March 18, 2013
The Air Pirates were a group of cartoonists who created two issues of an underground comic called ‘Air Pirates Funnies’ in 1971, leading to a famous lawsuit by The Walt Disney Company. Founded by Dan O’Neill, the group also included Shary Flenniken, Bobby London, Gary Hallgren, and Ted Richards. The collective shared a common interest in the styles of past masters of the comic strip, and in creating their stories for the collective each set out to imitate the style of an old time cartoonist.
Flenniken emulated Clare Briggs and H. T. Webster in her ‘Trots and Bonnie’ comics, London’s strip ‘Dirty Duck’ paid homage to the style of George Herriman’s ‘Krazy Kat,’ Richards’ ‘Dopin’ Dan’ was supposed to be influenced by Bud Fisher but showed more similarity to Mort Walker’s ‘Beetle Bailey,’ and Gary Hallgren drew a strip called ‘Pollyanna Pals’ in the style of Cliff Sterrett’s ‘Polly and Her Pals.’ The original Air Pirates were a gang of Mickey Mouse antagonists of the 1930s; O’Neill regarded Mickey Mouse as a symbol of conformist hypocrisy in American culture, and therefore a ripe target for satire.
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March 18, 2013
Brian Donnelly (b. 1974), professionally known as KAWS, is a New York-based artist and designer of limited edition toys and clothing. Donnelly graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration in 1996. After graduation, KAWS briefly worked for Disney as a freelance animator painting backgrounds. He also contributed to the animated series ‘101 Dalmatians,’ ‘Daria,’ and ‘Doug.’ He began his career as a graffiti artist growing up in Jersey City.
Later moving to New York City in the 1990s, KAWS started subverting imagery on billboards, bus shelters and phone booth advertisements. These reworked advertisements were at first left alone, lasting for up to several months, but as KAWS’ popularity skyrocketed, the ads became increasingly sought after. In addition to New York, KAWS has done work in Paris, London, Berlin and Tokyo. KAWS’s ‘Companion,’ a grayscale figure based on Mickey Mouse with his face obscured by both hands, was adapted into a balloon for the 2012 ‘Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade’ as part of the parade’s ‘Blue Sky Gallery’ feature.
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March 18, 2013
Urban vinyl is a type of designer toy, featuring action figures in particular which are usually made of vinyl. Although the term is sometimes used interchangeably with the term designer toy, it is more accurately used as a modifier: not all designer toys can be considered urban vinyl, while urban vinyl figures are necessarily designer toys, by virtue of the way in which they are produced.
Like designer toys in general, urban vinyl figures feature original designs, small production numbers, and are marketed to collectors, predominantly adults. The urban vinyl trend was initiated by artist Michael Lau, who first created urban vinyl figures in Hong Kong in the late 1990s. Other creators of urban vinyl figures are Japanese artist and designer Takashi Murakami, Australian designer Nathan Jurevicius’s ‘Scarygirl,’ based on characters from his comic of the same name, and produced in conjunction with Hong Kong company Flyingcat, and former graffiti artist KAWS.
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March 15, 2013
Bullet time is a special and visual effect that refers to a digitally enhanced simulation of variable-speed (i.e. slow motion, time-lapse). It is characterized both by its extreme transformation of time (slow enough to show normally imperceptible and unfilmable events, such as flying bullets) and space (by way of the ability of the camera angle—the audience’s point-of-view—to move around the scene at a normal speed while events are slowed).
This is almost impossible with conventional slow-motion, as the physical camera would have to move impossibly fast; the concept implies that only a ‘virtual camera,’ often illustrated within the confines of a computer-generated environment such as a virtual world or virtual reality, would be capable of ‘filming’ bullet-time types of moments. Technical and historical variations of this effect have been referred to as time slicing, view morphing, slow-mo, temps mort, and virtual cinematography.
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March 15, 2013
Slow motion (commonly abbreviated as slowmo) is an effect in film-making whereby time appears to be slowed down. It was invented by the Austrian priest August Musger. Typically this style is achieved when each film frame is captured at a rate much faster than it will be played back.
When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving more slowly. A term for creating slow motion film is ‘overcranking’ which refers to hand cranking an early camera at a faster rate than normal (i.e. faster than 24 frames per second). Slow motion can also be achieved by playing normally recorded footage at a slower speed. This technique is more often applied to video subjected to instant replay, than to film.
