Tzu Chi Ye’s brilliant painings

I saw these paintings from Tzu Chi Ye on Public School and had to share. They’re mesmerizing and brilliant. First, they look incredibly photo-real and the color tone/grade is so warm.

Jamie Beck: Cinemagraphs

Saw these over at ISO50 and just had to share. How subtle, beautiful. Seems like something we could design to use in a nice iPhone app.

Wifi long exposure experiment

Yes it’s artistic, and creative, and quite nerdy. If all three describe you, please continue. (via Adam)

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi from Timo on Vimeo.

Nomad brush for iPad

Now this is just cool.

G’s room

My son loves robots. And gears. And factories. And other assorted mechanical creations. In a much drawn out decorating project for his room he and I created a series of drawings / Photoshop compositions to grace his walls.

He provides the sketches, and their descriptions, and I provide real world background images to compliment. Here’s the result.

redirect:avclub

In the new year I’m rethinking what to do with avclub. Don’t fret, I’ll keep it running. But over the past several years it’s evolved. Doesn’t every blog? Maybe that’s because blogs are personal and driven by the whims of their author. And authors change over time. Regardless, I’ve noticed over the past several months (or even the past full year) a lot of what the avclub has become is a regurgitation of information I find notable or inspirational. Some of that will continue. But I may begin to trade recycled content (and the frequency) for some more thought through ideas. This may mean I post less, but with more planning.

I’ve never been a big fan of blogs with lots and lots of words. Maybe it’s my short attention span, or the fact that I peruse around 150 sites a day (and in those volumes you have to become a scanner). Regardless, I’d like to tell more of a story; and utilize video, image, and hand-drawn scribble. Let me show you what’s inspiring me, or maybe (and more interestingly) show you the results of my inspiration. So let’s see where this goes.

Stuff White People Like #129

One of my favorite satire blogs of the past two years is Stuff White People Like. It’s insightful, cleverly written, and downright fun; especially as evidenced in this recent post on why white people like Banksy. If you’re a design snob you’ll get it and appreciate it.

“…art does not work the same way as Indie Music when it comes to the need to like the obscure.”

another iPhone drawing

I’m continually fascinated with what’s possible on the iPhone. Case in point; the following image was composed on my phone. I used the drawing app Sketchbook (by Autodesk) to draw it with virtual brushes and treated it in Tiltshiftgen for the color and blurs. Even the original reference photo of the creature was snapped with the camera. Just for phone calls? Art creation device? Who can tell.

Moby interview

From last week’s Moby post Adam’s comment lead me to this CNN video interview with Moby. Yep, love him even more.

Chuck Anderson interview

I’m a huge fan of Chuck Anderson’s work and therefore recommend ths interview with with from PSD Tuts.

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Art vs. Design

On Thursday morning @376matt and I were meeting for breakfast and this topic came up, Art vs Design. I thought it apt to twitter and discuss.

We as a creative staff occasionally feel the need to define these two things and draw a distinction between them. What I was looking for was a good quote / mantra to post and live by. This is the discussion you guys put out there.

@scopley
while both require sound aesthetics, design has the extra function of communicating subjective/objective content clearly
form vs. function…both share these elements, in art, function only can = propaganda; in design, form only, can = missed purpose

@megodbike
With a camera I am an artist… with a keyboard and mouse I am a designer

@jfuhlbruck
art is a presentation, maybe not to be understood just observed. Design is a tool, functionality where clear communication is key.

@jonack
Art and Design hold hands, bad art often is bad design

@GQmacguy
I like to think that it is Art + Design. I think my opinions on that will fill more than 140 characters…

@farneman
design art is expression to create emotion. design is communication to create action. traditionally. the lines are blurry though.

@timscholz
used to think there was diff between art & design. starting to realize that when done right a good design is art

@Jtsternberg
art = madness; design = method to the madness. Both are necessary!

@kbolton
pondering @avclub’s art vs design discussion question….and life….

@376matt
…art is a communication from the artist, design is the communication of the purpose

@chriswhill
artists create, designers arrange

@JoshuaFleming
Design is Art with a process. Art is a design with no said process. What do you think?

@NealPrinceArch
being in architecture, that poses a very good thought.
or rather provokes some good thought. Art as the aesthetic and design as the function? Maybe?

@chrissmith4
design to me is planning out how you want things to look & art is the finished project.

Didn’t get to twitter your response? You have a comment field below.

sean tubridy

I’m in love with the Polaroid photos of Sean Tubridy, so much so I’m seriously considering his book. Simply intriguing.

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Thievery Corporation poster

Things I’m currently loving, this Thievery Corp. poster.

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Recovering Lazyholic

Love these. If they were in your house, what would you say?

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Handmade G.I. Joes!

I need to create a category called either AMAZINGAWESOME or THINGSIWOULDDOWITHUNLIMITEDFREETIME. Which has a better ring? In the meantime, here’s a good example, Handmade G.I. Joes!

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Monome meets Thingamakit

And yet another interesting monome + other weird electronic gadget video called Monome meets Thingamakit. What I really appreciate is that this type of experimentation really is endless in possibilities. It’s not confined by the established rules of some other existing musical genre (nothing wrong with that, I love a good folk ballad as much as the next guy), but it just brings me joy to see something make sound from something that just wasn’t designed to do that.

It starts to get interesting around the 3:25 mark, just to save you a few minutes.

Bleepnome from barnone on Vimeo.

Circuit Bent Goosebumps toy

More and more I get interested in circuit bending. I’m setting up a little place in the garage where I can start some soldering and modifying of old toys to create new sounds. Sounds I bit strange, and this video doesn’t fully do it justice (but it’s worth mentioning the monome 40h in the background, right?). Looking at the photos this looks like a crew I’d probably hang with.

Monome experiment

One of my first monome experiments. You should know @stevengrey was present at the time. This was conceived with the muon patch. Muon is an “emergent feedback sequencer” and I won’t even begin to act like I know what that fully means.

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Fisheye fun

Here are some recent fun shots with the new iPhone fisheye lens. I’m really not sure what happened to the orange photo… iPhone bug, maybe.

monome

I have this new obsession. It’s called the monome. I won’t go into tremendous detail about it right now, but you can expect to see some of my monome based experiments here on the AV Club over the next several months as I dig into this device. First, what the heck is it?

The monome is a USB / MIDI / OSC interface. At it’s most basic, it’s a wooden box with a metal faceplate and an 8×8 grid of buttons. There are LED lights under each button.

As you drill into the more complex the monome is a community of musicians, designers, and programmers that utilize the OSC open source protocol that develop a multitude of free applications that do various things like cut and mix samples, offer a DJ deck interface, send MIDI notes based on probability, and function as a step sequencer. The forums are very helpful and active and I’ve found it to be a very friendly community to participate.

In the end it’s a striving effort to make digital music more tactile. We’ll see how it goes.

Here are a few photos of monome, night 1. The homegroup ladies took off for a few hours leaving us guys to wire this beast up and experiment with it. Now that’s my idea of a fun night.

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I’ve been saying I need a new hobby. I’m thinking this may just be it.