the ragtime era or another early 20th-century American design style. Ware often refers to himself in the publicity for his work in self-effacing, even withering tones. He is considered by some critics and fellow notable illustrators and writers, such as Dave Eggers, to be among the best currently working in the medium.
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April 1, 2013
Wes Wilson (b. 1937) is an American artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters. Most well known for designing posters for Bill Graham of the The Fillmore in San Francisco, he invented a style that is now synonymous with the peace movement, psychedelic era and the 1960s.
In particular, he is known for inventing and popularizing a ‘psychedelic’ font around 1966 that made the letters look like they were moving or melting.
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April 1, 2013
Boris Artzybasheff [ahrt-si-bah-shif] (1899 – 1965) was an American illustrator known for his strongly worked and often surreal designs. Artzybasheff was born in Ukraine, son of the author Mikhail Artsybashev. He is said to have fought as a White Russian (royalist).
During 1919 he arrived in New York City, where he worked in an engraving shop. His earliest work appeared in 1922 as illustrations for ‘Verotchka’s Tales’ and ‘The Undertaker’s Garland.’ A number of other book illustrations followed during the 1920s. Over the course of his career, he illustrated some 50 books, several of which he wrote, most notably ‘As I See.’
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March 31, 2013
The fotdella was an instrument invented and constructed by Jesse ‘The Lone Cat’ Fuller, an American one-man band musician, who needed an accompaniment instrument beyond the usual high-hat (foot-operated cymbal) or bass drum favored by street musicians. Dreaming it up in the early 1950s, while lying in bed, he set about constructing a foot-operated bass instrument. It ended up as a large upright box with a rounded top, vaguely shaped like the top of a double bass, with a short neck on top. Six bass strings were attached to the neck and stretched over the body.
To play the instrument, there was a homemade set of foot pedals, each one bringing a padded hammer to strike a string when depressed, like the action of a piano. With these six bass notes, Fuller could accompany himself on the 12-string guitar in several keys. The name ‘fotdella’ was given to the instrument by Fuller’s wife, who took to calling it a ‘foot-diller’ (as in the then-current expression, ‘killer-diller,’ meaning ‘exceedingly good’); later, it became shortened to just fotdella.
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March 31, 2013
A one-man band is a musician who plays a number of musical instruments simultaneously using their hands, feet, limbs, and various mechanical contraptions. The simplest type of ‘one-man band’ — a singer accompanying themselves on acoustic guitar and harmonica mounted in a metal ‘harp rack’ below the mouth — is often used by buskers.
More complicated setups may include wind instruments strapped around the neck, a large bass drum mounted on the musician’s back with a beater which is connected to a foot pedal, cymbals strapped between the knees or triggered by a pedal mechanism, tambourines and maracas tied to the limbs, and a stringed instrument strapped over the shoulders (e.g., a banjo, ukulele or guitar). Since the development of Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) in the 1980s, musicians have also incorporated chest-mounted MIDI drum pads, foot-mounted electronic drum triggers, and electronic pedal keyboards into their set-ups.
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March 31, 2013
Demolition Man is a 1993 American science fiction action film directed by Marco Brambilla, and starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes (co-starring Sandra Bullock and Denis Leary). The film tells the story of two men—one, an evil crime lord; the other, a risk-taking police officer—who are cryogenically frozen in the year 1996 and reawakened in 2032.
Following a massive earthquake in 2010 that destroyed much of Los Angeles, the city merged with San Diego to form a planned city called San Angeles in which all crime has seemingly been eliminated from mainstream society. Sandra Bullock replaced original actress Lori Petty in the role of Lenina Huxley after a few days filming. Her character’s name is a reference to Aldous Huxley, the author of ‘Brave New World,’ and Lenina Crowne, a character in the dystopian novel.
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March 31, 2013
Nuit [new-ee] Blanche [blahnsh] (‘All-Nighter,’ literally ‘White Night,’ in French) is an annual all-night or night-time arts festival. A Nuit Blanche will typically have museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the center of the city itself being turned into a temporary art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances (music, film, dance, performance art), themed social gatherings, and other activities.
The concept came from Jean Blaise, artistic director for special events, who founded the ‘Centre de recherche pour le développement culturel’ (‘Research Center for Cultural Development’) in Nantes, France, in 1984.
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March 31, 2013
‘Fully Flared‘ is a street skateboarding video by the Lakai footwear company, featuring video parts from its team riders. The film is directed by Ty Evans, Spike Jonze, and Cory Weincheque. The introduction features the skateboarders performing tricks in a vacant urban space, consisting of obstacles, blocks, and stair sets, while explosions occur. Presented in slow motion, the introduction feature is accompanied by a soundtrack from electronic music group, M83. Originally, Evans, Jonze, and Howard played with different ideas that were significantly more dangerous than what was eventually featured.
The main group filming was Aaron Meza and Chris Ray. In Europe, an Italian filmmaker named Fedrico Vitetta – who’d been living with Oliver Barton in Spain for a year – took on the role. Then was conceptual help from Rick Howard and Spike Jonze. Finally, Johannes Gamble helped with all the effects work.
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March 29, 2013
Captain Marvel, also known as ‘Shazam,’ is a fictional comic book superhero, originally published by Fawcett Comics and later by DC. Created in 1939 by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker, the character first appeared in 1940 in ‘Whiz Comics’ #2. With a premise that taps adolescent fantasy, Captain Marvel is the alter ego of Billy Batson, a youth who works as a radio news reporter and was chosen to be a champion of good by the wizard Shazam.
Whenever Billy speaks the wizard’s name, he is struck by a magic lightning bolt that transforms him into an adult superhero empowered with the abilities of six archetypal, historical figures. Several friends and family members, most notably Marvel Family cohorts Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr., can share Billy’s power and become ‘Marvels’ themselves.
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March 29, 2013
Marvels is a four-issue limited series comic book written by Kurt Busiek, painted by Alex Ross and edited by Marcus McLaurin, and published by Marvel Comics in 1994. Set from 1939 to 1974; the series examines the Marvel Universe, the collective setting of most of Marvel’s superhero series, from the perspective of an Everyman character: news photographer Phil Sheldon.
The street-level series portrayed ordinary life in a world full of costumed supermen, with each issue featuring events well known to readers of Marvel comics as well as a variety of minute details and retelling the most famous events in the Marvel universe. Busiek and Ross returned to the ‘everyday life in a superhero universe’ theme in the Homage Comics series ‘Astro City.’
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