Michaelo

If you’re like me, when you saw this name, you kind of just read it as…well…”Michelangelo”.  Honestly, this guy is sort of a twenty-first century Michelangelo.  I looked around the web for a minute trying to find more information on this guy, but not much turned up aside from his website, http://www.bymichaelo.com.

Michaelo takes digital images, and renders them in Photoshop.  It’s a process of tweaking images, as well as doing some digital painting, with the addition of a bit of creative exploration of the moods of the pieces.  If you go to his website, he has before and after pictures of some of his works, and it’s incredible.

I’m wondering if he will ever get to a point in his artistic career where he will not have to use the original image in his manipulation and creative process.  It makes me also wonder if his talent lies less in artistic training or experience, but with online tutorials and practiced tracing.  Maybe I’m just being jealous.  Go check it out.

Get some free pictures.

I’ve found even more freebies for you.  The link found below will take you to a list of fifteen different websites that offer some free stock photos.  There are also photos that you can pay for, and places to sell your photos.

I offer this site because these pictures are not only digital (which may or may not be the original media), but also because stock photos are great for incorporating into other art work.  There are thousands of these photos that are offered free of charge, and royalty free; therefore you can use them for show fliers, original work, or a variety of other places.

It’s pretty cool to me that some of these sites work on credits, and the higher resolution versions of the images simply cost more credits.  One of my favorite things about these stock photo sites are the variety of images.  They are generally sorted by genres or subject matter, and if nothing else, it’s fun to browse millions of images.

Enjoy.

Find some pictures here.

Get some free fonts

If you’re into typography, and you’re into computers, I have just the treat for you.  I found a site linking to thirty free fonts that are both aesthetically pleasing, but tasteful enough to be used in a professional setting.  This may or may not be considered digital “art”, but a few of these are done so well, I would argue for the “art” side of things.

This concept of free fonts brings up another idea altogether.  I am wondering why some people are so adamantly opposed to their work getting out into the world without any monetary retribution or recognition.  These fonts definitely took some time to make, yet I went through the entire process of downloading them and never even saw an artist name.  On the other side of the proverbial coin, I wonder why these are free and not associated with anyone?

Bottom line: I’m glad they’re free.

Get your fonts here.

How to create 3D images (via Threadless)

I stumbled upon (no pun intended) a tutorial on how to create 3D images.  Someone posted this tutorial on the tee-shirt selling website, Threadless.com.  In a pretty simple process, you can use Photoshop to change any picture into an enthralling 3D creation.  While this tutorial suggests you use pictures from threadless.com, it’s merely a marketing scheme.

I’m excited about this idea of home technology being used to create high-tech, high-definition images.  It’s sort of a shame that this tutorial is for red/blue 3D and not digital 3D, but I honestly don’t know how hard it is to create digital 3D images.  I would like to find out; perhaps it will be a blog post for a later date.

I have not tried to create any images yet, but I’m itchin’ to.

tutorial can be found here

AntiVJ revisited

A few months back, I posted a youtube video of work done by some French artists consisting of a projection upon some architecture.  I’ve learned that there is now a label that the artists are associated with called AntiVJ.  I’ve also found a new performance.  This one really explores the architecture of the building that is being painted with projection.  Here’s the first video, it’s on stupid vimeo.

This first one takes a minute to get going, but once it’s started, the vertical orientation and rectangular shapes of the installation really come together to create something incredible. Here’s another.

This one looks more like a rave or something.  Not my type of atmosphere. This last one is the coolest, in my opinion.

This last one took place in south Korea and looks like it took the longest amount of work.  Enjoy.

Visual System

Visual System is the name of a group of French artists that work with digital grids and lights to create stunning effects.  This is one of those things that I guarantee, you gotta be there to really enjoy it to its full extent.  Grammar is not working so well for me today.  I have tried to find more information on them, but most of the sites are in French and end up translating to something like “the beginning of light we had electrical influence”.  So maybe this isn’t the best topic for a blog.  I just want you to watch the video, I guess.  I was most pleased with the giant wall of fans (the kind of LED fans you could find inside a PC or on special order from any computer site).