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March 13, 2013
A pocket universe is a concept in inflationary theory, proposed by theoretical physicist Alan Guth. It defines a realm like the one that contains the observable universe as only one of many inflationary zones. Astrophysicist Jean-Luc Lehners, of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, has argued that an inflationary universe produces pockets.
As he wrote in 2012, ‘Eternal inflation produces pocket universes with all physically allowed vacua and histories. Some of these pocket universes might contain a phase of slow-roll inflation, some might undergo cycles of cosmological evolution, and some might look like the Galilean genesis or other ’emergent’ universe scenarios. Which one of these types of universe we are most likely to inhabit depends on the measure we choose in order to regulate the infinities inherent in eternal inflation.’
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March 12, 2013
‘Codex Alera‘ is a fantasy book series by novelist Jim Butcher. The series chronicles the coming-of-age of a young man named Tavi in the realm of Alera, an empire similar to Rome, on the world of Carna. Every Aleran has some degree of command over elemental forces or spirits called furies, save for Tavi, who is considered unusual for his lack of one. As the aging First Lord struggles to maintain his hold on a realm on the brink of civil war, Tavi must use all of his intelligence to save Alera.
The inspiration for the series came from a bet Jim was challenged to by a member of the Delray Online Writer’s Workshop. The challenger bet that Jim could not write a good story based on a lame idea, and Jim countered that he could do it using two lame ideas of the challenger’s choosing. The ‘lame’ ideas given were ‘Lost Roman Legion,’ and ‘Pokémon.’
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March 11, 2013
Darrell Lance Abbott, also known as Diamond Darrell and Dimebag Darrell (1966 – 2004), was an American guitarist and founding member of the groove metal band Pantera, as well as Damageplan. Abbott also contributed to the record Rebel Meets Rebel, a collaboration between Pantera and outlaw country music singer David Allan Coe.
Darrell is considered to be one of the driving forces behind groove metal (a subgenre of heavy metal characterized by a slightly slower tempo than most metal). Abbott was shot and killed while on stage during a Damageplan performance on December 8, 2004, at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio.
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March 11, 2013
Lock On is a style of street art, where artists create installations by attaching sculptures to public furniture using lengths of chain and old bike locks. The sculptures are often arranged to give the impression that they are interacting with surroundings.
The Lock On style is a ‘non destructive’ form of underground art. Artist Tejn is considered the ‘founder’ of the style. Taking scrap metal from urban areas, he welds the material to create sculptures which he ‘returns to the street’ as art. The genre was introduced when he started placing his welded iron sculptures, chained and locked, throughout Copenhagen and Berlin.
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March 9, 2013
David Černý [chair-nee] (b. 1967) is a controversial Czech sculptor. He gained notoriety in 1991 by painting a Soviet tank pink, to serve as a war memorial in central Prague.
As the Monument to Soviet tank crews was still a national cultural monument at that time, his act of civil disobedience was considered ‘hooliganism’ and he was briefly arrested. Another of his conspicuous contributions to Prague is ‘Tower Babies,’ a series of cast figures of crawling infants attached to Žižkov Television Tower. For the 2012 Summer Olympics Černý created ‘London Booster’ – a double decker bus with mechanical arms for doing push-ups.
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March 9, 2013
‘Entropa‘ is a 2009 sculpture by Czech artist David Černý. The project was commissioned by the Czech Republic to mark the occasion of its presidency of the Council of the European Union, and was originally designed as a collaboration for 27 artists and artist groups from all member countries of the European Union.
However, as a hoax, Černý and three of his assistants created a satirical and controversial piece that depicted pointed stereotypes of the EU member nations. Fake artist profiles were also created by Černý and his accomplices, complete with invented descriptions of their supposed contributions. The sculpture was originally on display in the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels.
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March 9, 2013
‘Czech Dream‘ is a 2004 documentary film directed by Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda, which recorded a large-scale hoax perpetrated by the filmmakers on the Czech public, culminating in the ‘opening event’ of a fake hypermarket (a supermarket and a department store in one).
The film was their final project for film school. Remunda and Klusák invented the ‘Český sen’ (‘Czech Dream’) hypermarket and created a massive advertising campaign around it.
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