This advert worked for me!
Thursday, 25 September 2008
Shantaram
I'm in the middle of reading this book. Someone let me borrow it and said it was one of the best books they had read.. it's quite hard to get into but really gripping once it gets going. It's an epic story of the author's time in Mumbai and seems to cover everything from relationships, culture and travel to drugs and crime. The descriptions are captivating and I really enjoy the writing style.
Saturday, 20 September 2008
Garden State
"A whip-smart, angst-ridden comedy. As well as making an assured directorial debut, Zach Braff from TV's Scrubs wrote and stars in this tale of a jobbing Hollywood actor rudely awakened from a lithium haze to attend his mother's funeral in New Jersey. While it may sound like a depressing anti-drugs video, in Braff's hands it's a witty, wacky, and wonderful trip through the minefield of being twenty-something. "
I think everyone has to watch this film!
Wired.com Photography Contest
http://www.wired.com/culture/art/multimedia/2008/09/gallery_winners?slide=5&slideView=2
Some amazing images! I find the compositional decisions and framing of photography a really fascinating subject. It's also intriguing to see the natural art in the different subject matter people have chosen and makes you appreciate things around you that you might not have imagined to be such artistic images if cropped and focused on. When I go anywhere with my camera I seem to automatically look at everything around me in a visual frame and I think that's an important method of thinking for every area of design.
Some amazing images! I find the compositional decisions and framing of photography a really fascinating subject. It's also intriguing to see the natural art in the different subject matter people have chosen and makes you appreciate things around you that you might not have imagined to be such artistic images if cropped and focused on. When I go anywhere with my camera I seem to automatically look at everything around me in a visual frame and I think that's an important method of thinking for every area of design.
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Russ Mills - Illustration
Russ Mills studied Illustration at Leeds Metropolitan, specialising in experimental film and animation. His past and existing clients include- Future Publishing - Imagine FX, The Royal Court Theatre, US Playstation Magazine, Them London, Audio Agent.com and Leaders Edge Magazine.
He uses a vast range of source material to achieve the textures and random marks, scanning images in and then manipulating them further on the computer. In his FAQ section of the website, he states that his influences include Van Gogh, Picasso and Jackson Pollock. He also provides a list of links to other illustrators and artists on his site which shows a variety of styles. I find his work visually exciting and love the delicacy of the lines against the more erratic strokes they are teamed with.
Some of his animations can e viewed here YOUTUBE.
His advice to young designers:
"Patience Perseverence Discipline Commitment. DRAW ALL THE TIME, sketch or doodle as much as possible or at the very least write down ideas. Carry an A5 black book always. Be aware of what others are doing, seek out the best of the best and learn from their approaches. Never be satisfied with what you achieve. Above all enjoy working and over time nurture the necessity to work."
his website:
Thursday, 28 August 2008
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Escher Staircases
I went to see the above staircase in Austria, inspired by the Escher designs. The stairs go upwards on the underside of the spiral as well as the top and they break off in odd directions. It makes you feel really dizzy! There are some other examples I've found of similar structures below:
Kunst Haus - Graz, Austria
I would say this is probably the most memorable piece of architecture that I've seen on my travels. It was designed by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, both London based architects. The thing that struck me most about this building was the way it drastically contrasted with it's setting. The reflective panels create distorted displays of the surrounding traditional Austrian architecture when stood up close and its looks so odd and obvious amongst the panoramic view of the town from afar. The alien-esque character of the space lab fits in with it's presence in the setting; it represents the future and the possibilities that are ahead of us. Its plexiglass skin is a media façade which can be changed electronically and has protrusive skylight openings.
"The aesthetic dialogue between the new biomorphic structure on the bank of the Mur and the old clock tower is the trade-mark of a city aiming to create a productive tension between tradition and avant-garde"
"In terms of urban design, the building is intended to have a major impact on the regeneration of the western half of the city which has until now been relatively underprivileged compared to the Eastern side which contains the major public buildings, universities and museums. Cultural institutions, particularly museums of modern art, have the remarkable ability, if made appealing to the public, such as the Pompidou centre in Paris, the Guggenheim in Bilbao or the Tate Modern in London - also located on the “wrong” side of the river - of acting as powerful catalysts of change and symptoms of this urban transformation are already noticeable."
