Artists Shepard Fairey is back at it again with his socially conscience posters during President Obama’s presidential campaign. This time round, the graffiti artists is addressing environmental change with his poster “Global Warning.”
The poster is a denouncement of the public’s lethargy and indifference towards global warming, as well as conservatives denial of science and hinderance of climate control reform. Fairey’s prints have become increasingly popular since his ‘Obama Hope‘ posters last year.
‘Global Warning’ has been limited to 450 signed and numbered copies. The limited edition poster will bemade available at Obey.com.
Contemporary Japanese artist Takashi Murakami is featuring his “Takashi Murakami Paints Self Portraits” show in Paris’ flamboyant Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin starting September 15.
The exhibition will present five sculptures, two films and 17 paintings, including Murakami’s new Chrysanthemums series of tondos, circular-format paintings that are a pseudo-tribute to the 17th-century Japanese artist Ogata Korin.
Also continuing his collaboration with Kanye West, whom he worked with on the music video Good Morning and the album art for Graduation, Murakami crafted Kanye’s signature omnivore mascot into four Kanye Bear sculptures in gold, platinum and bronze.
At the annual Chelsea Flower Show, entrepreneur and inventor James Dyson stole the show with his awe-inspiring Wrong Garden fountain display, captivating competitor and attendee alike.
Inspired to create the illusion of water running uphill, a set of four glass ramps are positioned in a square with water appearing to travel up each of them before it pours off of top, continuously restarting at the bottom of the ramp. As compressed air is pumped in where the water enters, bubbles travel up the ramp, assisting in the illusion of upward mobility.
Mr. Dyson, famously known for his bagless vacuum cleaners, “wanted to create a series of cascades that are all on the same level – an everlasting waterfall.” His MC Escher influenced project is part of the Daily Telegraph’s Silver Gilt award-winning garden.
Norway’s officials have announced plans for the erection of what would be the world’s tallest wooden building, surpassing the home built in North-West Russia by Nikolai Sutyagin, which currently stands at 144 ft.
The Norwegian Barents Secretariat hopes the proposed wooden building that will serve as the new cultural center will also lead by example for sustainable building and carbon neutrality.
Crafted by Reluf Ramstad Architects, the building will be constructed in downtown Kirkenes. The firm plans to reuse biodegradable household and industrial waste, as well as recycled materials from the surrounding areas.
Inspired by traditional Russian, Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian architecture, the wooden structure will stand about 16 -17 stories tall and will house the Barents Secretariat, a library, a theatre and a creative environment for artist, researchers and students.
Home built in North-West Russia by Nikolai Sutyagin
Artist Frankie Flood has brought new life to the boring world of pizza cutters. Influenced by American motorcycles, the professor of jewelry and metalsmithing at the University of Wisconsin customizes pizza cutters like the one above, which was inspired by Mantis Choppers. His is driven by individuality and thrives on being a nonconformist, breaking away from what he perceives as traditional industrialism.
“My work investigates one of a kind objects and their role in a world based on mechanical reproduction. Industry has removed the aura from objects and stripped them of their individuality,” says Flood. “My pizza cutters seek to demolish the sterile conformity of mass produced objects and represent the stylistic and flamboyant embellishment of groups who live on the fringe of popular culture. The outlaw biker image is a break from the conformity that has taken over America since industrialization… The outlaw as defiant nonconformist, as well as social outcast, parallels being an artist who makes functional objects and being an individual who takes pride in the power of invention and skill.”
Everyone remembers Lego blocks and how you built everything from miniature cities to rocket ships. Now check out 8-Bit Trip, an awe-inspiring stop-motion Lego tribute video paying homage to classic video games.
It reportedly took Swedish band Rymdreglage around 1500 hours to create the video but it surely was worth it. Brings me back to blowing in Nintendo cartridges and chasing mushrooms in Super Mario Bros.
Over 200 years before the death of the King of Pop, another musical icon passed away suddenly; it is now believed that the unexpected death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may have been caused by complications with strep throat.
A study by researchers at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands concluded that the composer’s death was a result of a strep throat epidemic that swept through Vienna in the winter of 1791.
“Our findings suggest that Mozart fell victim to an epidemic of strep throat infection that was contracted by many Viennese people in Mozart’s month of death, and that Mozart was one of several persons in that epidemic that developed a deadly kidney complication,” Richard Zegers, one of the studies authors, told Reuters Health.
Mozart wrote over 600 compositions during his life. Joseph Haydn once said of Mozart “posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years.”
Flood’s “Easy Rider” pizza cutter.
