Wednesday 29 January 2014

Grasshopper Rider

A perfect 10 second animation by Wayne Unten. Great fun!

If you watch it several times (and it's hard to resist), look out for some lovely subtleties.



Golden Age of Insect Aviation: The Great Grasshoppers from Wayne Unten on Vimeo.

See more of Unten's work on his blog, here.

Monday 27 January 2014

Dark Days

Marc Singer's compelling documentary, 'Dark Days', is about to be re-released by Oscilloscope Laboratories.

Here's a short clip - the first 10 mins are in the video below.

I first saw the film around 2000, and must have watched it dozens of times since. Disenchanted with his superficial life as a New York model, Singer started hanging out with the homeless around his own neighbourhood, before discovering the stygian community inhabiting the railway tunnels of NYC. Singer lived among these people for some time, before the idea came to make a film about their way of life - the honesty and camaraderie displayed by the various characters he introduces us to in the film is obvious and genuine as a result. His new friends acted as crew in the film, rigging lights and building tracks for the camera. The film also features a superb soundtrack from DJ Shadow, in his prime.

More here from the Guardian. 

Here's the first 10 mins of the doc:



Saturday 25 January 2014

Artist Jailed for Use of Endangered Species in Taxidermy

A while back I made a couple of posts relating to taxidermist Enrique Gomez de Molina (here) and I only just found out the artist was actually jailed for 20 months, and fined $6000 for involvement in the illegal smuggling and trading of various endangered species.

More detail here.



It somewhat taints the artist's statement on his own website:



MyModernMet has a great little article on the AfrikaBurn giant sculptures, well worth a quick read. This South African festival is similar to Nevada's famed Burning Man event, complete with huge constructions, including this 9m high work by Daniel Popper.


Popper's installation came into its own at night, when LED shows on the figure's 'heart' and digital projections created a fantastic show.



Check out a range of Popper's installation work on his site, here

Saturday 11 January 2014

Water Bomb Wigs

Fun, but technically accomplished photography from Tim Tadder to start the year…



More over on the SunnySkyz blog, here.

I'm also a fan of Tadder's 'fish heads' series - his sitter's heads emerging from the water, gasping for air.