Kunst Haus Graz hosts international exhibitions of multi-disciplinary modern and contemporary art. The particularity of the Kunsthaus Graz is that it is not intended to house a permanent collection.
The Kunst Haus features a slow moving travelator that transports visitors around the galleries and gives the sense of being penetrated through the outer skin.
Colin Fournier - “The friendly alien swallows everything with its travelator. It is like a giant Hoover, like the belly of the whale, evoking the distant memory and unconscious desire that we have, since childhood, of being swallowed by the dragon, the subtle pleasure we experience when licked by the family cat’s sandpaper tongue. It is the black whole of the whale’s stomach, where one can find all sorts of things: old boots, lost treasures, bewildered fish, Jonas himself: that’s what a museum has to be, a place that plays on our desire to find ourselves in the company of surprising and unexpected things, bizarre confrontations, things that sometimes are not yet quite fully digested."
I would say this is probably the most memorable piece of architecture that I've seen on my travels. It was designed by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, both London based architects. The thing that struck me most about this building was the way it drastically contrasted with it's setting. The reflective panels create distorted displays of the surrounding traditional Austrian architecture when stood up close and its looks so odd and obvious amongst the panoramic view of the town from afar. The alien-esque character of the space lab fits in with it's presence in the setting; it represents the future and the possibilities that are ahead of us. Its plexiglass skin is a media façade which can be changed electronically and has protrusive skylight openings.
"The aesthetic dialogue between the new biomorphic structure on the bank of the Mur and the old clock tower is the trade-mark of a city aiming to create a productive tension between tradition and avant-garde"
"In terms of urban design, the building is intended to have a major impact on the regeneration of the western half of the city which has until now been relatively underprivileged compared to the Eastern side which contains the major public buildings, universities and museums. Cultural institutions, particularly museums of modern art, have the remarkable ability, if made appealing to the public, such as the Pompidou centre in Paris, the Guggenheim in Bilbao or the Tate Modern in London - also located on the “wrong” side of the river - of acting as powerful catalysts of change and symptoms of this urban transformation are already noticeable."
Kunst Haus Graz hosts international exhibitions of multi-disciplinary modern and contemporary art. The particularity of the Kunsthaus Graz is that it is not intended to house a permanent collection.
The Kunst Haus features a slow moving travelator that transports visitors around the galleries and gives the sense of being penetrated through the outer skin.
Colin Fournier - “The friendly alien swallows everything with its travelator. It is like a giant Hoover, like the belly of the whale, evoking the distant memory and unconscious desire that we have, since childhood, of being swallowed by the dragon, the subtle pleasure we experience when licked by the family cat’s sandpaper tongue. It is the black whole of the whale’s stomach, where one can find all sorts of things: old boots, lost treasures, bewildered fish, Jonas himself: that’s what a museum has to be, a place that plays on our desire to find ourselves in the company of surprising and unexpected things, bizarre confrontations, things that sometimes are not yet quite fully digested."
Gaudi
I adore Gaudi architecture. It's all so interesting and intricate so that the closer you get to it, the more amazing it looks. Last summer, I travelled with friends to Barcelona, where we visited the Sagrada Familia and learned about his influences and inspiration for the design. It was really fascinating to see the miniature models of the finished building (it's still unfinished at present) and all of his sketches of different natural structures that he had taken the shapes from. These included honeycomb, shells, the double helix structure (present in the winding columns) and forms such as the Fibonacci Golden Spiral. There are echoes of cubist design in the figures and gargoyles adorning the walls, buried in the bark-like earthy exterior texture. The ceiling windows created splendid lighting and patterns. Some of my photo's are below; 
We also went to see the Casa Mia apartments and Park Guell. Park Guell is situated high up on a hill and gives awesome views of the city, be prepared to climb ten or so escalators up the hill to reach it.. but they are interesting in themselves because the streets are so steep and narrow and run down and ghetto-like that the escalators seem almost surreal in the setting! Some images I took are below;
Price James - Music Videos
I love this pop-up-book style music video directed by Price James for Shit Disco. He also directed the above for Simian Mobile Disco. You can see more of his work on the myspace link below;
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
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