December 7, 2011
Isotype (International System of TYpographic Picture Education) is a method of showing social, technological, biological and historical connections in pictorial form.
It was first known as the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics, due to its having been developed at the Social and Economic Museum of Vienna (Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien) between 1925 and 1934. The founding director of the museum, Otto Neurath, was the initiator and chief theorist of the Vienna Method. The term Isotype was applied to the method around 1935, after its key practitioners were forced to leave Vienna by the rise of Austrian fascism.
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December 3, 2011
Op art is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions. ‘Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing.’ Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively, of swelling or warping.
Op art is derived from the constructivist practices of the Bauhaus, a German design school, founded by Walter Gropius, which stressed the relationship of form and function within a framework of analysis and rationality. Students were taught to focus on the overall design, or entire composition, in order to present unified works. When the Bauhaus was forced to close in 1933, many of its instructors fled to the US where the movement took root in Chicago and eventually at the Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina, where Anni and Josef Albers would come to teach.
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December 1, 2011
The Jheri [jer-ee] curl is a hairstyle that was common and popular in the African American community especially during the 1970s and 1980s. Invented by and named for Jheri Redding, the Jheri curl gave the wearer a glossy, loosely curled look. It was touted as a ‘wash and wear’ style that was easier to care for than the other popular chemical treatment of the day, the relaxer. A Jheri curl was a two-part application that consisted of a softener (often called a ‘rearranging cream’) to loosen the hair and a solution to set the curls. The rearranging cream used pungent chemicals, causing the naturally tight curls to loosen and hang. The loose hair was then set and a chemical solution was then added to the hair to permanently curl it.
Perming the hair was time and labor-intensive and expensive to maintain. The harsh mix of chemicals required for the process caused the wearer’s natural hair to become extremely brittle and dry. To maintain the look of the Jheri curl, users were required to apply a curl activator spray and heavy moisturizers daily and to sleep with a plastic cap on their heads to keep the hairstyle from drying out. The activator in particular had the undesirable side effect of being very greasy; this would often stain clothing and furniture. The hairstyle went out of fashion by the late 1980s and was replaced in part with the hi-top fade haircut.
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November 30, 2011
The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer. The main goal of a demo is to show off programming, artistic, and musical skills. The demoscene first appeared during the 8-bit era on computers such as the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, and came to prominence during the rise of the 16/32-bit home computers (the Amiga and the Atari ST). In the early years, demos had a strong connection with software cracking. When a cracked program was started, the cracker or his team would take credit with a graphical introduction called a ‘crack intro’ (shortened cracktro). Later, the making of intros and standalone demos evolved into a new subculture independent of the software (piracy) scene.
Prior to the popularity of IBM PC compatibles, most home computers of a given line had relatively little variance in their basic hardware, which made their capabilities practically identical. Therefore, the variations among demos created for one computer line were attributed to programming alone, rather than one computer having better hardware. This created a competitive environment in which demoscene groups would try to outperform each other in creating amazing effects, and often to demonstrate why they felt one machine was better than another.
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November 30, 2011
Generative art refers to art that has been generated, composed, or constructed in an algorithmic manner through the use of systems defined by computer software algorithms, or similar mathematical or mechanical or randomized autonomous processes.
Generative art is a system oriented art practice where the common denominator is the use of systems as a production method. To meet the definition of generative art, an artwork must be self-contained and operate with some degree of autonomy. The workings of systems in generative art might resemble, or rely on, various scientific theories such as Complexity science and Information theory.
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November 30, 2011
Steven Heller (b. 1950) is an American author, and editor who specializes on topics related to graphic design. He is author and co-author of many works on the history of illustration, typography, and many subjects related to graphic design. He has published more than eighty titles.
For thirty-three years Heller was a senior art director of ‘U&lc’ magazine, a publication devoted to typography. As of 2007, he is co-chair with Lita Talarico of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He has collaborated on books with graphic designer, Louise Fili, who is his wife, as well as with others including the Design Dialogue series.
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November 30, 2011
Hajime Sorayama (b.1947) is a Japanese illustrator, known for his precisely detailed, erotic airbrush portrayals of women and feminine robots. Sorayama’s work ‘Sexy Robot,’ published by Genko-sha in 1983, made his organic robotic forms famous around the world.
For the work, he used ideas from pin-up art, which in the book then appear as chrome-plated gynoids in suggestive poses. His next book, ‘Pin-up’ (1984), continues in the same line. A number of his other works similarly revolve around figures in suggestive poses, including highly realistic depictions in latex and leather. His pinups appeared frequently in the pages of ‘Penthouse’ magazine.
