As a project for a class at Marymount Manhattan College, communications professor David Gilbert is encouraging his students to create unofficial audio guides for the Museum of Modern Art. By creating downloadable podcasts of student descriptions of MoMa’s artworks, the class is democratizing the experience of touring an art museum; we are offering a way for anyone to “curate” their own little corner of MoMA. Gilbert says. Help us hack the gallery experience, help us remix MoMA! Read details of their podcasts in this New York Times article. Or download one and listen for yourself.
LA Times reviewer Christopher Knight has written an excellent piece on the Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, saying his approach can make an open-pit coalmine seem like the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuac
The work of the Los Angeles-based team of artist/illustrators kozydan, otherwise known as Dan and Kozue Kitchens, is on view at the sixspace gallery in Los Angeles.
In case you’re looking for new digs, the penthouse at the Pierre Hotel is for sale for $70m. The living room is considered the most magnificent privately owned room in the world. This incredible space was the original ball room at The Pierre Hotel, with 23 foot high curved ceiling and 20 foot French doors overlooking the park and the city. The maintenance fee is almost $50k/month.
Brooklyn artist Camille Utterback has created an interactive projection piece which changes as viewers move around and observe it. Untitled 5, is the fifth addition to her External Measures Series. As a person moves through the space, a colored line maps his or her trajectory across the projection. When a person leaves the installation, their trajectory line is transformed by an overlay of tiny organic marks. These marks can now be pushed from their location by other people’s movement in the space. The video might explain it better.
Another new soybean-based biodiesel filling station has opened in Seattle and it’s selling for $2.96 a gallon, just a few cents more than regular diesel. Biodiesel’s not a fossil fuel, it’s 100% renewable and it grown right here in the U.S. of A. It’s such a smart idea, even our President approves, saying this week, biodiesel is one of our nation
The latest useful integrations of Google Maps comes from Hong Kong developer Eric Kwan. One of his widgets lets you map cheap gas in your neighborhood by integrating prices from Gasbuddy. Kwan’s also developed a way to integrate imdb.com data to map local movie listings.
Secret Wall Tattoos take revenge on bad hotel art by painting and drawing on the wall underneath. Next time you’re in a hotel take a peek at what’s behind the art on the walls.
When I first saw L.A., I just felt this is like Santa’s workshop, artist Ed Ruscha says in an LA Times profile, talking about LA in the early 60s. I loved it for that. There was so much material, so many subjects. It was overwhelming. You can say the same about New York, but New York is like Europe. This was wilder country, I guess, settled later. And the sun shined all the time. It just had this tie-in with glamour. It was just loaded with inspiration. It has its crass side too. And the crass side of it motivates me. Ed Ruscha is representing the U.S. in next month’s Venice Biennale.
Sprol is a planetary sightseeing blog that visit places around the U.S. via satellite imagery. Like Google Sightseeing but with an environmental bent, Sprol explores some of the worst places in the world. Our mission is to use space imaging to show people the visual macroscopic effects of our decisions and behavior. Since previous generations have not had the advantage of this viewpoint it is our responsibility to use it wisely.
Scotland’s Sunday Herald of offering free downloads of classic books in .pdf format. Right now, it’s only books by Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Machiavelli, Jack London. They’ll be adding more each month.
Researchers at Japan’s Tohoku University have developed a biological fuel cell that runs on human blood. About the size of a coin, the battery is powered by the blood’s glucose and generates 0.2 milliwatts of electricity, enough to power a device that measures blood sugar level and transmits data elsewhere, say the say the developers.
A cache of 32 previously unknown paintings by Jackson Pollock have been found in a storage locker in Long Island. The paintings were made in 1948-49 and are some of his earliest works where he poured paint directly onto the canvas. More info at pollockexhibit.com.
In a grocery store far, far away. Store Wars. Beware of Darth Tater, he’s more chemical than vegetable
See how the Earth is changing right now at World-O-Meter.
San Francisco coder Jesse Kriss has come up with an an interactive History of Sampling.
Luis Posada Carriles is a prime suspect in the bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner that killed 73 people in 1976 and was convicted in Panama in a 2000 bomb plot against Fidel Castro. He has snuck back into Florida recently to try and seek political asylum for having served on the payroll of the CIA. Venezuela wants him extradited to stand trial their for the Cuban airliner bombing. If Jeb Bush persuades the U.S. to grant Carriles asylum (something that would appease Jeb’s anti-Castro conservative base in South Florida), would that be a violation of the Bush Doctrine? We make no distinction between terrorists and those who knowingly harbor or provide aid to them, said President Bush in September 2001.
One Colorado high school student wanted to see how far the Army would go during a war to get one more solider. And the Denver tv station that investigated found that the Army would indeed go a long way to meet recruiting quotas. The recruiter showed the student how to get a fake diploma and pass a drug test, the station found.
Travelling with gadgets in sunny places? Check out the Voltaic backpack. Its waterproof solar panels put out 4 watts, enough to fully charge your cellphone in 4-6 hours. But it also has a Li Ion battery that lets you store the energy that shines on you during the day and charge your iPod at night. It weighs 3.5 pounds and has a bladder pouch for your Camelback.