UUVVWWZ

Some of my friends in town have a band called UUVVWWZ.  Say that ten times fast.  It’s pronounced “double you, double vee, double double you zee”.  One of the dudes in the band works at this place where some of my other friends work.  (name-dropping?)  It’s called Roundus.  I posted about it a few months back.  It’s a company that takes 360 degree images of spaces and puts them online in an explorable manner (the mouse works to let you look freely around the area).  Well UUVVWWZ needed a website.  DO YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING YET?

+=

The website that Dustin and Tim made (with help from others, I’m sure), turned out to be one of absolute most amazing sites I’ve ever seen.  That means something; I’ve seen a LOT of sites.  Before I give you the website address, I want to explain something about the site.  It’s done in the style of Roundus, but instead of pictures of an interior space, everything is drawn in contour lines.  As you hover your view over different objects, you can interact with them.  This is what is so cool.   You can put a record on the record player, read journals, do whatever you want!  It’s like a video game.  You can actually unlock games and puzzles by doing things.  You could probably waste the rest of your day on this site.  I hope you enjoy it.  Just wait for the loading screen to change.  It takes a minute.

http://www.uuvvwwz.com

BSOD belt

So I posted this thinking most of you would know what BSOD is.  I am now realizing that many of you are dedicated Mac users.  You might even be over-generalizing tech-fascists like Logan.  Well, back in the day I hated Macs.  So there.  To each his own.
BSOD means blue screen of death.  It means something went really really wrong in Windows.  I am not sure if they still exist or if they are still blue.  I think they are black now–I haven’t seen a blue one since windows XP.  Anyway, I found this guy who makes custom belts and things, and one of the belts he was selling looks like this:

That’s what BSOD looks like.  In a nutshell, if you see it, your computer is on the way out.  You gotta reformat that hunkajunk or something.  I really like this belt because it’s the synthesis of technology, art, and fashion.  Instead of just spelling it out with a message like “I <3 Nerds” or “My other car is a AT-AT”, this Saul guy has a bit more of an esoteric message.  And I like that.

Dawn Chorus

“Dawn Chorus” is a work by Marcus Coates.  It was a multi-screen video installation, and man, I wish I could have seen it in action.  According to a writer on the UK’s picture-this.org,

“During rigorous fieldwork 14 microphones were placed around woodland to record birds during one morning of birdsong in Northumberland. From this multi-track recording each song was slowed down up to 16 times, then human participants were filmed mimicking this slowed down song. Finally the resulting video footage was then speeded up, returning the bird mimicry into its ‘real’ register. The films are presented on screens in the gallery relative to the position of the birds when they were recorded.”

The method behind this work is very interesting to me.  Coates went though a lot of work to get these birdsongs in the first place.  I’m a fan of acquiring samples in their natural habitat rather than reproducing them or using mass produced sound effects.  So, that’s cool.  The part that kind of confuses me is the translation.  When Coates approached people, what did he say?  “Would you like to try to mimic bird sounds that have been slowed down sixteen times?”  Surprisingly, watching the video sped up to the original sound file speed is somewhat convincing.  The humans moved their heads and bodies in a similar manner that one might expect to see with a bird.  It was a bit awkward watching humans breathe at the same speed a bird might, but maybe that just adds even more allure to the piece.  Good job Marcus.

Source here

@

Here’s something that might seem to be a joke.  I still am not sure if it is.  MoMA acquired @.  No, that’s not a typo.  Like.  They, acquired “@”.  The symbol.  If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, yeah.  They can’t do that.  But they did.  It’s definitely a twenty-first century thing to do.  Everyone is ripping everyone else off now a days.  I can’t listen to the radio.  I get angry.  Real angry.

The @ symbol has apparently been around since the sixteenth century.  Of course there was no e-mail back then, but it stood for other things.  Much like “@” stands for today.  You can read some more here if you’d like.  It’s from MoMA’s site.  http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/03/22/at-moma/

This topic is interesting to me for a few reasons.  Isn’t “@” intellectual property?  Doesn’t that mean you can’t own it?  I suppose in the United States this acquisition may be possible.  In other countries, take China for example, this would be even more of a joke.  Does this offer other implications?  Will MoMA be able to charge people for using their symbol?  Why did they choose the font of “@” they did?  Can I acquire the space-bar and charge people every time they use it?

Maybe some day.