Just wanted to show everybody where I’m at in Blender proficiency. I’m still an infant, but it’s a powerful graphics tool if you have the time/patience to learn to use it. Unfortunately, most of the tutorials seem to be by non-native English speakers and can be a bit confusing. Essentially, the attempt I made (below) is one of the hardest things to model - the human face. Blender has some interesting features whereby vector wire frames can be created, sub-divided, and modified to get the general shape of whatever you’re trying to model. Then, a function called “SubSurf” creates a rounded, organic looking, 3D surface model within the wire frame thereby taking on the frame’s basic shape. Ah well, it’s going to be a bit of a learning curve!

I stumbled accross these a while ago and have been meaning to post about them. The models have been drenched in what appears to be blood, then the models themselves are edited out of the image. This creates some amazing imagery, of which the above picture only scrapes the surface.

The artists name is John Ross. For more like this, as well as the rest of his portfolio, check out his site here. Unfortunately it is one of those horrible flash sites that you can’t link to individual pages on, and it’s a chore to navigate. Luckily the quality of the work more than makes up for any unpleasantness one may experience. I’m still in awe of some of the images he has created with such simple things, such as paper, balloons, various liquids and dyes, and even the human body. Enjoy.

There is no shortage of war songs in our time. Since the Vietnam War, artists have written about war in one way or another and we have gotten some great songs and some supremely crappy ones. For me, a key element of a war song is how timeless it is. That is to say how it can be applied to any war not just the current one. Its pretty obvious that Brothers is about kids going off to fight in the Iraq War but it never states it. Instead this song starts by building vague characters: kids on a beach in what I assume is the north east US. They are spending a night at the beach until a storm comes and they have to leave.

The next part of the song delves right into the war theme. It talks about the role parents play in preparing kids to go into the military and how they get scared when a war actually happens. In the best lyrics of the song, Jesse Lacey sings about how there will never be enough troops until ‘half our names our etched out in the wall and the other half ruined from the things we saw’. This lyric isn’t subtle but it doesn’t shove the horrors of war into your face either. It just tells us that even those who make it back aren’t the same and never will be.

The last important thing to note about this song is the clearly anti-war chorus. Jesse never wants his brother to go to war and in one powerful line he reminds us of that. This is another reason why I believe this song is timeless; because there will always be brothers and sisters going to war and there will always be family left behind that are scared that they will never see them again.

Lawlz, illegal wiretapping.

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I’m not sure if you guys know about the Billboard Liberation Front, but you should absolutely check them out. Here is an quick excerpt of “services” that they offer to their “clients”:

We offer a broad range of black-bag operations and cultural jam services, from project management and subversion consulting to media manipulation and thought placement. The key to our success is developing a true collaboration with our clients, and by caring as much about the working relationship as we do about the final execution. Our philosophy and track record has resulted in roster of long-term, satisfied clients in a diverse range of industries, from Fortune 1000 companies to local entrepreneurs.

Mmmm, I could really go for some subversion consulting and thought placement right about now.

Here is a link to the first page in a gallery of improved billboards. Big fan of the Exxon Corp “Shit Happens” one, and “FATAL ERROR - Invalid Stock Value Abort/Retry/Fail” on various dot com’s billboards. The Exxon one is from ‘89, been at this a while, you have.

This thing is crazy.

It’s basically a huge interactive kinetic sculpture. It moves and ripples and generally acts very un-wall like. I’d very much like to see this in person one day. Here is an except from the site:

This project was developed for a competition for an interactive art-work for the foyer of The Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre. The piece is a facetted metallic surface that has potential to deform physically in response to electronic stimuli from the environment (movement, sound, light,etc). Driven by a bed of 896 pneumatic pistons, the dynamic ‘terrains’ are generated as real-time calculations.

The piece marks the transition from autoplastic (determinate) to alloplastic (interactive, indeterminate) space, a new species of reciprocal architecture.

Mmmm… 896 pneumatic pistons

Here is a very low quality movie of it in action.

…Wow.

So I’ve just now found out that they’ve commercialized this thing and you can buy them (or rent maybe?) at this site. The fact that Coke and the McDonalds are using these things has somehow cheapened this whole experience for me. No, really. I’m more cynical and bitter now than I was when I began to write this post. Especially since the mass production of this thing has somehow resulted in a movie of it in action that is of no better quality. At least this one is on youtube.

I just love this shit. Weird creations that blend organic and technological themes. Christopher Conte at www.microbotic.org creates just this kinda stuff. Ranging from Geiger-esque biomechanical work, to intricate mechanical (yet unfortunately static) insects. Wired has an article about this guys work if you want some more info on the peices. Insect Lab Studio also has more of this type of thing, but it’s all of the “clockwork insect” variety. I espcially like this spider and this beetle.

Also, this post prompted me to add an “Art” catagory to the site, so expect to see posts about interesting art and sculpture, especially peices that have a technological aspect to them or ones that simply appeal to the dirty little cyberpunk in me.