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November 30, 2011
Nobukazu Takemura (b. 1968) is a Japanese musician whose style has run from jazz to house to drum and bass to chamber music to electronic glitch within less than a decade. Born in Osaka he became interested in punk and New Wave music when young. At high school, after a record store job that exposed him to Jazz and Hip hop, he had regular gigs as a battle DJ. In 1990, Takemura founded Audio Sports with Yamatsuka Eye (of The Boredoms) and Aki Onda. Their first album, ‘Era of Glittering Gas,’ was released in 1992 (after which Onda subsequently took control of the project), the same year as Takemura’s first solo album, under the name DJ Takemura. He has also released material with Spiritual Vibes (since 1993) and as Child’s View (since 1994). He is currently paired with Childisc vocalist/composer Aki Tsuyuko under the touring name of Assembler.
He founded the Lollop and Childisc labels; his voluminous releases, remixes, and collaborations make a comprehensive discography difficult, and his music often defies any easy categorization. He emerged in the US after the release of ‘Scope’ on the Thrill Jockey label in 1999, an album that features delicate melodies blossoming from oceans of white noise and staccato electronics. His unique and complex approach to melody and instrumentation has generated a catalog of collaborations with critically acclaimed artists including Issey Miyake, Zu, Steve Reich, DJ Spooky, Yo La Tengo, and Tortoise. Takemura was responsible for the sound design of Sony’s robotic dog AIBO.
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November 30, 2011
Neville Brody (b. 1957) is an English graphic designer and typographer. He is an alumnus of the London College of Printing and Hornsey College of Art, and is known for his work on ‘The Face’ magazine (1981–1986) and ‘Arena’ magazine (1987–1990), as well as for designing record covers for artists such as Cabaret Voltaire and Depeche Mode. He created the company Research Studios in 1994 and is a founding member of Fontworks. In 2011 he headed the Communication Art & Design department at the Royal College of Art.
As an undergraduate, his tutors often condemned his work as ‘Uncommercial,’ often putting a heavy emphasis on safe and tested economic strategies, as opposed to experimentation. By 1977 punk rock was beginning to have a major effect upon London life and Brody’s work and motivation, which was not well received by his tutors. At one point he was almost thrown out of the college for putting the Queen’s head sideways on a postage stamp design. He did, however, get the chance to design posters for student concerts at the college, most notably for Pere Ubu, supported by The Human League. His first-year thesis had been based around a comparison between Dadaism and pop art.
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November 30, 2011
123Klan is a French graffiti crew, founded in 1992 by husband and wife Scien and Klor. Since 1994 the crew have also worked in graphic design, inspired by the work of English graphic designer Neville Brody, and started to apply it to their graffiti (and vice versa). They describe their art as ‘when street knowledge meets technology and graffiti melds with graphic design.’
Scien has said, ‘The great thing about graffiti is its impact on the streets. But most of people don’t like graffiti, simply because they don’t understand it. In a city you have probably less graffiti than advertising, and most of it is certainly uglier than certain graffiti pieces – so to come up with something that gets an impact on people in this visual jungle, it is a real challenge.’
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November 29, 2011
Jean Dubuffet [doo-buh-fey] (1901 – 1985) was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called ‘low art’ and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.
After a break of several years, he took up painting again in the 1930s, when he made a large series of portraits in which he emphasized the vogues in art history. But again stopped, only turning to art for good in 1942 when he started to paint figures of nude women in a impersonal and primitive way, in strong and unbroken colors. Also he chose as subjects people in the commonplace of everyday life, such as people sitting in the underground, or just walking in the country.
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November 29, 2011
Wesley Kimler (b. 1953) is an American artist based in Chicago known for his colossal paintings, up to 15 feet high and 27 feet wide. According to critic Kevin Nance, he paints ‘expressive, gestural, hybrid paintings that combine abstract and figurative elements in a way that’s theatrical and beautiful, sometimes grotesque and surreal, and always powerfully evocative.’
Kimler has given outspoken interviews in which he champions painting, attacks what he views as the Neo-Conceptual academy and the artworld hierarchy, advocating independence and self-reliance on the part of creators. He is also known in the contemporary Chicago artworld for his work rallying for a new art scene. Nicknamed ‘the Shark’ due to his fierceness in discussions, he organized a website and e-zine Sharkforum with fellow artist David Roth, which includes such well-known figures as Museum of Contemporary Art curator Lynne Warren, photographer and film critic Ray Pride and artist and theorist Mark Staff Brandl. The artists active on his site also exhibit together under the name the Sharkpack.
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